Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, visited Chad earlier this year. The Chadian government made no attempt to arrest him, despite the fact that -- as a member of the ICC -- both SC Res. 1593 (the Darfur referral) and the Rome Statute obligated it to cooperate with the Court's arrest warrant. Human rights groups criticized Chad's unwillingness to arrest...
And remarkably enough, it has nothing to do with Assange himself. On the contrary: The top Swedish prosecutor pursuing sexual assault charges against Julian Assange has abruptly left the case and one of Mr Assange's accusers has sacked her lawyer. The turmoil in the Swedish Prosecution Authority's effort to extradite Mr Assange comes as another leading Swedish judge prepares to deliver an...
[Ryan Goodman is the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. You can also find him on Twitter: @rgoodlaw] In a forthcoming article in the EJIL (“The Power to Kill or Capture Enemy Combatants”), I argue that the law of armed conflict prohibits the use of lethal force, in some situations, when it is...
[James Hathaway is the James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor of Law and the Director, Program in Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan Law School] Finally, a break-through on the conundrum of Refugee Convention supervision! The UN Refugee Convention has languished for more than 60 years without any formal mechanism to provide arms-length international oversight of treaty obligations. While state...
It's always exciting when the media pays attention to expert reports on international law. Unfortunately, the media all too often gets international law wrong -- and recent reporting on the Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare is no exception. There has been a spate of articles in the past couple of days that breathlessly claim the Tallinn Manual...
Ben Emmerson, counsel for al-Senussi, has asked the Pre-Trial Chamber to refer Libya to the Security Council for ignoring its February 6 decision ordering Libya to transfer al-Senussi to the Court. Here are the key paragraphs: 3. It has been almost six weeks since the Chamber‟s Order of 6 February, and Libya has failed to comply with every one of these...
Wells Bennett calls my attention to this statement by Marc Ambinder in a recent article in The Week entitled "Five Truths About the Drone War": The CIA does not "fly" drones. It "owns" drones, but the Air Force flies them. The Air Force coordinates (and deconflicts) their use through the CIA's Office of Military Affairs, which is run by an Air Force...
A couple of weeks ago, I noted that the Pre-Trial Chamber had ordered Libya to return the documents it wrongfully seized from Melinda Taylor during her privileged meeting with Saif Gaddafi. I also predicted that Libya would try to avoid complying with the order by filing various motions challenging the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision. Guess what? Libya has filed two motions in response,...
This according to a bizarre -- and bizarrely inaccurate -- article in the Jerusalem Post. How many errors can you find? An Israeli law firm on Thursday formally announced its request to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensada, to open a criminal investigation into violations by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and nine members of Hamas for war...
Ken noted last week that Lawfare has been hosting an ongoing debate over Ryan Goodman's fascinating new article "The Power to Kill or Capture Enemy Combatants," which is forthcoming in the European Journal of International Law. I contributed a long post criticizing Goodman's claim that Art. 35(2) of the First Additional Protocol -- which provides that "[i]t is prohibited to employ...
Like many young, lefty international lawyers, one of my intellectual heroes is Philippe Sands. He is a remarkable scholar and an equally gifted advocate, and he puts both to good use no matter how unpopular the position or client -- as his representation of the Libyan government in its challenge to the admissibility of the case against Saif Gaddafi demonstrates. Above...
I'm grateful to Ken, Wells Bennett, and Marcy Wheeler for speculating that my April 2010 blog post on 18 USC 1119, the foreign-murder statute, is the post referred to in today's New York Times article on the behind-the-scenes machinations that culminated in the CIA using a drone to kill Anwar al-Awlaki. I imagine they are correct; the post fits the timeline...
