Where is the Obama administration currently on the Ottawa Landmines Ban Convention? The question is on the public table with the opening in a few days of the Cartagena Review Conference, the second diplomatic conference to review the treaty. The Ottawa Convention banning landmines was opened for signature in 1997 and entered into force in […]
Archive | International Law
Conflicts of Interest for Diplomats, Former Diplomats, and the UN: Ruth Wedgwood on Peter Galbraith
Ruth Wedgwood’s new column at Forbes.com takes up the uncomfortable question of Peter Galbraith and his financial dealings with regard to Kurdish autonomy, oilfields, and Galbraith’s consulting deal with a Norwegian company that could conceivably pay him somewhere up to $100 million. That discussion is very important and fraught with issues – Galbraith has not been […]
Reading While Traveling, Hard Copy and No Internet
By Kenneth Anderson on November 14, 2009 4:29 pm in Academia, Counter-Terrorism Policy, Economy, Finance, Financial Crisis, Freedom of Speech, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Legal Professor, Legal Scholarship, Robotics, Targeted Killing, Terrorism
I’ve been traveling recently, and so have been away from posting. One of the enforced virtues of traveling – one of the few virtues of traveling for me these days – is the plane flight with no internet. And if the big guy in front of me reclines his seat, as he always does, I […]
UN Budgets and Follow the Money
The New York Times reports on budget season at the UN and various battles hotting up. It’s a good piece by Neil MacFarquhar, dated November 7, 2009. As the article says, that fact that it costs the United Nations an average of $2,473 per page to create every single document in its six official languages, while […]
Law and Robotics Panel at Stanford Law School
By Kenneth Anderson on November 6, 2009 11:15 am in Academia, California, International Human Rights Law, International Law, Robotics, War and Armed Conflict
If you are going to be around Palo Alto next Thursday evening, you might consider attending a panel discussion on robotics and law at Stanford Law School. I’ll be on a panel alongside some very interesting and knowledgeable folks taking up varied aspects of robotics (my particular interest is robotics and war, but the panel […]
Italy Convicts Twenty-three CIA Agents in Absentia
By Kenneth Anderson on November 4, 2009 8:15 pm in Executive Branch, International Law, War on Terror
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to say anything substantive about this now, but AP reports on the conviction of twenty-three CIA agents in absentia in Italy in a trial over an extraordinary rendition. The AP story is unusually detailed for a wire story and bears reading. I am in the middle of something and can’t […]
The Second Circuit Dismisses Arar Rendition Case, En Banc
By Kenneth Anderson on November 2, 2009 6:42 pm in Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Law, War on Terror
My Opinio Juris colleague Julian Ku comments on the dismissal of the Maher Arar rendition case by the Second Circuit in an en banc decision, 7-4. (Arar is the case of the Canadian who was detained by the US and subjected to extraordinary rendition to Syria.) Like Julian, and perhaps more strongly, I think the […]
Will the Arms Trade Treaty provide effective embargos on human rights violators?
By David Kopel on November 2, 2009 12:41 pm in Guns, International Human Rights Law, International Law
Reversing the position of the Bush administration, the Obama administration recently announced support for the global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which is currently being drafted by the United Nations. The leading voices for the ATT are the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA, funded by George Soros, and run by the Open Society’s former gun control […]
Is the Honduran Political Crisis Over?
The United States has agreed to recognize the results of this month’s election. Ousted President Zelaya will be allowed to return to Honduras, and the legislature will vote on whether to allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term, albeit without control over the military. Meanwhile, it seems some members of […]
UN Special Rapporteur Criticizes US Predator Program in UN Speech
By Kenneth Anderson on October 28, 2009 9:15 pm in International Law, Targeted Killing, War on Terror
Reuter’s reports on a speech given by Philip Alston at the UN, criticizing the US for its drone attacks or, at a minimum, for not being forthcoming on its drone attacks. Professor Alston (a friend of mine and well known to many VC professor-readers as an NYU law professor) is the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial […]
Arguing for Corporate Liability Under the Alien Tort Statute, a Bullet Point List
If I were to sit down and sketch out in a single sentence or two each the current approaches (”theories” is way too strong for what I mean here) arguing for corporate liability in the Alien Tort Statute, what would they be? I give it a shot as bullet points below; I welcome any additions, […]
Borgen on Bilder on Mining He-3 on the Moon
My Opinio Juris colleague Chris Borgen has a post up commenting on a new paper by Richard Bilder on SSRN on legal issues involved in mining for Helium 3 on the Moon. The paper, which I’ve just read while on a plane, is fascinating, and Chris provides an excellent introduction to it (go there if […]
Yglesias on Robert Bernstein and HRW
I wrote yesterday that “I wonder how long certain liberal bloggers who have been reflexive defenders of HRW without bothering to seriously investigate the bill of particulars against it (e.g.) can continue to repeat things like ‘the idea that HRW is some kind of Israel-bashing organization is nonsense’ now that the founder and former longtime […]
Perils of Global Legalism
Henry Farrell and I discuss my book on bloggingheads. We briefly touched on the topic whether the EU could be a model for international law (Henry-yes, me-no). It is interesting in this connection to read the following passage from one of the Economist blogs. Chinese intellectual curiosity in the EU seemed to peak a few […]
Bernstein (Robert!) Denounces Human Rights Watch:
Robert Bernstein (no relation), the founder of Human Rights Watch, has issued a stinging condemnation of the organization he led from 1978 to 1998. Here’s a taste: I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics…. When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 […]