In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

19 Aug

I have been negligent in failing to post on two excellent assessments of the recent ICC Review Conference in Kampala and its ultimate decision on aggression.  Both assessments (one by Heritage's Brett Schaefer and the other by George Mason's Jeremy Rabkin) give the Obama Administration some credit for limiting the damage to U.S. interests at Kampala.  But both ultimately conclude...

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19 Aug

Dave has kindly sent another post on piracy.  Here it is. Kevin graciously offered me the chance to respond to his contrasting reading of the logic of Judge Jackson’s decision dismissing the piracy charge. But since we both reach the same ultimate conclusion—that the correct legal definition of piracy should be that contained in the 1958 High Seas Treaty/1982 UN Convention...

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19 Aug

I have to respectfully disagree with Dave's interpretation of Judge Jackson's decision.  The decision is almost certainly incorrect from the standpoint of the law of nations; as Dave rightly points out, the definition of piracy in the High Seas Convention and in UNCLOS likely represents the customary standard.  But I think Judge Jackson's decision makes complete sense given the US's...

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18 Aug

[We are pleased to have David Glazier, a professor of law at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, share his thoughts on the U.S. District Court's recent interpretation of the piracy statute in U.S. v. Said] As I read Judge Jackson’s decision, the crux of his holding boils down to the following syllogism: (1) Federal criminal statutes must be interpreted according to the...

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17 Aug

In the first U.S. court opinion on piracy since 1820, a U.S. judge in Norfolk, Virginia has dismissed piracy charges against Somali defendants in United States v. Said. The Court held that attempted piracy is not piracy for the purposes of U.S. criminal law.  (h/t  Eugene Volokh). As I mentioned in an earlier post, the relevant U.S. statute criminalizing piracy leaves...

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17 Aug

Foreign Policy has added a new blog to its roster that should be of interest to readers.  Here is the description of the blog, named The Multilateralist and run by David Bosco, an assistant professor at American University's School of International Service and the author of the excellent Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making...

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16 Aug

Omar Khadr's trial began a couple of days ago at Guantanamo.  Here is what the prosecutor said in his opening statement: This trial is about holding an Al Qaeda terrorist accountable for his actions and vindicating the laws of war. Two small problems with this.  Throwing a grenade at U.S. soldiers is not an act of terrorism.  And four out...

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14 Aug

The WSJ has a nice discussion of the tricky legal arguments in the upcoming trial of alleged pirates in U.S. federal court.  Apparently, the prosecutors and defense attorneys are battling over the fact that U.S. statutes criminalizing piracy leave the definition to "the law of nations". Now the court in Norfolk must contend with the defense motion to dismiss the piracy...

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12 Aug

John Bellinger reflects on the meaning of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 in today's world, in a post at Foreign Policy: Today, 12 August, is the 61st anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the international treaties designed to protect soldiers and civilians during armed conflicts.  The treaties became the focus of international attention in 2002 when the...

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12 Aug

Via FuturePundit, who observes that this is really much more broadly about lie detection, note this press release from Northwestern University: For the first time, the Northwestern researchers used the P300 testing in a mock terrorism scenario in which the subjects are planning, rather than perpetrating, a crime. The P300 brain waves were measured by electrodes attached to the scalp of...

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12 Aug

Two commenters on my previous post on Kagame's increasing authoritarianism questioned whether Rwanda arrested Peter Erlinder because of his representation of defendants at the ICTR.  Fortuitously, Kate Gibson -- my colleague on the Karadzic case and a defense attorney at the ICTR -- has just published an ASIL Insight on the arrest that supports my claim.  Here is a taste...

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