Julian beat me to the punch regarding the news that Peter Erlinder, the William Mitchell law professor who is one of the leading defense attorneys at the ICTR, has been arrested in Rwanda for "genocide denial" -- code for "criticizing the Kagame government." There is no need to waste time criticizing the arrest; anyone who follows Rwanda knows that Kagame...
Detained U.S. lawprof Peter Erlinder was hospitalized in Rwanda over the weekend after five hours of questioning. A St. Paul attorney jailed in Rwanda was hospitalized with high blood pressure today after being interrogated, according to his daughter and an attorney. Peter Erlinder, who is charged with promoting genocidal ideology, is expected to be kept in the hospital overnight and returned to jail...
My friend and colleague Gerry Simpson has, along with other international-law luminaries, just published an open letter in The Guardian defending Judge Garzon's actions. Here it is (emphasis mine): As teachers and practitioners of international law we note that the validity and effect of an amnesty granted by national law in respect of international crimes has been addressed by ...
Winning Afghani hearts and minds, one dead civilian at a time: In the civilian deaths case, attack helicopters fired missiles and rockets into the convoy on a main road near Khod village, where U.S. Special Forces and Afghan troops were battling militants at the time, a summary of the investigation said. Commanders judged that the convoy contained...
I do have a question for Ken. As his post indicates, he believes that the US's right to "self-defense" justifies drone strikes against designated terrorists outside of armed conflict -- strikes that are governed by human-rights law, not international humanitarian law. Indeed, he writes that "if one takes the US’s independent self-defense view, then curiously, the CIA is on...
Like Ken, I plan on discussing Phillip Alston's report on drone strikes when it's released. Alston was just at Melbourne Law School last week, talking about his role as rapporteur. He's a remarkable person. With regard to drone strikes in armed conflict, Ken quite rightly points out that CIA operators cannot lawfully be attacked by a terrorist group even if they...
[The following is a guest-post by Lt. Col. Jenks, the Chief of the International Law Branch in the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General -- KJH] At a workshop held in Beirut earlier this month, officials from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) attempted to explain the basis for the tribunal's in absentia provisions. At the same time, Judge...
Do we have an emerging consensus that the ICC States-Parties should refrain from adding the crime of aggression to the ICC Statute at its upcoming conference in Kampala? Michael Glennon, the CFR, Harold Koh, David Kaye, and now Richard Goldstone have all come out against adding the crime of aggression. Here is Goldstone: Based on my experience as an international prosecutor,...
A couple of years ago, I blogged about how Salim Hamdan was prosecuted in a military commission for conspiring to commit the non-existent war crime "murder in violation of the law of war." Hamdan was acquitted on that count, but the crime is starring again in the unconscionable prosecution of child-soldier Omar Khadr. That's unfortunate in itself -- but what...
So, Alan Dershowitz has decided that international law needs to be "delegitimized," because it is unfair to Israel. It is reasonable to consider, therefore, what Dershowitz believes a "fair" international law would allow Israel to do. Here is one of his suggestions, from a 2002 Jerusalem Post editorial entitled "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism" (emphasis mine): In light of the...
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has just held that JCE III, otherwise known as "extended" joint criminal enterprise, did not exist under customary international law during 1975-1979, the period over which the ECCC has temporal jurisdiction. The decision is a stunning rebuke to the ICTY, which invented -- literally out of thin air -- that form of...
I continue to believe that this is a terrible idea: Spain's top judicial panel had suspended Mr Garzon on Friday pending his trial on charges he exceeded his authority by ordering an investigation into mass killings by the forces of former dictator Francisco Franco. The suspension from his functions as a judge was widely thought in Spain...
