The OTP has weighed in on Libya's ongoing challenge to the admissibility of the case against Saif Gaddafi. In its view, although there are serious questions concerning whether Libya is investigating the same conduct as the OTP, Libya is currently willing and able to conduct a genuine prosecution. Unfortunately, its conclusion regarding ability rests on a very serious legal error....
From the closing of last night's State of the Union: We may do different jobs, and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title: We are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what...
The UN has urged Sudan to strengthen human rights efforts with respect to two recently detained political opposition figures. Rebels have captured Syria's biggest hydro-electric dam and battled army tank units near the center of Damascus. Libya has claimed it is competent to try ex-spy chief under Gaddafi’s regime, Abdullah al-Senussi, though the ICC has called for his extradition to The Hague. The lower house of...
Apparently, the U.S. conservative policymaking world has made its peace with the ICC. As long as the ICC doesn't bother the US, the US won't bother the ICC. But the US has no plans to join either. That is the bottom line from this report from Colum Lynch. Have U.S. conservatives really lost the war on the International Criminal Court? A decade...
Neither the arbitral tribunal's order demanding Ecuador act to stop enforcement of the $18 Billion judgment against Chevron, nor Ecuador's continued brazen refusal to follow the order is really much a surprise. The Chevron-Ecuador Death Cage Match continues unabated and has gotten so out of control that almost nothing shocks me about this case anymore. A former Ecuadorian judge swearing...
In doing research on Aung San Suu Kyi, I recently came across this wonderful discussion from 2005 on the role of the intellectual in society. It comes in the form of a dialogue with Alan Clements in his book, The Voice of Hope: Aung San Suu Kyi: Conversations with Alan Clements. Clements: I brought with me a...
North Korea carried out its third-ever successful nuclear test, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, among others, condemned the act as a violation of several Security Council resolutions. The Sudanese government signed a Qatar-sponsored ceasefire with a splinter Darfur rebel group, in an attempt to revive a stalled peace process to end a decade-long conflict. Rebels have captured Syria's biggest hydro-electric dam and...
Andrew Sullivan raises the stakes on the legal effect of the Pope's retirement decision. As the Pope emeritus, can he now be sued in connection with his role in the sex abuses cases against the Catholic Church? I can already see a lot of problems such a suit would present, and I am writing on the go today, but what...
Syrian opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib has said he is willing to hold talks with President Bashar al-Assad's representatives in rebel-held areas of northern Syria to try to end the conflict that has killed more than 60,000 people. The UN reports that up to 5,000 people are fleeing Syria per day. The British government intensified its campaign to stop Scotland from leaving the United Kingdom, publishing a...
I know we normally announce call for papers in a group, but I want to highlight a particularly exciting new journal from Oxford University Press, the London Review of International Law. As you'll see, the editors are both distinguished and innovative; I'm sure the journal will prove to be both, as well. I hope readers will consider submitting to it. Call...
This week on Opinio Juris, Duncan started us off by discussing privileges and immunities for diplomats and posed the question of what the public should know in cases like DWIs. His next post offered a discussion of the Native American mutual defense treaty involving the Tar Sands Projects. Kevin weighed in this week on affairs at the ICC, including this post...
Noam Lubell and Nathan Derejko, both at the University of Essex, have posted "A Global Battlefield? Drones and the Geographical Scope of Armed Conflict" on SSRN. The essay will appear in the same Journal of International Criminal Justice symposium as my essay on signature strikes. Their abstract is all of one sentence, so here are the first couple of paragraphs: Defining...
