Harvard ILJ

Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, recently released a statement describing the progress of the Doha Round and outlining plans for the continued negotiations in Geneva. Overall, Lamy reports that while the negotiations remain committed to their ambitions, there has been little tangible progress in the past week.  He also emphasizes that ambitions [...]

The legality of the U.S. Government’s use of unmanned Predator drones to target militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan has recently come under increasing scrutiny, as a prominent U.N. representative called the American refusal to discuss the program “untenable”. Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, made his remarks while reiterating [...]

On Thursday (10/29), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) released its ruling on three cases concerning disappearances in Chechnya. In one of the cases, the victim, Mayrudin Khantiyev, had been abducted from his home by a group of masked men. In the other two cases, the victims, Yusup Satabayev and Kazbek Vakhayev, disappeared while [...]

In Case C-386/08, (1) Advocate General(2) Bot delivered his advisory opinion to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Bot argues that the ECJ should not extend full faith and credit (3) to the Israeli customs authorities as to the authenticity of documents of origin of goods from the occupied territories. As a consequence, Bot would [...]

Turkey is having a bad day at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Court ruled in one decision that Turkey was liable for wrongful death of a Cypriot who in uniform but unarmed crossed the U.N. Buffer zone. Likewise, the Court ruled that Turkish censorship of Turkish newspapers was too restrictive. In Kallis [...]

The Obama Justice Department has released four memos detailing the harsh techniques used on some detainees during the Bush administration.  The memos – three written in 2005 and another in 2002 – give legal support for various coercive techniques and conclude that the CIA’s methods were not “cruel, inhuman or degrading” under international law. However, [...]

Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido has declined to open an investigation in Spain’s National Court into whether six top Bush Administration officials sanctioned torture at Guantanamo Bay. While Spain’s courts do have jurisdiction in the case of war crimes and torture under the doctrine of “universal justice.”  Conde-Pumpido declared that the most proper forum for [...]

President Obama recently met as many as 34 leaders of democratically elected nations of the Western Hemisphere to consider and discuss an array of issues that directly affect them.  These issues include the current economic crisis, energy issues, climate change, and personal security. This meeting was held at the Summit of the Americas from April [...]

On Thursday April 9, the French National Assembly rejected an Internet piracy bill that punished repeat illegal downloaders. The bill won preliminary parliamentary approval but was eventually defeated by a vote of 21-15. Under the bill, a first time offense of downloading illegal material would be punished by a warning and a second time offense [...]

On Wednesdsay, current Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora’s government agreed to hand over relevant case files to the U.N.’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon.  The tribunal convened last month to investigate the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The tribunal may now request the transfer of the suspects–four Lebanese generals–to U.N. custody. Initial reports [...]

On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced advances in Iran’s nuclear power productions capabilities including two new types of centrifuges and a nuclear fuel production plant. Ahmadinejad stated that Iranian nuclear authorities “have announced that the various cycles of nuclear fuel management are in our grasp in a comprehensive and domestically produced way.” The head [...]

A court in Russia ruled in February against Telenor, a Norwegian telecom company, in favor of a Russian mobile-phone company, Vimpelcom. The court held that Telenor had caused Vimpelcom a loss of $1.7 billion when it delayed the company’s move into the Ukranian market. As a result, the court froze Telenor’s 29.9% stake in Vimpelcom [...]