In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

17 Jan

[Başak Çalı is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Human Rights at the University College London] This post is the second in a series of three. Last week I suggested that comparing the Von Hannover (2) Case of 2012 and the Fatullayev Case of 2010, both of which concern reviews of freedom of expression decisions given by supreme domestic courts, is a good way of understanding the variable standard of judicial review developed by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Von Hannover Cases (1) and (2)

The Von Hannover (2) Case was the second appearance of Princess Caroline of Monaco before the Strasbourg Court, arguing that the German press had violated her right to privacy. In the first Von Hannover Case of 2004, Princess Caroline advanced the argument that given that she does not hold a public office or have any public functions, the continuous publication of pictures depicting her private life in the German press violated her right to privacy, and the German Courts had failed to protect her. In the first case, the Strasbourg Court found a violation. In the second case it did not. From Princess Caroline’s perspective, this outcome is odd. The explanation lies in how the Strasbourg Court defines its standard of judicial review of domestic courts. 
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17 Jan

A team from the IAEA is in Tehran for nuclear talks with the Iranian regime. The ICC has launched an investigation into the situation in Mali, as Western troops continue to assist Mali's government in its fight against the al-Qaeda linked rebels. The ICC press release can be found here and Jurist has more here. An al-Qaeda affiliate group is holding a group of at least 20 foreign...

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16 Jan

Okay, I'm exaggerating.  But only slightly.  As Wells Bennett notes today at Lawfare, Judge Pohl has rejected al-Nashiri's contention that the US and al-Qaeda were not engaged in hostilities (an armed conflict in IHL terms) at the time of the acts alleged in his indictment -- primarily the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 -- thereby depriving the military commission...

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16 Jan

I can’t imagine that the DOD-DOJ-DOS-DNI-CIA lawyers assigned to this one are getting much sleep these days. According to the Washington Post: The Obama administration is considering significant military backing for France’s drive against al-Qaeda-linked militants in Mali…. The loosely affiliated web of Malian militants in the country’s north includes members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). But other...

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16 Jan

The African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are becoming active sanctioners in Africa.   In the last few years, the AU and ECOWAS have applied sanctions in many African conflicts, including Mali, the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, and Guinea-Bissau.  This represents a lot of activity for the AU in particular, which is only 10...

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16 Jan

Ordinarily I would leave events posting to our regular postings, but I fell behind and wanted to flag the upcoming Friday deadline for paper proposals for the "Law and Robotics Conference." It will take place on April 8-9, 2013, at Stanford Law School (the conference follows on the highly successful law and robotics conference that took place at University of Miami...

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16 Jan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that the United States would give Afghanistan its own fleet of aerial surveillance drones and would speed up the handover of detainees held by American forces. The European Court of Human Rights has found in Eweida and Others v. The United Kingdom (ECHR court document) that British Airways discriminated against a devoutly Christian employee by making her...

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15 Jan

As Peggy noted a couple of weeks ago, the international-law blogosphere lost one of its most important collective voices when IntLawGrrls closed up shop.  Fortunately, one of the most important individual voices within IntLawGrrls is back blogging -- Diane Marie Amann, who holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at my former academic home, the University of...

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15 Jan

I argued yesterday that the Security Council cannot refer a situation to the ICC under Art. 13(b) of the Rome Statute while exempting nationals of non-States Parties from the Court's jurisdiction.  Jennifer Trahan disagrees: I primarily disagree with Kevin’s first point.  While it may be objectionable to have an exemption of nationals of non-States Parties, I actually think that the UN...

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15 Jan

A top US diplomacy team has been sent to Japan and South-Korea to douse the simmering tensions between the two nations. Facing strong electoral competition from EU skeptic parties, the Icelandic government has suspended negotiations on EU accession until after the elections in April. Navi Pillay has called for an international inquiry into widespread human rights abuses in North Korea during the past decades. Cuba has relaxed restrictions on Cuban's freedom to...

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14 Jan

My thanks to Jennifer for contributing her post, which makes the case for referring the situation in Syria to the ICC.  I don't necessarily disagree with her bottom line, but I have my hesitations.  And I want to offer a few thoughts about the idea of a referral in general. First, as Jennifer notes, the letter states that a Security Council...

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