David Kaye has an interesting compromise proposal on what to do with Qaddafi. Some argue that the new Libyan government would be legally bound to transfer Colonel Qaddafi and his associates to The Hague. Others argue that the I.C.C. must defer to Libyan authorities if they are willing and able to try Colonel Qaddafi fairly in their own courts. A better...
You saw this coming: House Republicans introduced legislation today that seeks to force major changes at the United Nations, using as leverage the threat to withhold some of the U.S.’s 22 percent contribution to the world body’s operating budget. The bill by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, would demand that the UN let countries decide how...
China has tons of disputes with its neighbors regarding borders, especially maritime borders. It has recently been embroiled in disputes with Japan and all of its Southeast Asian neighbors over various claims in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Since all relevant nations are members of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, one might...
Apropos of Kevin's post below criticizing China's new criminal procedure law amendments, it is worth noting that some Chinese legal scholars are defending the consistency of such laws with international treaties. China's draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law will further help protect human rights, and conforms rather than contradicts international conventions, legal experts in Beijing have said. The experts made the...
The NYT reports on an interesting strategy by an Italian village to avoid political oblivion. Statehood and independence! The mayor of Filettino has loftier aspirations: he wants his town in the hills east of Rome — population 598 — to become an independentstate under a monarch. “If that’s what it takes to keep the town autonomous and protect its natural resources,” said the...
Not shocking, really. Aug 29, 2011 (Voice of America News/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- Libya's rebel government said Sunday it will not extradite the Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner which killed 270 people when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Mohammed al-Alagi, the Transitional National Council's justice minister, told reporters in Tripoli that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi already has been...
This legal opinion by Oxford prof Guy Goodwin-Gill has been drawing some attention in recent days. It argues that the planned campaign to establish a Palestinian state this fall at the United Nations has a number of policy and legal pitfalls that could work against the interests of most Palestinians. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Al-Jazeera: You tackle three...
The legality of NATO's action in Libya seems to me fairly straightforward. I understand that there are some quibbles about whether NATO exceeded its mandate under the UN Security Council Resolutions. But I don't think there is a very strong case, as a question of jus ad bellum. Then again, the hard left (in the form of Dennis Kucinich) and,...
Expect to hear more of this in the next few days from the anti-Obama progressive left. NATO commanders who authorized the Libya bombing campaign should be “held accountable” to international law and hauled before the world court for civilian deaths, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Tuesday. “NATO’s top commanders may have acted under color of international law, but they are not exempt...
Let's assume that the Libyan rebels do prevail and that they end up capturing Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Does the new Libyan government have a legal obligation to turn him over to the ICC, even if they seek to try him in Libyan courts? Libya is not a member of the ICC Rome Statute, so its only obligation flows from the...
Reacting to the still-imminent fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, U.S. presidential candidate (and likely future president if you believe these polls) Mitt Romney has called for the extradition of the mastermind of Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, to the United States. The demand raises an interesting dilemma. Megrahi was tried and convicted in a special Scottish tribunal set...
Professor Sam Estreicher of NYU has an interesting and provocative new take on the "so-called proportionality principle" in the law of armed conflict that was recently published by the Chicago Journal of International Law. The focus of this article is on the so-called principle of “proportionality,” which regulates the conduct of warfare in an effort to limit harm to civilians during...
