In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Human Rights Law

30 Nov

The just-released CFR web publication "Public Opinion on Global Issues" offers one-stop shopping for those looking for public opinion surveys across a range of transnational policy issues.  The overview explains how CFR and the Univ. of Maryland consolidated all publicly available opinion polls and provides a few significant findings: The international community confronts a daunting array of transnational threats and challenges...

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27 Nov

I criticize the Registry regularly, so it's important to acknowledge when it does something right.  I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the Registry's indefensible position that Dr. Karadzic's trial had not started, so the defence team was not entitled to any funding until the trial "began" in March.  The Registry has now reversed its decision and approved 250...

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23 Nov

The Nation has just published an extensive article documenting the "secret war" Blackwater employees have been conducting in Pakistan.  The opening grafs: At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which...

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23 Nov

As I note in my post above, Change.org has launched an ambitious new blog, War and Peace.  A sampling of recent posts, to give readers a taste of what the blog -- which obviously has a broad mandate! -- covers: "IRA Splinter Faction Nostalgic for the Old Belfast"; "Hey, Russian Media, There Is No 'Number War' in Bosnia-Herzegovina"; "Is the...

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23 Nov

Give the Trial Chamber credit, it has at least has stopped pretending that its decisions make any legal sense whatsoever: It said on Monday that Karadzic's appeal request was too vague and premature because at the time of his application, no counsel had been appointed to him. "Granting the application now, and then potentially again on 1 March, 2010 ...

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21 Nov

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Registry made no attempt to comply with the Appeals Chamber's decision in Seselj.  I have now learned that the Registry arranged for Dr. Karadzic to meet with five defence barristers, including Mr. Harvey.  Dr. Karadzic was then given a deadline to choose one.  Instead, citing Seselj, Dr. Karadzic asked for a copy of...

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19 Nov

The ICTY has appointed Richard Harvey, a barrister with Garden Court Chambers in London, to serve as Dr. Karadzic's stand-by counsel.  There is no question that Mr. Harvey is more than qualified for the position: in addition to defending a number of individuals accused of terrorism-related offences in the UK, Mr. Harvey has served as the lead counsel in one...

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18 Nov

This story from the New York Times about the corruption of Teodoro Obiang certainly hits close to home. His $35 million dollar estate in Malibu is just down the hill from Pepperdine. Several times a year, Teodoro Nguema Obiang arrives at the doorstep of the United States from his home in Equatorial Guinea, on his way to his...

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14 Nov

The following is a guest post by Lt. Col. Chris Jenks, the Chief of the International Law Branch in the Office of the Judge Advocate General. Lt. Col. Jenks is posting in his personal capacity. A Canadian Court recently sentenced Désiré Munyaneza, a former Rwandan Army officer, to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole following his conviction in May for...

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11 Nov

Another day, another attempt by the Registry to undermine the fairness of Dr. Karadzic's trial. Rule 3.3 of the Registry's Remuneration Scheme for Persons Assisting Indigent Self-Represented Accused provides that a self-representing defendant's legal team is entitled to be paid for "a maximum of 150 out-of-court preparation hours...

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09 Nov

As I reported here, the two cases of Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida present the best opportunity for constitutional comparativism since Roper v. Simmons. We apparently are an international outlier and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with 190 parties, categorically prohibits JLWOP for everyone under the age of eighteen. But from reading the transcripts...

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