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02 Apr

When the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber approved the Prosecutor's request for authority to investigate alleged "crimes against humanity" in Kenya, I didn't notice this long and powerful dissenting opinion (around p. 84) by one of the judges (Hans-Peter Kaul).  The standard for authorizing an investigation is pretty easy to satisfy (at least it sounds that way to me), so the dissent...

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01 Apr

Not a funny April Fool's Day joke, although it sort of sounds like one. Any of our readers in Coffs Harbour, NSW, please check out your window and give the Australian Federal Police a hand. THE Australian Federal Police are continuing to frantically search for an Australian accused of war crimes, after a five-year legal battle ended with the High Court...

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01 Apr

Interesting discussion of innovative ways to deal with Haiti's long-term problems.  Haiti is very close to a failed state. So it's time to think big. Here are four out of the box choices:  1) A New Haitian Constitution; 2) UN Trusteeship; 3) U.S. Protectorate; 4) U.S. annexation and status as a territory.  Read the whole article. I actually think that...

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01 Apr

Add another African case to the ICC's docket. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has given its prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo the green light to investigate the role of senior politicians in Kenya's post-election violence that killed 1,300 Kenyans in 2008. The decision allows Mr. Ocampo to take the next step, which would be passing down indictments against senior Kenyan politicians, some...

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31 Mar

There is an old adage that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.  The rejoinder is that a liberal is a conservative who has been indicted.  Speaking of which, an intriguing development in the case of the Christian terrorists: All members of the anti-government Hutaree group, who wanted to start a violent revolution against the government...

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31 Mar

NGO Monitor loves to criticize progressive NGOs for a lack of transparency concerning their funding.  A recent report, for example, predictably attacks Human Rights Watch for not identifying all of its donors, particularly those at last year's fundraising event in Saudi Arabia: HRW publishes the names and amounts provided by some of its donors, but others remain hidden. Although HRW...

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31 Mar

This is just the first round of a potentially huge investor-state arbitration claim filed by Chevron against Ecuador. $700 million now, but up to $27 billion later. (For some background, see here and here about a federal court's refusal to stay one of the arbitration proceedings.). Chevron Corp (CVX.N) won a three-year-old arbitration fight against Ecuador over a commercial dispute as...

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30 Mar

Forgive the self-promotion, but I was just sent the cover of my co-edited book (with Markus Dubber, who teaches at Toronto), and I think it's really cool.  The Handbook, which will be published in November by Stanford University Press, is the first edited book on comparative substantive criminal law.  It contains seventeen chapters -- 16 chapters on the...

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30 Mar

Yesterday's oral argument in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd gave strong indications that the Court was prepared to extend the territorial limitations of Hoffman-La Rouche v. Empagran to the securities fraud context. Morrison involves a class action brought by foreign plaintiffs against a foreign stock issuer on a foreign exchange for alleged fraud that occurred on foreign soil....

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30 Mar

AP reports that a Dutch court of appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that held the UN could not be sued for its failure to protect Bosnian civilians in Srebrenica: Appeals judges have ruled that relatives of victims of Europe's worst massacre since World War II cannot sue the United Nations for compensation in a Dutch court. Lawyers for...

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30 Mar

Sudan is preparing for a national election next month. It may not be the solution for Sudan, given that it is still very doubtful that there is enough cohesiveness for a genuine democratic result.  Still, I wonder if the ICC's Prosecutor may be going a little far here. A day after Sudan president Omar al-Bashir threatened to cut the fingers off...

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