Thursday, September 30, 2010

Dictum of the Day, or Woland in Peace Palace

It seems our response may have had some effect: suddenly and noiselessly, a bit like one of those houses that suddenly disappears in the extraordinarily wonderful novel that is The Master and Margarita, the arguments just magically “collapsed, [and] nothing was left”. The only thing that was missing yesterday, to paraphrase Mr. Bulgakov, was the trademark “cloud of black smoke” there was none. The magical consequence is that my speech this morning can be a great deal shorter than it was originally expected to be.

Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation), International Court of Justice, Phillipe Sands, Oral Argument for Georgia, 14 September 2010, para. 3.

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