In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Humanitarian Law

13 Mar

The Philippines' withdrawal from the ICC becomes effective this Saturday, March 17. There are domestic legal proceedings underway that have the potential to nullify the withdrawal. But if the withdrawal goes forward, we are faced with an important question: what happens to the OTP's preliminary examination? This is, of course, Burundi redux. In that case, the OTP preserved its ability to...

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26 Feb

Nearly 100 employees recently released an open letter to Microsoft demanding that the company cancel its nearly $500 million contract with the Army to develop an Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS). I will let the employees explain why: The contract's stated objective is to "rapidly develop, test, and manufacture a single platform that Soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train that...

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13 Feb

As I was doing some research into the invasion of Cambodia by South Vietnamese and US forces in 1970, I came across two official government accounts of the invasion -- one by the US, the other by Australia, one of the six countries that sent ground troops to Vietnam. They tell a rather different story...

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07 Feb

At Lawfire, my friend Charlie Dunlap has a long post arguing that the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was consistent with both the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello -- a response to a recent Stephen Carter op-ed that raises questions about the mission. I agree with much of what Charlie says, particularly about the jus in bello...

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01 Feb

[Nicolás Carrillo-Santarelli is a Colombian lawyer, PhD on international law and international relations. He works as a researcher and lecturer of Public International Law at the La Sabana University, Colombia. This is Part II of a two-part post. Part I can be found here.] The extradition debate Even though there has been a non-international armed conflict in Colombia, under domestic law members of...

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01 Feb

[Nicolás Carrillo-Santarelli is a Colombian lawyer, PhD on international law and international relations. He works as a researcher and lecturer of Public International Law at the La Sabana University, Colombia. This is Part I of a two-part post.] Introduction  In terms of international law, the region of the Americas is going through what the so-called ‘Chinese curse’ would label as interesting times -as...

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24 Jan

[Danielle Hites is the Staff Attorney at the Global Justice Center, an international human rights organization dedicated to advancing gender equality through the rule of law.] Despite the international community’s recognition that crimes against humanity are among the most serious crimes, there is no codified crimes against humanity treaty. The International Law Commission has undertaken the task of drafting one. Currently crimes against...

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23 Jan

Graffiti from the 36th Front of the FARC Dissidents in Briceño, Colombia, proclaims “We are Indestructible.” [Alex Diamond is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on the community experience of Colombia’s post-peace agreement transition.] January 28th, 2019 marks the two-year anniversary of the first arrivals of guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of...

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23 Jan

[Dr. Kubo Mačák is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.] I would like to start by thanking Opinio Juris for providing a platform for the discussion of internationalized armed conflicts in international law. In the title of my opening post, I paraphrased Carl von Clausewitz to suggest that these types of confrontations have become...

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21 Jan

“Internationalized Armed Conflicts in International Law” by Kubo Mačák presents a detailed and insightful analysis of the tipping point at which non-international armed conflict (NIAC) may be ‘internationalized’ and considered to be an international armed conflict (IAC), with the focus in particular in relation to the status of combatants and the law of occupation. Far from esoteric, the topic is...

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21 Jan

[Vito Todeschini is an Associate Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists, Middle East and North Africa Programme.] On 30 October 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) finally adopted the long-awaited General Comment no. 36 (GC 36) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). GC 36, which replaces GC 6 (1982) and GC...

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