In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Jens David Ohlin

30 Jan

Today, the ICTY Appeals Chamber affirmed genocide convictions in the Srebrenica case, Prosecutor v. Popović et al. The full Appeals Chamber judgment is here.  The PDF document is 792 pages (including a few short dissents), which is long-ish but certainly not extraordinary by ICTY judgment standards. In my opinion, the most critical part of the judgment relates to the connection between the defendants, their Joint...

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29 Jan

News reports indicate that Jordan is engaged in frantic negotiations with the Islamic State (ISIS) over a proposed hostage swap. Jordan is apparently willing to turn over a prisoner, would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi, in exchange for ISIS releasing both a Jordanian air force pilot and a Japanese captive. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the deal appears to have collapsed. Earlier...

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16 Jan

For 10 years, Opinio Juris has served as a forum for short-form legal scholarship. Many posts were short and simple, quickly flagging a particular development or issue and bringing it to the attention of international lawyers across the globe. But other posts were far more in depth, analyzing a complex legal issue with great subtlety and persuasion. What strikes me...

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10 Dec

Right now we are locked in a complex dispute over the claims in the SSCI Torture Report that the CIA's torture program was ineffective (as well as illegal). Part of the dispute can be frustrating because I think we are conflating a number of more distinct questions when we ask whether the torture was effective or not. Consider the following article from...

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09 Dec

At long last, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has released the executive "summary" of its report into torture conducted by the CIA. The report is available here. Here are some first reactions. The nature and conditions of the interrogations are indeed horrendous. The report specifically concludes that the CIA interrogations were harsher than previously recognized and the report's allegations certainly back...

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06 Nov

Huge news coming from the White House last night and today: the President will ask Congress for specific authorization for military action against ISIS. This is a welcome development. The White House had previously argued that military action against ISIS was already authorized under the 9/11 AUMF, the Iraq AUMF, or some combination of both. None of these arguments was particularly convincing....

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04 Nov

Recent news reports indicate that the Defense Department is negotiating with members of Congress over plans to augment its Defense Intelligence Agency with a Defense Clandestine Service with about 500 undercover officers. The previous proposal had called for about 1000 officers in the clandestine service, but that proposal was met with substantial criticism. This is a major development. There are multiple...

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19 Oct

Right now, the Ebola virus is spreading across the Africa, and the ability of the most affected states – Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea – to stop and contain the virus is very much in doubt. Although only a few cases have been reported in the United States and Europe, it is clear that it will be impossible to completely...

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10 Oct

On Monday, the defense in the Al Bahlul case filed their reply brief. The case is important because it squarely presents the issue that was left hanging after Hamdan, i.e. whether the military commissions have jurisdiction to try inchoate conspiracy. It also raises the far deeper question of whether the jurisdiction of the military commissions is limited to offenses against...

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30 Sep

House Speaker John Boehner said in an interview on Sunday that ground troops may be necessary in order to stop the threat of ISIS. Although his comments were interwoven with lots of unnecessary talk of ISIS being barbarians, which I don't think is terribly helpful, I do agree with his bottom-line assessment: air power and proxy ground troops won't be enough...

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23 Sep

Today the U.S. launched airstrikes against ISIS and other extremist groups within Syrian territory. In the past, airstrikes were limited to Iraqi territory, which came with the consent of the Iraq government (and were thus legally uncontroversial from the perspective of jus ad bellum). Today's airstrikes require a sophisticated legal argument to explain the intrusion on Syria's territorial sovereignty. Samantha...

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