Legal Commentary

As some of you know from reading Leiter's blog, NYU Law prof, Joe Weiler, has been accused in France of a criminal defamation charge because he refused to take down a negative book review that appeared in the journal that he edits (the EJIL). Weiler had nice things to say about the trial's fairness but one hopes nonetheless that he is being indemnified by all the parties (that's all of us) who would benefit from a ruling in his favor, soon may it arrive. The judges are supposed to issue a verdict in a fortnight. In the meantime, you might want to check out Adam Liptak's very interesting Sidebar column in today's NYT about the trial and Weiler's seemingly mellow mood about this all.   Adam, you might recall, has done some freelancing for NYU Law in the past, so it's not entirely surprising that he would take interest in the injustice to Weiler. And I'm glad he did. The alleged victim's amazon webpage hasn't exactly benefited from the attention Liptak has focused on it.

Perhaps somewhat oddly, I owe the appearance of my first scholarly publication to Prof. Weiler, who, before he set off to NYU from HLS, cheerfully encouraged me as a 1L to write a review essay of a book on ethics and authority in international law.  I just discovered that the link I had to that essay on my website is dead, and, that may all be for the better. Nonethless, I find it sad that more than technology is frustrating the European Journal of Int'l Law and its editors these days. We all owe Prof. Weiler a substantial debt of gratitude for his principled stand regarding the fate of academic book reviewing. Thanks for hangin' tough, Joe. (And a h/t to Al Brophy, for spotlighting the Sidebar for me today.)