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15 Jun

On Friday, the DC Circuit vacated al-Bahlul's military commission conviction for conspiracy. There has been, and will be, much coverage of this decision, especially since the decision is a great candidate for a successful Supreme Court cert petition. Assuming that the federal government wants to appeal, which I can't imagine it would not, the case would allow the Supreme Court to return...

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15 Jun

[Ailsa McKeon is a BA/LLB (Hons I) from the University of Queensland.] Growing numbers of men and women are travelling to the Middle East to fight for ‘ISIS’. Political figures from several Western nations, including Australia, the UK, Canada and Norway, have publicly asserted that these individuals should be stripped of citizenship of their countries of origin to protect, punish and...

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10 Jun

Eyewitness.org has released a new app that creates a secure “digital locker” for those who seek to record digital evidence of atrocity crimes for eventual use in by courts. The app has been produced by the International Bar Association and the legal services division of Lexis Nexis.   Information is available here.    The app was developed after controversies regarding the...

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10 Jun

In March 2012 An Hertogen and Jessica Dorsey joined Opinio Juris as our first two Assistant Editors. Over the years, both have contributed immensely to Opinio Juris. Today, we bid An farewell as she enters a new phase in her career. You may be most familiar with An’s work writing our Weekly Round-Ups and well as the Events and Announcements posts....

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09 Jun

[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice and Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Studies.This two-part post is based on a talk given at the seminar on Reconciliation v. Accountability: Balancing Interests of Peace and Justice, organized by the Centre for International Law Research and Policy on 29 May 2015 at the Peace Palace. Part...

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08 Jun

A fascinating ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court this morning in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the case presenting the question whether Congress can mandate that U.S. citizens born (to American parents) in Jerusalem may have Israel listed on their passports as their place of birth. Since 1948, every U.S. president has carefully avoided opining in any context on the status of...

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08 Jun

Long-awaited decision here finding the President to have exclusive recognition power, trumping Congress' attempt to require birthplace of US citizens born in Jerusalem to be recorded as "Israel" on US passports issued to them. 1. Phew. Who knows what the response would have been in the Middle East if the Court had come out the other way. Maybe nothing, but it's...

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08 Jun

[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice and Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Studies.This two-part post is based on a talk given at the seminar on Reconciliation v. Accountability: Balancing Interests of Peace and Justice, organized by the Centre for International Law Research and Policy on 29 May 2015 at the Peace Palace.] Introduction Punishment...

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08 Jun

Africa Mali's government and Tuareg-led rebels agreed on a ceasefire in a strategic town and on more political guarantees on Friday, steps towards a U.N.-brokered peace accord to end decades of uprisings in the northern region the separatists call Azawad. The United Nations' top human rights official called on Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday to investigate reports of horrifying crimes...

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05 Jun

Plaintiffs have appealed the January 9, 2015 decision of the Southern District of New York, that the United Nations is immune in the case Delama Georges et al. The appeal brief, filed by the International Institute for Justice in Haiti, is available here: Georges v UN - Principal Appellate Brief 5.28 Final. The contentions on appeal are as follows: 1.  Whether the...

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04 Jun

The ALL CAPS headline of the last few hours involves news that social security and other identifying information for some 4 million U.S. federal workers was compromised in a cyber exploitation that, if one believes the unofficial finger pointing, came at the behest of the Chinese government.  Of course, it was just yesterday, that the Council on Foreign Relations' Adam Segal was...

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