Back in March, Kevin posted and I commented on the prosecution of Abdul Rahman for apostasy in Afghanistan. Rahman was ultimately deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial, and the case was dropped. Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, the former president of Indonesia, published an editorial opposing the criminalization of apostasy in yesterday's Washington Post. Wahid makes several arguments, based on text...
A couple of weeks ago David Zaring had an interesting post about his informal study of the most frequently-cited international law cases. Thanks to this post by Paul Caron, I recently came across a list of the most frequently-cited Supreme Court cases. One of the top ten most frequently-cited cases is a Supreme Court international case that was rendered in the...
Human Rights First is providing blog coverage of the court martial of Sgt. Santos Cardona, a former Abu Ghraib guard and dog handler accused of abusive treatment of detainees. This trial looks to be significant given the defense theory that the abuses that occured at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq "migrated" from Guantanamo, where practices like "waterboarding"...
According to this report, a group of former Israeli diplomats and parliamentarians believe that Iranian President Ahmedinijad's recent remarks calling for the destruction of Israel and his description of the Holocaust as myth constitute conspiracy to commit genocide and incitement of genocide. They want to sue Ahmedinijad. The potential suit raises some interesting questions of jurisdiction....
My time at OJ has really flown, and it is now time for me to fly back to the rigors - and hopefully not the langours - of punchy (and prolific, heaven willing) article-drafting. There's been some debate, and even a symposium, about the possibilities of law blogs as scholarship. To this guest-blogger, the measure of those possibilities...
I'm in London for the next few days where I have had the wonderful occasion to spend a good deal of time with some of the premier maritime arbitrators in the world. These arbitrators shared wonderful stories about the history of arbitration in England, in particular maritime arbitration. I will spare you the details, but there is one...
This morning the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Lee Jong-wook, passed away following a sudden illness. Dr. Lee collapsed on Saturday at one of the functions opening the WHO’s Annual Assembly meeting in Geneva and died early this morning after surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. Dr. Lee leaves behind an impressive legacy. ...
. . . by a narrow majority. The story is available here. ...
This year’s launch of the Journal of Philosophy of International Law and the International Political Theory Beacon reflects and will no doubt serve to prolong a rapid expansion of philosophical interest in international law during the last few years. Philosophy & Public Affairs, the leading English-language journal of moral and political philosophy has featured at least one article on international...
Administrative lawyers think that international antitrust is a particularly interesting form of bureaucratic cooperation. We see a world where antitrust has changed from a focus of international dissention - see the anger over the US assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the effects test after WWII; note that it is the most cited American case in international law - to...
The U.S. government often exhibits a silly kneejerk hostility to international institutions. But sometimes, its suspicions and skepticism is totally justified. The latest example of unhelpful U.N. overreach: the U.N. Committee Against Torture's recommendation that the U.S. stop detaining individuals at Guantanamo Bay (which Roger noted below). Here is the Committee's key conclusion: 22. The Committee, noting that detaining persons...
This is very disturbing news. As reported here, "the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments." The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to...
