In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Criminal Law

19 Apr

[Mark Kersten is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of the blog Justice in Conflict. You can find him on Twitter @MarkKersten] It is widely accepted wisdom that social media is radically transforming how we understand the world and share information. In this context, the emergence of Twitter, Facebook, blogging, etc. challenge the very practice...

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18 Apr

[Sarah Kendzior is an instructor at Washington University in Saint Louis. Follow her on Twitter @sarahkendzior] Kony2012 rose and fell on the power of celebrity. “We want to make Kony famous”, Invisible Children proclaimed, and it did, enlisting the support of twenty “culture-makers” to spread the word that an African child-killer was still at large. Kony2012 is often touted as an example of...

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18 Apr

[Charli Carpenter is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She blogs at Duck of Minerva.] One of the most curious aspects of the Kony2012 campaign is its backing by an important and powerful public servant, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. In publicly endorsing the campaign, Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has espoused a powerful causal...

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18 Apr

Opinio Juris is pleased to announce an online symposium addressing social activism and international law. As our readers know, Kony 2012 was a YouTube sensation, spreading faster than any video in history. Although the details are airbrushed, the central theme of the video is about international law. The key idea of the video is that the indicted fugitive Joseph Kony...

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17 Apr

I have no idea whether it's true, but that's what the BBC is reporting: The International Criminal Court could soon drop its demand that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi be transferred to the Hague for trial, officials have told the BBC. They say the most prominent son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi could instead be tried inside Libya but under the supervision...

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16 Apr

Ben Davis sends me this update on the new evidence submitted to the International Criminal Court against the Catholic Church. Today, a survivor-led support group for sex abuse victims, which is under attack by U.S. Catholic officials, submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) new and extensive documentation that the organization says shows ongoing child rape by Catholic clergy and continuing...

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14 Apr

Moreno-Ocampo's inability to avoid allegations of bias has long haunted his tenure as Prosecutor.  It's impossible to forget, for example, photos of him standing next to the Ugandan President, Youweri Museveni, as he announced that he was investigating the situation in Northern Uganda -- an act that Ugandans widely perceived, rightly in light of the OTP's failure to seriously investigate...

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11 Apr

The bankruptcy of the U.S. military-commissions system is currently on full display in the trial of Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri.  Readers who can stomach the spectacle of a tortured detainee being prosecuted for imaginary war crimes committed at a time when there was no armed conflict between the U.S. and al-Qaeda anywhere in the world can find excellent coverage of the...

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09 Apr

The Texas International Law Journal has published its mini-symposium on Karl Chang's article that argues the law of neutrality provides the applicable legal framework for the United States' conflict with al-Qaeda.  There are two responses to the article: one by Rebecca Ingber, who is currently a fellow at Columbia Law School; and one by me.  Here is the abstract of...

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06 Apr

Mr. Davenport makes some very strong claims in his post concerning the OTP's refusal to accept the Palestinian declaration.  Although I am on record with my belief that accepting the declaration would be a terrible political move for the ICC, I have a number of questions about Mr. Davenport's claims.  I hope he will take the time to answer them...

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06 Apr

[David Davenport is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution] In the end, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court made the only “legal” decision he could:  the ICC has no jurisdiction to act on the complaint of the Palestinian National Authority since Palestine is not a State and the Court is limited to accepting submissions by States.  The only case in favor...

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