In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

11 Mar

Another complementarity fight is brewing, this time between the ICC and Cote d'Ivoire concerning the fate of Simone Gbagbo. In 2012, the ICC issued a warrant for her arrest, claiming that there are reasonable grounds to believe she is responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator for the crimes against humanity of murder, rape, other forms of sexual violence, and persecution. Just yesterday, however,...

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09 Mar

I'll one-up Julian's post below on Tom Cotton's letter to the leaders of Iran admonishing them that any agreement entered into today could be reversed by Obama's successor. It appears unprecedented for a group of opposition members of Congress to engage in such a communication. It may also be criminal. The 1799 Logan Act provides that: Any citizen of the United States, wherever he...

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09 Mar

Most of the US Senate's Republican membership has signed an open letter to Iran's leaders "informing" them about the nature of the U.S. constitutional system with respect to international agreements.   It is actually a very accurate statement of US foreign relations law, even if it is a little strange and potentially intrusive into the President's foreign affairs power. It...

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09 Mar

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa The International Criminal Court's Pre-Trial Chamber II decided on Monday that Sudan had failed to cooperate in its war crimes investigation of President Omar al-Bashir and it plans to inform the United Nations Security Council (see press release here). Troops from Chad and Niger have retaken two northeastern...

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09 Mar

Events The Conference of the African Association of International Law will take place in Libreville, Gabon from 29 – 31 August 2015. Deadline for submissions of abstracts: 15 March 2015. The African Association of International Law (AAIL) is pleased to announce its 2015 conference entitled: International Economic Law and Development in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. The working languages of the Conference are English and French. Submissions are welcome...

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07 Mar

This fortnight on Opinio Juris, Kristen discussed the Elders Proposal for Strengthening the UN and its proposals to change the selection process for the position of the Secretary-General Jens pointed out how the end of an armed conflict can be as legally complex as its start, and wrote about the proposed CIA reorganisation. Patryk Labuda contributed a guest post on hybrid justice in Africa Julian asked whether...

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06 Mar

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times says that John Brennan has proposed a major reorganization of the CIA that will, to a large extent, break down the deep bureaucratic divide between agency analysts and clandestine operatives. Historically, analysts engage in research and, as their name suggests, intelligence analysis. Some of that was obscure and abstract--for example writing reports on the...

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