OK, maybe that is overstating the majority opinion's holding today, in Sanchez-Llamas/Bustillo, but not by much. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court rejected attempts by alien criminal defendants to invoke the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) to either suppress evidence against them during a trial, or to challenge their conviction in post-trial hearings. ...
Opinio Juris is thrilled to welcome Professor Peter Spiro as a guest-blogger here for the next two weeks. Peter holds the newly established Charles R. Weiner Professor of International Law at Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia. Prior to joining Temple, Peter held the Dean and Virginia Rusk Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia...
This article from the Independent strongly suggests that the detainees who committed suicide did not do so as an act of desperation or depression. It also illuminates details on the suicides and how the detainees used benefits they were accorded at the request of the Red Cross against the United States. "Every time we give them something to...
The Supreme Court just renderened its decision in the companion cases of Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon and Bustillo v. Johnson. The decision can be accessed here. The decision was 6-3 with Chief Justice Roberts writing the opinion and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito joining. Justice Ginsburg filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Breyer wrote...
Hannah Buxbaum has just posted on SSRN an interesting article on "Transnational Regulatory Litigation." You can download the document here. In particular she includes an illuminating section on global class actions. Here is the abstract: Recent years have seen much debate about the role of national courts in addressing global harms. That debate has focused on the application...
There was an interesting little sidebar comment from Justice Scalia in yesterday's death penalty decision in Kansas v. Marsh. Scalia said that: There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society. (I say sanctimonious, because most of the countries to which these finger-waggers belong had the death penalty...
I would not normally post about something as vapid as celebrity interviews on CNN, but I happened to watch the encore presentation of Anderson Cooper's interview with Angelina Jolie over the weekend. (Transcript available here). What was a pleasant surprise for me was that Jolie came across as believable and quite sincere about her work with the United Nations. You...
For those of you who missed it, U. Chicago law professor Eric Posner had a very sensible op-ed in the NYT yesterday defending the detention of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. Here's a brief excerpt, but the whole essay is worth reading: The detention of enemy aliens, especially enemy soldiers, during wartime is a long-established practice. Enemy aliens and soldiers...
The Spanish newswire service EFE is reporting that the Bush administration is reconsidering its policy of refusing to provide economic and military aid to countries that refuse to sign Bilateral Immunity Agreements with the U.S (BIA's). Such agreements — commonly known as "Article 98 agreements," in reference to the Rome Statute provision dealing with requests for surrender — prohibit...
On June 24, 2005, Yasser Salihee—a 30 year old Iraqi doctor who had who also worked as a translator and a journalist—was shot and killed at a U.S. checkpoint. He had been running an errand before going swimming with his wife and daughter. Salihee had been killed by Sgt. Joe Romero, a 33 year old ex-Army Ranger and sniper...
As reported in yesterday's post, a survey by Pew Research Center entitled "The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other" reveals the startling news that Muslim majorities in numerous countries do not believe that Arabs carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks. But there is plenty of other other news from that poll that is worthy of...
The Security Council held an unusual meeting yesterday morning entitled "Strengthening international law: rule of law and maintenance of international peace and security". The reason it is unusual, at least to me, is that the discussion was not about any particular issue or problem, but rather a free-wheeling abstract discussion about the importance of international law generally. ...
