Of course, that means it's been a much better week for anyone who isn't so keen on the prospect of attacking Iran. I'm not sure the nails are in Netanyahu's political coffin quite yet, but the carpenters are certainly gathering their supplies. First up, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Chief of Staff of the IDF, rejecting the notion that Iran is...
The blog, which has been uniformly excellent to date, is dedicated to exploring maritime piracy in all its dimensions. Here is the description: Piracy is on the rise because of failed states and crushing poverty. A majority of modern pirate attacks originate in the Horn of Africa in Somalia although there is now a growing problem in the Gulf of Guinea. This...
At International Criminal Law Bureau, Kirsty Sutherland calls attention to a surprise moment during the Taylor verdict that has received, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely no attention from the media: In an unexpected turn of events, as Justice Lussick (Presiding), Justice Doherty and Justice Sebutinde rose to leave the courtroom after delivering the verdict, Justice Sow addressed the Court: “The...
The Special Court for Sierra Leone has found Charles Taylor guilty on all counts, but only as an aider and abettor -- the judges have rejected the prosecution's allegations that he participated in a JCE to commit the crimes alleged in the indictment or that he had effective control over the RUF soldiers who committed the crimes (i.e, no ordering...
The media is widely reporting (see, for example, the Washington Post here) that later today Charles Taylor will become the first sitting or former Head of State to have his fate decided by an international tribunal. They should really do their research: the Nuremberg Tribunal convicted Karl Doenitz, the Commander in Chief of the German Navy, who served as the...
I am delighted to announce that over the next few days Opinio Juris will be hosting a symposium on what is increasingly called, following Tel Aviv University's Aeyal Gross, the "functional approach" to the law of occupation. Here is the description that was sent to the contributors: Occupation law has undergone significant evolution in modern times, and cases such as Iraq...
In my previous post, I discussed the Registry's report of its visit with Saif Gaddafi in Libya, which was posted on the ICC website and then removed without explanation a few hours later. It has come to my attention that the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD) also prepared a report of that visit -- and that the...
So reports Radio Netherlands Worldwide. The dispute, not surprisingly, involves Luis Moreno-Ocampo and Libya: This week the court’s public defender, Xavier-Jean Keita, accused chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo of siding with the Libyans and demanded he be removed from the case. In a court filing boiling with indignation, he accused Ocampo of making misleading statements during a visit to Tripoli this week...
I have uploaded a copy of the report, which was available for a couple of hours on the ICC website but then removed without explanation. (It's marked public.) Representatives of the Registry spent five days in Libya in late February and early March, so things could have changed significantly since that time. Nevertheless, the report paints an interesting -- and...
[Michael A. Newton is Professor of the Practice of Law, Vanderbilt University Law School] The Kony 2012 campaign had the laudable goal of increasing public awareness in order to aid the search for justice and accountability in the wake of LRA atrocities. In fact, the worldwide attention had the paradoxical effect of demonstrating the lamentable reality that the optimal pathway towards...
[Mark A. Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor at Washington and Lee University and author of Reimagining Child Soldiers (OUP, 2012).] How does Kony2012 inform our understanding of child soldiers? How does it sculpt international efforts to prevent child soldiering? Kony2012 feeds into and reinforces pre-existing assumptions and narratives. I argue in my book Reimagining Child Soldiers that these assumptions...
[Julie McBride is a PhD Candidate at Queen’s University Belfast, researching the development of the war crime of child soldier recruitment in international criminal law, and a member of the United Nations Global Experts, specializing in international crime and transitional justice. You can find her on Twitter @JA_McBride] When the Kony2012 video was launched last month, I found myself, for one of the first times,...
