As I predicted, the Pre-Trial Chamber has approved genocide charges for Bashir: The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir - this time for charges of genocide. He already faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which he denies. The ICC first indicted him in March 2009 but he has not...
OK, I'll admit up front that this is a relatively narrow topic. But I've written a chapter on the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to treaties from 1861 to 1900 (you can download it here). The project's initial appeal was participating in this great conference last year at Santa Clara on the history of the Supreme Court and International Law. Bill Dodge, Mike Ramsey...
On her new article in the latest AJIL, "Power and Persuasion in Investment Treaty Interpretation: The Dual Role of States." Although not the expert Roger and others are on investment law, I've read this closely and think it is a blockbuster article. Anthea Roberts, currently a junior professor at LSE, is one of the brightest and best of the young-young...
As I noted in my previous post, the OTP argued that it had an "independent statutory obligation" to protect witnesses that permitted it to ignore the Trial Chamber's order to reveal the intermediary's identity to the defense. The Trial Chamber rejected that claim, and rightfully so. There is no such obligation -- or, perhaps more precisely, there is no such...
At least two of the Russian spies are naturalized US citizens -- Vicky Palaez and her husband Mikhail Vasenkov (aka Juan Lazaro). In Palaez's case, at least, it looks like there was nothing fraudulent about her naturalization (presumably there's a case that her husband's was, though I haven't seen anyone make it). As part of the plea agreement, Palaez agrees to...
This, over at EJILTalk! Amrita responds to earlier posts by Brad Roth and me, in a discussion that started out around an EJIL article of mine, The Rise of International Criminal Law. We all have since moved the discussion to a variety of things, and Amrita's response is very interesting and worth reading in continuing those debates. One of the questions...
I don't make that claim lightly. Despite my belief that Moreno-Ocampo has been a disaster as a prosecutor, I have consistently opposed calls for his removal, whether because of his retaliation against an employee for accusing him of sexual harassment or because he decided to pursue genocide charges against Bashir. I even opposed his ouster when his misuse of confidentiality...
I hope I'm not stepping on the toes of my Wronging Rights friends, but I couldn't ignore why Linsdey Lohan thinks she doesn't deserve to be sent to jail for 90 days for violating her probation: It is clearly stated in Article 5 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights that...
Morton Abramowitz and James Hooper have a very interesting analysis in the National Interest of the likely effect of the soon-to-be released ICJ advisory opinion in Kosovo. The analysis is not legal, but political. And the bottom line, Kosovo is far from out of the woods, even if the judgment is favorable to Kosovo statehood: No one knows what the court will do, but: —If...
I discovered the error this morning, as I was re-reading the Appeals Chamber decision for the joint criminal enterprise section of my book on the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The decision cites Einsatzgruppen as an example of JCE I, "basic" joint criminal enterprise, and then attributes the following quote to the Einsatzgruppen tribunal (para. 200): the elementary principle must be borne in...
Julian's link to the WSJ blog post forces me to aim for something a little more coherent (apologies, I didn't know they were doing the interview format - thought they were on the usual fishing expedition for a soundbite or two). The bottom line: I think there's a pretty good chance the S.B. 1070 will be enjoined before it goes...
Our own Peter Spiro talks to the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog on today's filing of a federal lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law. The grounds for the lawsuit, as expected, is preemption, even though most of the political debate about the lawsuit is concerned with racial discrimination. The choice of preemption confirms my assessment that an equal protection challenge to...
