In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Kevin Jon Heller

01 Jun

Earlier this week, the Appeals Chamber rejected Cote d'Ivoire's challenge to the admissibility of the case against Simone Gbagbo. The challenge was based on Gbagbo's 20-year sentence for disturbing the peace, forming and organising armed gangs, and undermining state security. Like the Pre-Trial Chamber, the Appeals Chamber concluded that Gbagbo's domestic convictions failed to satisfy Art. 17's "same conduct" requirement, making...

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22 May

Last week, I made the mistake of relying on an article in Electronic Intifada about a recent speech by Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli Defense Minister. Here are the relevant paragraphs in the article: Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday said Israel would attack entire civilian neighborhoods during any future assault on Gaza or Lebanon. Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem, Yaalon...

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19 May

It's becoming an old story: the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) rejects a charged mode of liability after a confirmation hearing, so the OTP simply asks the Trial Chamber (TC) to give the defendant notice that it will consider convicting him on the basis of the rejected mode anyway. This time, the defendant is Laurent Gbagbo. The OTP initially alleged that Gbagbo is responsible for various crimes against...

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12 May

Both the liberal media and the conservative media are pulling out the fainting couches over something Jeb Bush said to Megyn Kelly during an interview on Fox News. In response to a question about whether he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 if he knew what we know now about WMDs and the like, Jeb supposedly said yes -- he would...

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06 May

Darryl is one of my very favourite international criminal law scholars. Indeed, I think he is the leading purveyor of what we might call "meta" ICL scholarship -- scholarship that is concerned less with doctrine than with the nature of ICL reasoning and rhetoric itself. His article "The Identity Crisis of International Criminal Law" is a genuine classic, and I learn from everything...

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04 May

The irreplaceable Breaking the Silence has released a new report on Operation Protective Edge -- and it's a doozy. Here are some particularly disturbing snippets from the Guardian's article on the report, which contains dozens of testimonials by past and present IDF soldiers: “[The commander] said: ‘We don’t take risks. We do not spare ammo. We unload, we use as much as...

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01 May

Massimino is the head of Human Rights First, one of the leading human-rights organisations in the US. Here is a snippet from her editorial today in the Washington Post, with which I almost completely agree: As a close observer of the U.S. government’s national security policy, I know it is better for Koh’s involvement. That’s not to say that I agreed with all...

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16 Apr

I'm one of them. Here is the text of the letter: To Whom It May Concern, A recent petition at NYU urges people to express "no confidence" in the Law School's invitation to Harold Hongju Koh to teach international human rights law this semester. We understand that this petition is motivated by Professor Koh's recent service as Legal Adviser to the U.S....

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07 Apr

Newsweek published a long article today about a petition organized by NYU students, alumni, and non-law faculty claiming that it would be "unacceptable" for Harold Koh to teach international human-rights law at the law school. Here is a snippet: While working for the Obama administration, Koh was the most public legal defender of the president’s drone strike program. Last month, a...

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06 Apr

Nearly everyone treats Palestine's membership in the ICC as a done deal; after all, the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) has accepted Palestine's accession to the Rome Statute and the OTP has publicly stated that "since Palestine was granted observer State status in the UN by the UNGA, it must be considered a 'State' for the purposes of accession." But neither the...

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02 Apr

The op-ed, which appears in today's New York Times, argues that the ICC is the most appropriate venue for prosecuting ISIS's many international crimes. I have great respect for John, who is unique among former high-ranking US government officials in his willingness to defend the ICC, but the op-ed makes a number of arguments that deserve comment. It certainly makes more...

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