Yesterday I participated in the launch of a new report at the International Peace Institute, entitled 'A Necessary Voice: Small States, International Law and the UN Security Council.' A link to the report and the webcast is available here. The conversation emphasized how the history of international law is replete with instances of how small states (defined as countries with...
I have been thinking more about how the OTP can appeal the Pre-Trial Chamber's refusal to authorize the Afghanistan investigation. I was perhaps a bit too dour in my assessment of whether the Appeals Chamber is likely to get the chance to reverse a decision that I consider fundamentally flawed. The most obvious option would be to seek leave to appeal the...
Many thought this day would never come, and I consider myself one of them. Last week President Omar al Bashir became former President Omar al Bashir after months of citizen led protests and a definitive intervention by the Sudanese Army. The remarkable power of citizen protests and the dogged determination to topple a corrupt regime has been inspirational to observe...
It was another busy week on Opinio Juris. Victor Kattan kicked things off with a systematic analysis of the false premises undergirding Israel’s claims to the West Bank in two parts (here and here). Alonso provided a detailed post on the interplay between human rights and investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), with a particular focus on indigenous “social license” in investment...
[Gabor Rona is a Visiting Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School, where he directs the Law and Armed Conflict Project.] The Decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to decline to proceed with cases involving Afghanistan “in the interests of justice” is not only likely ultra vires, it is appalling. That’s not to say that...
In my previous post, I defended the right of the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) to review the OTP's assessment of whether there were, to quote Art. 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute, "substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice." In this post, I want to explain why I think the PTC got that review completely,...
Dov Jacobs has a typically excellent post at Spreading the Jam on the PTC's decision to reject the Afghanistan investigation. I agree with nearly all of it, but I do take issue with this comment: First of all, and perhaps most importantly, the exercise that the Pre-Trial Chamber did is most likely ultra vires. Indeed, Article 53(1)(c) is very clear that...
I will write a longer post tonight criticising the PTC's understanding of the "interests of justice," but I thought I'd start by cutting to the legal chase: can the OTP appeal the PTC's decision to reject its request to investigate the situation in Afghanistan? As I read the Rome Statute, I don't think so. Here is the text of the relevant...
[Kingsley Abbott is the International Commission of Jurists' Senior Legal Adviser for Global Redress and Accountability & Saman Zia-Zarifi is the Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists. This is the second part of a two-part post. Part I can be found here.] Some important questions In the previous installment we raised some of the arguments in favor of creating...
[Kingsley Abbott is the International Commission of Jurists' Senior Legal Adviser for Global Redress and Accountability & Saman Zia-Zarifi is the Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists. This is the first part of a two-part post.] Introduction The International Independent Investigative Mechanism for Syria and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar are recent examples of States responding to situations where...
[Christopher “Kip” Hale currently serves a legal advisor on atrocity crime investigations in conflict zones. Previously, Kip has worked at the American Bar Association, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the UN-International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Santiago Vargas Niño is a Legal Officer at the Tribunal for Peace of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Colombia. The...