This isn't going to help the Panel's credibility: The African Union (AU) high level panel on Darfur wanted to find a way out for Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir from the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment, one of the commission members said today in an interview. This week the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) endorsed a report prepared by an eight-member...
Two of our PhD students, James Parker and Rebecca Goodbourn, have asked me to post the following call for papers: Following the success of last year’s Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers’ Workshop on Methodological Approaches to Legal Scholarship, we are pleased to announce the inaugural Melbourne Forum on Doctoral Legal Research. This annual Forum will provide a space for participants to...
If you are going to be around the DC area this upcoming Tuesday morning, and are interested in the current discussion over the issues of the torture memos, my colleagues in the WCL program on law and government have organized a terrific program. Tuesday, November 3, 2009, at Washington College of Law: “The Torture Memos: Lawyers, Ethics, and the Rule of...
From the Sudan Tribune: The Sudanese government today reiterated its rejection the proposal set of an African Union (AU) to setup hybrid tribunals to try Darfur war crimes suspects. Speaking to reporters in Cairo the Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail said that Khartoum accepts the AU report “in its generalities” and the “African solution for the Darfur crisis”. Asked about the hybrid...
Clinton seems like she's been a relatively competent Secretary of State, but her take on the news that Abdullah Abdullah will not participate in Afghanistan's runoff election is truly priceless: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, traveling in Abu Dhabi, gave the administration’s only comment. “We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of...
I can't make the swearing-in on account of classes, but I wanted to offer my public congratulations to Lee Feinstein, who is being sworn in tomorrow at DOS as US Ambassador to Poland. Lee is an old friend, someone who combines first rate brains with outstanding judgment, and he is a great pick to represent the United States to an...
Having been pilloried from all sides about my insistence that Dr. Karadzic should be given more time to prepare for trial, it's important to note that I am not the only one who thinks that. Bogdan Ivanisevic, who works for the International Center for Transitional Justice -- a group that can hardly be accused of being soft on Dr. Karadzic...
H/T to Orin Kerr for pointing this out, but this week is national pro bono week. Being an international law blog, I wanted to invite readers to mention any international or transnational pro bono work they do. Me? I serve as the board chair of a nonprofit global media assistance organization, the Media Development Loan Fund. I've served in that capacity...
Reuter's reports on a speech given by Philip Alston at the UN, criticizing the US for its drone attacks or, at a minimum, for not being forthcoming on its drone attacks. Philip - a friend and well known to many OJ readers as an NYU law professor - is the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial execution. (I would be curious...
In my public international law class today I taught the material from the Dunoff, Ratner and Wippman book on the Rwandan genocide and recourse to the gacaca courts. The readings focus on Amnesty International's criticism of the gacaca system as failing to meet international minimum standards of due process for criminal defendants. Unfortunately, the book does not attempt...
What's worse than giving cookies, gold stars and smiley faces to a murderous tyrant? Being snubbed by said murderous tyrant, thereby losing the chance to give them. Maybe Scott Gration can give the cookies to the Sri Lankan government instead. I hear their feelings are being hurt by all the mean things said about them, too....
As trial-watchers know, Judge Kwon implied today that he will impose counsel on Dr. Karadzic next week if he continues to boycott the trial. It's worth noting, therefore, that nothing in the ICTY Statute or the ICTY Rules of Procedure permit the Trial Chamber to hold the trial in Dr. Karadzic's absence, even if he is represented by counsel. The...
