Is the Palestinian Authority a sovereign state? When Palestinians bomb an Israeli bus, is that an act of war? Or is it an act of international terrorism? The U.S. District Court in D.C. has issued an opinion partially answering these weighty questions in a lawsuit brought by a U.S. victim of a bus bombing in Israel against the Palestinian...
The Iraqi High Tribunal has announced that Saddam Hussein and six others have been charged with genocide in connection with Operation Anfal, a three-phase attack on the Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s during the war with Iran. Saddam's co-defendants in the Operation Anfal case include Ali Hassan Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali"; former Defense...
The Washington Post reports there is a move to get rid of the traditional wig for barristers. Indeed, one of the arguments is that Brit judges look "silly" when they sit in the Hague "amid colleagues from other European countries, ...
China and Australia announced yesterday that they have agreed to a new deal for sales of Australian uranium to supply China's growing nuclear power needs. "These agreements establish strict safeguards, arrangements and conditions to ensure Australian uranium supplied to China, and any collaborative programs in applications of nuclear technology, is used exclusively for peaceful purposes," says Australia's foreign minister. Interestingly, Secretary...
Nominations began Monday for seats on the new U.N. Human Rights Council. According to Reuters, 17 nations have already nominated themselves including Germany, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland, Algeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua. The U.S. has not yet acted. 47 seats are available with seven from Western Europe and...
Way back during the Cold War, an international or foreign policy blog like this one would be obsessed with arms control, especially nuclear arms control. Today, the major nuclear powers continue to reduce or even eliminate their strategic nuclear arsenals (see this press release and report) and, pursuant to international treaties, they disclose exact numbers of strategic nuclear assets....
Justice Holmes famously argued that “If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer...
In another weird twist to the already odd Charles Taylor saga, the former Liberian President is claiming that Nigerian security services first helped him escape, then re-captured him before sending him to Liberia to stand trial. Taylor is not the most credible person, but there was something fishy going on here. In any case, Taylor is already plotting his defense. He...
In between hobnobbing with fellow international law types this past weekend at ASIL, St. Louis University lawprof David Sloss filed this useful analysis of the oral argument in Bustillo and Sanchez-Llamas, involving the rights of aliens to enforce consular treaty rights in U.S. courts. David posted the following email to an ASIL listserv, but he has graciously allowed me...
Interesting summary of a recent speech by Colin Powell addressing Iraq, Palestine, China, Russia, Europe, globalization, and immigration. Best line: "My favorite [Powell joke] was about buying all State Department employees Blackberries (when he arrived the State Dept. still had Wang Computers so he wired every desk and bought them all Blackberries), but that one employee was using it as a...
The cover story of today’s NY Times Magazine by Elizabeth Rubin is entitled “If Not Peace, then Justice.” The text on the cover reads: The U.N is not going to stop the genocide in Darfur. The African Union is not going to stop the genocide in Darfur. The U.S. is not going to stop the genocide in Darfur. NATO is not going to stop...
When I teach the introductory international law class to my students, one of the more difficult aspects of the discussion is the line between customary state practices that rise to the level of binding norms, and those that do not. We all teach Paquete Habana, and the students' eyes glaze over as we passionately discuss the law of prize and...
