By Julie Inglese

Mondoweiss has reported an increase in the denial of visa requests from Israeli youth, military, and intelligence officials when attempting to enter the United States.

The State Department has begun implementing recommendations contained in a 2011 Inspector General’s report dealing with the Leahy Amendment. The “US legislation requires the mission to vet Israeli military personnel who train with US counterparts to make sure they have not committed human rights abuse.” The recent enforcement of the legislation may be why Israeli’s are being denied visas.

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April 01, 2014

By Stephen Kozey

If you are interested in a career in international arbitration, you won’t want to miss an upcoming panel discussion on Thursday, March 20, at 5:30 p.m. 

The panel will include experts from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Legal Adviser. The panelists will be discussing their experiences and providing useful professional development advice for the next generation of international arbitration lawyers. 

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March 16, 2014

By Stephen Kozey

It’s time for the fourth annual “Live from L” panel, to be held on Thursday, February 13, from noon to 2 p.m. at George Washington Law. Come out to hear what some of the most distinguished members of the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Legal Adviser (a.k.a. "L") have been up to lately and what they’re expecting for the future. 

The topics haven’t been announced yet, but click here for the topics from last year (Hint: they were all awesome).

Oh yeah, and it’s FREE for law students. $15 for everyone else.

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February 09, 2014

By Elizabeth Gibson^*

The U.S. State Department has just rolled out a new policy that should help reduce a rare form of statelessness caused by a conflict of laws related to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).

Technologies designed to help infertile couples have children have greatly improved over the past few decades. The use of egg and sperm donors as well as gestational surrogates has become increasingly common, and last month nine Swedish women made headlines for receiving womb transplants.

However, the law has often struggled to keep pace with the evolving definition of what it means to be a mother or father, especially as couples travel across borders in search of cheaper or newer procedures. In some cases, couples have used Assisted Reproductive Technology overseas only to later be told that they cannot take their newborn home because conflicting laws say the child is not their own or does not qualify for citizenship in their home country.

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February 08, 2014

By Abraham Shanedling

Concerned about the escalating situation in Central African Republic, the U.S. Secretary of State has warned that the United States is prepared to impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for the religious violence, according to Reuters. 

Last week, there were 30 deaths in just three days, according to a statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Nearly one million people have already been displaced by fighting that began when Muslim Seleka rebels took power in the majority Christian country.

Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement that the United States may impose sanctions against past and present leaders who “pursue their own selfish ends by abetting or encouraging the violence.”

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February 05, 2014

By Abraham Shanedling

The U.S. Department of State formally added Nigerian Islamist militant groups Boko Haram and its splinter group, Ansaru, as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists” last week.

Boko Haram, which has ties to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is responsible for thousands of deaths in northeast and central Nigeria over the last several years, including a 2011 suicide bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, the State Department said in a statement. Also operating in Nigeria, Ansaru was responsible for the 2013 kidnapping and execution of seven international construction workers and various attacks on Nigerian and Western targets.

The designations of Boko Haram and Ansaru under the Immigration and Nationalization Act and Executive Order 13224 now prohibit any material support to the groups and calls for the freezing of all of the organizations’ assets in the United States. Read more on the impact here.

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November 19, 2013