Free Republic

This Tuesday the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases that should interest every U.S. company doing business overseas, and especially those operating in the developing world. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. and Mohamed v. Palestinian Authority raise the issue of whether corporations can be sued for violations of international law under U.S. statutes, including the Alien Tort Statute. The ATS was adopted in 1789 by the first U.S. Congress. The statute permits suits by aliens in federal courts for certain alleged international-law violations, but it was moribund for nearly 200 years and its purpose remains opaque. The...

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are entering negotiations over — or seeking ratification of — five treaties that could radically limit our national sovereignty and the reach of our democratic institutions. Particularly scary is that the treaties, once signed and ratified, have the same status as constitutional law and cannot be altered or eclipsed by Congress or state legislatures. And their provisions must be enforced by U.S. courts. Those who wish to preserve our sovereignty and democratic control over our future must rally to block these treaties, either by pressing Obama and

A US federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit seeking to hold Rio Tinto responsible for human rights violations and thousands of deaths linked to a Bougainville copper and gold mine it once ran. The appeals court has returned the case to US District Judge Margaret Morrow in Los Angeles for further proceedings. But some dissenting judges protested against allowing a lawsuit to proceed in federal courts brought by non-US residents against non-US companies such as Rio Tinto, which has corporate offices in the UK and Australia. The case is one of several in which non-US residents seek to hold...

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accused the United States of breaking international law when Texas executed Mexican citizen Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. Thursday night. The execution sparked controversy after the International Court of Justice in the Hague determined in 2004 that the U.S. had violated the Vienna Convention when officials failed to tell foreign inmates about their right to visit their consular officials. But the U.S. Supreme Court voted yesterday that Texas could go ahead with the execution, even over the objection of President Barack Obama. Pillay said today the execution "raises particular legal concerns" about the...

An illegal immigrant has no right to free medical intervention or ongoing health care under the Charter of Rights, the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled in a precedent-setting decision.

Amnesty International today asked the US and Pakistani authorities to clarify aspects of the operation in Abbottabad in which Osama bin Laden was killed. The organization specifically requested information on the status and whereabouts of those who were with bin Laden and the circumstances of his killing. “We are seeking information from the US and Pakistani authorities about how many people were in the compound at the time of the operation, what happened to them and specifically what is the status and current whereabouts of the survivors,” said Claudio Cordone, Senior Director at Amnesty International. According to reports attributed to...

Since the death of Osama bin Laden Sunday, administration officials have repeatedly said that the mission to kill him complied with domestic and international law. "Let me make something very clear," Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Wednesday, "the operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed was lawful. He was the head of al Qaeda, an organization that conducted the attacks of Sept. 11. He admitted his involvement." But as new details of the operation emerge, and some Pakistani leaders protest the U.S. incursion into their state, legal experts say the administration must more forcefully lay out its...

Obama doesn’t tell you what he’s thinking. He keeps his motives to himself. Cherished long-term ideological goals are advanced as pragmatic fixes to concrete problems in the present. Now we’re seeing the familiar domestic pattern in foreign policy as well. Few Americans realize that Obama has had a longstanding interest in multilateral efforts to combat war crimes and genocide. Obama would like to see a more constraining international legal regime on war crimes, even at the cost of national sovereignty, not to mention the blood and treasure of the countries doing the enforcing. In general, Obama has said little about...

The war declared on struggling middle class taxpayers by greedy Public Union bosses has escalated now to the point that supporters of raping more tax dollars from an impoverished middle class have turned to “International Law,” once again ignoring America’s sovereignty and our constitution, placing United Nations mandates in their place. Ordinarily I’d ignore such efforts to circumvent our sovereignty and rely instead on our own constitution, but since greedy public union bosses and those they have misled wish to take this avenue, I’ll play along. They may not like that too much, though. I first saw this tactic of...

A temporary restraining order has been issued to block a state constitutional amendment that prohibits state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases. U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange handed down the ruling this morning in Oklahoma City following a brief hearing.

A court in the United Arab Emirates says a man is permitted under Islamic law to physically discipline his wife and children as long as he leaves no marks and has tried other methods of punishment, the country's top court ruled. The ruling came in the case of a man who slapped his wife and slapped and kicked his 23-year-old daughter, the document said. The daughter had bruises on her right hand and right knee and the wife had injuries to her lower lip and teeth, the ruling said. The court ruled that a man has the right to punish...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R- S.C.) said that if President Barack Obama gets his way and the Senate ratifies the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the precedent would be set to place parental rights under the jurisdiction of the international community. “We believe we need to take clear action here in Congress to protect the rights of parents to raise their children," DeMint said at a Wednesday panel discussion. "This treaty would, in fact, establish a precedent that those rights have been given over to the international community." DeMint is lead sponsor of S. Res. 519, a...

Mexico City, Mexico, Aug 5, 2010 / 05:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite heavy opposition from various organizations defending traditional marriage, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that same-sex “marriage” in the country's capital city is constitutional. According to the Associated Press, the court's justices acknowledged that while the constitution protects the family, it does not define what a "family" is. The 8-2 vote went against an appeal by Mexico's attorney general challenging the constitutionality of the city's law allowing gay “marriage.” The law went into effect on March 4 of this year. Next Monday the court will debate whether the law...

What Would Elena Do? Emily Jaroma, July 15, 2010 The debate regarding whether international law should play a contributing role in deciding Supreme Court cases has sparked national interest and concern. This is due to the fact that there has been a recent tendency by Supreme Court Justices to refer to or cite international law when dealing with a domestic court case. This leads many to ask, What is Elena Kagan’s view on the role of international law in domestic cases? The very fact that President Obama appointed Kagan to serve on the Supreme Court does provide some information on...

The organizers of the Gaza-bound flotilla that Israel intercepted last Monday morning accused Israel of "war crimes," blaming it for the deaths that occurred aboard one of the six ships. Yet Israel acted within international law. It may enforce international sanctions when Hamas continues to import weapons for use against civilians. It may board ships in international waters if they refuse to stop. Its soldiers may fire if met with deadly force. There were war crimes committed last Monday, however: They were committed by those who organized and sponsored the flotilla itself. International law forbids using civilians to achieve a...

As most conservative writers have pointed out many times, the present Administration exhibits a shocking disregard and near-contempt for the U.S. Constitution. Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, is a perfect case in point. (Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan walks towards the office of Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)). While Dean of the Harvard Law School Kagan did not require students to study the U.S. Constitution at all. Instead, she required that they study foreign and international law. The implications of such a mindset are enormous.

So exactly what is the law on crimes in the open ocean? What recourse do nations/individuals have against piracy, etc. on the oceans?

The principle of Universal Jurisdiction has been, and continues to be, an important tool in the legal practitioner’s tool box and an essential means of achieving justice for international crimes. Unfortunately, the principle has also become a political device employed for far more cynical means and far less noble purposes. In the early 1960’s, Israel was one of the first states to invoke the principle of universal jurisdiction in its groundbreaking trial against Adolf Eichmann, the “architect of the Holocaust”.

The United Nations and Interpol, the global police organization, are poised to become partners in fighting crime by jointly creating an international police force. Interpol, which is financed by 187 member nations, says the "global police doctrine" would allow the deployment of peacekeepers among rogue nations plagued by war and organized crime. "We have a visionary model," said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble, who described the joint partnership "an alliance of all nations." He suggested that by relying on Interpol's resources, the United Nations would be able to handle international conflicts and transnational crime far better.

*NEA conference call full audio and transcript here** Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally? That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?” The question still requires debate but the facts do not. The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable. But some have claimed that...