In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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15 Jul

Ah, hypocrisy -- thy name is the United States. First up, US anger at Israel for not supporting a lawsuit concerning allegations that the Bank of China laundered money for Hamas and Islamic Jihad: Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren was called back to Israel to take part in an emergency meeting convened this weekend by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so that Oren could pass on  messages...

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15 Jul

Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger describe in the July 14 New York Times the increasingly global trade in computer vulnerabilities. The recent growth of this hacker market has been fueled by purchases by the U.S. and other governments. Can this market be effectively regulated? And if it is eventually regulated, would it be for the wrong reasons? Let's take a step...

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15 Jul

This week's Crossing Lines is a two-parter involving the kidnapping of a Russian billionaire's son, so I'll have more to say next week. For now, just take a gander at this exchange, wherein the French detective explains -- read: defends -- her team's jurisdiction: Billionaire: "Who are you people, again?" French Detective: "We work out of the International Criminal Court." Billionaire's Wife: "Handling...

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15 Jul

[Patricia Tarre Moser is an Attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The views expressed here are her own.] The international law doctrine of sovereign immunity has proved to be a powerful obstacle to effective enforcement of international human rights.  Domestic and international courts have begun to carve out some exceptions to sovereign immunity in individual cases, but as the ICJ made clear in the Ferrini case, sovereign immunity continues to protect states from civil proceedings -- even in cases where jus cogens violations take place. But what if a state, as a counter-measure, withheld sovereign immunity from another state that engages in a jus cogens violation?  In a recent article I propose that, in certain circumstances, for example a civil case brought in a State A for torture violations in State B, State A's courts should be permitted to withhold sovereign immunity from State B as a form of countermeasure against State B. The objective of the countermeasure must be to persuade the wrong-doing State to cease the violation and/or make reparations. The non-recognition of state immunity as a countermeasure could contribute towards this goal. Even if the hypothetical national court’s orders cannot be enforced against the wrong-doing State due to immunity from enforcement measures, the judgment itself serves as reparation to the victims. Using torture as an example, my proposal works as follows: after the torture victim files a claim against the State B before a Court of State A, the latter has to undertake a prima facie analysis of whether the alleged victim was subjected to torture and whether the torture was attributable to State B. If so, State A’s Court has to determine whether the non-recognition of State B’s immunity would be proportionate to the injury and to the gravity of the violation that caused the injury.  Additionally, while assessing the proportionality of the measure, the Court would need to take into account the rights of all parties involved: the victim, the State A and State B.
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15 Jul

For readers interested in cyber issues, I wanted to briefly note a Federalist Society Teleconference I was invited to participate in tomorrow at 2 pm (John Yoo is the other panelist).  The session is titled, "Attacks, Exploits and Intrusions: When Is a Cyber Incident an Act of War? What Responses Are Warranted?" Generally, Federalist Society Telefora are open only to its...

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15 Jul

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran is moving "closer and closer" to building a nuclear weapon and warned that his country may have to act. Netanyahu also phoned Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to try to resume peace talks, stalled now for three years. The Appeals Chamber of the ICTY has overturned a Trial Chamber decision acquiting Radovan Karadzic of...

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13 Jul

This week on Opinio Juris, we kicked off our inaugural Emerging Voices symposium with a post by Christopher Warren on the disciplinary fragmentation between law and other areas of the humanities. Fragmentation between different investment regimes prompted Maninder Malli to argue for minilateral approaches in international investment law as a middle ground between atomized BITs and unattainable multilateral initiatives. In his post,...

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12 Jul

Following the UN’s rejection of a demand for compensation for Haiti Cholera victims earlier this spring, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti challenged the interpretation and application of Article 29 of the Agreement on Privileges and Immunities, and formally requested a meeting with UN officials to discuss Petitioners’ claims. The Plaintiffs asked for the UN to respond within 60...

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12 Jul

[Otto Spijkers is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Utrecht University and Arron Honniball is a Student of the LL.M. Public International Law at Utrecht University] As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach their target date of 2015, the international community has begun developing post-2015 goals; the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A number of concurrent work streams were established, including the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP). It was emphasised throughout the resulting report of the HLP and at the launch event on May 30, 2013 that various global public consultations shaped that report and will continue to shape the SDGs development process. In this post we wish to assess whether there is a meaningful opportunity for global public participation in the formulation of the SDGs. Are citizens, individually or organized, provided with an opportunity to influence the development, implementation and/or evaluation of the SDGs? For international lawyers and political scientists, it is especially interesting to look at this “experiment” in global public participation. Are we witnessing the start of a new process of global policy-making, with global public consultation as one of its principal steps? Such process would proceed roughly as follows: First the UN conducts a global public consultation; then a group of experts use the results of the consultation as the basis for a comprehensive report, and this report is then the basis of a UN-led negotiation process, which will ultimately lead to commitments accepted by the community of States.
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12 Jul

ICRC and ASIL's Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict are hosting what looks to be a great event celebrating the 150th anniversary of the ICRC and the Lieber Code, Tuesday, July 23, 2013, 3:00 p.m. at the American Red Cross historical building, 430 17th Street NW, Washington DC. The event features John Fabian Witt, author of the...

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11 Jul

International lawyers are used to explaining to skeptics the functional case for diplomatic immunity by emphasizing the benefits it provides.  Here's the 5 second version: we want our diplomats to be able to communicate with their host States since the alternative to communication is often (and certainly used to be) conflict.  To ensure open communication we need diplomats who feel...

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11 Jul

Today, the U.S. Department of State released the 2012 edition of its Digest of U.S. practice in international law (for a brief history of these Digests see the accompanying press release here).  Under the editorship of CarrieLyn D. Guymon, the Digest addresses a number of key international legal developments from 2012, including the U.S. response to the crisis in Syria...

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