Early this morning an NPR commentator marked today as the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010
(U.S.Va. Jun 12, 1967), reversing convictions for violating a state ban on interracial marriage. We are a freer people.
Likewise today the historic ruling in Boumediene v. Bush.
"that the petitioners at GTMO have a constitutional right to petition for habeas corpus and that the DTA/MCA process of D.C. Circuit review from CSRT decisions is not an adequate alternative to habeas."
In addition to this ruling in Boumediene, which is filled with the results of some clarified British legal history research that warms the heart of any curator of historical materials, the court also handed down The Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel (re to determine ownership of funds allegedly misappropriated by Ferdinand Marcos
during his reign as Philippine president) and Munaf (US Citizens can challenge their detentions in Iraq).
Mark Wojcik called it a "trifecta" on the International Law Prof Blog, but his links go via Cornell and are interposed with a plea for a donation to LII. Most worthwhile, but unless you are a son or daughter of Cornell, today may not be the day you want to pause. All are posted at ScotusBlog, nudge-free.


and there will be an "Insta-Symposium" on Boumediene, as annouced at Opinio Juris.

The memo is conveniently located on the web site of the Washington Post (sometimes these are randomly on other publications' sites, and ones we in this region might not access every day) in two parts. Look at the pdfs linked in the box at the center of the article. The article itself is notable in that it quotes our own Professor Marty Lederman (also in today's New York Times), and the release of the memo has been brought into the fascinating set of postings by Yale Professor Jack Balkin over at Balkinization concerning theories of the "living Constitution."  And happily, Jack Balkin is the guest speaker at our upcoming Spring Scholarship Lunch April 16th, where his topic will be "The Blog that Ate the Law School: The Legal Academy in a Digital Age." We presume he will be building on that topic as also presented in the many discussions of blogging and scholarship at the AALS meeting in January (including his panel with Eugene Volokh and others).

The Doing Business Library, created by The World Bank, is an amazing resource which links to the official business codes of 178 countries. These include civil codes, securities, banking, tax, trade and labor laws. Users can search for laws in a single country, multiple countries or by region. Since the World Bank tries to link to the official government sites wherever possible, the laws are in the official language of the country.

On Int-law list discussion, the only place anyone could really find some of the emerging charges etc. is here:

Combatant Status Review Tribunals/Administrative Review Boards-

• http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Combatant_Tribunals.html
• http://www.defenselink.mil/news/commissions.html