We have invited several academic luminaries to post here at Opinio Juris beginning early next week about the Scottish independence referendum that will be held next Thursday, September 18th. As we have done in the past with other symposiums, we also welcome other academics to submit guests posts for possible publication. We particularly welcome Scottish, British, EU and state succession experts. We will focus on the international legal aspects of the Scottish referendum, not the political or economic implications of the vote.

We can’t guarantee we will publish every post submitted, but we would love to broaden the discussion to include other voices. So if you want to write a 500 to 1500-word guest post for Opinio Juris about the Scottish independence referendum, please do so in the next few days and send it to Jessica Dorsey and An Hertogen (their emails are linked to the right). Our editorial team will review the posts and publish those selected.

On a personal note, given that the Alford clan hails from the town of Alford in Aberdeenshire, and my wife and I spent several glorious years in Scotland when I earned my LL.M. and she earned her Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh, our family has been following the developments in Scotland closely.

There’s an old Scottish saying: “Scottish by birth, British by law, Highlander by the grace of God.” Next Thursday will put that maxim to the test.

As the military situation in eastern Ukraine become more violent with the incursion of Russian troops, Vladimir Putin has called for talks to determine the statehood of eastern Ukraine. The Interpreter, a website that translates and analyzes Russian media reports, states that in an interview on Russian television Putin said:

We must immediately get down to a substantial, substantive negotiations, and not on technical questions, but on the questions of the political organization of society and statehood in the south-east of Ukraine with the purpose of unconditional provision of the lawful interests of people who live there.

[Translation by website The Interpreter.]

In its analysis of this somewhat cryptic quote, the Interpreter posits:

It is not clear how Putin envisions the “Novorossiya” entity, but given a presentation by his aide Sergei Glazyev yesterday at a conference in Yalta attended by Russian-backed separatists and European far-right party figures, there is a notion to make the amalgamated “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Lugansk People’s Republic” a member of the Customs Union of which Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan are members.

For more on the Eurasian Customs Union, see this previous post.

As for the rhetoric of an independent Novorossiya, described in Foreign Policy as  the rebirth of a forgotton geopolitical term, Anne Applebaum wrote the following this past week in a grim article on Slate:

In the past few days, Russian troops bearing the flag of a previously unknown country, Novorossiya, have marched across the border of southeastern Ukraine. The Russian Academy of Sciences recently announced it will publish a history of Novorossiya this autumn, presumably tracing its origins back to Catherine the Great. Various maps of Novorossiya are said to be circulating in Moscow. Some include Kharkov and Dnipropetrovsk, cities that are still hundreds of miles away from the fighting. Some place Novorossiya along the coast, so that it connects Russia to Crimea and eventually to Transnistria, the Russian-occupied province of Moldova. Even if it starts out as an unrecognized rump state—Abkhazia and South Ossetia, “states” that Russia carved out of Georgia, are the models here—Novorossiya can grow larger over time.

Applebaum notes that for Novorossiya to move from Putin’s rhetoric to political reality will require more than the actions of the Russian army.  “Novorossiya will not be stable as long as it is inhabited by Ukrainians who want it to stay Ukrainian,” she explains.  Moreover, “Novorossiya will also be hard to sustain if it has opponents in the West.” Further sanctions will likely be the centerpiece of the EU and U.S. response.

But while some would say “international law is useless without sanction,” in this case I believe that economic sanctions are not enough without international legal argument.  For the moment, Russia’s strategy seems to be an amalgamation of stealth invasion and quasi-legal rhetoric. The “stealth”  part of the invasion is to maintain a fig-leaf of deniability and to make the uprising in eastern Ukraine seem homegrown as opposed to Russian-led. This strategy of stealth interlocks with Russia’s rhetoric, a quasi-legal/ nationalist amalgamation that attempts to persuade those who can be persuaded and befuddle those who cannot.

However, we are at an inflection point where an important new argument (the apocryphal “once and future Novorissya” argument, in this case) is being sent up like a trial balloon. Perhaps a more accurate metaphor is the idiom: “send it up the flagpole and see who salutes.” Putin and his advisers are sending the flag of Novorissya, figuratively and literally, up the flagpole.

If the EU and U.S. do not want another South Ossetia or Transnistria, then they will have to actively engage Russia’s arguments over what is “right.”  Consider this statement by Putin this week, explaining why the events in Eastern Ukraine confirm that Russia was correct in its actions in Crimea:

Now, I think, it is clear to everyone – when we look at the events in Donbass, Lugansk and Odessa – it is now clear to everyone what would have happened to Crimea, if we had not taken corresponding measures to ensure that people could freely express their will. We did not annex it, we did not seize it, we gave people the opportunity to express themselves and make a decision and we treated that decision with respect.

I feel we protected them.

If the illegality of Russia’s actions is not stressed, if the denial of Ukraine‘s right of self-determination is not emphasized, then the only thing many will hear is the rhetoric of those trying to slice off successive pieces of Ukraine. That rhetoric, unanswered, can reinforce the beliefs of those who want to dismember Ukraine. For others, it may make it seem as if maybe Russia “has a point” and muddy the waters. In both instances, effective sanctions could be perceived as just another example of might overcoming right.  And, rather than resolving the situation, the seeds for further conflict would be planted.

While effective sanctions enforce norms, clear norms strengthen sanctions.

Map credit: Wikimedia Commons via Radiolab

Radiolab has  posted an informative and entertaining essay entitled “How to Cross 5 International Borders in 1 Minute without Sweating.” It describes the intertwined municipalities of the Dutch town Baarle-Nassau and the Belgian town Baarle-Hertog. Here’s the evocative description by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab:

The hunky yellow bit labeled “H1” (for Hartog) toward the bottom is mostly the Belgian town. But notice those little white bits inside the yellow — labeled “N1, N2, N3” — those are little patches of the Dutch town (N for Nassau). The two towns are not geographically separate. Instead, they’re like M&M’s in a candy bowl. There are 22 distinct Belgian bits, and a dozen or so Dutch bits, and they are sprinkled together; so sometimes you’ve got bits of Belgium inside Dutch areas, and sometimes Dutch patches inside Belgian neighborhoods. They vary in size. The largest is 1.54 square kilometers, the smallest, an empty field, is 2,632 square meters.

Krulwich is correct to note that in the Middle Ages “Checkerboard maps were common.” One reason they were common was that feudalism had a different conception of sovereignty than the “modern” conception of sovereignty that became prevalent in the years following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Rather than strictly territorial, medieval sovereignty was in part relational, between lords and subjects as well as between and among varying levels of nobility. With an emphasis on personal loyalty and duty, the feudal conception of sovereignty was like a network of individuals with multiple linkages and relationships.  Displaying such relationships as a territorial map with bold-line boundaries results in a crazy quilt that may actually obscure the complex interwoven relationships.

But the Westphalian emphasis on territorial sovereignty called for such bold-line maps. Areas that started as territorial patchworks were usually consolidated and rationalized. Krulwich continues:

But for some reason, writes Alastair Bonnet in his new book, Unruly Places, it didn’t [happen here]. During Napoleon’s time, villages were swept cleanly into one nation or another, the borders tidied up, but apparently — and no one can quite explain why — Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog escaped the broom. Maybe they were too small, too unimportant, but they made it through, their mosaic-ness intact, becoming, Bonnet says, a “living laboratory of medieval micro-borders.”

For more detail on the land grants, treaties, planning commissions, and other aspects of the history of these two towns, see this website.

This mosaic of sovereignty has led to some incredible results. In a 2008 post on Baarle-Hertog/ Baarle-Nassau,  BLDGBLOG reported that:

Sarah Laitner, at the Financial Times, adds that “women are able to choose the nationality of their child depending on the location of the room in which they give birth.”

For more about the administration of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau, see this .pdf.

The contested status of two specific plots created by these micro-borders led to a dispute before the International Court of Justice, Sovereignty over Certain Frontier Land (Belgium/ Netherlands). The ICJ found that the plots in question were under Belgian sovereignty.

While perhaps the most complex territorial enclave, the two Baarles are not the only examples; see  the website European Small Exclaves. You can also see more about Swiss cheese sovereignties and cartographic discrepancies in this post I wrote a while back. (And the part about cartographic discrepencies should really be considered by that guy trying to found a Kingdom of North Sudan for his daughter…)

[Lucas E. Barreiros is a Professor of Public International Law and Coordinator of International Human Rights Law Masters Program at the University of Buenos Aires.]

While much attention has been paid to the differences and similarities between the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) as well as to the dialogue between them [see here, here, here and here for examples], none of that attention has been devoted to comparing the one aspect of their work that best and most synthetically captures all that sets them apart – that is, the doctrines of “margin of appreciation” and “control of conventionality”. It is proposed here that more attention should be paid to the explanatory power of these two doctrines in understanding the different identities and diverging trajectories of the ECHR and the IACHR.

As known, the “margin of appreciation” doctrine was developed by the ECHR starting in its Handyside v. United Kingdom judgment. It has been understood to refer, as pointed out by Steven Greer, to “the room for manoeuvre that the Strasbourg institutions are prepared to accord to national authorities in fulfilling their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights”. The rationale for allowing this margin of appreciation, as pointed out by the ECHR in Handyside when referring to the conditions set out in the Convention to lawfully restrict the freedom of expression, is that national authorities, “by reason of their direct and continuous contact with the vital forces of their countries (…) are in a better position than the international judge to give an opinion on the exact content of these requirements”.

For its part, the “control of conventionality” was first mentioned by the IACHR in its judgment in the Case of Almonacid Arellano et al v. Chile.The IACHR held that:

“(…) domestic judges and courts are bound to respect the rule of law, and therefore, they are bound to apply the provisions in force within the legal system. But when a State has ratified an international treaty such as the American Convention, its judges, as part of the State, are also bound by such Convention. This forces them to see that all the effects of the provisions embodied in the Convention are not adversely affected by the enforcement of laws which are contrary to its purpose and that have not had any legal effects since their inception. In other words, the Judiciary must exercise a sort of “conventionality control” between the domestic legal provisions which are applied to specific cases and the American Convention on Human Rights. To perform this task, the Judiciary has to take into account not only the treaty, but also the interpretation thereof made by the Inter-American Court, which is the ultimate interpreter of the American Convention.” (emphasis added).

It should be noted that there are two components to the doctrine – one deals with the responsibility of national authorities to ensure that the application of national legislation does not adversely affect the rights under the American Convention of Human Rights; the other, however, is the direct opposite of the “margin of appreciation” as it leaves no room for national authorities to conduct their own assessment and requires them to apply the interpretation of the IACHR.

(more…)

Some lawyers at Shearmen & Sterling are no doubt celebrating what may be the largest single arbitration award in history (text of award here). Their client, a shareholder of the expropriated Russian oil company Yukos, has won a $50 billion award against Russia in an investor-state arbitration (seated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration) under the Energy Charter Treaty.   Michael Goldhaber at the American Lawyer has the first and fullest coverage of this historic award.

There are lots of legal battles ahead. Enforcement is going to be challenging, as it always is against sovereign states. And the award has some very interesting observations on legal issues such as the “unclean hands” doctrine under international law.  But for now, this is quite a victory for the plaintiffs to savor and it is already taking a toll on Russia’s stock market.  (And it is a rough few months for the folks over at Cleary Gottlieb, who are also representing Argentina in its unsuccessful battle with its holdout bondholders).

In two decisions (here and here) handed down this morning, the European Court of Human Rights has found that Poland violated its obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights for its complicity in the United States’ running of a CIA black site and high-value detainees program on Polish territory.

One of the cases involved al-Nashiri, who was prosecuted before a U.S. military commission and the subject of protracted habeas litigation in the DC Circuit. He was accused of orchestrating the attack against the USS Cole in 2000. In federal court his lawyers raised the very interesting issue of whether there existed an armed conflict with al-Qaeda at that time (i.e. before 9/11), and whether a military commission could properly assert jurisdiction over a crime that was allegedly committed before (in their view) the commencement of the armed conflict.

Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002, transferred to a CIA prison in Afghanistan (called the “Salt Pit”), then to a CIA facility in Bangkok (called “Cat’s Eye”) where detainee Abu Zubaydah (the subject of the other case) also was held. Both were then transferred to the CIA black site in Poland. After his time in Poland, he was transferred briefly to Morocco on his way to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The decision goes into extensive detail of the CIA interrogation program, including a review of internal CIA documents explaining the interrogation methods that officers were authorized to use against detainees, as well as the unauthorized techniques that were sometimes used. The court concluded that (para. 417):

Assessing all the above facts and evidence as a whole, the Court finds it established beyond reasonable doubt that:

(1)  on 5 December 2002 the applicant, together with Mr Abu Zubaydah, arrived in Szymany on board the CIA rendition aircraft N63MU;

(2)  from 5 December 2002 to 6 June 2003 the applicant was detained in the CIA detention facility in Poland identified as having the codename “Quartz” and located in Stare Kiejkuty;

(3)  during his detention in Poland under the HVD Programme he was interrogated by the CIA and subjected to EITs and also to unauthorised interrogation techniques as described in the 2004 CIA Report, 2009 DOJ Report and the 2007 ICRC Report;

4)  on 6 June 2003 the applicant was transferred by the CIA from Poland on the CIA rendition aircraft N379P.

The ECHR then concludes that Poland was aware of (and complicit) in the CIA activities:

442.  Taking into consideration all the material in its possession (see paragraphs 418-439 above), the Court finds that there is abundant and coherent circumstantial evidence, which leads inevitably to the following conclusions:

(a)  that Poland knew of the nature and purposes of the CIA’s activities on its territory at the material time and that, by enabling the CIA to use its airspace and the airport, by its complicity in disguising the movements of rendition aircraft and by its provision of logistics and services, including the special security arrangements, the special procedure for landings, the transportation of the CIA teams with detainees on land, and the securing of the Stare Kiejkuty base for the CIA’s secret detention, Poland cooperated in the preparation and execution of the CIA rendition, secret detention and interrogation operations on its territory;

(b)  that, given that knowledge and the emerging widespread public information about ill-treatment and abuse of detained terrorist suspects in the custody of the US authorities, Poland ought to have known that, by enabling the CIA to detain such persons on its territory, it was exposing them to a serious risk of treatment contrary to the Convention (see also El‑Masri, cited above, §§ 217-221).

443.  Consequently, Poland was in a position where its responsibility for securing “to everyone within [its] jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined …. in [the] Convention” set forth in Article 1 was engaged in respect of the applicant at the material time.

The Court holds that Poland violated Article 3 of the Convention for its failure to adequately investigate the mistreatment, and for failing to ensure that “individuals within its jurisdiction were not subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including ill-treatment administered by private individuals .”  Again, here is the Court’s holding (para. 517):

Notwithstanding the above Convention obligation, Poland, for all practical purposes, facilitated the whole process, created the conditions for it to happen and made no attempt to prevent it from occurring. As the Court has already held above, on the basis of their own knowledge of the CIA activities deriving from Poland’s complicity in the HVD Programme and from publicly accessible information on treatment applied in the context of the “war on terror” to terrorist suspects in US custody the authorities – even if they did not witness or participate in the specific acts of ill-treatment and abuse endured by the applicant – must have been aware of the serious risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 occurring on Polish territory.

Accordingly, the Polish State, on account of its “acquiescence and connivance” in the HVD Programme must be regarded as responsible for the violation of the applicant’s rights under Article 3 of the Convention committed on its territory (see paragraph 452 above and El-Masri, cited above, §§ 206 and 211).

The Court also found a violation of the article 5 prohibition against arbitrary detention (para. 532), the article 8 prohibition against interference with family life for holding him incommunicado (para. 540), the article 13 requirement of an effective domestic remedy (para. 551), and the article 6 prohibition against an unfair trial (para. 569).

The last holding on article 6 required the Court to conclude that the petitioner’s trial before a U.S. military commission would be unfair — which is a substantial legal determination. Unfortunately, the Court’s analysis on this point is incredibly thin, and relies mostly on the U.S. Supreme Court’s determination in Hamdan that the creation of the tribunals was procedurally defective and violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, without much independent analysis. There is no discussion of post-Hamdan military commission reforms.

Finally, the Court concludes that Poland violated its Protocol 6 (abolition of the death penalty) obligations because of the risk that the petitioner would be subject to capital punishment before a U.S. military commission (para. 579).

On Friday, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia signed the Association Agreements with the European Union that have been at the center of so much controversy among Russia, the EU, and these states. Preventing Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia from signing these agreements had become an important foreign policy goal for Moscow (see, for example: 1, 2, 3) after significant pressure, and perhaps some incentives, from Moscow, former Ukrainian President Yanukovich’s decided at the last minute not to sign the agreement at the EU’s summit in Vilnius in November precipitated the demonstrations that began in Kiev. Those were followed by Yanukovich fleeing, Russia’s intervention in and annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing tensions over the future of Ukraine. Moldova and Georgia have also faced threats of economic and/or energy embargoes as well as the ongoing Russia-backed separatist issues in Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia.

After the diplomatic disputes and the pipeline politics, the secessionist movements and Russian military incursions, Maidan Square and Crimean annexation, the signing of these treaties are a significant milestone, and hopefully a turning point. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia are committing themselves to a path of greater economic and normative integration with the EU. The EU is committing itself to allowing market access to the EU; more generally, the EU will likely become increasingly involved the in the internal policies of these countries, although they are not member states.

What is clear is that this is a significant moment, President Poroshenko of Ukraine called it the most important moment for his country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. What is not yet clear is how relations with Russia will evolve from this point. Here are some issues to consider… (more…)

For those in the New York City area who may be interested, tomorrow (June 4th) I will be participating in a roundtable discussion with Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Nations, concerning the crisis in Ukraine.   Mark Meyer, Moldova’s Honorary Consul in New York (and a member of the law firm Herzfeld & Rubin), will moderate the discussion.

The roundtable will take place at the New York City Bar on June 4th from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm, with a reception to follow. Full details are available here.

For some of my recent posts on this topic, please see: 1, 2, and 3.

The New York Times reports that:

The presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus formally signed an agreement on Thursday to create a limited economic union — an alliance hobbled by the absence of Ukraine but one long pursued by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to confirm his country as a global economic force.

“Today we are creating a powerful, attractive center of economic development, a big regional market that unites more than 170 million people,” Mr. Putin said during the ceremonies. He underscored the significant energy resources, work force and cultural heritage of the combined nations.

This treaty, which was signed this past week but is not expected to come into force until January 2015, marks the next step in transforming the still-nascent Eurasian Customs Union (ECU) into the Eurasian Union (EEU). Russian pressure for Ukraine to turn away from association with the European Union and towards Moscow-led Eurasian integration was one of the roots of the current crisis.

As the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with China and the Central Asian states is Russia’s answer to U.S. military alliances, Eurasian economic integration is meant to be Russia’s response to EU and U.S. economic power.  According to a chronology in a report by the Centre for European Policy Studies, the creation of the EEU was first suggested by the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in 1994. There was not much movement until the negotiation and signing of a customs union treaty among Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in 2007. The basic requirements of the Eurasian Customs Union came into force in 2010, which were essentially trade policy coordination measures establishing a common external tariff among its members. However, the deepening Eurasian economic integration was given a boost by an op-ed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in October 2011.

In early 2012, the member states deepened ECU’s institutions by starting the operations of the Eurasian Economic Commission, a supranational entity that was contemplated in the 2007 treaty,  to manage the external trade regulations of the member states, including relations with the WTO. That also marked the establishment of  the “single economic space” (SES) among the member countries which, in the words of the Centre for European Policy Studies paper, “envision[ed] further regulatory convergence and harmonisation of national laws” in particular economic sectors.

The treaty that was signed on May 29th is ostensibly to move from customs union towards a full economic union, with free movement of goods, capital, and people among the member states, but reality has so far proven to be less sweeping and heroic than the rhetoric that marked the occasion. The most obvious issue is that the EEU was originally envisioned to include not only Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, but also Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and especially Ukraine. Ukraine would have added  a populous country with  economic potential and an an economy that (unlike Russia and Kazakhstan) was not based on natural resource exploitation. But Russia’s intervention in Ukraine  backfired: not only did it fail to bring Ukraine into the EEU fold but, according to a Radio Free Europe report, it has weakened the EEU by having: (more…)

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… judicial functions cannot be delegated to other bodies or officials.” According to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (on twitter), the Rada is now considering a bill that would amend Ukraine’s constitution to make ratification possible. The text of the bill is in Ukrainian; if anyone out there would like to provide a translation (the bill is short), I’d be most appreciative:

Проект
вноситься народним депутатом України
Ю. Б. Дерев’янком
та іншими народними депутатами України

ЗАКОН УКРАЇНИ
Про внесення змін до статті 124 Конституції України

Верховна Рада України постановляє:

1. Доповнити статтю 124 Конституції України (Відомості Верховної Ради України, 1996 р., № 30, ст. 141) частиною шостою такого змісту:

“Україна може визнати юрисдикцію Міжнародного кримінального суду на умовах, передбачених Римським статутом Міжнародного кримінального суду.”

2. Цей Закон набирає чинності з дня, наступного за днем його опублікування.

Голова Верховної Ради  О. ТУРЧИНОВ
України

I’m intrigued by the fact that Ukraine’s parliament believes it has to amend the constitution in order to ratify the Rome Statute, but is free to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis. The decision of the Constitutional Court prohibits any delegation of Ukraine’s jurisdiction to an international tribunal — which would seem to include ad hoc delegations as well as permanent delegations. But I’m obviously not an expert on Ukrainian law!

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 may not be particularly opposed to an ICC investigation here. I just want to add a few additional thoughts.

To begin with, I remain troubled by the insistence of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court that Ukraine cannot delegate its adjudicative jurisdiction to an international court. As it said in 2001:

Article 124 of the Ukrainian Constitution states that the administration of justice is the exclusive competence of the courts and that judicial functions cannot be delegated to other bodies or officials. The Constitutional Court noted that the jurisdiction of the ICC under the Rome Statute is complementary to national judicial systems. However, under Article 4(2) of the Rome Statute, the ICC may exercise its functions and powers on the territory of any State party, and under Article 17, the ICC may find a case to be admissible if the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution. The Court concluded that jurisdiction supplementary to the national system was not contemplated by the Ukrainian Constitution. Hence, the amendment of the Constitution is required before the Statute can be ratified.

Parliament’s acceptance of the ICC’s jurisdiction, even on an ad hoc basis, seems specifically foreclosed by the Constitutional Court’s judgment. Ukraine’s President and Parliament clearly don’t care about that inconvenient fact; will the ICC? Martin Holtermann may be right — the ICC may simply defer to Ukraine’s President and Parliament. But I can help but think it would be unseemly for an international court like the ICC to simply ignore a clear judgment issued by the highest court in a state purporting to accept its jurisdiction. At the very least, Fatou Bensouda should take the Ukraine’s internal conflict into account when she decides whether to open a formal investigation — you can bet that any suspect wanted by the ICC would challenge the legality of the self-referral in Ukraine’s domestic courts, litigation that could make it very difficult for ICC proceedings to go forward.

Relatedly, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that Ukraine’s self-referral does not mean the OTP will open a formal investigation into the situation. Diane Amann writes today that the self-referral shows “Europe is on [the] ICC docket.” That’s true — but only in the formal sense. As Mark Kersten noted in February, Europe has been on the ICC docket for a long time in terms of preliminary investigations. After all, the OTP announced the Georgia investigation in August 2008 — nearly six years ago. (Its Afghanistan investigation has been plodding along even longer, since 2007.) That hasn’t quelled the voices that have been complaining — with justification — that the ICC has been overly obsessed with Africa. So unless and until the OTP decides to open a formal investigation into the situation in Ukraine, the country’s self-referral is unlikely to have any positive effect whatsoever on the Court’s African reputation.

Finally, a brief thought on the temporal limits of the self-referral. I don’t think the ICC will reject the referral on the ground that it is too carefully tailored to ensure only one side of the conflict. (A major problem with Comoros’s Mavi Marmara state referral.) The temporal limits, however narrow, make some sense — the referral begins when Yanukovych announced Ukraine was abandoning the agreement with the European Union and ends when Yanukovych fled the country. Should Ukraine have accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction for a longer period — most notably, to include Russia’s invasion of Crimea? I had an interesting twitter debate earlier today on that issue with a bunch of smart Court-watchers, including Ryan Goodman, Eugene Kontorovich, Mark Kersten, Martin Holtermann, and David Kaye. I pointed out that it’s difficult to see what international crimes Russia committed during the invasion, other than the non-prosecutable crime of aggression. Ryan replied that a longer self-referral could give the ICC an opportunity to address important issues in the law of occupation. (See also his post here.) That’s absolutely true — but only if Russia actually violates the law of occupation, which seems unlikely given the popularity (certainly not uniform) of the invasion and annexation within Crimea itself. The wildcard is the crime that Eugene mentioned during our discussion — the transfer of civilians into occupied territory. I have no idea whether Russia intends to directly or indirectly transfer Russians into Crimea; Eugene seems to think it does, and I will defer to his greater knowledge of the situation. But my position with regard to that possibility is the same as my position on Israel’s transfer of civilians into the West Bank: whatever the merits of the allegations, the war crime is legally uncertain and factually difficult to prove, especially when the transfer is indirect instead of direct — which it is in the West Bank and would almost certainly be in Crimea. In the absence of other violations of the law of occupation, therefore, I am not sure the OTP would get involved.

I imagine we will have much more to discuss concerning the ICC and Ukraine in the weeks to come!

Last Spring, Temple Law School was pleased to host a two day workshop on the scholarship of one of international law’s true giants — Martti Koskenniemi (simply put, I’m a big fan). Organized by my colleague, Jeff Dunoff, it was a great event with a wide-ranging conversation launching off Martti’s works in international legal theory, international legal history, fragmentation, interdisciplinary scholarship, ethics and the future of international law.  

Given how great the workshop was, I could not be more pleased to note that the accompanying papers have now been compiled and published in a single volume of the Temple International and Comparative Law Journal (vol. 27, no. 2). The full table of contents for the Symposium Issue can be found here. 

The papers include Jeff Dunoff’s framing introduction, a fascinating paper by Martti on the historiography of international law, and a slew of papers by renowned scholars, including Kim Scheppele, Tomer Broude, Sean Murphy, Mark Pollack, Rob Howse and Ruti Teitel, Samuel Moyn, Jan Klabbers, Andrew Lang and Susan Marks, Frédéric Mégret, and Ralf Michaels.  These papers address a number of themes that run through Koskenniemi’s work, including international law and empire; the fragmentation of international law; interdisciplinary approaches to international law; reading – and misreading – the tradition; and the international lawyer as ethical agent.  Both individually and collectively, the papers represent a significant effort to engage, explore, and extend the ideas found in Koskenniemi’s writings.

The special symposium issue is the first of what will be a tradition of yearly Symposia that will be organized by Temple faculty and published in the Journal.  As such, the Symposia marks a new form of collaboration between Temple faculty and students, and represent an experiment in academic publishing designed to provide students the experience of editing papers on cutting-edge research, and at the same time injecting faculty expertise into the selection and substantive editing of papers.