On May 19, the Legal Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office held their 2nd Annual International Law Lecture. The lecture was delivered by Peter Maurer, the President of the ICRC, who spoke on "War, Protection and the Law: The ICRC's approach to International Humanitarian Law." More information about the speech is available at EJIL: Talk!, but I thought it...
One of the great advantages of being a legal academic is the ability to get involved in actual litigation. I have consulted on a number of cases at the ICTY, ICTR, and ICC over the years, most obviously serving as one of Radovan Karadzic's legal associates, but it's been a while, and I've been itching to get back in the game. So I...
Colum Lynch reports today at FP.com that the United States is pushing for the creation of a hybrid international criminal tribunal for Syria by...
Just a reminder to readers: the ICRC's phenomenal database of customary international humanitarian law is available for free online -- and includes a great deal of information that is not available in the two printed volumes. Here is the ICRC's description: Today, the ICRC has made available on its online, free of charge Customary IHL database an update of State practice...
Germain Katanga will be sentenced tomorrow, having been convicted of crimes on the basis of an uncharged, unlitigated mode of participation that the Pre-Trial Chamber assured the defence would not be at issue in the trial and that the Trial Chamber first mentioned more than six months after the 30-month trial ended. The Trial Judgment is a horrorshow, replete with statements...
As I've noted before, Ukraine's Constitutional Court has held that the Ukraine cannot ratify the Rome Statute because -- in the words of the ICRC -- "the administration of justice is the exclusive competence of the courts and...
There are many reasons to be skeptical of the Security Council referring the situation in Syria to the ICC, not the least of which is that an ICC investigation is unlikely to accomplish anything given the ongoing conflict. (One that Assad is almost certainly going to win.) But just in case that's not enough, take a gander at this provision...
We have a new challenger in the competition for worst decision by a military commission ever! Judge Pohl has now issued an order in al-Nashiri concluding that Charge IX, Hijacking or Hazarding a Vessel or Aircraft, states a violation of the international laws of war. Here is the definition of that "war crime," 10 U.S.C. § 950t(23): (23) Hijacking or hazarding a vessel or aircraft.— Any person...
I argued more than three years ago that the US decision to prosecute Abd al-Rahim Abdul al-Nashiri in a military commission was illegitimate, because the attack on the USS Cole did not take place during an armed conflict. (I also pointed out that al-Nashiri was systematically tortured, including through the use of mock executions and waterboarding.) Peter Margulies takes a...
I've been remiss in my blogging lately for a variety of reasons, but I can't let pass two interrelated decisions by Pre-Trial Chamber II (sitting as a single judge) in the criminal proceedings against Aimé Kilolo Musamba and Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo -- Bemba's lead defence attorney and case manager, respectively. The two men, who are currently in custody, are accused of...
As readers no doubt know, Ukraine has accepted the ICC's jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis for acts committed between 21 November 2013 and 22 February 2014. The self-referral has already led to a good deal of intelligent commentary -- see, for example, Mark Leon Goldberg's discussion of the politics of an ICC investigation here and Mark Kersten's convincing argument that Russia...
I fully concur with Julian's recent post about the United Nations Headquarters Agreement. There is no question that the US decision to deny Aboutalebi a visa violates the Agreement itself. But I've seen suggestions, most notably by my friend John Bellinger, that the US is not violating domestic US law because the 1947 United Nations Headquarters Agreement Act (scroll down) contains a "security...
