International Law Event 1/13 - Islamic Law & Liberal Democracy

Apologies for the break/recent drop-off in posts. In-laws, New Years, etc. made for a crazy few weeks. Anyways, things will be picking up again shortly as far as the activity here on the sight and with ILS more generally.

This is just a post to remind you all - if you didn't know already - about an event being put on by the Center for Law & Global Affairs this Thursday Night @ 6:00 PM in the Faculty Center. Entitled "Islamic Law & Liberal Democracy," it will feature Prof. Clark Lombardi from the University of Washington's School of Law. For more information, click here to see the Center's post on Daily Disclosure.

Hope to see you all there!

International Law Job Opportunity

One of the things we hope to do here with ILS is to increase student awareness of international law internship, externship, and job opportunities. With that being said, check out the following opportunity with the International Development Law Organization. The application deadline is DECEMBER 30TH (1 week from today).

New START Advice & Consent = Given

If you didn't see the news yesterday, the Senate gave their advice and consent to New START:

The Senate ratified the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, by a vote of 71 to 26, easily clearing the threshold of two-thirds of senators present as required by the Constitution for treaty ratification.

The final vote came after Senate Democrats accepted two amendments designed to placate Republicans who had qualms about the treaty. The amendments, which passed on voice votes with bipartisan support, emphasized the administration's commitment to a limited missile-defense program and to continued funding to modernize the aging U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

The amendments were to the resolution of ratification accompanying the treaty, a nonbinding statement that codifies the Senate's understanding of the pact but does not directly affect its language. Republican efforts to alter the treaty language were defeated, with supporters of the pact arguing that such changes would have forced new negotiations with Moscow and effectively killed the treaty.

Notice anything wrong with the Washington Post's headline/article? It's a common mistake - one often made by politicians and commentators alike - but a mistake nonetheless. What's the mistake? The Senate DOES NOT ratify treaties - they only provide their advice and consent to ratification. Under international law, the President (or whoever else possesses full powers for purposes of a particular treaty) ratifies a treaty. Perhaps a minor mistake of semantics, but one that nevertheless evinces a lack of understanding of international law.

To the treaty - time will tell how effective it will be, whether its verification provisions will be adequate, and whether the Russians will try to interpret it to limit America's ability to go forward with missile defense. On that issue - if the Russians objected to President Obama's contention that New START does not constrain America's missile defense capabilities, then one would have expected them to make some sort of formal objection to the letter President Obama sent the Senate. However, the Russians made no such objection - leading this observer to believe that the issue is unlikely to be a big deal moving forward.

Senate Moves Closer to Approving New START

Disregard my last post on the subject. From The Hill, New START actually looks like it's going to pass. With all the things that have gotten done over the last few weeks, maybe the Senate should always be in a lame-duck session:

Senate Democrats appear to have the nine Republican votes they need to ratify the New START nuclear treaty this week and give President Obama his third major victory of the lame-duck session....

Senate ratification requires 67 votes or the support of two-thirds of the senators present in the chamber, assuming there is a quorum.

GOP senators — including those who plan to vote for the treaty and those who say they’ll oppose it — have told The Hill they expect the resolution of ratification to pass easily.

Will New START be effective? Well, it all depends what you mean by "effectiveness." Still, even if the treaty doesn't achieve 100% compliance it will at least strengthen our relationship with Russia - a good thing by any measure, given the number of important challenges on which we'll need their help.

Weekend Roundup

Here's your first-ever weekend roundup, giving you the latest on what's happening with recently-discussed issues and other important international law matters. If there's something else you'd like to see addressed in the Roundup, leave a comment.

With that being said...

• New START: Still moving forward, but with a little less hope of passage (at least from this observer) than before. Apparently the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell has gotten some on the right side of the aisle a bit upset. Also, a few Republican amendments (which, if successful, would have required further negotiations with the Russians) to the treaty have been defeated. My thoughts? I know it's a political time in Washington and both sides have played games with a bunch of issues. Still, this one doesn't make a lot of sense - as the newfound recalcitrance has been justified in large part by the DADT repeal. If New START = good for national security before the DADT repeal, then it should still = good for national security post-DADT repeal. Unless GLBTQ folk have some sort of magical power I'm unaware of...

• UN attempts to diffuse rising tensions between North and South Korea have failed, and Kim Jong-il's crew is promising fireworks if the South goes ahead with planned military exercises. Crimes of aggression? Not according to these parties. The North claims that the recent shelling of a South Korean island came in response to aggressive actions by the South, while the South makes the same claim in regards to the planned military exercises. While Russia and China have urged Seoul to reconsider, the US supports the planned exercises as "fully consistent with South Korea's legal right to self-defense." Primer on the whole affair here...

• Lest you thought the Korean peninsula was the only place with rising tensions and international law implications, trouble is also brewing in Africa with fears of regional conflict escalating in the Ivory Coast. Tensions stemming from a highly contentious election have led to fears of violence. Thousands have begun fleeing into neighboring Liberia, disputed president Laurent Gbagbo's government has ordered the UN to leave, and several UN peacekeepers have been killed. The UN however, insists that its forces will remain in the Ivory Coast and that attacks on UN forces will be seen as "an attack on the international community."

• On a more general note, check out OpinioJuris for a discussion about the international law-implications of WikiLeaks.

Chance for a New START??

From CNN, it looks like New START has a chance of getting through before the end of the year:

The Senate will begin formal debate Thursday on a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, a top presidential priority that conservative Republicans had tried to block in the current lame-duck session of Congress.

Senators voted 66-32 to take up the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, Wednesday, which would bypass the process of reading the entire treaty out loud.

The request to read the treaty out-loud seems funny. The treaty text hasn't changed since it was signed on April 8th in Prague (8 months, 8 days ago), so it's difficult for Republicans (or anyone else for that matter) to argue that they haven't had enough time to look over the text. The treaty itself - only 17 pages. Granted, the protocol is a bit more lengthy at 165 pages, but a lot of that sets forth such groundbreaking terms as "aircraft" (in case you were wondering, "any manned machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from interaction with the air other than the interaction of the air with the Earth's surface.") and "airplane." With more than 2/3 of a year having passed since it was signed, people like DeMint, et. al. have had more than enough time to read it.

It's time for the Senate to ratify New START. Strengthening our relationship with the Russians is a good thing and will increase the chance of us tackling other important national security issues.

Diplomats, TSA, and the VCDR

From India's Economic Times, an incident highlighting the intersection between between current controversies and international law:

India Thursday termed as "unacceptable" the "pat down" search Indian ambassador Meera Shankar was subjected to in the US, the second time in three months, and said it will take up the issue. Washington however, asserted that diplomats were not exempt from the searches even as it expressed regret and agreed to look into the incident.

Looks like the Indian Government is a little LESS than pleased that Ambassador Shankar was given "a little something extra" on her way through Jackson-Evers International Airport. As Prof. Spiro notes over at Opinio Juris, the TSA's actions arguably violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR):

"The question for diplomatic immunity experts is whether TSA pat-downs are consistent with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, article 29 of which provides:

The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on person, freedom, or dignity.

Whether or not it constitutes a violation of the VCDR, TSA might as a policy matter send the word on down the line that diplomats should get kid- (not plastic-) glove treatment at airport checkpoints."

While Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna did not explicitly reference the VCDR in his statements to The Economic Times, he did reference "certain well-established conventions, well-established practices" in support of his nation's outrage over the incident. Does the VCDR explicitly address pat-downs? The closing phrase of Art. 29 - "prevent any attack on his person, freedom, or dignity" - is quite vague, so an argument could be made both ways.

Even if Art. 29 did not address pat-down like searches at the time it was drafted, India's outrage over the incident - and other nations' response to it - would be a sign of "subsequent state practice" that could help clarify the article's ambiguous meaning. Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties such incidents are some of the most authoritative sources in treaty interpretation, behind only terms' plain meaning and contemporaneous/subsequent agreements. Finally, there is always the possibility that the outrage over the incident will turn into a norm of customary international law - provided, of course, that the standard requirements of 1) general pattern or practice and 2) sense of legal obligation are also present.

In any event, I agree with Prof. Spiro's take on things. Even if it is technically TSA policy to subject diplomats to pat-downs, the better course of action would be to exempt such persons. Doing so would seem to comport with the spirit and purpose of the VCDR and help the United States maintain a positive relationship with India. Furthermore, the problem would appear to be one that could be solved simply by education - airport officials would be much less likely to cause international incidents.

10% of Muslims are Terrorists

Here is a response by Fareed Zakaria to a statistic that Glenn Beck offered on his radio show last week. The international world would be very different if 10% of Muslims were terrorists.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/12/fareed-zakaria-glenn-beck-wrong-about-10-percent-muslims-being-terrorists/?iref=allsearch

President's Message

Thanks for checking out the blog! We've got some exciting things planned for the International Law Society this next semester. In addition to our bi-weekly, lunchtime meetings, we will be holding several "International Law Movie Nights." We haven't decided what night of the week we'll be holding these, but each will tie in with the topic of the lunchtime speaker. For example, one week we'll have a speaker talk about the Rwandan genocide and the ICTR, and then we'll have an International Law Movie Night where we'll watch Hotel Rwanda. These will be open to both students and the public and will serve as a great way to, as ILS' purpose states "increase the awareness of and passion for" international law.

I've also been impressed with the enthusiasm the law school's student body has shown for international law. We had an amazing turnout at our organizational meeting this past semester, and people have really stepped up to the plate for officer positions. All of this gives me confidence that the International Law Society will be at ASU for a long time to come. If you're interested in finding out more about the officers and their vision for ILS, navigate to the "Officers" page. In the coming weeks each should be posting a short introductory message letting you know a little about their vision and passion for international law.

If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas on who you'd like to come speak or how best to proceed, please feel free to send ILS an e-mail at azstate.ils@gmail.com.

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the official blog of Arizona State's International Law Society.  Like the Society itself, this site is still under construction but will be up and running soon.  When fully functioning it will include a wide-range of int'l law-related materials, including the following:

1) Articles about current international law-related issues.

2) Information about upcoming ILS-sponsored events.

3) Profiles of ILS officers.

4) Links to student-created outlines for ASU's int'l law classes.

5) Links to profiles of ASU faculty members teaching an int'l law-related class, as well as a list of those classes.

Those are just a few of ideas, so check back soon to see what the International Law Society is up to!