Ian Hurd, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, writing at preeminent international law blog Opinio Juris:

It is well known that the [U.N.] Charter forbids the use of force except as self-defense or as sanctioned by the UN Security Council. Everything else amounts to aggression and is illegal.

The issue of whether and how the U.S. and/or the rest of the world should react to the use of chemical weapons in Syria is open to debate on ethical, moral, political, and practical levels.

But it is not open to any debate from an international law perspective: the U.S. proposal, whether approved and implemented by President Obama or the Congress to which he has deferred on the decision, is prohibited generally by international law and specifically by the United Nations charter.

Deborah Pearlstein of the law blog Opinio Juris shared the statement of Michael Morell, the Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, on the film Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for and capture of Osama Bin Laden. Its interesting that he would feel compelled to comment at all, especially in a press release.

If international law interests you at all, particularly the role treaties play, you should click the link above this sentence. Professor Duncan Hollis edited The Oxford Guide to Treaties and is an expert on the topic. I’m currently in his International Law course at Temple Law and his experience and expertise make it a must-take course for anyone considering Temple Law.

Gregory Ferenstein, writing at TechCrunch about Vivek Wadhwa’s latest research:

Nearly a quarter (24.3 percent) of engineering and technology companies had at least one foreign-born founder; in Silicon Valley, it’s nearly half (43.9 percent). Nationwide, they’ve helped employ more than half a million workers (560,000) who contributed $63 billion in sales just in 2012.

Those numbers demand superlatives: they’re staggering. The common assumption is that immigrants do jobs US citizens don’t want to do. This research would seem to turn those assumptions upside-down: immigrants often do jobs for which US policy, educational institutions, and deeply-ingrained social strictures simply leave our young people unprepared.

My Citizenship and Immigration class meets twice weekly, on Monday and Wednesday evenings. It really is a fascinating class, and offers a broadened perspective on a hot political issue this election season.

One thing I’ve learned from Professor Peter Spiro (of Opinio Juris and much scholarship), and from research like Mr. Wadhwa’s, is that immigration policy is not as amenable to applause-worthy one-liners as political candidates would prefer it to be.

The angle on Mr. Wadhwa’s recent research, and Mr. Ferenstein’s TechCrunch post, is that immigrant participation in US entrepreneurialism may have peaked already. I wonder, not cynically or rhetorically, but genuinely wonder, whether the US will be able to replace them with adequately-inspired and prepared citizens of its own, and whether the nation wouldn’t benefit from incentivizing continued and increased opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike.

I don’t know what that policy direction should look like, but I think it’s worth thinking, and most importantly, talking about.