International Human Rights Law

At Just Security, my friend Ryan Goodman has posted a long analysis of Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense, in which the UK High Court held that IHL neither authorizes nor regulates detention in non-international armed conflict (NIAC). That decision will soon be considered by the Court of Appeal. In his post, which is a must-read, Ryan states that he agrees with the High Court...

I am occasionally accused -- correctly, of course -- of using the blog as little more than a tool for shameless self-promotion. So it gives me great pleasure to use the blog as a tool of shameless other-promotion and announce the publication of Jens's important new book, The Assault on International Law, now available from our friends at Oxford University Press....

The Washington Post has a long article today about how Mossad and the CIA collaborated to blow up Hezbollah's chief of international operations in 2008. Here are the key paragraphs: On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the...

Ian Henderson may be mad at me.  He asked for fewer posts on foreign relations.  But he also asked for more posts on treaties.  I have a new paper up that tackles both topics -- An Intersubjective Treaty Power.  For those of you who are interested in such things, here's the abstract: Does the Constitution require that U.S. treaties address matters...

[Nimrod Karin is a J.S.D. candidate at New York University School of Law. From 2006 to 2012 he served as a legal adviser to the Israel Defense Forces at the International Law Department of the Military Advocate General’s Corps’ HQ, and from 2012 to 2013 he was the Deputy Legal Adviser to Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations.] Thanks so much...

Just Security has published two long guest posts (here and here) on the ICC and Palestine by Nimrod Karin, a J.S.D. candidate at New York University School of Law who was previously Deputy Legal Adviser to Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. There is much to respect about the posts, which are careful, substantive, and avoid needless hyperbole. And I agree...

Not surprisingly given where I perch on the political spectrum, I love protest songs. One of my favourite jogging playlists is a disparate collection of classics -- Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," Country Joe and the Fish's "I Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die Rag," Paul Revere and the Raiders' "Indian Reservation," Phil Och's...

[Adv. Ido Rosenzweig is the chairman of ALMA –Association for the Promotion of International Humanitarian Law; Director of Research – Terror, Belligerency and Cyber at the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions in the University of Haifa; and a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.] Recently the Palestinians submitted (for the second time) a declaration...

So this is a well-intentioned but problematic idea: The Palestinians want the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation into the death of Yasser Arafat, a senior Fatah official announced on Sunday. Jamal Muheissen, member of the Fatah Central Committee, claimed that Israel was responsible for the death of Arafat, who died in November 2004. “This file will be presented to the...

According to this report in the Times of Israel, the Palestinian Authority would be willing to forego the ICC if Israel agreed to freeze its settlement activity: RAMALLAH — A senior Palestinian official said Sunday that the first subject to be brought before the International Criminal Court at The Hague in the Palestinian Authority’s legal campaign against Israel would be settlement construction. The...

Sorry, Lonely Planet, there's a new travel sheriff in town: Fox News. Witness this map, created by a guest on Fox & Friends to illustrate the eight "no-go" zones -- areas under de facto Muslim control -- in Paris (out of 741 in France itself): Peterson, a former Air Force pilot, went on to describe Paris as “pretty scary” and compared it to Afghanistan, Iraq,...

[Oliver Windridge is a British lawyer specialising in international human rights and international criminal law, currently based in The Hague, Netherlands. He is founder of the blog The ACtHPR Monitor, on twitter @acthpr_monitor. In June 2014 Oliver was one of five non-African lawyers to be appointed to the Court’s inaugural List of Counsel (pro bono). The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation affiliated to the author.] Many readers will be familiar with the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights. For those who are not the Court was established by the African Union to hear cases relating to alleged violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Charter) and other international human rights instruments. The Court is based is in Arusha, Tanzania and is separate to the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. What follows is a summary of the Court’s activity in 2014. March: the Court’s 32nd Ordinary Session At its 32nd Ordinary Session, the Court conducted the public hearing in Konate v. Burkina Faso. The Applicant, working as editor of the weekly newspaper L’Ouraganin, published two articles which lead to his convicted for defamation, public insult and insulting a magistrate. He was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment and handed large fines. The Applicant argued that his conviction and punishment contravened his right to freedom of expression as protected under Article 9 of the Charter and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Court also rendered three judgments. The first, Zongo and others v. Burkina Faso, related to the alleged assassination of Norbert Zongo an investigative journalist and Director of the weekly paper l’Indépendent and three colleagues in December 1998. The Applicant argued that following the alleged assassination the local authorities had failed to mount a proper investigation and failed to act with due diligence in seeking, trying and judging those involved in the death of Zongo and his companions. In only the second case to be decided on its merits, the Court found that Burkina Faso had indeed failed to take measures to ensure the Applicants right to be heard by a competent national court, therefore violating articles 1, 7, 9(2) of the Charter and Article 66 of the ECOWAS Treaty. Reparations are to be decided after further submissions from the parties. The second and third cases, Omary and others v. Tanzania involving an application by former East African Commission employees who had not received promised reparations, pension and severance benefits when the then East African Community was disbanded in 1984, and Chacha v. Tanzania, concerning the Applicant’s alleged unlawful arrest, detention, charging and imprisonment contrary to Tanzanian laws, were both declared inadmissible due to the Applicant’s failure to exhaust local remedies. The Court also considered its first application for interpretation and review of a previous Judgment. In June 2013 the Court had found the case of Mkandawire v. Malawi inadmissible due to the Applicant’s failure to exhaust local remedies. The Applicant made an application to the Court for review and interpretation of the Judgement. The Court ruled that the application for interpretation could not be entertained because “interpretation” as found in the Protocol and rules of the Court can only be sought for the purposes of executing a judgement. Since the case was dismissed due to non-exhaustion of local remedies there was no judgement to interpret. As to the application to review, the Court found the application inaccurately cited key paragraphs of its earlier judgement which were the subject of the review application. In addition evidence provided by the Applicant which he argued was new was known to him at the time the Court handed down its judgement and was therefore neither new or evidence. June: movement toward the African Court of Justice and Human Rights The Court, or at least the future guise of the Court, came into the spotlight in June after the African Union met in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea where it adopted the Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. (Incidentally, Equatorial Guinea has not signed the Protocol establishing the existing Court). This Protocol has been the subject of much comment and debate, in particular for its amendment to Article 46A bis of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court which imparts immunity against criminal charges for acting heads of state or government and other senior state officials. We also learned a little more of the new court’s ambitious proposed structure consisting of a “general” chamber handling trade issues and conflict between states, a “human rights chamber” handling work similar to the current Court and “criminal chamber”. For more comment on the immunity amendment see Paul Bradfield’s piece here, and Mark Kersten’s piece here. A press conference by Legal Counsel for the African Union Vincent Nmehielle on the new court, including the issue of immunity, can be seen here. Please note that the press conference does not start until about 6 minutes in, so best to skip forward. June: Mtikila ruling on reparations Also in June, the Court rendered its first ever ruling on reparations in Mtikila v. Tanzania. The case centered on Tanzanian laws that require candidates running for local government, parliamentary and presidential elections to be members of a registered political party, effectively barring independent candidates. In June 2013 the Court delivered its judgment, unanimously finding Tanzania’s ban on independent candidates had violated the Applicant’s Article 10 and 13(1) Charter rights and, by majority, that the same ban violated the Applicant’s Article 2 and 3 Charter rights. The judgment can be read here. My summary and analysis of the case can be seen here. The issue of reparations was postponed in order that both parties could make additional submissions. In its ruling the Court found there exists a fundamental principle of international law that where a violation of an “international obligation” causes harm, there entails an obligation to provide adequate reparation which the Court should follow and is reflected in Article 27(1) of the Court’s Protocol. The Court found that applying this principle, pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and legal expenses were capable of being awarded by the Court, but that the Applicant had failed to provide evidence of a link between the damages and expenses claimed and the claim itself. In addition, the Court also examined Tanzania’a compliance with the June 2013 judgment noting that in Tanzania’s reply to damages it continued to maintain that the judgment was wrong, since the law in Tanzania prohibits independent candidates from running for election. The Court expressed its “concern” at this line of argument which was compounded by Tanzania’s failure to report to the Court on the measures it is taking to comply with the Judgment. Consequently, it ordered that within six months Tanzania should: (i) publish the official English translation translated into Kiswahili at Tanzania’s expense and publish in both English and Kiswahili once in the official gazette and once in a national newspaper; and (ii) publish the Judgment it its entirety in English on an official website and remain available for one year. The Court ordered that nine months from the ruling Tanzania should submit to the Court a report ion the above measures.