U.S. Senate majority leader Bill Frist has started his proto-campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2008 by targeting the U.N. In addition to demanding the U.S. stay out of the new Human Rights Council, he is circulating a petition on his blog demanding Iran be removed from the U.N.'s Disarmament Commission. Frist obviously has a point here. The...
The International Monetary Fund released its semiannual World Economic Outlook report yesterday projecting a very rosy world economy. "It would be fair to say to the world, 'You have never had it so good,' " Raghuram Rajan, the IMF's Chief Economist said. "But challenges are building in the background." Still, the most interesting news may be the projected $300 million shortfall...
Here's what's been happening in the world of the ICC: The UN Mission in the Congo, the ICC, and the governments of Germany and the DRC are working to transfer Ignace Murwanashyaka — the FDLR leader whose situation I discussed last week — to the ICC to stand trial. Their efforts are bound to further antagonize the Rwandan government, which...
Andrew Kent has posted on SSRN an important article entitled A Textual and Historical Case Against a Global Constitution, forthcoming in the Georgetown Law Journal. You can read the abstract and download the article here. The broad issue addressed is whether the U.S. Constitution applies to aliens abroad. Kent "challenges the textual and historical grounds advanced to support the...
Tomorrow, China’s President Hu Jintao has a summit scheduled with President Bush that will cover a variety of important topics, ranging from the Iranian nuclear crisis, China’s human rights record, the U.S. trade deficit with China, and China’s undervalued currency. But, its political importance aside, this will simply be one among many meetings Bush will have this year with foreign...
The Pentagon today released the first complete and official list of all detainees currently held at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Here is a copy of the list. According to the Pentagon, all of the 558 detainees have been through the Combatant Status Review Tribunal process and nearly all have been designated "enemy combatants." Thirty-eight have...
Ian Best at 3L Epiphany has posted a summary of law review articles that cite legal blogs. The list is 27 pages long and includes citations to over 70 legal blogs, including this one. If you scan this list you will see that blogs are cited in dozens of law reviews, including top ones like the Yale Law Journal,...
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)....
