In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Human Rights Law

05 Aug

The request is supported by a number of leading QCs and professors in Britain. (Full disclosure: three of the signatories are barrister members and one is an academic member of Doughty Street Chambers, with which I'm associated.) Here is the Bar Human Rights Committee's summary: Public international law and criminal law Q.C.s and Professors based in Britain join with the Bar Human...

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04 Aug

As Eugene notes in today's guest post, the Palestinian Authority (PA) appears to have decided to ratify the Rome Statute. I'll believe it when I see it: the PA has threatened to ratify before, only to back down at the last moment. But could it? Most observers have assumed it could, but Eugene disagrees. I think his bottom line may well be...

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26 Jul

That's the question at the heart of a complicated debate between a variety of IHL scholars. The debate began with a legal opinion that Avi Bell submitted to the Knesset, in which he argued that nothing in international law prohibits Israel from cutting off the water and power it provides to Gaza. Although the opinion is dense -- and has been updated...

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24 Jul

In two decisions (here and here) handed down this morning, the European Court of Human Rights has found that Poland violated its obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights for its complicity in the United States' running of a CIA black site and high-value detainees program on Polish territory. One of the cases involved al-Nashiri, who was prosecuted before a U.S. military...

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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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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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