Last month, I blogged about the Syria War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017, a bipartisan Senate bill “[t]o require a report on, and to authorize technical assistance for, accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Syria.” I praised the bill, but pointed out that Section 7(a) was drafted in such a way that it permitted the US to provide technical...
I have just finished reading the novel, in which a burned-out former US Attorney joins the ICC to investigate the disappearance, and presumed murder, of 400 Roma in Bosnia. I have always been a huge Scott Turow fan; I've read every book he's ever written, most more than once, and the best one -- the classic PRESUMED INNOCENT -- five...
[Alonso Illueca is a lawyer and adjunct Professor of law at Universidad Catolica Santa Maria La Antigua and Universidad del Istmo Panama.] On May 31, 2017, the Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (MCMFA) of the Organization of American States (OAS) will take place to consider the situation in Venezuela. This meeting was convened by the Permanent Council’s (PC)...
[caption id="attachment_33128" align="alignright" width="374"] Grand Justices of the Constitutional Court, Judiciary Yuan, Republic of China - Taiwan[/caption] In a first for Asia, Taiwan's Constitutional Court ruled today (with two dissents) that Taiwanese law limiting marriage to a man and a woman violated the Republic of China's constitutional guarantee of "equality before the law." (Taiwan is home to the exiled Republic of China government,...
[Anthea Roberts is an Associate Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University.] American exceptionalism is nothing new. Nor are debates about whether it is appropriate for US courts to look to foreign or international law, particularly when interpreting the US Constitution. Yet now-Justice Gorsuch’s recent testimony on the issue during his confirmation hearing still took my...
Big news (for international law nerds)! The full membership of the American Law Institute has approved the first three sections of the new Restatement of U.S. Foreign Relations Law (Fourth). This is the first official change to the venerable Restatement (Third) that was approved by the ALI back in 1987. Summaries of the changes to the newly approved sections on...
[Ekaterina Kopylova is a PhD candidate at MGIMO-University, Moscow, and a former Legal Assistant with the ICC Office of the Prosecutor.] On March 22, 2017, Trial Chamber VII of the International Criminal Court handed down a sentencing decision (.pdf) in the case of The Prosecutor v. Bemba, et al. – a five-accused case of first impression before the Court of the...
Last month, Just Security published a long and thoughtful post by Rebecca Ingber with the provocative title "International Law is Failing Us in Syria." The international law she is talking about is the jus ad bellum -- the illegality of unilateral humanitarian intervention (UHI) in particular. In her view, the failure of the international community to use force to end the...
AJIL Unbound has just posted the contributions to a symposium entitled "Revisiting Israel's Settlements." The contributors are all superb: Eyal Benvenisti, Pnina Sharvit Baruch, David Kretzmer, Adam Roberts, Omar M. Dajani, and Yaël Ronen. The true highlight, though, is the essay that accompanies the symposium and will be published in the next issue of the American Journal of International Law: Theodor Meron's...
Last week, Asaf Lubin offered a compelling post at Just Security wondering why Israel's repeated attacks on Hezbollah arms shipments in Syria have not received the same kind of jus ad bellum scrutiny as the US's recent attack on a Syrian airfield. Today, Charles Dunlap provides his answer on the same blog: the Israeli attacks are clearly legal, so why would anyone...
Hope our New York-area friends will be around for this one - Cardozo Law School and the ICRC are hosting an evening panel discussion: "A View from Abroad on Current Trends in Targeting, Detention and Trials." The panel will be at Cardozo Law School, 55 Fifth Avenue in New York, May 18, 6:00-7:30p.m., and features OJ's own Kevin Jon Heller,...
A great profile of an incredible man. When some people call his tireless work pursuit of the rule of law idealism, he responds that he is a realist who sees the actual progress we have made and that...
