Twenty years after the Rwandan Genocide

By Scott Straus
We are now entering the month of April 2014—a time for reflection, empathy, and understanding for anyone in or involved with Rwanda. Twenty years ago, Rwandan political and military leaders initiated a series of actions that quickly turned into one of the 20th century’s greatest mass violations of human rights. As we commemorate the genocide, our empathy needs to extend first to survivors and victims. Many families were destroyed in the genocide.

World Art Day photography contest

By Victoria Davis
World Art Day is coming up on 15 April. We’re celebrating with some forthcoming blog posts, select free journal and online product articles, and a photography competition. We also invite you to celebrate with us by submitting your own art to our Street Photography Contest.

Five jazz concerts I wish I had been at

By Gabriel Solis

Most people who have listened to jazz for very long have a list in their minds of the best live performances they’ve ever been to. I know I do. I remember with particular fondness a performance by Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson that I saw in the early 1980s in Modesto, California that was a benefit for local jazz musician and DJ Mel Williams’s Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation. It wasn’t so much that it was a groundbreaking concert as such—though I still remember how tight and in-the-pocket his band swung—but it was one of the first I ever went to.

10 things you didn’t know about Parkinson’s Disease

By Charley James
Did you know that 7-13 April is Parkinson’s Awareness Week 2014? To mark the occasion, here are 10 facts you might not have known about Parkinson’s Disease. Go on, improve your awareness!

Make the tax system safe for interstate telecommuting: pass H.R. 4085

By Edward Zelinsky
Telecommuting benefits employers, employees, and society at large. Telecommuting expands work opportunities for the disabled, for those who live far from major metropolitan areas, and for the parents of young children who value the ability to work at home.

A brief history of ethnic violence in Rwanda and Africa’s Great Lakes region

By J. J. Carney
Although the 1994 genocide in Rwanda has garnered the most scholarly and popular attention – and rightfully so – it did not emerge out of a vacuum. As the world commemorates the 20th anniversary of the genocide, it is important to locate this epochal humanitarian tragedy within a broader historical and regional perspective.

Challenges to the effectiveness of international law

For the first time in its history, the American Society of International Law (ASIL) is partnering with the American Branch of the International Law Association (ILA) to combine each organization’s major conference into an extraordinary joint event. Oxford University Press is looking forward to exhibiting at the conference taking place in Washington on 7-12 April 2014.

Two difficult roads from empire

By Martin Thomas
Britain’s impending withdrawal from Afghanistan and France’s recent dispatch of troops to the troubled Central African Republic are but the latest indicators of a long-standing pattern. Since 1945 most British and French overseas security operations have taken place in places with current or past empire connections.

Persecution in medicine

By Arpan Banerjee
Recently I had the good fortune to see an excellent production of Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Brecht has a tenuous connection with the medical profession: he registered in 1917 to attend a medical course in Munich and found himself drafted into the army, serving in a military VD clinic for a short while before the end of the war.

Preparing for International Council for Commercial Arbitration 2014

By Rachel Holt and Jo Wojtkowski
Oxford University Press is extremely excited to be attending the twenty-second International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) conference, to be held at the InterContinental Miami, Florida, on 6-9 April 2014. This year’s theme, Legitimacy: Myths, Realities, Challenges gives opportunity for practitioners, scholars and judges to explore the issues surrounding, what has been dubbed by some, the legitimacy crisis.

Preparing for the 2014 ASIL/ILA annual meeting

By Jo Wojtkowski
This year’s joint ASIL/ILA Annual Meeting is of historic importance for the international law community. It is the first time that ASIL and the International Law Association (ILA) have joined forces to create a single combined conference of epic proportions. According to ASIL it is “expected to be one of the largest in international law history.”

The American Noah: neolithic superhero

By William D. Romanowski Reports suggest that Hollywood’s sudden interest in Bible movies is driven by economics. Comic book superheroes may be losing their luster and the studios can mine the Bible’s “action-packed material” without having to pay licensing fees to Marvel Entertainment. Maybe this explains why director Darren Aronofsky’s pitch to studio executives was […]

Word histories: conscious uncoupling

By Simon Thomas
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin (better known as an Oscar-winning actress and the Grammy-winning lead singer of Coldplay respectively) recently announced that they would be separating. While the news of any separation is sad, we can’t deny that the report also carried some linguistic interest.

A doctrine of ‘market sovereignty’ to solve international law issues on the Internet?

By Dan Jerker B. Svantesson
One of the most prominent features of jurisdictional rules is a focus on the location of actions. For example, the extraterritorial reach of data privacy law may be decided by reference to whether there was the offering of goods or services to EU residents, in the EU.

Is Amanda Knox extraditable from the United States to Italy?

By Cherif Bassiouni

The Amanda Knox case is complex in view of Italy’s complicated procedure in matters involving serious crimes. These crimes are tried before a special court called the Court of Assizes. These courts have two professional judges and six lay judges, much like a jury in Anglo-American cases.

Philosophy and its history

By Graham Priest

If you go into a mathematics class of any university, it’s unlikely that you will find students reading Euclid. If you go into any physics class, it’s unlikely you’ll find students reading Newton. If you go into any economics class, you will probably not find students reading Keynes.