A few days ago, I asked the question (over at the international law blog Opinio Juris), what are the best legal arguments that would permit or preclude military intervention in Libya, by the US or some other party or parties, on humanitarian grounds (other than rescue of one’s own nationals)? The question generated an illuminating […]
Archive | International Human Rights Law
HRW Defends Shawan Jabarin
By David Bernstein on February 21, 2011 8:01 am in International Human Rights Law, International Law, Israel
Last week, I noted that Human Rights Watch had appointed Shawan Jabarin to its Middle East Advisory Board. Jabarin runs a Palestinian human rights NGO based in the West Bank. He also has been found in a series of Israeli Supreme Court opinions to secretly lead a double life as a top official of the […]
Human Rights Watch Appoints Terrorist (and “Human Rights Activist”) to Middle East Advisory Board
By David Bernstein on February 16, 2011 8:43 am in International Human Rights Law, International Law
You can’t make this stuff up. Daily Beast: The man at the center of the dispute, Shawan Jabarin, runs the human rights organization Al Haq in Ramallah on the occupied West Bank. In 1985 he belonged to a Birzeit University student group associated with the PFLP, indicted as a terror group, by 30 countries including […]
The Ethics of Global Philanthropy
By Kenneth Anderson on January 14, 2011 2:24 pm in International Human Rights Law, International Law
Global philanthropy is a topic that invites examination across disciplines, including law, ethics, economics, sociology, political science and more – particularly as activity in the field grows in a globalized world. So I’d like to welcome a new volume of essays, Giving Well: The Ethics of Philanthropy, edited by Patricia Illingworth, Thomas Pogge, and Leif […]
Frank Dikötter on Mao’s Mass Murders
By Ilya Somin on December 17, 2010 12:48 am in Communism, Genocide, International Human Rights Law, International Law
Back in September, I wrote a post about historian Frank Dikötter’s excellent new book on Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” terror famine of the early 1960s. Dikotter recently published a New York Times op ed summarizing his thesis: The worst catastrophe in China’s history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of […]
UN General Assembly Committee Passes New Version of Resolution Urging Nations to Forbid Defamation of Religion
By Ilya Somin on November 24, 2010 1:19 am in International Human Rights Law, International Law, Religion, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
The United Nations General Assembly Third Committee recently passed another resolution urging nations to ban defamation of religion [HT: Elizabeth Cassidy of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which criticized the resolution here]: A U.N. General Assembly committee once again voted to condemn the “vilification of religion” on Tuesday, but support narrowed for a […]
Did Joseph Stalin Commit Genocide?
By Ilya Somin on November 23, 2010 3:14 am in Communism, Genocide, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Russia
In his excellent recent book Stalin’s Genocides, Stanford historian Norman Naimark argues that Joseph Stalin committed genocide and not “merely” mass murder. Few any longer deny that Stalin’s regime slaughtered millions of innocent people. But the Russian government and some Western writers continue to argue that these murders were not genocidal, and that Stalin therefore […]
Where Jus in Bello and Jus ad Bellum Come Together, or, ‘This Time of Damned Algebra’
By Kenneth Anderson on November 10, 2010 7:24 pm in International Human Rights Law, International Law, War and Armed Conflict
I’m at Penn Station, waiting for the train from New York City back to DC, happy but slightly dazed after the intense three day conference in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars that I mentioned in an earlier post. My thanks and congratulations to Gabby Blum, Ian Scobbie, and […]
A Tribute to Louis Henkin from Harold Koh
By Kenneth Anderson on October 15, 2010 11:07 am in International Human Rights Law, International Law
The great international law scholar Louis Henkin passed away two days ago; for many decades he taught at Columbia Law School, which released a note from the dean on Professor Henkin’s passing. Over at Opinio Juris, Harold Koh, currently Legal Adviser to the State Department, has a lovely tribute to him. I have come not […]
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 […]
New Twists in Chevron Ecuador Case and Charges of Collusion
In the midst of so much other legal news in the past few days, you might have missed the latest twist in the on-going saga of the legal case regarding Chevron’s Ecuador operations. My co-blogger at Opinio Juris Roger Alford explains. It is fascinating reading, reaching far beyond international or transnational law issues, going as […]
Post-Human Humanitarian Law: The Law Of War In The Age Of Robotic Weapons
This interesting essay, by Vik Kanwar of Jindal Global Law School (India), reviews four new books that examine how the laws of warfare may or should change in response to the development of autonomous weapons a/k/a “warbots.”
Excellent Review of Todd Zywicki’s and Max Stearns New Book on Public Choice and the Law
By Ilya Somin on June 16, 2010 2:37 pm in Growth of Government, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Public Choice
University of Florida lawprof D. Daniel Sokol has published a very good (and extremely favorable) review of co-conspirator Todd Zywicki’s important recent book Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law (coauthored with Maxwell Stearns), in the Michigan Law Review. Danny writes that the book is “likely to be recognized as the leading work on the […]
The ICC and Crime of Aggression
Over at Opinio Juris, some first-wave discussion of the agreement on the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the crime of aggression. Kevin Jon Heller and Julian Ku – not sparring, but instead trying to give an initial read on the deal. A great deal of discussion is about to ensue over this deal, […]
My House Testimony in “Drones II”
By Kenneth Anderson on June 3, 2010 12:37 pm in Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
As Professor Philip Alston’s report as special rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council on targeted killings, drones, CIA and military, and related issues is released today, I’ve been asked by numerous people to comment on it. I’ve read it once, but need to finish re-reading it before I’m ready to say anything that goes […]