This according to a bizarre -- and bizarrely inaccurate -- article in the Jerusalem Post. How many errors can you find? An Israeli law firm on Thursday formally announced its request to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensada, to open a criminal investigation into violations by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and nine members of Hamas for war...
[Sigall Horovitz is a PhD candidate, teaching fellow and Transitional Justice Project Manager at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of ALMA – the Association for the Promotion of IHL. A longer version of this op-ed appears on the website of the Israeli Democracy Institute (in Hebrew).] The Palestinians have threatened to complain to the International Criminal Court (ICC) about Israel’s settlement activities...
We know what is stake at in Libya's admissibility challenge regarding Saif Gaddafi: either a fair trial at the ICC that will likely result in a lengthy prison sentence or an unfair trial in Libya that will almost certainly result in execution. Libya has done nothing to disguise the unfairness of its national proceedings, but it has generally pretended to...
Nothing in the Human Right's Council's report is particularly novel; it's long been obvious that both the settlements and the transfer of Israeli civilians into the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Nevertheless, it's worth noting the report's most important conclusions: 100. The facts brought to the attention of the Mission indicate that the State of Israel has had full control of...
Apropos of Kevin's recent posts, Professor George Bisharat of UC Hastings Law School takes to the NYT op-ed pages to call for Palestine to join the ICC and seek investigation of Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians’ first attempt to join the I.C.C. was thwarted last April when the court’s chief prosecutor at the time, Luis Moreno-Ocampo,...
Michael Lewis claims, in his very interesting post, that "it is fair to say that if Israel’s action in the 1967 war was justified by Article 51 (something that most states, if not most scholars, seem to agree with), then Article 51 'imminence' is broader than Caroline 'imminence'." I don't have time today to address that claim in any detail, but I...
McClatchy reports that Israel now believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 or 2016. That is progress of a sort; Netanyahu had previously been claiming that Iran would have the bomb no later than late summer 2013 -- around six months from now. But Israel is still insisting that Iran is only two or...
David Bosco has an important post at The Multilateralist today reminding people that Palestine does not have to ratify the Rome Statute for the ICC to be able to investigate the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. As David notes, because Palestine has filed a declaration under Article 12(3) accepting the Court's jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis, the...
Pathetic: Ambassador Susan Rice objected Wednesday to the Palestinians' latest bid to capitalize on their upgraded UN status when their foreign minister spoke at Security Council while seated behind a nameplate that read "State of Palestine." It was the first Palestinian address to the Security Council since the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on November 29 to upgrade the Palestinians from UN...
[John B. Bellinger III is a partner in the international and national security law practices at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, DC and an adjunct senior fellow in international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as The Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2005–2009.] Julian invited me to respond to his post...
Former Bush State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger has a complicated op-ed arguing that the U.S. should be prepared to intervene militarily in Syria, even if its intervention is not strictly legal. His argument is complicated because he rejects the idea that any intervention in Syria now, even with the agreement of the Syrian Opposition, would violate existing international law. The escalating...
Not in so many words, of course. But that's the upshot of the Libyan government's most recent statements. Saif recently appeared for the first time in a Libyan court; his trial, which was supposed to start this month, is now set for May 2013 because the Libyan government has still not provided him with counsel. Don't be fooled into thinking,...
