In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Topics

09 Apr

At a time when the International Criminal Court is facing significant challenges, many are questioning the trajectory of the global international criminal justice project. However, universal jurisdiction presents refreshed avenues for justice, particularly in the case of the atrocities committed in Liberia during the civil war in 1989-2003. Last week, the Swiss Office of the Attorney General announced that former United...

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09 Apr

I am very happy to welcome Opinio Juris 2.0's first guest blogger: Angela Mudukuti, a Zimbabwean international lawyer who currently works for the Wayamo Foundation. Angela focuses on enhancing the domestic capacity of African prosecutors and investigators to investigate and prosecute core international crimes. She previously worked for the superb Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) in South Africa, where she was involved with precedent-setting...

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07 Apr

Kevin kicked off the week of March 25th with a carefully reasoned post on the legal difficulties associated with the potential ICC investigation into the deportation of civilians from Syria to Jordan, with a particular emphasis on how they related to the divergent mentes reae of forcible transfer and deportation as crimes against humanity. In this way, Kevin distinguished the Syrian...

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01 Apr

Well, that was predictable. The Ntaganda defence has filed two motions relating to the news that the ICC's judges have permitted Judge Ozaki to simultaneously serve as a judge in the case and as Japan's ambassador to Estonia. The first, directed to the Presidency, is styled "Request for Disclosure Concerning the Decision of the Plenary of Judges on the Judicial Independence...

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29 Mar

This is truly scandalous -- even by the ICC's standards. Thomas Verfuss explains: The Hague Judge Kuniko Ozaki wants to leave her position as a full-time judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to become the ambassador of Japan in Estonia in April. Her departure from fulltime engagement at the ICC comes before she and two of her colleagues...

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29 Mar

[Kruthi Venkatesh is a lawyer practising in Mumbai, India.] In recent years, there has been a lot of debate on investor accountability for human rights abuses, especially in relation to cross-border trade and investment agreements. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“UN Guiding Principles”) has been a guiding force for this discourse. With increase in foreign investments in...

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28 Mar

[Mark Ellis is Executive Director of the International Bar Association, London.] On March 24, 2016, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”) convicted Radovan Karadžić of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws or customs of war. Almost exactly three years later, on March 20, 2019, the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals...

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28 Mar

Luke Moffett is a senior law lecturer at Queen's University Belfast and Principal Investigator on the "Reparations, Responsibility and Victimhood in Transitional Societies” project.  Following the award of the Nobel Peace prize to Dr Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad in December 2018, there is a substantial effort to capitalise on the publicity by pressing for an ‘International Reparation Initiative’ for victims of...

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26 Mar

[Emma Irving is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Law, Leiden University and Nicholas Ortiz is a Research and Teaching Associate at the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law.] On 18 March 2019, the UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (‘CoI’) published its detailed findings of its...

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25 Mar

Last week, the excellent lawyers at The Guernica Group, led by my friend Toby Cadman, filed an Article 15 communication with the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) arguing that the ICC should open an investigation into the deportation of civilians from Syria to Jordan. The communication itself is not public, so what we know of TGG's legal argument comes from their...

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24 Mar

Jennifer Trahan and Megan Fairlie kicked off the week with an analysis of the US’s latest attack on the International Criminal Court, in which they highlighted the doctrinal and practical problems associated with US’s threat to implement, inter alia, a travel ban on ICC officials investigating mass atrocity crimes which allegedly occurred in Afghanistan. Kevin continued with an historical analysis of...

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