The American University School of International Service (not my law school, but SIS) is holding a conference on global governance on Friday-Saturday, September 24-25, at the spanking new and quite lovely new SIS building at AU. It’s a great line-up of speakers and panelists; kudos to the organizers. One of the convenors is David Bosco, […]
Author Archive | Kenneth Anderson
ABA Journal Blawg 100 Amici
I’m sure Our Chief Conspirator is far too shy, modest, and retiring to note that the ABA Journal is inviting people to come and name their favorite legal blogs … but I’m not. It is an interesting format, actually – it is not an online vote or poll, where the blogs with the most buddies […]
Consistent with Hayek?
Dark and inscrutable are the ways by which we come into the world. The instincts which give rise to this mysterious process of nature are not of our making. But out of physical causes, unknown to us, perhaps unknowable, arise moral duties, which, as we are able perfectly to comprehend, we are bound indispensably to […]
Samuel Moyn on the History of the Human Rights Movement
By Kenneth Anderson on September 10, 2010 1:22 pm in International Human Rights Law, International Law
Columbia University historian Samuel Moyn has a new book out, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard/Belknap). I haven’t read it – but I have ordered it from Amazon! – and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I’ve read it. However, it received a positive (and quite interesting in its […]
Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds
I can’t begin to do justice to Michael Lewis’ new story in Vanity Fair, Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds, and I won’t try. But when I should have been prepping for BA class tonight, I found I could not put it down. But: Here’s a thought that probably would not have occurred to most readers […]
Duncan Hollis on Cyber Threats
Temple University law professor Duncan Hollis, and my co-blogger at Opinio Juris, has a provocative new paper on SSRN addressing the question of cyber-threats and why he believes the threats need new forms of regulation. Duncan titles his article at SSRN, “An e-SOS for Cyberspace,” and of course I can’t resist adding ‘Sending Out An […]
Soros Gift to Human Rights Watch
No doubt many readers have seen the press articles announcing George Soros’ gift of $100 million to Human Rights Watch. Most interesting to me was that the gift is aimed, in part, at diversifying the organization, staff, and board away from its current US-centric arrangement. As the AP puts it: But the money also is […]
In Which the Author Admits That He Owns a Marc Jacobs Suit
“Say goodbye to Mr. Chips with his tattered tweed jacket; today’s senior professors can afford Marc Jacobs.” Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — And What We Can Do About It. I share many of the concerns expressed in Christopher Shea’s Sunday NYT book review […]
Do You Have Your Own Drone Yet?
Behold, the personal drone, controlled by Ipad, Itouch, Iphone, available on pre-order for later this year from Amazon.
The Washington Post on Targeting Killing and US Citizens
By Kenneth Anderson on September 6, 2010 2:48 pm in Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Due to the press of a deadline for something else, I am not able to comment as fully as this all deserves, but I wanted to flag this morning’s editorial in the Washington Post, essentially defending and, in some ways, extending the Obama administration’s position on targeted killing, whether using drones or human teams, including […]
Benjamin Leff and Brian Galle Respond on the VAT Tax Arguments
A few days ago I linked to a couple of articles on VAT tax proposals that have been circulating, including an attack by Daniel Mitchell at the Cato site, and a short blog post from Greg Mankiw explaining why, as a replacement for the rest of the tax system, he thought it was a better […]
The Ethics of Not Finishing, But Still Criticizing, Books
Althouse notes the following, in a discussion of Megan McArdle criticizing a book while only half-way through it: A rule against criticizing books you haven’t finished would overprotect authors, since you shouldn’t finish a bad book, and it would also underprotect authors, since the critics wouldn’t disclose that they hadn’t read the whole thing. I think Althouse […]
Redundancy?
Okay, I am giving in to the Popular Will, against my better judgment. What do VAT tax, PIN number, ATM machine, all have in common? Feel free to list more in the comments, including your views on whether this is acceptable language usage or not. (Put them here, rather than the comments to the VAT […]
VAT Tax?
Daniel J. Mitchell at the Cato blog has a new post up, continuing an argument against the imposition of a VAT tax in the United States. His argument in that piece is fundamentally that a VAT tax does not really solve the fiscal problem, but instead merely invites government to grow with the revenue stream, […]
Forum v Jurisdiction
Could anyone point me to a link giving a basic, plain language discussion of the difference between forum and jurisdiction in American law? Something that I could use with a group of non-US lawyers – clear, not too long, basic distinctions? Thanks.