In association with the International Commission of Jurists

August 2014

03 Aug

Call for Papers The Lex Mercatoria Publica Project at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg has issued a Call for Papers for a workshop on "The (Comparative) Constitutional Law of Private-Public Arbitration" to be held on 21-22 November 2014. Against the background of a rising number of arbitrations between private economic actors and public law bodies, both on the basis of contracts...

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02 Aug

This week on Opinio Juris, we had some vigorous debate on the legality of Israel's "Operation Protective Edge" in Gaza. Kevin opened the week with the question whether Israel can cut off water and electricity to Gaza, and Janina Dill raised two concerns with the IDF's practice of using warnings. Julian commented on the Joint Declaration on the Gaza Offensive signed by over 140...

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01 Aug

[Ori Pomson and Tali Kolesov Har-Oz are both teaching assistants and LL.B. candidates at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Law Faculty.]  Introduction The recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas have attracted a great deal of media and public attention. However, while a number of media reports have alluded to the legality vel non of certain actions committed by both sides, they have thus...

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01 Aug

Under any view, the privilege of combatancy is key to the basic architecture of the law of war. It stands at the fault line between domestic criminal law and International Humanitarian Law, between impermissible killing and lawful belligerency. Simply put, the privilege of combatancy transforms, almost magically, what would otherwise be an unlawful act of murder into a lawful killing...

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01 Aug

[David Benger is the Course Assistant for the Brandeis University in The Hague intensive summer school in International Criminal Law. He may be reached at dabenger [at] gmail [dot] com.] The International Criminal Court, an ostensibly purely legal organization, is nevertheless plagued by a wide variety of political pressures. For example, the attempt to balance The Court’s relationship with The African Union (widely considered to be deteriorating) and its relationship with the United States (widely considered to be improving) is an important thorn in the side of the Court’s daily operations. This post will examine the re-opening of the preliminary examination of British soldiers in Iraq through the lens of the potential political fallout of that decision. The re-opening of the preliminary examination in Iraq is not a signal of sufficient substance to appease the African anti-ICC lobby. Unless and until there are actual trials of European commanders in The Hague (not likely in the near future), the characterization of the ICC by African leaders as a neo-imperialist Western tool is not likely to dissipate based on a mere preliminary examination. With regard to the United States, however, the impact of this decision will almost certainly resonate. Though many observers of the USA-ICC relationship subscribe to the narrative of a steadily improving rapport between the two, this post will argue that this is not quite the case. In fact, the relationship between the Court and the USA is in a decidedly precarious position, and the re-opened Iraq investigation may have a decisive and damning impact on America’s potential support for The Court.
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