In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Criminal Law

23 Aug

Reacting to the still-imminent fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, U.S. presidential candidate (and likely future president if you believe these polls) Mitt Romney has called for the extradition of the mastermind of Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, to the United States.  The demand raises an interesting dilemma.  Megrahi was tried and convicted in a special Scottish tribunal set...

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23 Aug

Time has an interesting article up about Saif's reappearance in Tripoli.  The whole thing is well worth a read, but I was struck by these paragraphs about the ICC: The rebels were not the only ones whose credibility was in doubt on Tuesday. So too was that of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which has indicted...

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23 Aug

So says Saif Gaddafi, who apparently has not been captured by the rebels after all: Muammar Gaddafi's once powerful son, Saif al-Islam, made a defiant appearance in Tripoli last night to disprove the revolutionaries' claim to have arrested him and to proclaim ultimate victory. Saif al-Islam, 39, arrived in an armoured vehicle waving two fingers in a victory sign...

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21 Aug

CNN is reporting that Libyan rebels have arrested Saif Gaddafi, Muammar's second-eldest son long thought to be his most likely successor. Saif is one of the three suspects for whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants; the allegations include persecution and murder as crimes against humanity.  And it appears that the OTP is already in negotiations with the rebels to...

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21 Aug

Our friends at the Cornell International Law Journal have asked me to post the following call for papers.  The conference looks great; I'm disappointed that it starts the last day of my summer teaching obligations. The Cornell International Law Journal is pleased to announce its 2012 symposium, Forces Without Borders: Non-State Actors in a Changing Middle East, February 17th–18th, 2012 at...

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19 Aug

After 200 years of quiescence, Piracy has re-emerged as a major problem for world shipping.  A recent report has documented that Piracy has resulted in more than $12 billion in losses in the past twelve months alone.  According to an August 11, 2011 article in the Guardian, Piracy is also significantly hampering food aid to drought-stricken Somalia, resulting in thousands of deaths.  Somali...

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19 Aug

Apologies for the non-existent blogging of late -- a few weeks ago a car knocked me off my bike, breaking a small bone in my forearm and badly bruising my ribs.  I didn't need surgery or even a cast, fortunately, but I haven't been able to type more than a short email until the past few days.  This is probably...

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17 Aug

It is a great pleasure to be invited to be a guest blogger on Opinio Juris for the next few weeks. Please stay tuned for my upcoming blogs about Somali piracy and the Hosni Mubarak trial later in the week. For my first blog, I want to weigh in on the provocative question of whether the UN Security Council should consider...

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29 Jul

I want to call readers' attention to Douglas Guilfoyle's article "The Mavi Marmara Incident and Blockade in Armed Conflict," which is forthcoming in the British Year Book of International Law.  (Subscription required.)  It's absolutely superb -- comprehensive, analytic, and above all fair.  Indeed, its conclusions differ in important ways from those of the UN HRC report, the Turkel Commission inquiry...

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29 Jul

Professor Cecilia Marcela Bailliet of the University of Oslo has a very useful post over at IntLawGrrls on possible criminal punishment for right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik. Contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, according to Bailliet it is possible that Breivik could get life in prison for the death of 76 persons in last week's shooting. Here's...

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23 Jul

Three stories to mention.  First, Moreno-Ocampo plans to introduce WikiLeaks cables in the trial of the six Kenyan defendants: This emerged as he prepares to hand over the last batch of the evidence he will rely on in the September hearing against three of Kenya’s six post-election violence suspects. The evidence to be released on Wednesday relates to the...

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