In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Africa

07 Apr

Here's another interesting report on the ongoing battle against Somalia-based pirates.  The upshot: some progress is being made, especially with private security forces (including one which uses sound waves to push away approaching pirates).  But legal limitations continue to limit the effectiveness of both naval and private self-defense. “No commanding officer of any ship wants a situation where he used force...

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02 Apr

When the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber approved the Prosecutor's request for authority to investigate alleged "crimes against humanity" in Kenya, I didn't notice this long and powerful dissenting opinion (around p. 84) by one of the judges (Hans-Peter Kaul).  The standard for authorizing an investigation is pretty easy to satisfy (at least it sounds that way to me), so the dissent...

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01 Apr

Add another African case to the ICC's docket. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has given its prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo the green light to investigate the role of senior politicians in Kenya's post-election violence that killed 1,300 Kenyans in 2008. The decision allows Mr. Ocampo to take the next step, which would be passing down indictments against senior Kenyan politicians, some...

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30 Mar

Sudan is preparing for a national election next month. It may not be the solution for Sudan, given that it is still very doubtful that there is enough cohesiveness for a genuine democratic result.  Still, I wonder if the ICC's Prosecutor may be going a little far here. A day after Sudan president Omar al-Bashir threatened to cut the fingers off...

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13 Feb

Dapo Akande, who seems to know more about head of state immunity than anyone else, has an interesting post on the recent ICC Appeals Chamber non-decision decision in the case against Sudan's President Bashir.  He points out that the Appeals Chamber failed to even mention the question of head of state immunity, which is important in this case because as...

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21 Jan

The proposed anti-homosexuality legislation introduced by Ugandan parliament back-bencher David Bahati is creating an international outcry. The bill--introduced as a private member's bill without government support--would impose the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," defined as "sex with a minor or a disabled person, where the offender is HIV-positive, a parent or a person in authority over the victim, or...

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04 Jan

I know this sounds like the title of a movie franchise, but Brad Roth of Wayne State has alerted me to an op-ed in today's New York Times that deals with both Somali piracy and unrecognized separatist regions. Jay Bahadur writes: There might be another way to make greater strides against pirates. However, it would involve allying ourselves with a place that...

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18 Nov

This story from the New York Times about the corruption of Teodoro Obiang certainly hits close to home. His $35 million dollar estate in Malibu is just down the hill from Pepperdine. Several times a year, Teodoro Nguema Obiang arrives at the doorstep of the United States from his home in Equatorial Guinea, on his way to his...

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14 Nov

The following is a guest post by Lt. Col. Chris Jenks, the Chief of the International Law Branch in the Office of the Judge Advocate General. Lt. Col. Jenks is posting in his personal capacity. A Canadian Court recently sentenced Désiré Munyaneza, a former Rwandan Army officer, to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole following his conviction in May for...

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05 Nov

[Professor James Gathii, provides this timely insta-background on today's decision by the the ICC prosecutor to open an investigation into the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya. Professor Gaathi teaches at Albany Law School, where he is the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and Governor George E. Pataki Professor of International Commercial Law. He publishes extensively on legal developments in...

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