Amidst the memorials to 9/11 yesterday came more tragic news with mob attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Benghazi, including the deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. My condolences go out to the victims' families and the U.S. Foreign Service community, the Marines who guard them, as well as the local...
NYU's Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP) has recently announced that it "is transforming from a purely student edited journal into a peer reviewed journal in which all leading articles will henceforth be selected with the assistance of leading academics in the field." See the announcement here. Why the change? The announcement explains: Authors publishing in the new JILP will benefit from...
Syrian government forces shelled a rebel stronghold in Damascus today killing four and wounding dozens. Foreign Policy points out that Syria is more violent than Iraq was at its worst. Darfur rebels have killed at least 11 in an attack on a market and a mine in North Darfur. Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels ambushed an army convoy in the Central African...
Here's a quick follow-up to my book announcement last week. With OUP's kind permission, I've posted the Introduction to the Oxford Guide to Treaties on SSRN. So, for those looking for a more detailed explanation of the book, its goals, and its methodology, feel free to download it there. Here's the abstract: From trade relations to greenhouse gasses, from shipwrecks to...
China has dispatched patrol ships after Japan has said it will nationalize two disputed islands in the East China Sea. The Afghan Taliban have now denied a report that they would enter into peace talks with authorities. Saeed al-Shihri, second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has been killed, according to Yemini authorities. Foreign Policy has more here. The United States has transferred...
Violence in Syria continues, with reports stating that scores of government forces have been killed by bombing in Aleppo. The UN has called for an increase in humanitarian aid for Syria amidst the ongoing violence while the European Union has agreed to increase sanctions. Leaders from Japan and China have met amid tensions regarding disputed islands in the East China Sea. Japan has...
My colleague Mark Movsesian has a post at the St. John's Center for Law and Religion Forum concerning the case of Ramil Safarov. He begins: At a NATO conference in Hungary in 2004, an Azeri officer, Ramil Safarov, murdered one of the other participants, an Armenian officer named Gurgen Margaryan. Actually, that doesn’t quite capture it. Safarov broke into Margaryan’s room,...
At the start of the US academic year, Peggy welcomed Stephen Walt's recommendation, though not his reasons, that wannabe foreign policy wonks study international law, and Roger Alford posted about James Phillips and John Yoo's analysis of international and comparative law all-stars at the top 16 US law schools. The Republican and Democratic conventions also caught our bloggers' attention. Julian Ku posted about...
James Phillips and John Yoo have just published a thoughtful analysis critiquing Brian Leiter's approach to ranking faculty relevance. They suggest that what we should be looking at is all-stars, not superstars. If you measure a school based on their all-star line-up rather than their superstars, the results are dramatically different. Here's how they put it: Faculty can...
The International Economic Law and Policy Blog is reporting on a case filed against the WTO in a US District Court seeking a declaration that the "ruling of the Appellate Body of the WTO concerning the Country of Origin Labeling Act is null and void in the United States and throughout the world" on the basis that US law prevails over the WTO...
President's Obama's speech this evening to the Democratic Convention spun citizenship as a central theme: We believe in something called citizenship – a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations. . . . Because we...
The Liberian Daily Observer has reported that Judge Sow of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has been called by the defense team of Charles Taylor and will testify in his appeal. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has accused both the government and the rebel forces in Syria of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader...
