In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Criminal Law

23 Jul

The recent downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, apparently by an anti-aircraft missile fired from within rebel-controlled territory in the Ukraine, has raised the specter that Russia is covertly (or not so covertly) supplying arms and assistance to the pro-Russian separatists operating within eastern Ukraine. Obviously, the facts here are somewhat contested and I have no insider or independent information...

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17 Jul

That's the question asked by the blog of Oxford University Press. All of the short answers, provided by scholars ranging from Ruti Teitel to Bill Schabas, are worth a read. Here's mine: In my view, it is time to begin to question whether the International Criminal Court will ever play a major role in the fight against impunity. This is not...

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13 Jul

Harry J. Kazianis, the managing editor of The National Interest, has a smart post discussing the risk that the U.S. is taking if it tries to take more aggressive action to counter China in the South China Sea.  Essentially, he argues the U.S. has no effective strategy to counter China's "non-kinetic" strategy to subtly alter the status quo by using...

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09 Jul

Diane Sawyer had a hard-hitting report tonight at ABC News on the recent hostilities between Israel and Palestine. The segment opens with her saying, “We take you overseas now to the rockets raining down on Israel today as Israel tried to shoot them out of the sky.” As she speaks, a video box next to her shows explosions on an urban landscape. Sawyer then...

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09 Jul

What Israel-hating, Hamas-loving lefty said the following on Facebook? Dear friends: Take a few moments to read the following words and share them with others. I see the severe and rapid deterioration of the security situation in the territories, Jerusalem and the Triangle and I’m not surprised. Don’t be confused for a moment. This is the result of the policy conducted by...

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26 Jun

Many people are surprised that Germain Katanga has dropped his appeal, particularly given Judge Van den Wyngaert's savage dissent. I'm not surprised in the least, because it locks in his sentence, which the OTP planned to appeal. Katanga's 12-year sentence is even shorter than Lubanga's, and he has already spent seven years in pre-trial detention. In fact, he'll be eligible for...

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25 Jun

I will be participating in a roundtable about Syria and international justice next Monday night at the LSE. It's free and open to the public, so I hope at least a few OJ readers will come. You can also send questions to the following hashtag: #LSESyriaICC. We will try to answer at least a few of them! Here are the event details: Syria...

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25 Jun

Jamie Orr has responded to my previous post on the drone memo, in which I argue that the OLC fails to adequately defend its conclusion that the CIA is just as entitled to the public-authority justification (PAJ) as the DoD. It's a thoughtful response, and I appreciate Dean Orr taking the time to write it. But I don't find his arguments convincing. Orr begins by citing Art. 43 of the...

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23 Jun

As everyone on Twitter knows by now, the US government has released the notorious memorandum in which the OLC provides the supposed legal justification for killing Anwar al-Awlaki. I'm a bit disappointed not to get a mention in the memo; people in the know have suggested that a post I wrote in April 2010 led the OLC to substantially rewrite it. Vanity aside, though, I'm...

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20 Jun

Most of the discussion about Abu Khattallah's capture in Libya has focused on the operation's basis -- or lack thereof -- in domestic US law. Less attention has been paid to whether international law permitted the US to use force on Libyan soil. As Marty Lederman recently noted at Just Security, Abu Khattallah's capture can potentially be justified on two different grounds:...

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20 Jun

I'm not sure how I missed this, but these are very strong -- and atypically blunt -- allegations by Fatou Bensouda: The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to investigate reports that the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) deliberately contributed in covering up crimes in the restive region. In reference to US-based Foreign Policy...

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