Guest blogger: Nino Guruli

We're very pleased to welcome Nino Guruli (left), who contributes today's guest post on new developments at the European Court of Human Rights.
Nino is a Legal Fellow with the American Society of International Law, currently working on the Society’s program aimed at integrating international law and human rights in high school curriculums across the United States.
Nino graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science. During her time there, Nino conducted field research, in the Republic of Georgia, on acute violent conflict and resource scarcity. She studied law at the University of Notre Dame, where she served as the research assistant to Mary Ellen O’Connell, an IntLawGrrls contributor, on the 6th edition of a Foundation Press casebook, The International Legal System: Cases and Materials.
Heartfelt welcome!

Go On! ASIL midyear in Los Angeles

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

November 3, 4, and 5 are the dates of the 2012 Midyear Meeting and Research Forum of the American Society of International Law, to be held in downtown Los Angeles and at UCLA School of Law.
For many years ASIL's Executive Council and the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law convened in Washington, D.C., in the autumn -- about midway between the last ASIL annual meeting and the next. The Los Angeles gathering will entrench a new tradition of convening outside Washington, for an expanded meeting featuring not only the ASIL/AJIL leadership meetings, but also multiple public events aimed at legal practitioners, professor and students, judges, and others interested in international law.
Welcoming attendees at the 2012 Midyear Meeting will be a new initiative: the inaugural Research Forum at which a global array of ASIL members (including, as the photos in this post indicate, many of our own contributors). Chosen from a highly competitive selection process, they will present and invite focused discussion on works in progress.
The Research Forum is the brainchild of IntLawGrrl alumna Laura Dickinson (left) (George Washington) and Kal Raustiala (UCLA).
Working with them on the Forum Planning Committee have been IntLawGrrl alumnae Nienke Grossman (near left) (Baltimore) and Mary Ellen O'Connell (middle left) (Notre Dame), along with our colleague Mark Drumbl (Washington & Lee).
Scheduled highlights for ASIL's 2012 Midyear Meeting (for the full program, click here and here):

Thursday, November 3, California Club, 538 South Flower Street, Los Angeles

5:30-7:30 p.m.
► Panel on Current Issues in International Dispute Resolution, a roundtable discussion featuring IntLawGrrl and ASIL immediate past President Lucy Reed (right) (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer), ASIL President-Elect Donald F. Donovan (Debevoise & Plimpton), and Edward T. Swaine, (George Washington); moderated by ASIL President David D. Caron (California-Berkeley).

Friday, November 4, UCLA

1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
► Keynote address by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo (left) (photo credit). A conference luncheon immediately precedes this address.

2:30-3:45 p.m.
► Panel on Emerging Issues in Alien Tort Statute Litigation

2:30-5 p.m.
► ASIL-UCLA Career Fair

4-5:30 p.m.
► Panel on General Counsels’ Perspectives.
► Forum session on Violence and Conflict. Papers to be presented: "Privatized Sovereign Performance, Counter-terrorism, and Endangered Rights" by IntLawGrrl Fiona de Londras (right) (University College Dublin); "Killing in the Fog of War" by Adil Ahmad Haque (Rutgers-Newark), and "From Gender-Based Violence to Women’s Violence in Haiti" by Benedetta Faedi-Duramy (Golden Gate).
► Forum session on Environmental Scarcity and Sustainability. Papers to be presented: "International Law in a Time of Scarcity: The Case of Bluefin Tuna" by Kristen Boon (Seton Hall); "The Perils and Promise of Indicators in Global Governance: A Case Study of Corporate Sustainability Reporting" by Galit Sarfaty (Wharton/Penn); and "Transnational Oil Companies, Indigenous Peoples, and the Local Construction of International Law" by Pablo Rueda (California-Berkeley).
► Forum session on Interpretive Strategies: Statutes, Treaties, and Customary Law. Papers to be presented: "Jurisdictional Standards (and Rules)" by Adam Muchmore (Penn State); "Is Article 38(1) of the ICJ Statute Outmoded? Toward a New Theory of Sources in International Law" by Noora Arajärvi (University of the West Indies); and "Vision and Technique: Accounting for and Justifying Differing Approaches to Treaty Interpretation Over Time" by Julian Arato (NYU).

Friday, November 4, UCLA

9-10:30 a.m.
► Forum session on The Security Council Today and Tomorrow. Papers to be presented: "Shaming Power of the Veto" by IntLawGrrl alumna Saira Mohamed (left) (California-Berkeley); "Variable Multipolarity and UN Security Council Reform" by Bart Szewyczk (WilmerHale); and "Iran, Nuclear Nonproliferation, and the International Atomic Energy Commission" by Aslı Ü. Bâli (UCLA).
► 1st of 2 Forum sessions on New Frameworks in International Economic Law. Papers to be presented: "Models of International Governance: An Examination of International Financial Regulatory Regimes" by Eric Pan (Cardozo); "Testing Reflexive Governance in the Context of the Social Dimension of the Economic Crisis (with a focus on the ILO and the OECD)" by Anne Trebilcock (Centre de droit international, Université de Paris 10 Nanterre); and "Breaking the Frame between Public International Trade and Private International Business" by Sungjoon Cho (Chicago-Kent) and Claire Kelly (Brooklyn).
► Forum session on International Cultural and Intellectual Property. Papers to be presented: "The Globalization of Cultural Property Law" by Lorenzo Casini (University of Kent); "Unpacking Imperialisms: Traditional Knowledge Rights and Wrongs" by Sean A. Pager (Michigan State); and "Democratic Legitimacy and Identity-Based Citizenship" by Natalie Oman (University of Ontario Institute of Technology).
► Forum session on New Developments in International Environmental Law-Making. Papers to be presented: "Artificial Islands in the Persian Gulf and International Environmental Law Principles" by Seyed Mohammad Mehdi (Vermont); "International Environmental Duty to Restore Ecosystems" by IntLawGrrl alumna Anastasia Telesetsky (right) (Idaho); and "Water in Investor-State Arbitration" by Badr Zerhdoud (Georgetown).

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
► 2d of 2 Forum sessions on New Frameworks in International Economic Law. Papers to be presented: "Consumer Protection at the World Trade Organization" by Sonia Elise Rolland (Northeastern); "Expertise and Legitimacy in International Investment Law: Governing Access to Investor-State Arbitration" by Jason Cross (Michigan); and "An Alternative Investment Law Framework?: An Analysis of an Investment Treaty/Contract Hybrid" by Ibironke Odumosu (Saskatchewan).
► Forum session on International Law and Institutions in Africa. Papers to be presented: "Between Adaptation and Emancipation: The African Union and the Project of Global Constitutionalism" by Theresa Reinold (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin); "The Court of Justice for Economic Community of West African States: Building a Human Rights Rule of Law in Africa?" by Laurence R. Helfer (Duke), Karen J. Alter (Northwestern), and Jacqueline McAllister (Northwestern); and "Transitional Justice in the DRC: Insights from the Mobile Courts" by James Wormington (American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative).
► Forum session on Transnational Networks and Normative Orders. Papers to be presented: "Transnational Legal Orders: Their Rise and Impact" by Gregory Shaffer (Minnesota); "Post-conflict Justice Networks" by IntLawGrrl Elena Baylis (left) (Pittsburgh); and "The International Norm of the Rule of Law" by Philip M. Nichols (Wharton/Penn).
► Forum session on American Foreign Relations Law. Papers to be presented: "Treaties and the Constitution" by David Sloss (Santa Clara); "Congressional Control of U.S. Human Rights Policy: An Empirical Examination of Legal and Normative Effects" by IntLawGrrl alumna Margaret McGuinness (near right) (St. John's); and "Between Law and Diplomacy: The 'Suability' of Foreign Officials iin U.S. Courts" by IntLawGrrl alumna Chimène Keitner (far right) (California-Hastings).

2-3:30 p.m.
► Forum session on Bottom-Up Influences in the Development of International Law. Papers to be presented: "International Law from the Bottom Up: Fragmentation and Transformation" by IntLawGrrl alumna Barbara Stark (left) (Hofstra); "Who Mobilizes for Human Rights? International Law, Social Mobilization, and Societal Inequality" by Justin Simeone (NYU); and "Parochial International Law? Assessing the Impact of National Legal Culture" by Marco Benatar (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).
► Forum session on The Politics of International Courts and Tribunals. Papers to be presented: "The New Terrain of International Law: International Courts in Politics" by Karen J. Alter (Northwestern); "The Perverse Effects of Ideology on International Criminal Justice" by
Shahram Dana (John Marshall); and "Are Arbitrators Political?" by Michael Waibel (Cambridge).
► Forum session on International Organization, and the Evolution of Treaty Regimes. Papers to be presented: "The Interplay of Exit and Voice: How Nations Behave in International Regimes" by Erlend M. Leonhandsen (Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law); "Treaty Executives" by IntLawGrrl alumna Jean Galbraith (right) (Pennsylvania); and "An Economic Analysis of International Rulemaking" by Barbara Koremenos (Michigan).
► Forum session on Empire, Global Commodities, and Emerging International Regimes. Papers to be presented: "Sugar and the Making of an Early Modern Multilateral Institution: Explicating the 1902 Brussels Sugar Convention" by Michael Fakhri (Oregon) and "Building an American Legalist Empire, 1898-­1919: the Profession and Diplomacy of International Law" by Benjamin Coates (Columbia).

3:45-5:15 p.m.
► Forum session on Statehood and Self-Determination. Papers to be presented: "The Emergence of Indicators of State Failure and State Fragility: Measuring Stateness?" by Nehal Bhuta (New School); "Somalia and the International Legal Imagination" by Noah Novogrodsky
(Wyoming); and "Self-Determination, Statehood, and Unilateral Declarations of Independence: The Case of Palestine" by Robert P. Barnidge Jr. (Reading).
► Forum session on Compliance and Institutional Design. Papers to be presented: "Supply Side of Compliance" by Rachel Brewster (Harvard); "Best Evidence: The Role of Information in Domestic Judicial Enforcement of International Human Rights Agreements" by Yonatan Lupu (California-San Diego); and "The International Human Rights Regime: Delaying Democratization in the Worst Offenders" by Peter Rosendorff (NYU) and James R. Hollyer (Yale).
► Forum session on Participation and Politics in Post-conflict Justice. Papers to be presented: "International Criminal Law Expressivism and Global Transitional Justice" by IntLawGrrl alumna Margaret de Guzman (left) (Temple); "Unspeakable Memories, Unattainable Truths: Victim-Witness Testimonies in the Khmer Rouge Trials" by Laura Marschner (Zürich); and "Transparency And Amicus Participation In Investor-State Arbitration: An Account of Inter-Dependence, Structural Disincentives and the Democratic Deficit" by Jarrod Wong (Pacific McGeorge).
► Forum session on Hard and Soft Law in International Law and International Relations Theory. Papers to be presented: "International Law and International Relations: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead" by Jeffrey Dunoff (Temple) and Mark Pollack (Temple) and "Soft Law at Work: International Standards and the Design of National Human Rights Institutions" by Katerina Linos (California-Berkeley) and Thomas Pegram (Loyola Maryland).
Registration information, full program, and other details here.

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'I am not in a position where I feel I am choosing between my principles and my service.'

-- Our colleague Harold Hongju Koh, the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State, in a New York Times commentary by journalist Paul Starobin. (credit for 2010 photo of Koh) We've posted frequently about former Yale Law Dean Koh, both before and since his 2009 confirmation to his present position. In Starobin's article, Koh defended the legal interpretation undergirding the deployment by the U.S. Executive Branch of military force to support the NATO-led and Security-Council-sanctioned intervention in Libya. Starobin nevertheless quoted other intlaw colleagues -- among them IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell and AJIL Co-Editor-in-Chief Lori Damrosch -- who took issue with that interpretation, by which the Libya action is deemed not to constitute "hostilities" within the meaning of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, and thus not to require authorization by Congress. A letter to the editor in support of Koh, by Michael Posner, who now holds Koh's former post as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor, appears in today's New York Times and is available here.

The Missing Peace

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell, who contributes this guest post)

The coalition military action in Libya began March 19, 2011. This may sound like a very brief time considering that the United States is heading into its eleventh year of war in Afghanistan and ninth in Iraq. But it is ten times longer than President Barack Obama’s prediction: Remember, he was contemplating days, not weeks. (photo credit)
More worrying is his new reason for being in Libya. The President told the nation that military action was absolutely necessary to protect civilians. Now Obama, British Prime Minister Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy say military action will continue until Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is gone.
The dramatic change should surprise no one. Protecting civilians with major military force in Libya was always an unlikely prospect: “humanitarian” is not a military objective. Removing a national leader and defeating an army, however, are.
And as soon as Ghadafi is gone, President Obama can declare victory and move on, which plays well in the sound-bite world of politics.
What does not play well is patient, careful, costly support of national transformation. Action truly designed to protect civilians, and, more importantly, to lead to a healthy, well-governed Libya, does not play well– it is anything but a sound bite. As I wrote in the days before the military intervention in “How to Save a Revolution”, the Libyan rebels made the error of taking up arms in a war they could not win– perhaps they were emboldened by the loose talk of a military intervention in Egypt? By the time they made their fateful decision, the only way to minimize death and destruction in Libya and to support democracy was to get the rebels out of Libya, to a safe place where they could build a peaceful movement.
The departure of the armed resistance would have left Ghadafi no reason to continue fighting in Benghazi. He might have been able to persuade his forces to continue attacking for the sake of revenge, but it is hard to say that more people would have died or been displaced in that scenario than has occurred in this month of heavy bombing by two sides.
Once the rebels were in safety, they could have selected leaders and built a movement. With that movement in place, its leaders would have been in a position to negotiate a peaceful transition with Ghadafi.
One of the great differences between Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia is that Egypt and Tunisia had a human rights movement in place. Well-trained lawyers, with connections to counter-numbers in Europe and North America, were in a position to work peacefully for change. Their struggle is far from over, but they have the building blocks that just do not exist in Libya.
This sort of longer term, deep thinking about how to assist in Libya apparently did not appeal to President Obama’s advisers, who have been committed to military action for human rights since the failed interventions in Rwanda and Bosnia.
I say failed interventions because that is what they were. There has been an insistence on misreading the facts of Rwanda and Bosnia, saying they were failures to intervene, rather than what they were: failed interventions. (See this video clip of my exchange with State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh on international law and intervention at last month's ASIL Annual Meeting.)
Libya was turning into another failed intervention until Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron announced the new goal: removing Ghadafi.
Once Ghadafi is gone, I predict victory will be declared, and once again the wrong lessons will be learned from the use of military force.
If another month goes by, however, and the fighting continues, I urge President Obama to change directions again. Ask the African Union to renew the peace effort that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed because it involved negotiating with Ghadafi. Put peace, reconciliation, protection of civilians, and the building of a new Libya ahead of sound-bite politics.

Write On! ASIL Research Forum

(Thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post, another in IntLawGrrls' Write On! series)

The American Society of International Law has launched a new initiative that may be of interest. On November 4 and 5 of this year we will be launching the first ASIL Research Forum at UCLA Law School. We hope that the Forum will become be a yearly scholarly conference on new research in international law.
Spearheading the initiative is the 2011 ASIL Research Forum Committee:
► Co-Chairs: yours truly, Laura Dickinson, Foundation Professor and Faculty Director at the Center for Law and Global Affairs, Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, along with Kal Raustiala, Professor at the UCLA School of Law and Director of UCLA's Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations.
► Committee members: Mark A. Drumbl, Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law & Director, Transnational Law Institute, Washington & Lee University School of Law, along with IntLawGrrl guests/alumnae Nienke Grossman, University of Baltimore School of Law, and Mary Ellen O’Connell, an ASIL Vice President and the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution at Notre Dame Law School.
The idea is to hold an event that is focused around in-depth discussion of works in progress. Particularly welcome are interdisciplinary projects, empirical studies, and research that deploys new methodologies to study international or transnational law.
Proposals are due April 30, and will be reviewed anonymously.
The official call for papers is below:

Call for Scholarly Papers
The Inaugural ASIL Research Forum
November 4-5, 2011
The American Society of International Law calls for submissions of scholarly paper proposals for the inaugural ASIL Research Forum to be held at UCLA Law School on November 4-5, 2011.
The Research Forum is a new initiative of the Society aimed at providing a setting for the presentation and focused discussion of works in progress. The Spring Annual Meeting does this in part through its "works-in-progress" sessions, but the Research Forum aims to do this exclusively.
The Research Forum will be held in the fall and, as possible, coordinated as an integral part of the Fall ASIL Mid-Year Meeting. All ASIL members are invited to attend the Forum, whether presenting a paper or not.
Interested participants should submit a proposal (preferably 500, and no more than 1,000, words in length) summarizing the scholarly paper to be presented at the forum. Papers can be on any topic related to international and transnational law. Works-in-progress are particularly encouraged. Interdisciplinary projects, empirical studies, and jointly authored proposals are welcome.
Submissions should be sent to 2011forum@asil.org by April 30. Proposals will be vetted anonymously by the Research Forum Committee with selections to be announced by June 15.
At present, it is the intent of the Research Forum Committee to organize the selected paper proposals around common issues, themes, and approaches. Discussants, who will comment on the papers, will be assigned to each cluster of papers.

Guest Blogger: Kathleen Clark

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Kathleen Clark (left) as today's guest blogger.
Kathleen is Professor of Law and 2010-11 Israel Treiman Faculty Fellow at Washington University School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri, where teaches and writes about government ethics, national security law, legal ethics, and whistleblowing. For more than a decade, she has offered a course she created, on governmental ethics; in addition, she created a course on comparative whistleblowing, which she taught at the Summer Institute for Global Justice, Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
A 2004 Washington Post op-ed on the Department of Justice "torture memo," coauthored with our colleague Julie Mertus, led to Kathleen's testimony before Congress and her publication of "Ethical Issues Raised by the OLC Torture Memorandum," 1 Journal of National Security Law & Policy 455 (2005).
In her guest post below, Kathleen makes the case for the need for "someone in government will provide some clarification -- and some sanity" on the issue of WikiLeaks disclosures, an issue on which IntLawGrrls featured 2 guest posts last week, by Judge Patricia M. Wald (here) and by Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell (here).
Kathleen earned her B.A. and J.D. degrees from Yale University, and clerked for the Honorable Judge Harold H. Greene, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She then served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, working on issues of white collar crime.
A member of the American Law Institute, Kathleen's an advisor to the institute’s Project on Principles of Government Ethics. She's also a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States and past Chair of the National Security Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools.

Heartfelt welcome!

International Law & WikiLeaks

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Mary Ellen O’Connell (below right), who contributes this guest post on release of classified documents by WikiLeaks, an issue on which alumna Patricia M. Wald posted yesterday)

I generally share Judge Wald’s critical view of WikiLeaks’ action.
In thinking about the matter from the perspective of international law, so far I see three areas of special interest:

1. Prosecution
State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh, Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others have all discussed prosecuting “those responsible” for the document dump. The main figure associated with WikiLeaks is the Australian, Julian Assange. He is thought to be in hiding somewhere in Europe. Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Assange, to send him to Sweden to face questioning. I have seen no reports of a U.S. request for an international arrest warrant. (credit for logo of Interpol Red Notice)
My first thoughts in this episode have concerned on what basis Assange could be brought to the U.S. for prosecution. If he comes into Swedish custody, for example, and the United States then requests his extradition, NPR is reporting that the basis of criminal prosecution would likely be the Espionage Act. (See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. sec. 798 “Disclosure of Classified Information”.)
The Espionage Act seems to be narrowly drafted and to contain details that might well make it difficult to meet the requirements of U.S. extradition treaties.

2. Terrorism
Perhaps for the issues raised in Point 1, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is calling for WikiLeaks to be declared a terrorist organization? I wonder if Rep. King believes that declaring WikiLeaks a terrorist organization means that the U.S. will treat Assange as an “enemy combatant?” International law has no authority to support such assertions. We can hope that the administration will definitive reject them, and even reconsider other cases where criminal suspects are currently being treated as “enemy combatants.” (See my soon-to-be forthcoming article, “The Choice of Law Against Terrorism.”)

3. Diplomacy
We can further hope that this case will wake up governments around the world to greater vigilance on behalf of international law.
We should all be very concerned that certain Middle Eastern governments want to see military force used against Iran. There is no right to use military force against a state for the possession of even unlawful weapons. (See my “The Ban on the Bomb and Bombing, Iran, the U.S., and the International Law of Self-Defense”.) This is only one example. The documents are full of issues we in international law should be bringing to public awareness.
Ironically, in some cases involving the United States and non-compliance with international law, I wonder if governments are going to read the unflattering documents and either end cooperation or pressure the United States into ending non-compliant conduct? I have written about U.S. uses of military force in Yemen that conflict with international law. Is Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh going to continue to cooperate in this after what has been said about him?
And, of course, all of us in international law need to be concerned about the attempt to steal private information concerning the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The gratuitous gossip in some of the communications is also striking — it made me think of the Rolling Stone interview with General Stanley McChrystal. (prior IntLawGrrls post)
The WikiLeaks decision to release this material was reprehensible. Hopefully the right lessons will be learned from it with respect to the conduct of diplomacy and the goals of U.S. foreign policy.

On drones

The United States is putting on the pressure to expand the scope of U.S. drone operations, but getting nowhere, according to reports published in the last couple days.
For readers trying to figure out this hot-button global issue, there's The International Law of Drones, a new ASIL Insight by IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell (prior posts).
In the Insight, Mary Ellen traces the history of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as drones officially are called. (UAV photo credit; O'Connell photo credit)
Then she describes how they've been used as weapons -- since the 1st U.S. attack, launched from Djibouti into Yemen, in 2002 -- through to current deployment at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Next she tries to fit the issues surrounding such uses into the framework of international law respecting the use of force; that is, term-of-art concepts such as "armed conflict," "armed attack," and "self-defense."
Finally, Mary Ellen points to a need for greater research, particularly on the psychological effects that drone warfare has on those who wage it.
Well worth a read.

Drone debate

Washington University St. Louis School of Law was the site last week of a debate on on the legality and foreign policy implications of the United States' use of drones in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions, an issue about which we've posted frequently.
Debating were IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell (University of Notre Dame), who's posted on the issue here, and Kenneth Anderson (American University).
Their spirited engagement at the Whitney R. Harris Institute, of which IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Leila Nadya Sadat is Director, can be watched on video here.

Darfur.Gitmo.dot.

There's a constant in the subtext of stories about Sudan.
For years, criticism of Sudan's treatment of its western and southern regions has come from many corners -- from college campuses, political candidates, human rights groups, aid workers, even states themselves. Not much progress, for all of that:
► The western region, Darfur, remains a humanitarian-aid disaster, as posted just days ago. Moreover, the current suspension of outright civil war in that region (in light green on the map at left) seems to have a rather short fuse.
► The warrant issued in March 2009 by the International Criminal Court, for the arrest of Sudan's President on charges of genocide and other atrocities in Darfur, remains unfulfilled. Indeed, it is flouted not only by its target, Omar al-Bashir, but also by the African Union, the regional organization through which some of Bashir's fellow leaders have promised him cover against the global court.
► Meanwhile, concerns mount that the government will put off a Southern Sudan independence referendum, which a 2005 peace agreement set for January 2011. Yesterday, according to the Associated Press, a local leader predicted "the collapse of a peace accord that ended a war that killed more than 2 million people if it stalls" the election, "which could turn the arid region," in red on the map at left, "into the world's newest nation and split Africa's largest country in two."
That's the text.
Why such disarray?
Why no change given the apparent consensus, at least in the West, that the Darfur conflict needs to come to an end?

Given further apparent consensus that the Southern Sudan peace agreement should be honored?

In short, what's the subtext?

In an article published this week, the Wall Street Journal's Jess Bravin connected dots that may answer some of these questions.

Reporting from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on a military commission's recommendation that "former al Qaeda cook Ibrahim al-Qosi" be sentenced to 14 years in prison, Bravin wrote:

The U.S. has been working with the Sudanese government to repatriate detainees from Guantanamo Bay, according to evidence presented ....

Indications are that upon imposition of sentence, Qosi will be repatriated to Sudan, along with 9 other Sudanese men detained at Gitmo. Adduced, Bravin wrote, was a letter which said:

'Sudan is ready to cooperate with President Obama in his effort to close down the Guantanamo facility ...'

Bravin connected this readiness to cooperate to Bashir's continuing at-large status. Experts he contacted -- Juan E. Méndez and IntLawGrrls' own guest/alumna, Mary Ellen O'Connell, disagreed on whether including Gitmo in the Sudan/ICC mix was a good or bad idea.

Truth is, given the way that countries interact, conflation of the 2 is probably inevitable. So too the add-on of concerns about the on-the-ground situation in Darfur -- even apart from consideration of the ICC charges. So three the add-on of concerns about what's up with Southern Sudan.

There's yet a 4th add-on, implicit but not quite overt in these Guantánamo revelations: Sudan's been a linchpin in counterterrorism at least since the days that the government tolerated Osama bin Laden's presence there, so that the United States and its allies are loathe to dismiss out of hand any aid the Sudanese government gives to anti-Qaeda efforts.

Kudos to Bravin for bringing subtext to light.

Time now for people who care to push the United States -- and other countries with clout, in the Security Council or elsewhere -- squarely to confront the complex of issues related to policy on Sudan.

Spring reading, of sorts

It is Spring, when a law prof's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...
... you know ...
... which casebook she'll assign next semester.*

That thought in mind, we note 2 promising new intlaw texts:
► The 1st is The International Legal System: Cases and Materials (6th ed. 2010) (below, far right).
Initially published in 1973, this Foundation Press standard has a whole new authors' lineup: Naomi Roht-Arriaza (California-Hastings) and Mary Ellen O'Connell (Notre Dame), IntLawGrrl and IntLawGrrl guest/alumna, respectively, along with Richard F. Scott (Thomas Jefferson). The table of contents promises an organized and varied survey of public international law, in general and in specific areas like the environment and the economy, human rights and the use of force. This 'Grrl, who's teaching intlaw in the fall, plans to give it a try.
► The 2d is International and Transnational Criminal Law (2009) (near right).
This 1st edition Aspen publication is the work of 3 of our colleagues, all affiliated with Georgetown Law: Julie R. O'Sullivan, David Luban, and David P. Stewart. It joins others in the ICL field, including the casebook, now in its 2d ed., co-authored by IntLawGrrl Beth Van Schaack.
Check 'em out.

* Apologies to Tennyson. Only Jackson Browne would've said love. (credit for 1922 portrait, La Liseuse, by Félix Valloton)

Koh on targeted killing

There was much worth pondering in the keynote speech that Harold Hongju Koh (center left), since last June the Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State, delivered yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law.
'Grrls will be posting on various aspects of that talk and others in short order. But we can't let a day go by without posting his remarks on unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as UAVs or drones (pictured below).
A few hours before Koh's speech, IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell, newly elected an ASIL Vice President, had chaired a well-attended panel on the issue. Mary Ellen, who'd written a Balkinization post in support of Koh's nomination about this time last year, last December contributed an IntLawGrrls post outlining her legal concerns about the United States' use of drones in the AfPak conflict to target for killing persons believed to be al Qaeda operatives.
Thanks to ASIL's Sheila R. Ward, we set forth verbatim relevant quotes from Koh's speech, which you can watch in the video clip here.
Koh, formerly the Yale Law Dean and an ASIL Counsellor, maintained that such use is legal, essentially embracing the "war" paradigm that many others have challenged. He stated:

[I]t is the considered view of this administration … that targeting practices, including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war…
As recent events have shown, Al Qaeda has not abandoned its intent to attack the United States, and indeed continues to attack us. Thus, in this ongoing armed conflict, the United States has the authority under international law, and the responsibility to its citizens, to use force, including lethal force, to defend itself, including by targeting persons such as high-level al Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks….

He then detailed how "this administration has carefully reviewed the rules governing targeting operations to ensure that these operations are conducted consistently with law of war principles"; specifically:

► First, the principle of distinction, which requires that attacks be limited to military objectives and that civilians or civilian objects shall not be the object of the attack; and
► Second, the principle of proportionality, which prohibits attacks that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Koh endeavored to assure his audience that in

U.S. operations against al Qaeda and its associated forces – including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles – great care is taken to adhere to these principles in both planning and execution, to ensure that only legitimate objectives are targeted and that collateral damage is kept to a minimum.

Addressing critics of the policy, he continued:

[S]ome have suggested that the very use of targeting a particular leader of an enemy force in an armed conflict must violate the laws of war. But individuals who are part of such an armed group are belligerent and, therefore, lawful targets under international law....
[S]ome have challenged the very use of advanced weapons systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, for lethal operations. But the rules that govern targeting do not turn on the type of weapon system involved, and there is no prohibition under the laws of war on the use of technologically advanced weapons systems in armed conflict – such as pilotless aircraft or so-called smart bombs – so long as they are employed in conformity with applicable laws of war….
[S]ome have argued that the use of lethal force against specific individuals fails to provide adequate process and thus constitutes unlawful extrajudicial killing. But a state that is engaged in armed conflict or in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force.

[On this boldfaced statement, consider the rather different view in my post above, which reprints a passage, from my 2006 article, that recounts Justice John Paul Stevens' concerns regarding a targeted killing in which he and other Navy codebreakers played a role -- the killing in 1943 of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, architect of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.]
Koh maintained that due precautions are taken even without the interposition of due process:

Our procedures and practices for identifying lawful targets are extremely robust, and advanced technologies have helped to make our targeting even more precise. In my experience, the principles of distinction and proportionality that the United States applies are not just recited at meeting. They are implemented rigorously throughout the planning and execution of lethal operations to ensure that such operations are conducted in accordance with all applicable law….

Finally, Koh cited domestic law as an independent justification:

[S]ome have argued that our targeting practices violate domestic law, in particular, the long-standing domestic ban on assassinations. But under domestic law, the use of lawful weapons systems – consistent with the applicable laws of wear – for precision targeting of specific high-level belligerent leaders when acting in self-defense or during an armed conflict is not unlawful, and hence does not constitute ‘assassination.’

Women @ ASILquater

As we have each year since our founding (here, here, and here), IntLawGrrls is proud today to highlight women who will speak March 24-27 at the forthcoming annual meeting of the American Society of International Law.
This 104th gathering of the Society, entitled International Law in a Time of Change, kicks off with the Grotius Lecture by Antony Anghie at 4:30 p.m. on March 24, features a keynote address by State Department Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh at 5 p.m. March 25, the Manley O. Hudson Medal Lecture by Edith Brown Weiss (right)at 4:15 p.m. March 26, a keynote by Canada's Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin (below left), at 5:30 March 26, and runs through March 27. All events will take place at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, 1150 22d Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. (Details and registration here.)

Delighted to see from the program that, once again, there's much diversity in topics and presenters. Virtually all panels again have at least 1 woman participating, and that many have more (those few that do not include women do not, alas, receive mention in this list). Kudos to the Program Committee Co-Chairs, IntLawGrrls' own Hari M. Osofsky and our colleagues K. Russell LaMotte and Allen S. Weiner! Particularly proud that so many persons featured are IntLawGrrls or IntLawGrrls guest alumnae -- not only Planning Committee members Rebecca Bratspies, Chimène Keitner, Hope Lewis, and Beth Van Schaack, but also, of course, Lucy Reed (right), who will conclude her 2-year tenure as ASIL President at the meeting, to be succeeded by our colleague David D. Caron.
Without further ado, here's this year's honor roll:

Thursday, March 25, 9-10:30 a.m.
► "Empirical Approaches to International Law": Elizabeth Andersen (ASIL Executive Director), IntLawGrrl Elena Baylis (Pittsburgh), Susan Franck (Washington & Lee), Janet Levit (Tulsa), and panelists; Tonya Putnam (Columbia), moderator.
►"New Thinking on Social and Economic Rights: Honoring Virginia Leary," an IntLawGrrls foremother: IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Gay McDougall (United Nations) (below, far right), Mona Rishmawi (United Nations), and Alicia Ely Yamin (Harvard), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Barbara Stark (Hofstra), moderator.
►"International Human Rights Law, Foreign Sovereign Immunity, and National Courts": Rosanne van Alebeek (Amsterdam), Sarah H. Cleveland (Counselor to State Department) (near right), panelists.
►"Getting to Closure: Winding Up the International and Hybrid Criminal Tribunals": Tracey Gurd (Open Society Justice Initiative) and Anne Joyce (State Department), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Valerie Oosterveld (Western Ontario), moderator.
►"Risk, Science and Law in the WTO": Tracey Epps (New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade), panelist.
►"New Voices I": Dionysia Avgerinopoulou (Columbia), IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Máiréad Enright (Cork), and Alexandra R. Harrington (McGill), panelists; Edith Brown Weiss (Georgetown), moderator.

Thursday, March 25, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
►"Providing Global Public Goods Under International Law": Anne van Aaken (St. Gallen, Max Planck Institute), Victoria Henson-Apollonio (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), Inge Kaul (United Nations), and Sabrina Safrin (Rutgers-Newark), panelists; IntLawGrrl Rebecca Bratspies (CUNY), moderator.
►"Extraterritoriality: Bagram and Beyond": Sabine Nölke (Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs), panelist; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings), moderator.
►"Hot Topics in GATS and Human Rights": Jane Kelsey (Auckland) and Marion Panizzon (World Trade Institute), panelists.
►"Teaching International Law: Lessons from Clinical Education": Lusine Hovhannisian (Public Interest Law Initiative) and Deena Hurwitz (Virginia), panelists.

Thursday, March 25, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
► Women in International Law Interest Group Luncheon: Dinah Shelton (George Washington; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) (left), speaker.

Thursday, March 25, 1-2:30 p.m.
► "Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Modern Challenges to Use of Force Law": Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker (Pacific McGeorge) and Hina Shamsi (NYU), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell (Notre Dame), moderator.
► "Evolving Intersections Between Treaty Law and Domestic Law": IntLawGrrl Johanna E. Bond (Washington & Lee) and Mallory Stewart (State Department), panelists.

Friday, March 26, 9-10:30 a.m.
► "International Environmental Justice: Possibilities, Limits and Tensions": Deepa Badrinarayana (Chapman) and Jennifer M. Green (Minnesota), panelists.
► "Corruption and Human Rights": Leslye Obiora (Arizona), panelist.
► "International Law 2.0": Beth Simone Noveck (Office of Science and Technology) and Renee C. Redman (Iran Human Rights Documentation Center), panelists; IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Molly Beutz Land (New York), moderator.
► "New Voices II": Neha Jain (Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law), Kimberley N. Trapp (Cambridge), and IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Julie Veroff (Oxford), panelists.

Friday, March 26, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
► "Non-State Actors and the Emerging Climate Change Law Regime:" Elizabeth Burleson (South Dakota) and IntLawGrrl Naomi Roht-Arriaza (California-Hastings), panelists; Jaye Dana Ellis (McGill), moderator.
► "Updating the Restatement": Oona Hathaway (Yale) and 9th Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown (left), panelists.
► "Same or Different? Fighting Terrorists in the Bush and Obama Administrations": IntLawGrrl Diane Marie Amann (California-Davis) and Susan Baker Manning (Bingham McCutchen), panelists.

► "The Rising Use of International Law by African Judiciaries": Erika George (Utah), panelist; Angela M. Banks (William & Mary), moderator.
► "Preventing the Next Financial Crisis: Coordination and Competition in Global Finance": Barbara C. Matthews (BCM International Regulatory Analytics), panelist.

Friday, March 26, 12:45-2:15 p.m.
► "Reform and Restructuring at International Financial Institutions": Anne-Marie Leroy (General Counsel, World Bank), panelist.
► "Theoretical Insights at the Margins of International Law: CLS Meets TWAIL": Celina Romany (Puerto Rico Bar Association), panelist; Jeanne M. Woods (Loyola-New Orleans), moderator.
► "Family, Sex, and Reproduction: Emerging Issues in International Law": Joanna N. Erdman (Toronto), Katherine Franke (Columbia), Laura Katzive (Wellspring Advisors), and Kathleen Lahey (Queen's-Ontario); Nancy Northup (Center for Reproductive Rights), moderator.
► "War and Law in Cyberspace": Eliana Davidson (Defense Department) and Robin Geiss (International Committee of the Red Cross), panelists.
► "Implications of the Global Financial Crisis on International Trade and Investment Regimes": Elizabeth Trujillo (Suffolk), panelist.

Friday, March 26, 2:30-4 p.m.
► "Bottom-Up Strategies for Survival and Resistance: Examples from Latin America and Elsewhere": Chantal Thomas (Cornell), panelist; Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol (Florida), moderator.
► "Transnational Legal Dialogue, a Human Rights-Based Hierarchy, and the Creation of Norms": Jutta Brunnée (Toronto), IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Patricia M. Wald (former Judge, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) (right, and Melissa A. Waters (Washington University), panelists; Erika de Wet (Amsterdam and Pretoria), moderator.

► "Remembering Tom Franck: What He Taught Us about the Recourse to Force": Rosalyn Higgins (former President, International Court of Justice) (far left), moderator.

► "ICSID in the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with Meg Kinnear" (Secretary-General, World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) (near left).

Friday, March 26, 4:15-5:15 p.m.

► "Hudson Medal Lecture": Medal Winner Edith Brown Weiss (Georgetown).

Friday, March 26, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

► ""Keynote": Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada

Saturday, March 27, 9-10:30 a.m.

► "The Road Forward from Copenhagen: Climate Change Policy in the 21st Century": Ann Petsonk (Environmental Defense Fund), panelist.

► "The ICC Review Conference and Changing U.S. Policy Towards the Court": Olivia Swaak-Goldman (International Criminal Court), panelist; Leila Nadya Sadat (Washington University), moderator.

► "China and East Asia on the World Stage": Deborah Brautigam (American) and Saadia Pekkanen (University of Washington), panelists; Julia Ya Qin (Wayne State), moderator.

Saturday, March 27, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

► "Advancing Women's Rights Internationally": Cathy Albisa (National Economic and Social Rights Initiative), Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin (Minnesota) and Rebecca Cook (Toronto),panelists; Kamari Maxine Clarke (Yale), moderator.

► "Treaty Bodies and Beyond: The Practice and Process of Translating International Norms into Domestic Law": Susan Deller Ross (Georgetown) and Ruth Wedgwood (John Hopkins; Human Rights Council) (right), panelists; Celia Goldman, moderator.