Someone I know at NYU has co-written a paper positing an interesting theory on why some countries sign, ratify, then violate the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The theory: authoritarian leaders sign and ratify the CAT, then violate it, to show their domestic opponents how committed they are to suppressing opposition. Read about it at The […]
So it seems the Obama administration has decided not to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), a decision that comes as no surprise. The news comes from Jurist, which reported last week about a talk given by the U.S. Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues, Stephen Rapp: Speaking at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, […]
These all come courtesy of Security Law Brief: A Canadian victim of rendition is appealing to the Supreme Court. Five American terror suspects are alleging that they were subjected to various forms of torture including electric shocks by the FBI and Pakistani police. Latvia will take one of the U.S.’s Guantanamo inmates. Marc Ambinder theorizes […]
So said Lord Goldsmith, the UK’s former Attorney General, yesterday at the UK’s Iraq inquiry. In 2003, Goldsmith provided the legal okay for the UK to participate in the Iraq invasion. You can find notes on Goldsmith’s testimony at TimesOnline here. Before the invasion, Goldsmith originally believed UN resolution 1441 (downloadable here) did not provide […]
The UN News Centre reported earlier today that the UN 1267 Committee removed five senior Taliban members from its list of individuals subject to sanctions. You can read the UN Security Council news release here. The 1267 Committee, officially called the “Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee,” was established by UN resolution 1267 (downloadable […]
From the UN News Centre: Despite the fact that international law clearly prohibits secret detention, the practice is widespread and “reinvigorated” by the so-called global war on terror, several independent United Nations experts stated, outlining a series of steps aimed at curbing this human rights violation. In a 222-page study which will be presented to […]
“We face three major strategic challenges: the Iranian nuclear program, rockets aimed at our civilians and Goldstone,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said. Thus, the Israeli government is currently taking action against the third threat enumerated by Netanyahu, the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Report is the result of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission […]
As you’ve probably heard, the Supreme Court finally issued its opinion on the Citizens United case. Read the full opinion here. And for a good round-up of commentary, I recommend SCOTUSBlog. One interesting point made my Lyle Denniston there is this: Another question, and this one the Court explicitly said it was not deciding, was […]
One of the most interesting exchanges from George Mitchell’s Charlie Rose appearance earlier this month (to which I linked earlier in the week) is this one: George Mitchell: Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980. Charlie Rose: Annexed is an important word. George Mitchell: Annexed is a very important word. No other country and including the United […]
There is apparently a disagreement within the U.S. government about the validity of the CIA’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). The key bullet points of the NIE, found here, were: We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high […]
The P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia, and Germany) met on Saturday to discuss sanctions on Iran. China signaled dissatisfaction by sending a low-level envoy. The FPA Middle East Blog has the story here.
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Ban Ki Moon visited Haiti for five and a half hours on Sunday. As Huffington Post reports: The U.N. World Food Program plans to start feeding 1 million people in two weeks and 2 million people in one month, the secretary-general said. WFP spokesman David Orr said the agency hoped to reach more than 60,000 […]