US/EU efforts to convince the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel and disavow suicide bombings are not going very well. Russia has already pledged $10 million to the financially-strapped PA government; Iran has pledged $50 million, and Qatar has pledged $50 million. And now Saudi Arabia has pledged an additional $92 million. I don't know whether using financial assistance...
The Philippine press is abuzz with news that an environmental activist by the name of Elipidio "Jojo" de la Victoria was murdered last week in apparent retaliation for his outspoken efforts to protect the Visayan Seas, one of the richest marine eco-regions in the world. According to an editorial in the Philippine Sun Star, "[c]ommercial fishing is big business,...
As Chris notes, I am guest blogging over at PrawfsBlawg for a week or so, and will cross-post my musings there over here. At the AALS meeting back in January (yes, I am late catching up), Peter Strauss of Columbia Law School gave an interesting talk to kick-off the discussion of transnational legal education. Strauss compared the current discussions...
Here's a topic that you don't read about everyday: my St. John’s colleague Nelson Tebbe, who is guest blogging at Prawfsblawg, has posted about his recent work on the regulation of witchcraft in South Africa’s evolving democracy. It is an interesting mix of comparative law, democratic theory, and law and religion. (By the way, for added fun at no...
There are few more influential trade positions in the world than the U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position for the U.S. government's chief trade negotiator. One can make the case that the USTR is more important than, say, the Commerce Secretary and certainly the USTR's international portfolio makes it one of the leading international cabinet offices (behind Defense and State)....
Exciting — and long overdue — news: Germany has agreed to open its Holocaust archives in Bad Arolsen to historians and the public. The archives, which have long been used by the International Red Cross to trace missing and dead Jews, contain between 30 and 50 million documents. I hope Roger will offer us his thoughts on this...
An appeals court in the Central African Republic has referred Ange Felix Patasse, the country's former president, and Jean-Pierre Bamba, the Democratic Republic of Congo's current vice-president, to the ICC. Security forces controlled by Patasse and backed by soldiers from Bemba's then-rebel army are accused of executing and raping civilians after they staved off an attempted coup in 2002....
Or so says claimant John Paul Marshall. In the case of Marshall v. United Nations, 2006 WL 947697 (E.D. Cal. 2006) (not available online) a federal district court in Sacramento was faced with a 325 page “rambling and unintelligible” complaint that alleged that the United Nations, the United States, the State of California, and the city of Sacramento violated Marshall’s...
The ICTY has held that Vladimir "Rambo" Kovacevic, a former office in the Yugoslav army, is mentally unfit to stand trial. According to the Tribunal, "[t]he accused does not have the capacity to plead, to understand the nature of the charges, to understand the course of proceedings, to understand the details of the evidence...
The transitional government of Somalia announced yesterday that it has agreed to allow U.S. Navy vessels to enter Somali waters to pursue and capture pirates seeking refuge there. Last month, such pirates seized a South Korean fishing vessel and crew and escaped a joint U.S.-Dutch naval force by heading for Somalia. Given the rather anarchic nature of...
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday and several of the prizes recognized subjects of international concern. Here they are: Explanatory Reporting: David Finkel of the Washington Post for "his ambitious, clear-eyed case study of the United States government's attempt to bring democracy to Yemen."Beat Reporting: Dana Priest of the Washington Post for "her persistent, painstaking reports on secret...
U.N. officials are blaming (who else?) the U.S. for blocking its plan to begin renovating U.N. headquarters in NY. According to the NYT, the U.S. is blocking the disbursement of $100 million in funds to launch the project, which is expected to cost $1.6 billion. The article certainly makes it seem like the U.S. is being a bit...
