My book is about a political conspiracy between Reagan and his Party leadership, group of United States government officials, and top officials of Iranian government during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. A group of students took over the American Embassy in Tehran and took 53 Americans hostage. Carter Administration tried to negotiate their release, but their efforts were not successful. Reagan and his party asked the Iranians not to release the hostages until after the presidential election. In return for this favor, Reagan would supply the Iranians with arms and parts for their army and air force with huge sums of cash. The deal was made. They sabotaged Carters last desperate attempt to rescue the hostages; which in fact resulted in the crash of two helicopters killing numerous US Special Forces. It is election year and President Carter is trying diligently to get the Iranian government to force the students to release the hostages before the election. At the same time, Carter is having the Special Forces train for a possible rescue mission in case the negotiations fail. On the other side Reagan is trying hard to convince the Iranians not to release the hostages until after the election. It is do or die for the Democrats and the Republicans. Carter and the Democratic Party is pushing to get the hostages released before the election to secure the presidency for four more years. The Republicans want just the opposite. They want to stop the release before the election to secure a sure win for their nominee, Ronald Reagan..

This Liber Amicorum is published at the occasion of Judge Lucius Caflisch’s retirement from a distinguished teaching career at the Graduate Institute of International Studies of Geneva, where he served as Professor of International Law for more than three decades, and where he has also held the position of Director. It was written by his colleagues and friends, from the European Court of Human Rights, from universities all around the world, from the Swiss Foreign Affairs Ministry and many other national and international institutions. The Liber Amicorum Lucius Caflisch covers different fields in which Judge Caflisch has excelled in his various capacities, as scholar, representative of Switzerland in international conferences, legal adviser of the Swiss Foreign Affairs Ministry, counsel, registrar, arbitrator and judge. This collective work is divided into three main sections. The first section examines questions concerning human rights and international humanitarian law. The second section is devoted to the international law of spaces, including matters regarding the law of the sea, international waterways, Antarctica, and boundary and territorial issues. The third section addresses issues related to the peaceful settlement of disputes, both generally and with regard to any particular means of settlement. The contributions are in both English and French.

In 1834 Harvard dropout Richard Henry Dana Jr. became a common seaman, and soon his Two Years Before the Mast became a classic. Literary acclaim did not erase the young lawyer’s memory of floggings he witnessed aboard ship or undermine his vow to combat injustice. Jeffrey Amestoy tells the story of Dana’s determination to keep that vow.

Although seventy-eight years have passed since the Battle of the Somme was fought, interest in this, the bloodiest battle of the First World War, has never waned. Ray Westlake has collated all the information so painstakingly gathered, to produce a comprehensive compendium of the exact movements of every battalion involved in the battle. This book is invaluable not only to researchers but to all those visiting the battlefield and anxious to trace the movements of their forbears.