This is probably just posturing, but it would be a rather dramatic turn of events if the IWC ended up a casualty of the vociferous Australian campaign against Japanese whaling. I see the Kiwis are trying to play mediator. The international body to control whaling worldwide could collapse if a deal cannot be reached to allow restricted commercial whaling, New Zealand's...
When the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber approved the Prosecutor's request for authority to investigate alleged "crimes against humanity" in Kenya, I didn't notice this long and powerful dissenting opinion (around p. 84) by one of the judges (Hans-Peter Kaul). The standard for authorizing an investigation is pretty easy to satisfy (at least it sounds that way to me), so the dissent...
Not a funny April Fool's Day joke, although it sort of sounds like one. Any of our readers in Coffs Harbour, NSW, please check out your window and give the Australian Federal Police a hand. THE Australian Federal Police are continuing to frantically search for an Australian accused of war crimes, after a five-year legal battle ended with the High Court...
Interesting discussion of innovative ways to deal with Haiti's long-term problems. Haiti is very close to a failed state. So it's time to think big. Here are four out of the box choices: 1) A New Haitian Constitution; 2) UN Trusteeship; 3) U.S. Protectorate; 4) U.S. annexation and status as a territory. Read the whole article. I actually think that...
This is not surprising, although I doubt they have much a legal basis to resist enforcement. Ecuadorean officials are rejecting an international arbitration tribunal's ruling that it violated international law and must pay $700 million to the ChevronCorp. President Rafael Correa's administration is analyzing options for appeal under national and international law, Attorney General Diego Garcia said in a statement Wednesday. "This new effort...
Add another African case to the ICC's docket. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has given its prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo the green light to investigate the role of senior politicians in Kenya's post-election violence that killed 1,300 Kenyans in 2008. The decision allows Mr. Ocampo to take the next step, which would be passing down indictments against senior Kenyan politicians, some...
Fascinating speech by Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. State Department on U.S. government views on counter-piracy policy. Of special interest, the U.S. may try changing the law on prosecuting pirates. How exactly to do that is a bit unclear (treaty? custom?), but it seems like a promising avenue. At least it is a new idea,...
This is just the first round of a potentially huge investor-state arbitration claim filed by Chevron against Ecuador. $700 million now, but up to $27 billion later. (For some background, see here and here about a federal court's refusal to stay one of the arbitration proceedings.). Chevron Corp (CVX.N) won a three-year-old arbitration fight against Ecuador over a commercial dispute as...
Sudan is preparing for a national election next month. It may not be the solution for Sudan, given that it is still very doubtful that there is enough cohesiveness for a genuine democratic result. Still, I wonder if the ICC's Prosecutor may be going a little far here. A day after Sudan president Omar al-Bashir threatened to cut the fingers off...
Fascinating inside baseball piece on the Obama Administration's internal debate over war on terrorism policy. It features a struggle between the State Department (Harold Koh) and the Defense Department (Jeh Johnson) with the OLC (David Barron) playing referee. The rift has been most pronounced between top lawyers in the State Department and the Pentagon, though it has also involved conflicts among career...
The long-awaited ICJ judgment on Kosovo is due out this November, according to this report. That would be pretty fast work, given the hearings were only held last December and probably involved the participation of more countries (35) filing memorials than any case in ICJ history. Still, the judgment was actually expected even earlier. Moreover, the report from Serbia suggests...
The full text of U.S. State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh's speech at ASIL can be found here. Ken has already praised it, Kevin (along with Marko Milanovic) have rejected it, and others are staying neutral or reserving judgment. Here is what I took away from the speech: The Obama Administration has now embraced the Bush Administration's position that the U.S....
