With the end of Ban Ki-Moon’s term on the horizon, discussions about the next UN Secretary General, and more importantly how that person should be chosen, have moved front and center. A joint letter by the Presidents of the GA and Security Council was released on December 15, which sets forth a slightly new process. It states: “[The Presidents] will...
As already noted by others (including Kevin Heller, Marko Milanovic, and Dov Jacobs), the ICTY Appeals Chamber has overturned the acquittals of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic and remanded their case back to the Trial Chamber for the holding of a second trial. I want to discuss two issues pertaining to this decision. The first pertains to the Specific Direction requirement...
More than 40 senior judges and lawyers from all parts of the world have made an important contribution to efforts to hold judges accountable for involvement in human rights violations and judicial corruption, by participating in the sixth annual ICJ Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers. The Geneva Forum is organized annually by the ICJ's Centre for Independence of Judges &...
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Last week, the ICTY Appeals Chamber reversed the acquittals of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, the former head and deputy head of the Serbian secret police under Milosevic, and ordered them retried. One of the two grounds for reversal was the Trial Chamber's adoption of the specific-direction requirement; in the majority's view (the vote was 3-2), specific direction is not an element...
The UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal formed to consider the dispute between the Philippines and China gave China until January 1 to file a response to the arguments made by the Philippines at its most recent merits hearing. China had not showed up at any of the hearings, nor has it submitted any official written arguments to the Tribunal. I don't know...
[Dan Bodansky is the Foundation Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Law and Global Affairs at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is in Paris for the climate change negotiations. This is the sixth in a series of updates both from the U.S. and from Paris. Professor Bodansky has consulted...
Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa At least two people were killed and 20 others wounded when heavy fighting broke out in a Muslim enclave of Central African Republic's capital Bangui as a vote in a constitutional referendum was under way on Sunday. Fears grow over press freedom in South Africa. Gambia's president has declared...
[Ruti Teitel is the Ernst C Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School and the author of Globalizing Transitional Justice (OUP paper2015).] I have learned a great deal from the thoughtful responses to my article (.pdf) by the participants in this symposium. Dinah PoKempner is correct to say that my article doesn’t address the merits of a “right of...
The focus of Ruti’s article is the developing primary norm of the “right to accountability”, which derives from international jurisprudence associated with disappearances. Ruti describes the core content of this right as one that “implies a set of obligations on the state, largely read into prevailing treaty rights protections involving personal security, such as the right to life, whether under...
[Hari Osofsky is a law professor, faculty director of the Energy Transition Lab, and director of the Joint Degree Program in Law, Science & Technology at the University of Minnesota. She is serving as chair of the American Society of International Law’s observer delegation at the 2015 Paris climate change negotiations. Any views expressed are those of the author and...
Here is Moreno-Ocampo's latest doozy, concerning the possibility of Israelis being prosecuted for war crimes related to Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank: Where the Israeli High Court of Justice has approved specific settlements as legal, this could provide a complete defense to any allegations that they are war crimes, former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the Jerusalem...
