The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions has held that the US drone strikes flout internationally recognized human rights standards and may even be war crimes. The Washington Post has an opinion piece on the impact of drone attacks on diplomacy. The Atlantic has a follow up piece. The US is using Facebook to drive a wedge between...
[John E. Noyes is the Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law at California Western School of Law.] I do not share Professor Rabkin’s pessimistic view of the prospect of international arbitration of law of the sea disputes under the Law of the Sea Convention. LOS Convention tribunals and the law of the sea experts who serve as judges and arbitrators have helped...
[Editors Note: We inadvertently posted the incomplete version of this post by Jeremy Rabkin this morning. This post has his response to Prof. Noyes earlier post today. Sorry for the confusion.] [Jeremy Rabkin is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law.] Craig Allen has performed a valuable service by reporting the range of sea-related treaties where we have already committed to...
The cover story in this month’s Atlantic magazine is an article by former U.S. State Department head of policy planning, former dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public & International Affairs, former Harvard Law professor Anne-Marie Slaughter. Anne-Marie’s writings on international institutions and international networks are, I’m sure, known to many OJ readers. For this reason alone,...
Here's an interesting report just out from the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa on the citizenship deficit in the wake of South Sudan's secession. The problem: several hundred thousand persons of South Sudanese descent resident in the north following the breakaway who now apparently have no status at all - ie, they're stateless. This is the definitive paper on...
The Telegraph asks whether the Rio Summit is destined to fail. If you want to keep up-to-date with the Rio+20 conference, the International Institute for Sustainable Development's Earth Negotiations Bulletins are a useful starting point. In a statement before the Ways and Means Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns argued in favour of...
Story here, and a lot of play on this morning's BBC Newshour. This is the second time in recent months that so-called "diplomatic asylum" has crept into the headlines, last with respect to Chen Guangcheng in China in May. See this earlier post, which links to an excellent Foreign Policy background piece on diplomatic asylum. Unlike the Chen case, I doubt very...
The Commander of the UN observers in Syria has given more information on his decision to suspend the mission's activities until both sides honor the peace plan. The same article also reveals that the Russian ship carrying military helicopters for Assad's forces returned to Russia after its UK insurer revoked coverage. Tensions have flared up along the border between Israel and...
This post is part of our symposium on Dean Schiff Berman's book Global Legal Pluralism. Other posts can be found in Related Posts below. This is a great book, and I am almost completely on board with the orientation here. Paul is right on the money in navigating between the territorial sovereigntists on the one hand and the cosmopolitan universalists on...
[David Zaring is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School] This post is part of our symposium on Dean Schiff Berman's book Global Legal Pluralism. Other posts can be found in Related Posts below. Paul Berman is rethinking the global legal system with reference to both the plurality and the narrowness of modern community....
The Supreme Court's decision in the SB 1070 case is imminent (the only suspense now being whether it gets a separate-day release from the health care case). I think the Court will split the difference, upholding key sections of the law, striking down others. The safest money has it validating the "papers, please" provision of the law under which AZ...
Eight Turkish soldiers have been killed in South East Turkey during clashes with Kurdish PKK militants from Iraq. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the killing of a senior military commander in Yemen. After receiving her Nobel Peace Price on Saturday, Aung San Suu Kyi picked up Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award in Dublin on Monday. No case delays in Myanmar where 2...
