The Legal Research Society

Well perhaps not quite. But yesterday’s decision by the US Supreme Court, revoking the Court’s decision from April this year on the right of detainees at the Guantanamo Detention Centre to have hebaeus corpus cases heard in Federal Courts, can hardly be underestimated. The decision follows a prolonged battle in US courts over the rights of Guantanamo detainees under US law and the legality of the military tribunals set up by the US administration to prosecute so-called “enemy combatants”. Under US law enacted as part of the “war against terror” prisoners in US detention classed as “unlawful enemy combatants” can only be trialed by the special military tribunals set up by the US administration. The military tribunals operate, as the name implies, in the military framework and curb a number of proceedings known from the civil courts. However, this was challenged in February this year by one of the detainees awaiting trial at the Guantanamo camp in an Appeals Court in the District of Colu

Although this is a blog for legal research, yesterday’s big news from the world of politics merits some attention among the posts of international law, US health care and valuable tips on publishing academic articles. Yesterday, Gordon Brown took the reign, finally some would say, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Though the date for Blair’s departure was known for quite a while, yesterday’s change of leader was rightly awaited in anticipation. While Blair swiftly jetted off to the Middle East in an attempt to remedy his tarnished reputation in light of the failed Iraq invasion, his wife Cherie Blair wasted no time in taking a swipe at the UK press (and thus following her husband’s recent, and arguably well-deserved, shot at the same press corps), Brown wasted no time in forming his first Cabinet. Brown’s Cabinet contains a few interesting faces in, for example, the youngest Foreign Secretary since 1977 David Milibrand (who is joined in the Cabinet by his brother Ed as Cabinet O

In his latest film, SiCKO, Michael Moore, the acclaimed film maker examines the ailing US health care industry. Rather than examining the challenges of the nearly 1 in 5 Americans who are uninsured, Moore focuses instead on the 250 million Americans who have health insurance coverage. Even those with insurance are not guaranteed health care as evidenced by the cases of several “ordinary Americans” whose lives have been dramatically and often tragically affected by the bureaucratic red tape of the insurance industry. Moore profiles a cross-section of tactics utilized by the for-profit insurance industry including denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions and failure to secure pre-authorization for emergency services. Moore squarely places the blame for the broken state of American health care at the feet of the US government; attributing its causes to two factors: profit and fear. First and perhaps more simply, health care goods and services have historically been treat

At least 200,000 people have died in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, and perhaps another 2.5 million have been displaced. The West has been roundly criticized for failure to act. The question becomes though, how best to intervene in what is essentially a civil war, in which the Chinese and Russians are arming the Sudanese government? There is an interesting debate going on over at Opinio Juris on whether international law promotes or impedes the process to end the bloodshed in Darfur. Julian Ku thinks international law makes a solution to the crisis harder, not easier. As he says: notice how international law acts in ways that make a solution to this crisis harder, not easier, to achieve. An effective outside intervention by Western military powers (e.g. the U.S., U.K., France) is probably illegal (say most international lawyers) unless China and Russia consent via the Security Council or Sudan consents (don't hold your breath). So we instead get a hodgepodge of limited pea

On behalf of Jernej I would like to thank everybody who came along and took part in the Law Section of the CASS conference this year. It was a fun event largely because the presentations were excellent. We had a lot of interesting topics to discuss on things such as soft law and human rights, so if folks want to continue the discussion, the comments here are a great place to do that.

MOVING FORWARD CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Wednesday 13 June 2007 08:45 - 09:15 Registration, tea & coffee ( Linklater Rooms, Elphinstone Hall ) 09:15 – 10.30 Opening Plenary Session 1 The PhD Experience 10.30 – 11.00 Tea & Coffee (Linklater Rooms, Elphinstone Hall) 11:00 Start of Law Sessions Welcome address, prof. Christopher W. Gane , Vice-principal of University of Aberdeen 11:20 - 13:00 Morning Panel Law 1 Session (New Kings Lecture Room 10) – Trademarks and Trade in Europe , Moderator: Gerd Koehler, University of Aberdeen Jamil Ammar , University of Edinburgh ( Scotland ) Trademarks Efficiency or Economic Efficiency? The Interaction between Law and Technology Iona Marinova , University of Aberdeen ( Scotland ) Bifurcation of parallel trade regulation in the European community. The legal status of parallel trade from a trademark point of view and the proposition for a move to a rule

Things are looking increasingly grim in Iraq these days, with the US considering arming Sunni groups that once attacked coalition forces. Soon after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, western journalists visited the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad and reported incorrectly that 170,000 objects were stolen from the museum. More careful reporting soon accurately placed that number far lower, and current estimates seem to indicate that a still alarming 3,000 objects are still missing, with about 47 main exhibition artifacts missing. Thus I always maintain a healthy bit of skepticism when articles come out detailing the loss of archaeological context and heritage in Iraq. The article last Friday by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian titled "In Iraq's four-year looting frenzy, the allies have become the vandals" even viewed skeptically reveals some very troubling things about the way archaeological sites are treated by coalition forces. The catalyst for the discussion was a presentation by Abb

Publish or perish. That's the conventional wisdom at least. Publishing shorter articles is a terrific way for junior academics to promote yourself and your research, and making forthcoming and accepted articles available electronically is a shrewd way to get comments. If you cite important scholars in your field, its also a good idea to send them an email/letter letting them know you have a forthcoming article, and that you agreed or disagreed with their position. I've added a link at the right where you can view papers from contributors to the Legal Research Society on the Social Science Research Network. If others have articles available on SSRN, please let me know and we can add more links. You can read my forthcoming article which will be published in the Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal titled "Why Federal Criminal Penalties for Dealing in Illicit Cultural Property are Ineffective, and a Pragmatic Alternative" . Here is an abstract: I hope to contri

Not much is usually written about international sports law, however, last months have been immensely rich in controversial cases from the many diffrent sports. It is also international football that has witnessed several troublesome developments in past weeks. Many of these developments concern recent decisions by regional and international football bodies. This post examines recent decision delivered by FIFA concerning prohibition of international footbal matches at high altitude. Let us explain firstly what FIFA is? The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is an association governed by Swiss law founded in 1904 and based in Zurich. It has 208 member football associations and its goal, enshrined in its Statutes, is the constant improvement of football. It is composed of a Congress,Executive Committee, General Secretariat and committees. Some days ago FIFA delivered a decision prohibiting on international football matches being played at venues above altitudes o

Following last week's post on the continuing US opposition to tackling global warming, it now appears that the Bush administration has had a change of heart (not that we think our posts and opinions in the Legal Research Society have anything to do with it). On Thursday, President Bush announced plans to lead negotiations together with the world’s leading 15 greenhouse gas emitters to discuss ‘targets’ for tackling global warming by the end of 2008. The news follows strong US opposition to plans marshaled by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, supported by the majority of the G8 countries, aimed at cutting emission of greenhouse gasses by 50 per cent by 2050. So far little information is available on what President Bush has in mind but he has emphasised that any plans will, unlike the current Kyoto Protocol, include developing countries like India and China. This is in itself a welcomed initiative and alongside the change of opinion the President’s pledge bodes well for the attemp