In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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13 Feb

The NAFTA Secretariat posted this decision on Friday remanding to the U.S. Department of Commerce a decision by Commerce to impose anti-dumping penalties on Oil Country Tubular Goods from Mexico. This decision is authorized by Chapter 19 of NAFTA, which authorizes the formation of Binational Arbitration Panels to review antidumping determinations made by domestic authorities (in this case, the U.S....

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12 Feb

In a nomination that has been widely-expected, John B. Bellinger, III, formerly the legal adviser for the National Security Council under Condoleezza Rice, has been nominated to be the new Legal Adviser of the State Department, succeeding William Taft, IV.According to a short bio available online, prior to joining the NSC, Bellinger was a counsel for national security matters...

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11 Feb

I should first thank Prof. Heller for adding his insightful comments to our blog. I hope to return the favor at his blog-home at the Yin Blog. Both he and Peggy have useful comments, although I think both are reading much more into my post than I myself intended (but I suppose that is my own fault)....

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11 Feb

Julian admits that he may be inferring too much when he criticizes the LA Times op-ed written by the NRDC in opposition to the Bush administration's decision to remain outside the Kyoto Protocol as a wrong-headed rejection of US national interest in favor of internationalism. I agree that Julian inferred too much. I am no expert on global warming, but...

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11 Feb

Today's Los Angeles Times contains a predictable op-ed condemning the U.S. for failing to join the Kyoto treaty to reduce global warming, which will go into effect next Wednesday. In addition to attacking Bush, the Republicans, and Michael Crichton for being the stooges of the energy industry, the writer throws in this line, which is fast congealing into...

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10 Feb

Over at Slate, Peter Brooks (who holds a joint appointment in Law and English at UVA) has this post on the August 2002 Bybee torture memo . Brooks sees Bybee's failure to follow the "plain meaning" statutory interpretation guidelines reaffirmed by Chief Justice Rehnquist in LEOCAL v. Ashcroft, in which the Court noted that we construe statutory language "in its...

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10 Feb

From the department of obscure court decisions, the ICJ ruled today that it has no jurisdiction over a dispute between Liechtenstein and Germany over decisions of Germany, in and after 1998, to treat certain property of Liechtenstein nationals as German assets having been ‘seized for the purposes of reparation or restitution, or as a result of the state of war’ -...

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10 Feb

I think Julian doth protest too much about Samantha Power’s opinion piece in today’s New York Times. First, a point of logic. Saying someone doesn’t know which they dislike more, A or B, is not the same as saying that person condones A or B. At no point in the piece would it be fair to say that Power even implied...

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10 Feb

Common sense triumphed today when Germany announced it would not investigate allegations that Donald Rumsfeld committed war crimes. The NY-based Center for Constitutional Rights had filed a petition asking Germany to investigate on the theory that the U.S. authorities were incapable of investigating such claims due to a "continuing scheme of corruption". This remarkable (and dare I say it, wild)...

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10 Feb

Samantha Power, a tireless Pulitzer-Prize-winning advocate of more aggressive action by the United States to stop genocide and war crimes, offers her take on why the ICC would be more effective than an ad hoc tribunal (a topic we've been batting about here) in today's NYT. Count me as a skeptic of her claim that the ICC will deter war...

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09 Feb

The increasing use of empirical research in international legal scholarship is a good thing, as Julian noted. Empiricism (or at least an attempt at empiricism) brushes away the cobwebs of musty “givens” and unpacks old assumptions that have been tucked away. By bringing in new data to test academic doctrines, empiricism can do a good job helping theory be more...

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09 Feb

As an addendum to our previous discussion prosecutions and transitional societies (here and here), I note that the New York Times is reporting that the investigating judges of the Iraqi Special Tribunal will refer to the trial charges against Saddam and/or some of his senior aides in the coming weeks. The article gives a good overview of the process to...

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