The Pre-Trial Chamber has ordered the Registrar to arrange a privileged visit between al-Senussi and his ICC lawyer, Ben Emmerson, in Libya. On the positive side, the PTC seems to have learned something from Libya's abhorrent detention of Melinda Taylor. Witness the following language in the order: 15. Taking into account the purpose of the visit, the provisions of the ad...
As one commenter to Ken's post on the draft UN Security Council Resolution notes, there will be no Security Council referral to the ICC on Syria. Currently there is one paragraph in the draft resolution expressing the Security Council's "strong conviction that those individuals responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic should be held accountable;" That's not...
As readers know, the Special Court for Sierra Leone's Appeals Chamber upheld Charles Taylor's conviction and 50-year sentence yesterday. It's been interesting to watch human-rights groups and advocates claim, predictably, that the judgment is a milestone in the fight against impunity, a position that seems to wilfully ignore the significant failure of the prosecution in the case. After all, both...
For the non-twitterati, Omar al-Bashir has -- unsurprisingly -- cancelled his trip to the UN. That decision reflects an underappreciated "soft power" aspect of the ICC: even an unexecuted arrest warrant limits the freedom of a suspect facing charges. There may be no reasonable prospect of Bashir being arrested anytime soon. But there is also no reasonable prospect that he...
Ryan has a fascinating but problematic post today at Just Security in which he takes international-law scholars to task for opportunistically flip-flopping on whether the US is involved in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda. Here is the crux of his argument, taken from the post's introductory paragraph: Those arguments have been inconsistent with regard to one fundamental legal question: whether the...
Wow! I kind of assumed all the posturing and tough talk from U.S. and ICC officials would scare off Sudan's President Bashir from visiting NY next week to address the UN General Assembly. But it appears he really is coming. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges, said on Sunday he planned to attend...
Eric Posner has a new Cassandra column at Slate, this latest one foretelling the doom of the ICC. There isn't much point in disagreeing with his basic thesis; no one knows at this point -- not him, not I -- whether the ICC will succeed. It is possible, however, to take issue with a number of assertions that Posner makes in...
In today's weekly news wrap, Jessica flagged an article that said Saif was due to appear in court in Tripoli for the beginning of the pre-trial phase of the case against him, al-Senussi, and 36 (!) other defendants. The article was inaccurate, and was later updated to make clear that Saif was appearing in Zintan on unrelated charges -- not...
An ICC chamber, at the request of the ICC Prosecutor, has issued a decision "remind[ing]" U.S. authorities of the two Arrest Warrants issued by the ICC, and "invit[ing]" U.S. authorities to apprehend Bashir and turn him over to the ICC. This is not exactly surprising. Still, it is worth noting that the ICC chamber reviews the legal landscape and it concludes (rightly...
According to Reuters, the US is dropping hints that it will grant Omar al-Bashir a visa to travel the UN for the annual meeting of the General Assembly: A senior State Department official said Bashir would "not receive a warm welcome" if he were to travel to the U.N. meeting. The official said Bashir had applied for a visa to attend...
Does anyone have a copy of Bin Cheng's article "International Law in the United Nations," 8 Yearbook of World Affairs 170 (1954)? It's not available online, and our library doesn't have that journal...
On both twitter and the blog, readers seem to have inferred from my previous post that I'm somehow disappointed that the US-Russia chemical-weapons deal does not automatically allow force for noncompliance. I suppose that's my fault; I tend to assume when I write that readers have at least some prior knowledge of my politics. So let me be clear: I am...
