One of our frequent readers asked yesterday why delightful events like the APSA Happy Hour never occur on the West coast. Well, I can't quite promise to duplicate that event, but those in southern California may wish to know that on Wednesday, August 30, my home institution will host a symposium on the "Rookie Year of the Roberts Court"...
Another interesting false report of an Israeli war crime has popped up in the blogosphere. According to the ICRC, "on 23 July, at 11.15 pm in Cana, a village in southern Lebanon[, a]ccording to Lebanese Red Cross reports, two of its ambulances were struck by [Israeli] munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked by the red cross emblem and...
And, finally, in reference to Professor Heller's piece, a little math: According to the HRW figures, at least 23 were killed in the July 13-19 Israeli attacks. According to the NYT story, on August 16, there were 43 total dead of which at list 22 ("most") were Hezbollah/Amal fighters. 43 less 23 is 20, which means that at least 2...
Professor Bell may stand by his critique of Human Rights Watch, but that doesn't make it any more accurate. Quite simply, he has offered almost no evidence that contradicts Ms. Whitson's claim that although Hezbollah fighters might have been in Sreifa during Israel's attack on August 13, there were no Hezbollah fighters there on July 13 and July 19,...
In rereading Ms. Whitson's defense of HRW's evidently false accusations of Israeli war crimes in Srifa, I noticed the following interesting phrase: "We documented ...
Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division, takes issue with my critique of Human Rights Watch's anti-Israel bias. As I noted earlier, I critiqued HRW's accusation that Israel had committed war crimes by bombing the Lebanese village of Srifa, where, according to HRW, there was "no evidence that there had been...
Robert Bork asserts that “judges of international courts . . . are continuing to undermine democratic institutions.” This hostility implies that international courts engage in illegitimate judicial activism. Assuming that international judges do occasionally engage in international lawmaking, does this activity deserve to be dismissed as untoward? It is becoming increasingly clear that states tolerate—and perhaps encourage—international judicial...
One of the issues identified by Tomer Broude in his APSA virtual roundtable introduction is the allocation of rule-determination power between national bodies and international tribunals. He also notes the growing concern of judicial activism by international tribunals, with the WTO Appellate Body as the most notable example. He identifies an emerging international judiciary that represents an international...
I hope readers enjoy the “virtual roundtable” we’re hosting here at Opinio Juris this week in the run-up to the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) annual meeting. And, if you happen to be in Philadelphia for the APSA meeting, we’d like to invite you to a real roundtable of sorts. We’re hosting a happy hour on Friday night,...
I have no idea whether this report is true, but I really hope it is:FORMER Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is being made to watch his appearance in cult cartoon South Park while he is behind bars, it emerged yesterday. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said US Marines guarding the former dictator...
As Julian Ku announced a few days ago, over the next few days Opinio Juris will be hosting a virtual preview of a Roundtable on "the Allocation of Normative Power to and among International Tribunals" that will be held at next weekend's APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Participants are: Roger Alford, Allison Danner, Jeffrey Dunoff, Laurence Helfer, Julian Ku, Thomas...
The BBC reports that the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has reached a truce in the 20 year civil war that may eventually lead to a comprehensive peace agreement. As we noted on this blog, the apparent success of this round of peace talks has been an informal assurance by the International Criminal Court that it would...
