One of the great advantages of being a legal academic is the ability to get involved in actual litigation. I have consulted on a number of cases at the ICTY, ICTR, and ICC over the years, most obviously serving as one of Radovan Karadzic's legal associates, but it's been a while, and I've been itching to get back in the game. So I...
Colum Lynch reports today at FP.com that the United States is pushing for the creation of a hybrid international criminal tribunal for Syria by...
Just a reminder to readers: the ICRC's phenomenal database of customary international humanitarian law is available for free online -- and includes a great deal of information that is not available in the two printed volumes. Here is the ICRC's description: Today, the ICRC has made available on its online, free of charge Customary IHL database an update of State practice...
[Gabor Rona is the International Legal Director of Human Rights First.] What is the source of the power to detain in an armed conflict that is not between states (non-international armed conflict, or NIAC)? Where is the relevant law on grounds and procedures for such detention found? Torture and drones aside, this is probably the most vexing, most controversial, and most...
Germain Katanga will be sentenced tomorrow, having been convicted of crimes on the basis of an uncharged, unlitigated mode of participation that the Pre-Trial Chamber assured the defence would not be at issue in the trial and that the Trial Chamber first mentioned more than six months after the 30-month trial ended. The Trial Judgment is a horrorshow, replete with statements...
As I've noted before, Ukraine's Constitutional Court has held that the Ukraine cannot ratify the Rome Statute because -- in the words of the ICRC -- "the administration of justice is the exclusive competence of the courts and...
[Ezequiel Heffes holds an LL.M., Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and is a lawyer, University of Buenos Aires, School of Law.] Recently, the High Court of England and Wales delivered a judgement in Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence [2014] EWHC 1369 (QB) holding, among other things (see here for an explanation of the whole case), that the...
There are many reasons to be skeptical of the Security Council referring the situation in Syria to the ICC, not the least of which is that an ICC investigation is unlikely to accomplish anything given the ongoing conflict. (One that Assad is almost certainly going to win.) But just in case that's not enough, take a gander at this provision...
[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden University, and Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies.] Jus post bellum comes in many forms and variations. One of the main shortcomings in existing discourse is the lack of engagement with the interplay between law and morality. Like the laws of war, and the...
[James Pattison is a Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Manchester.] It’s often been claimed that there exists a responsibility to rebuild after war on behalf of the international community in cases such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Somalia, and so on. For instance, this was one of the key tenets of the report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty...
[Gregory H. Fox is a Professor of Law and Director of the Program for International Legal Studies at Wayne State University Law School.] How should the idea of a jus post bellum be integrated into existing international law? A wide array of norms now applies to post-conflict states: international humanitarian law, jus ad bellum, human rights law, the law of international...
[Dov Jacobs is an Assistant Professor of International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University and comments on international law issues at Spreading the Jam.] Carsten Stahn, Jennifer Easterday and Jens Iverson have edited a comprehensive and rich volume on the law applicable in the aftermath of conflict, also known as Jus Post Bellum. This book covers...
