John B. Bellinger III is a partner in the international and national security law practices at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, DC. He is also Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as The Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2005–2009, as Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council at the White House from 2001–2005, and as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice from 1997–2001. Full bio »
Now sooner did I complain about the lack of editorial response to John Brennan’s speech on drones than the Washington Post has published this editorial on drone strikes in Yemen. The editorial goes on to praise Brennan’s speech and give a … Read more »
It is surprising to me that neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal has yet to run an editorial reacting to John Brennan’s extensive and thoughtful speech on drones last week.
A senior … Read more »
As I have noted previously, the Supreme Court’s March 5 order that the Kiobel case be re-briefed to address the extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute has put the Obama Administration in a difficult position if it wishes … Read more »
Last October, I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “Will Drone Strikes Become Obama’s Guantanamo?” in which I said that “the administration needs to work harder to explain and defend its use of drones as lawful … Read more »
The Special Court for Sierra Leone has convicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor of eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is the first former head of state to be tried and convicted by an international tribunal. … Read more »
Ken and Ben have recently commented on the national security speeches of Obama Administration officials, including most recently the remarks of CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston. As a former Bush Administration official who would like to encourage more bipartisanship on … Read more »
The Supreme Court just released — only seven weeks after oral argument — its decision in Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority. In an opinion by Justice Sotomayor, the Court unanimously holds that, as used in the Torture Victim Protection Act, … Read more »
I join Ben’s praise for the Attorney General’s speech.
The Administration has done a good job in the speeches by Harold Koh, Jeh Johnson, John Brennan, and now the Attorney General in laying out a comprehensive and reasonably detailed explanation of the legal principles … Read more »
In a surprising development, less than a week after last Tuesday’s oral argument in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the Supreme Court has ordered the case to be rebriefed and reargued to address the extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute. The … Read more »
On February 29, Judge Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit brought under the Torture Victim Protection Act against President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, based on a Suggestion of Immunity filed on January 13 … Read more »
In her news roundup for last Friday, Ritika briefly mentioned that a drone strike had killed four al-Shabab militants in Somalia.
The New York Times had also cursorily mentioned the strike in this short AP report on page A5 of … Read more »
The narrow question presented in the Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum case is whether corporations may be held liable for violations of international law under the Alien Tort Statute. But during this morning’s Supreme Court argument, Justices Kennedy, Roberts, and … Read more »
The Kiobel case will be argued next Tuesday before the Supreme Court. I have an op-ed in today’s Washington Post (headlined in the print edition “A Noble Cause That Goes Too Far”) about the foreign policy tensions caused by extraterritorial … Read more »
The Governments of Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands have filed amicus briefs in support of Shell Oil in the Kiobel case, in which the Supreme Court will decide whether corporations may be held liable under the Alien … Read more »
On Friday, December 30, while much of the world, human rights groups, and the press were out on holiday, the State Department without fanfare submitted the fourth U.S. periodic report required under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights … Read more »
