Joan Donoghue, the Principal Deputy Legal Adviser in the Department of State, has been selected to be the next United States Judge for the International Court of Justice, according to reliable sources. Donoghue will replace Thomas Buergenthal, who has ably served as a judge on the ICJ since 2000. Donoghue is a career State Department lawyer chosen by...
Padania's victory was not in the football (American translation: "soccer") World Cup being played in South Africa but in the one that was just played in Gozo. You know, the Viva World Cup, the tournament among the unrecognized states of the world. The World Cup being played in South Africa is sponsored by FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Association, the governing body of...
Both Marko and Joanna Harrington (in comments) have relied on Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to justify the idea that the Court will have to rely on understanding seven to interpret new Article 8bis, the idea being that the adoption of the understandings by consensus is a subsequent agreement that Article 31 makes relevant...
Marko posted the following long response to my previous post on understandings. I'm promoting it to the main page to make sure everyone reads it. Kevin, Thanks so much for your post. Not only is this issue fascinating in its own right, there are also several fundamental, more conceptual questions here that sort of poke their head through. Let me...
Readers who have been following the Review Conference are most likely aware that the delegates adopted by consensus seven "understandings" concerning aggression in addition to a definition of the crime, the conditions of jurisdiction of the crime, and the elements of the crime. I believe that those understandings have no actual force and should be ignored by the judges when...
According to news reports, Oklahoma voters will consider a proposed amendment to their state constitution this fall that would ban "an local courts from considering Shariah or other international law in their rulings." I have little doubt it will pass, and that (since it is an amendment to the OK Constitution) it is constitutional. But it is really unnecessary and overbroad....
Someone should tell Mr. Netanyahu that he is supposed to wait until after the inquiry to announce its predetermined findings: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of Monday's cabinet meeting that the main goal of the Gaza flotilla probe is to prove to the world that the Israel Navy operation on the Gaza-bound aid ship was...
The following is a guest post by Greg Gordon, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies at the University of North Dakota. He attended the Review Conference on behalf of the International League for Human Rights. A VIEW OF THE AGGRESSION AMENDMENTS FROM KAMPALA Having been on the ground in Kampala, my take on...
It is worth also considering the views of those critical of the entire ICC effort to the define aggression and bring it within the ICC Statute. Brett Schaefer at Heritage offers this final take, which he calls the U.S. effort a qualified success due to its ability to delay implementation and to insert "understandings" into the ICC Statute. [T]he U.S. was...
Having called her out a few hours ago not knowing she was on her way back from Uganda, I thought I should excerpt Joanna Harrington's final post on the Review Conference, where she offers another great account of the final negotiations. She also offers this final take, which is more positive than Kevin's take: For some, it will undoubtedly seem self-defeating to define...
I've long supported providing the ICC with jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe there is a great deal of truth to the IMT's insistence that "[t]o initiate a war of aggression...
It looks like the ICC Review Conference has reached consensus on a definition of the "crime of aggression" and the mechanisms governing the ICC Prosecutor's jurisdiction over such a crime. According to the AFP, the new amendment to the Rome Statute provides: [T]hat the UN Security Council will hold primary responsibility for determining whether an act of aggression has occurred. But where...
