Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's speech last week made international news for his two paragraph discussion calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. In that portion of the speech he argued that closing Guantanamo would be right as a matter of principle and also would "remove what has become a symbol to many - right or wrong- of injustice. The...
The Independent has a special edition today edited by Bono. It includes Condi Rice’s list of ten favorite pieces of music. See the full list with explanations and comments here. I’ll note that there was more pop than I expected, but I’m still waiting for the first Secretary of State who will put the Clash’s London Calling at...
TIME magazine has a nice recap of the successes and setbacks of pro-democracy movements in Arab countries over the last year. In news which will hopefully delight Opinio readers, distinguished comparative law professor Chibli Mallat is running for the Lebanese presidency in a campaign some call symbolic but which he insists is entirely serious. The article focusses on Egypt's Revolt...
Ok, this is a really bizarre story. As reported here, "Nine Afghan asylum seekers who hijacked a plane at gunpoint to get to Britain should have been admitted to the country as genuine refugees and allowed to live and work here freely, the High Court ruled yesterday. In a decision that astonished and dismayed MPs, the Home Office was...
Tony Blair is considering calling for restrictions on the U.K.'s landmark 1998 Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into national law. Apparently, (i) rogue judges are (ii) using international law to (iii) put criminals back on the streets, (iv) ignore the rights of victims, and (v) endanger national security. I can't imagine where Blair, whose...
Robert J. Delahunty of the University of St. Thomas School of Law has posted "The Battle of Mars and Venus: Why do American and European Attitudes Toward International Law Differ?" While much has been made as to the U.S. and Europe having different views regarding international law, I think articles such as this one, which try to dig into why...
The Second Circuit recently rendered an important decision on the meaning of the "immovable property" exception to the FSIA. The case of City of New York v. Permanent Mission of India involved the propriety of imposing real property taxes on the permanent mission of India. New York law exempts real property owned by a foreign government if it is used...
While international legal reponses to human testing are on my mind, I'll note that Pfizer has mysteriously been held in violation of international law for its "The Constant Gardener"-like drug testing of a new meningitis-fighter on Nigerian children. Mysteriously, because a) Pfizer isn't a state, and states are in theory, but often not in practice, the sole...
We have a new guest-blogger starting today — Adil Haque, a recent graduate of Yale Law School who is currently clerking for Judge Newman on the Second Circuit. Adil's expertise ranges from criminal law theory to international criminal law to Islamic law, and he has already amassed a publication record any new assistant professor would envy. His latest...
The New York Times reports that the United States has decided to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya and remove it from the list of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism. Condoleezza Rice called the moves "tangible results that flow from the historic decisions taken by Libya's leadership in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its weapons of...
The question of the use of international authorities by courts is interesting – but what about when Congress does the same thing? Consider the controversial new rule by the EPA on the use of human subjects in pesticide testing. Congress required the agency to promulgate the rule “consistent with … the principles of the Nuremberg Code with respect...
