When I decided to leave the University of Georgia for the University of Auckland, I worried that my American colleagues would think I was crazy to abandon a tenure-track job at an excellent law school to join a law faculty in a country best known for sheep and Lord of the Rings (and the Nuclear Tests Case, to nerdy lawyers),...
The Australian has the complete text. Here are some of the juciest tidbits, with comments:b. I agree that I will not communicate with the media in any way regarding the illegal conduct alleged in the charge and the specifications or about the circumstances surrounding my capture and detention as an unlawful enemy combatant for a period of one (1)...
How happy is David Hicks today?A U.S. military tribunal sentenced Australian David Hicks Friday to seven years in prison but he will only have to serve nine months of the sentence. Hicks, who became the first war crimes convict among the hundreds of foreign captives held for years at the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism in...
The Yemeni Parliament ratified the Rome Statute yesterday, following what has been described as the most intense debate in the institution's history. Yemen is the 105th member of the ICC, and the fourth member from the League of Arab States, joining Jordan, Djibouti, and the Comoros. ...
Last October, the Lancet released a report by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health that estimated 655,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the Iraq war. Right-wingers immediately denounced the report, calling it a "fraud," and even lefty types suggested that the report's methodology was flawed, leading to inflated figures. Politicians — particularly those with a...
On Monday, Canada began its first prosecution under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act 2000, which gives Canadian courts conditional universal jurisdiction -- jurisdiction predicated on the perpetrator being present in Canada -- over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide committed anywhere in the world:A war crimes trial is underway in Canada for the first...
Thanks, Crooks & Liars, for this gem: ...
SSRN-bashing — most of it justified — has become something of a cottage industry lately. (See here, here, and here, for example.) My own gripe is a bit different: what annoys me the most about SSRN is the interminable delay between uploading a new version of an essay and having it actually replace the old one. As...
Wow. Big news:Australian David Hicks pleaded guilty to a charge of supporting terrorism on Monday before a US military tribunal. Looking somber with his hands clasped in front of him, Hicks, 31, stood beside his military lawyer who told the judge his client would not contest the charge of providing "material support for terrorism. The plea came at a hastily arranged...
Is there a war that harmed his party that Tony Blair doesn't support?British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that going to war over the Falklands Islands against Argentina 25 years ago was the "right thing to do." Blair praised the "political courage" shown by former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in assembling a task force to fight a war with...
Mohammad Al-Oraibi, the presiding judge at the Anfal trial, has ordered the arrest of one of the defense attorneys, Badie Arif Ezzat, for criminal contempt of court. The charges stem from Ezzat's criticism of the Dujail trial on Iraqi television, which Judge Al-Oraibi apparently believed was directed at the Anfal trial. Ezzat could face seven years imprisonment if...
I have posted a substantially rewritten version of my essay "Retreat from Nuremberg: The Leadership Requirement in the Crime of Aggression," which has been accepted by the European Journal of International Law. Any comments or criticisms would be most appreciated, as the final draft is due to the journal relatively soon. The abstract of the essay, which can be downloaded...
