Bush at the United Nations today:In Sudan, innocent civilians are suffering repression -- and in the Darfur region, many are losing their lives to genocide. America has responded with tough sanctions against those responsible for the violence. We've provided more than $2 billion in humanitarian and peacekeeping aid. I look forward to attending a Security Council meeting that will focus...
The Sudanese government has proven endlessly creative at resisting genuine progress toward peace, but I don't think this strategy is going to do it much good:The Sudanese government has begun filing a defamation lawsuit against Amnesty International for a report on torture against political prisoners in the country, the justice minister said Wednesday. The London-based rights group said in statement last...
The Guardian (UK) has a fascinating article today about opposition within the ICTY to the UN's purported intention to replace the chief ICTY prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, with Serge Brammertz, a deputy prosecutor at the ICC and the head of the UN commission investigating the murder of Lebanase Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. According to the article, the ICTY's...
As part of its completion strategy, the ICTR intends to transfer 41 cases to national jurisdictions. Most of the transfers will be to Rwanda, which recently eliminated the death penalty. The ICTR has already requested four such transfers: Ildephonse Hategekimana, Gaspard Kanyarukiga, Yussuf Munyakazi, and Fulgence Kayishema. The ICTR's efforts to transfer cases to other national jurisdictions, however, have...
I have posted a (long) review of Mark Drumbl's new book Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law on SSRN. The review essay is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review's annual book-review issue. Here is the abstract:In "Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law" (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Mark Drumbl provides an important and compelling critique of international criminal law's ability to...
In April, I ranted about the molasses-like slowness with which SSRN approves new or revised essays. I was assured by an SSRN executive kind enough to reply that the system was going to be improved in the near future — 24 hours for revisions, at most a couple of days for new essays. Five months have passed, long enough to...
Last week, Julian claimed that the ICC and peace in Darfur don't mix, citing a recent article from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (a wonderful organization) that noted the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, did not mention the ICC's arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun and Ali Kushayb during his first visit to the the region. It's true...
Excellent news for the Cambodia tribunal — Nuon Chea, the highest-ranking surviving member of the Khmer Rouge regime, has been arrested:An AFP correspondent saw Nuon Chea being driven from his home in northwest Cambodia and put on a helicopter. He was expected to be flown to the capital Phnom Penh. "Nuon Chea has been shown a warrant but I don't know what...
Many scholars, activists, and government officials have hailed Security Council resolution 1769, which authorizes sending 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, as a major step toward peace in the region. At least one authoritative source, however, is skeptical of the mission's potential: Romeo Dallaire, the former commander of the UN's peacekeeping force in Rwanda. Here are some excerpts from an...
Four detainees have committed suicide at Guantanamo Bay. Unfortunately, that number will likely soon increase to five:Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese national, is 250 days into a hunger strike which he began in protest over his detention without charge or trial in January 2002. But British and American doctors, who have been given exclusive access to his interview notes, say...
Given all the bad press that international peacekeepers have been getting -- justifiably -- this is a welcome change:The United Nations all-female Indian police unit in Liberia, the first such unit deployed in peacekeeping missions, not only demonstrates gender equality but also serves as an encouragement for Liberian women to become police officers themselves, the top UN envoy to the...
Ilya Somin and are I miles apart on the political spectrum, but I am in complete agreement with his critique of Posner and Vermeule's claim that "[t]he case for giving emergency power to the president rather than Congress rests on the simple point that a multi-member body cannot act quickly, decisively, and secretly." Here's a taste:It is true that...
