Prosecutors began cross-examining Saddam today. During questioning, Saddam insisted that it was legal for him to authorize the execution of the 148 Dujail villagers, because they had been properly sentenced to death by the People's Revolutionary Court: In the current trial, Saddam and seven former members of his regime are charged in a crackdown against Shiites launched after a...
Citing insufficient evidence, a three-judge Iraqi court has dismissed charges of insurgent activity against Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, a CBS cameraman detained and held by the U.S. military for nearly a year after he filmed the aftermath of a bombing in Mosul: Scott Horton, one of his American lawyers, said the U.S. military claimed Hussein had prior knowledge of the car...
Peru's Minister of Justice, Alejandro Tudela, reiterated yesterday his intention to have Alberto Fujimori, the former President of Peru, extradited from Chile to stand trial on corruption and human-rights charges, including using a death squad to kill 25 people, illegal wiretapping -- still a crime in Peru, if not in the U.S. -- bribery, and illegal payments of more...
Foreign Affairs will publish in May/June a report on the Pentagon's secret study of Saddam Hussein's regime. The study, Saddam's Delusions: The View From the Inside, tries to address the 2003 war in Iraq from the perspective of Saddam Hussein. Here are some of the highlights of the report: Did Iraq have WMD? No...
Here's a fascinating statistic: of the 20 Iraq combat veterans who have announced their intention to run for Congress in 2006, 19 are running as Democrats. That's a staggering percentage, given that a poll taken prior to the 2004 election found that 72% of active-duty military personnel and 73% of National Guard and Reserve personnel favored Bush over Kerry....
As we've noted, the U.S. Navy has become the ocean's main anti-piracy force, especially off the dangerous Somali coast. These pirates appear undeterred, however, and recently captured a South Korean fishing vessel in international waters. U.S. and Dutch warships gave chase, but had to back off when the pirates threatened to shoot their hostages. The pirates then...
The International Crisis Group has released its April report concerning whether 70 conflict situations have improved, worsened, or stayed the same over the previous month. In March, ten situations worsened: Belarus: Incumbent Aleksandr Lukashenko declared winner of 19 March presidential election with 82.6% of vote. OSCE observers said poll not free and fair. Opposition came under pressure in run-up to...
The knotty situation with Venezuela is getting knottier. Besides the commencement of arms purchases from Russia, there is the more convoluted issue of oil politics. President Hugo Chavez has announced that he will seek to keep the world price of oil at about $50 per barrel, in contrast to the 1990’s level which was at about $20 per barrel....
My vote for the most important international law case for the month of March is Garb v. Poland, 2006 WL 515500 (2d. Cir. 2006). The case was brought by Jewish persons and entities who owned real property in Poland from 1939 to 1945. The issue of the restoring real property that was taken during the Holocaust is one of the...
Is the Palestinian Authority a sovereign state? When Palestinians bomb an Israeli bus, is that an act of war? Or is it an act of international terrorism? The U.S. District Court in D.C. has issued an opinion partially answering these weighty questions in a lawsuit brought by a U.S. victim of a bus bombing in Israel against the Palestinian...
The Iraqi High Tribunal has announced that Saddam Hussein and six others have been charged with genocide in connection with Operation Anfal, a three-phase attack on the Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s during the war with Iran. Saddam's co-defendants in the Operation Anfal case include Ali Hassan Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali"; former Defense...
The Washington Post reports there is a move to get rid of the traditional wig for barristers. Indeed, one of the arguments is that Brit judges look "silly" when they sit in the Hague "amid colleagues from other European countries, ...
