The Passport Case is not about the power of recognition, but about whether Congress has any say in how it uses its enumerated foreign affairs powers. If Congress were to declare war on Vietnam, could the president also attack a city in Laos, saying in his book, it is in Vietnam and Congress can’t tell him otherwise?
Author Archive | Eugene Kontorovich
Northwestern Can’t Quit ASA Over Boycott Because it is Not a Member
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 22, 2013 11:58 am in Academia, Anti-Semitism, Freedom of Speech, Israel
Northwestern University recently condemned the American Studies Association boycott of Israel. Unlike some other schools that quit their institutional membership in the ASA over the boycott, Northwestern has not. Many of my Northwestern colleagues were about to start urging a similar withdrawal. Then we learned from our administration that despite being listed as in institutional […]
Northwestern University Rejects Israel Boycotts
I am proud to say Northwestern University has strongly rejected the American Studies Association and other proposed boycotts of Israel, and reaffirmed its ties to Israel institutions. The following statement was released Friday by Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro and Provost Dan Linzer (emphasis mine): Recently the membership of the American Studies Association approved a […]
Reality Law
What do Whale Wars and Sister Wives have in common? The activities and participants in both are the subjects of fairly novel federal court decisions. Most recently, the polygamy show yielded Brown v. Burnham, which we’ve written about extensively here. The whale show yielded Institute of Cetacean Research v. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, dealing with […]
Israel, Palestine, and Democracy
At Commentary, I have a new piece on the common argument that Israel must make a deal with the Palestinians to save itself as a democracy. Here is an excerpt: The “democracy” argument has become the central justification of the diplomatic process, incessantly invoked by Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli peace envoy Tzipi […]
Brown v. Buhman and Bestiality
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 16, 2013 4:16 am in Constitutional Law, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation
The Utah polygamy-rights decision is truly a courageous civil rights ruling. Most sexual liberties decisions going all the way back to Griswold v. Connecticut come at a time when the relevant practices have won very broad acceptance, especially among the educated elites. Not so with polygamy, which is quite far from the lives of the […]
How Broader Acceptance of Universal Jurisdiction Makes it Look Worse
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 15, 2013 9:03 am in Alien Tort Statute, Federal Jurisdiction, International Law
At JustSecurity, Ryan Goodman challenges the methodology of Amnesty International’s updated report of universal jurisdiction, which finds the vast majority of nations implement UJ in their legislation. Prof. Goodman argues Amnesty over-counts (see Kevin Jon Heller’s dissent). Yet even if Amnesty’s numbers are accurate, they may actually paint a dismal picture of UJ. The broader […]
Verse for Sunday
Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason. –Sir John Harington, Epigrams (1603).
Verse for Sunday: “On the Vnion”
WHEN was there contract better driven by Fate, Or celebrated with more truth of state? The world the temple was, the priest a king, The spoused pair two realms, the sea the ring. -Ben Jonson (1613). The poem was apparently occasioned by comments by James I at the opening of Parliament in 1604, following the […]
New Paper on International Criminal Court’s Jurisdiction over Israeli Settlements
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 1, 2013 3:00 pm in Global Governance/World Government, International Law, Israel, National Security, War and Armed Conflict
My paper, Israel/Palestine — The ICC’s Uncharted Territory, has just been published in the Journal of International Criminal Justice. It explains that the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction over the oft-threatened and much-discussed Palestinian referral of Israeli settlements, despite the General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member state. In brief, the relevant […]
Verse for Sunday: “U.S. 1946 Kings X”
Having invented a new Holocaust, And been the first with it to win a war, How they make haste to cry with fingers crossed, King’s X–no fairs to use it anymore! –Robert Frost, Complete Poems (1949)
Thanksgiving for Purported Pirates in Russia and the U.S.
By Eugene Kontorovich on November 28, 2013 8:00 am in Criminal Law, Federal Jurisdiction, International Law, National Security, Russia
It is a happy Thanksgiving for defendants in two very different piracy cases – the trial of Ali, a Somali education official arrested while attending an education conference in the U.S., and the crew of Greenpeace’s ship Arctic Sunrise, arrested by Russia last month while minding Russia’s business on an oil rig. I’ve written about […]
Verse for Sunday: “Spain”
The stars are dead. The animals will not look. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon. – W.H. Auden, 1937
The Obamacare Fix’s Legality, State Law and Standing
By Eugene Kontorovich on November 23, 2013 12:33 pm in Constitutional Law, Federal Jurisdiction, Health Care, Standing, State Constitutional Law
I have a piece in POLITICO discussing the constitutional problems with the ObamaCare fix, which have been previewed here before. One aspect is whether state officials can ignore ObamaCare and instead apply “The Fix.” Regardless of the discretion President Obama has, state officials do not have enforcement discretion over federal law. It is just supreme, […]
The EU Supports Exploitation of Resources in the Occupied Territories
The Occupied Sawahari Territories that is (aka Western Sahara). Global Post runs my commentary today on the European Union’s new treaty with Morocco, which does everything the EU has been claiming in its increasingly hostile recent dealings with Israel that international law forbids. The EU’s position regarding Western Sahara is consistent with its practice in […]