In association with the International Commission of Jurists

March 2008

03 Mar

At the heart of the Ecuadoran/ Colombian/ Venezuelan tensions, there is a dispute over the facts that has legal implications as to whether Colombia’s military action was self-defense or anticipatory self-defense (which, as many would see it, would make it aggression). As CNN explains:[Ecuadoran President Rafael] Correa told reporters in Quito that [Colombia’s Presdient Alvaro] Uribe told him the...

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03 Mar

As the Ugandan government and its rebel foes the Lords' Resistance Army have inched toward a negotiated end to their 20 year civil war, I've been blogging rather obsessively over the possibility that the ICC arrest warrants would prove decisive in preventing an end to the conflict. But there were always other reasons why a peace deal in Uganda was...

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02 Mar

This has the look of a very ugly situation developing down south. President Hugo Chávez yesterday placed Venezuela on a war footing, sending thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia after its neighbour killed a top rebel leader inside Ecuadorean territory. “Mr. Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the border with Colombia immediately - tank battalions,”...

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02 Mar

At IntLawGrrls, our colleague Naomi Norberg notes that Cuba has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Like Naomi, I believe that the decision is a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, I think that the International Herald Tribune article to which Naomi links is somewhat...

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02 Mar

Last year the British media entered into a voluntary agreement with the British Ministry of Defence to have a news blackout of Prince Harry's deployment in Afghanistan. Harry had been serving there about ten weeks when the news broke on the Drudge Report of his whereabouts. The BBC is now defending the news blackout. From the sounds...

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02 Mar

Shocking legal news out of Iraq — the Court of Cassation has reversed the conviction of Mohammed Munaf, the US citizen sentenced to death for helping kidnap three Romanian journalists in Iraq in 2005:Munaf's lawyer, Joseph Margulies, said the Iraqi Court of Cassation reversed the conviction and sentence because it could not determine the role Munaf and other defendants played...

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01 Mar

Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy has a new essay, How to Start Your Own Country in Four Easy Steps. He begins:With Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence and a host of wannabe states looking to follow its lead, you might be thinking it’s about time to set up your own country. You’ve picked out a flag, written a national anthem, even...

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01 Mar

Continuing their fractured ways — last week they failed to agree on provincial elections — Iraq's Presidency Council is still fighting over the death sentences of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Sultan Hashim Ahmad Jabburi Tai, and Hussein Rashid Mohammed. They have agreed that Chemical Ali should hang, but VP Tariq al-Hashemi continues to oppose executing the other two:Prime Minister Nouri...

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01 Mar

Kosovo's declaration of independence raised a host of interesting international legal questions that Chris, among others, explored in some very good posts and discussions. And it looks like the ICJ may get a chance to opine on this question as well. Serbia will soon take Kosovo's "illegal" declaration of independence to the International Court of Justice, Foreign Minister Vuk...

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