In association with the International Commission of Jurists

June 2013

19 Jun

On 11 June 2013, Judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng asked the Presidency to excuse her from the Appeals Chamber concerning the recent denial of Libya's admissibility challenge to the case against Saif Gaddafi, which Libya is appealing. Judge Monageng's request was based on her previous participation (as Presiding Judge) in the Pre-Trial Chamber's decision to issue an Arrest Warrant for Saif...

|
18 Jun

In my last post, I introduced my recent article rethinking the concept of responsibility to protect. Today, I consider how the discussion of R2P often obscures the reality of how states go about choosing to intervene by speaking of duties and responsibilities. Some commentators have expressed concern about the selective nature of R2P or about the disappointment of R2P in...

|
18 Jun

ICJ Judge Giorgio Gaja (who was also the special rapporteur on the International Law Commission for the Responsibility of International Organizations) has made the case that International Organizations have a duty to prevent.  The context was a talk he gave at the University of Amsterdam in April 2013 on the European Union and the ILC's Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. If one takes...

|
18 Jun

Brazil is experiencing its biggest wave of protests in decades over a wide variety of grievances, ahead of a range of high-profile international events in the next few years. Russia and Iran have warned against intervention in Syria and oppose the arming of Syrian rebels. Syrian President Assad has warned Europe that it will pay the price for arming the rebels in...

|
17 Jun

I have refrained from weighing in on the recent scandal at the ICTY concerning a letter written by the Danish judge, Frederik Harhoff, that accuses the President of the Tribunal, Judge Theodor Meron, of pressuring his fellow judges into acquitting high-profile defendants such as Gotovina and Perisic. I have done so not because the scandal isn't worth mentioning, but because...

|
17 Jun

The members of the G8 are meeting in Northern Ireland this week. The meeting takes place amidst revelations that US and UK intelligence agencies spied on their allies during G20 meetings in London in 2009. The latest round of climate change talks concluded in Bonn on Friday. Earth Negotiations Bulletin has a detailed summary here. The Armed Groups and International Law Blog...

|
16 Jun

Calls for Papers The Antonio Cassese Initiative for Justice, Peace and Humanity is inviting students and young professionals born after July 1, 1983 to hand in an abstract on a subject dealing with new perspectives in international criminal law. The abstract should be submitted by July 1, 2013 and should be limited to 400 words. Five abstracts will be selected, setting...

|
15 Jun

This week on Opinio Juris, there was a lot of news to cover with NSA leak and the US administration's decision to arm Syrian rebels. On the first, Julian thought Hong Kong was a dumb choice of refuge for the NSA leaker. Chris dug deeper into domestic data-mining with earlier stories about the NSA's activities. Peter addressed the position of expat...

|
14 Jun

The White House’s recent statement that it would begin supplying Syrian rebels with arms demonstrates how military assistance and intervention remain a choice of states rather than an obligation. Recent events confirm the arguments I make in a recent article The Choice to Protect: Rethinking Responsibility for Humanitarian Intervention. I am pleased to be guest blogging about this topic over...

|
14 Jun

Opinio Juris is pleased to welcome Professor Neomi Rao of George Mason University School of Law as guest-blogger for the next week. With the Syria crisis re-emerging as a possible flashpoint for military intervention, we thought it would be interesting for Professor Rao to discuss her recent work on the status and impact of the "Responsibility to Protect" principle that is...

|