As Bill Schabas noted in his recent post, the Comoros referral raises interesting questions concerning the Pre-Trial Chamber’s power to review a decision by the OTP not to open a full investigation into a situation. Most people who don’t keep a copy of the Rome Statute in their back pocket probably believe that the OTP has complete discretion concerning such declinations. In fact, that is not the case. Here, in relevant part, is Art. 53 of the Rome Statute (emphasis mine):

Article 53Initiation of an investigation1.         The Prosecutor shall, having evaluated the information made available to him or her, initiate an investigation unless he or she determines that there is no reasonable basis to proceed under this Statute. In deciding whether to initiate an investigation, the Prosecutor shall consider whether:

(a)     The information available to the Prosecutor provides a reasonable basis to believe that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court has been or is being committed;

(b)     The case is or would be admissible under article 17; and

(c)     Taking into account the gravity of the crime and the interests of victims, there are nonetheless substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice.

If the Prosecutor determines that there is no reasonable basis to proceed and his or her determination is based solely on subparagraph (c) above, he or she shall inform the Pre-Trial Chamber.

…

3.         (a)     At the request of the State making a referral under article 14 or the Security Council under article 13, paragraph (b), the Pre-Trial Chamber may review a decision of the Prosecutor under paragraph 1 or 2 not to proceed and may request the Prosecutor to reconsider that decision.

(b)     In addition, the Pre-Trial Chamber may, on its own initiative, review a decision of the Prosecutor not to proceed if it is based solely on paragraph 1 (c) or 2 (c). In such a case, the decision of the Prosecutor shall be effective only if confirmed by the Pre-Trial Chamber.

It is clear that Comoros would have the right under Art. 53(3)(a) to ask the Pre-Trial Chamber to review a decision by the OTP not to open a full investigation into the attack on the flotilla. And that would be true regardless of the OTP’s rationale for the declination: (1) lack of evidence that the attack involved a crime within the ICC’s jurisdiction; (2) admissibility concerns — which would turn on whether crimes allegedly committed during the attack were adequately grave and, if so, whether Israel was willing and able to investigate and prosecute those crimes itself; or (3)  the interests of justice.

But here is where things get interesting. If Comoros asked the PTC to review a decision by the OTP not to investigate the attack on the flotilla, thereby triggering Art. 53(3)(a), the PTC would have only one remedy if it disagreed with the OTP’s assessment of the merits of the referral — to “request the Prosecutor to reconsider that decision.” It could not order the OTP to open a full investigation into the attack. So if the OTP reconsidered its decision and again concluded that a full investigation was not warranted, that would be the end of the story.

Art. 53(3)(b), by contrast, would appear to put the PTC in a much more powerful position…

In my previous post, I expressed my skepticism that the OTP will open a formal investigation into the situation — loosely defined — involving Israel’s attack on the MV Mavi Marmara. In this post, I want to raise two issues concerning Comoros’ referral that I find particularly troubling.

First, why is Comoros being represented by Turkish lawyers, the Elmadag Law Firm Istanbul? There is nothing wrong with a state outsourcing its legal work, of course, and most of the victims of the attack on the MV Mavi Marmara were Turkish. But if the referral is really being driven by Comoros, you’d think the government would be relying on lawyers in its Ministry of Justice — or at least on a Comorian law firm. Instead, the Comoros hired a foreign law firm that has already unsuccessfully requested, on behalf of victims and a Turkish NGO, the OTP to investigate the attack on the flotilla. (See para. 9 of the referral.) That suggests, in my view, that this new request is a “state referral” in name only — a smart litigation strategy, but a curious one.

Second, why now? The attack on the flotilla took place nearly three years ago, yet Comoros is only now referring the situation to the Court. The timing seems particularly curious given that Israel and Turkey appear to be making genuine diplomatic progress in resolving the Mavi Marmara crisis. Just a few weeks ago, Haaretz reported that Israel has agreed to pay “as much as tens of millions of dollars” in compensation to the Turkish citizens wounded and killed during the attack. This latest effort to get the ICC to investigate will not only fail, it could well harm negotiations between Israel and Turkey — especially as one of the points that apparently remains to be resolved is whether Turkey is willing to immunize the IDF soldiers involved in the attack. Indeed, a cynic might suggest that this new referral is designed to undermine those negotiations.

This referral clearly puts Fatou Bensouda in a difficult situation. My hope is that she will conclude her preliminary examination quickly and will release a detailed explain of why (I predict) the OTP is not opening a formal investigation into the attack on the flotilla. Doing so would provide Bensouda with an opportunity to affirm the Court’s potential jurisdiction over the attack — Article 12(2) means what it says about a ship qualifying as a state’s territory, although I assume the drafters of the article assumed that the OTP would investigate crimes committed at sea only as part of a larger situation — while explaining why it would not be appropriate for the OTP to investigate only one small aspect, and only one side, of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

UPDATE: Make sure to read excellent posts on the referral by Bill Schabas and Dapo Akande.

This is very interesting. The Union of the Comoros, a state party to the Rome Statute since 2002, has formally referred Israel’s attack on the flotilla that included the MV Mavi Marmara to the ICC. The question I want to address in this post is whether the Court has jurisdiction over the flotilla attack. I think it’s clear that it does — although there is at least one important wrinkle in the analysis. But I also think it’s exceedingly unlikely the OPT will open a formal investigation into the attack.

In terms of jurisdiction, the critical provision in the Rome Statute is Art. 12, “Preconditions to Jurisdiction.” Article 12(2) provides as follows (emphasis mine):

In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are Parties to this Statute or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with paragraph 3:

(a)     The State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred or, if the crime was committed on board a vessel or aircraft, the State of registration of that vessel or aircraft;

The bolded text is critical. The Court has jurisdiction over an international crime only if that crime was committed by a national of a state party to the Rome Statute or on the territory of a state party. Art. 12(a) makes clear, however, that a vessel registered to a state party qualifies as the territory of that state. According to the referral, the MV Mavi Marmara was registered to Comoros at the time of the attack, 31 May 2010. (Comoros provides documentation of registration in an appendix to its referral that is not available on the ICC website.) For purposes of jurisdiction, therefore, the MV Mavi Marmara does indeed qualify as Comoros territory. And that means Art. 12 is satisfied.

The wrinkle in the analysis is whether the attack on the MV Mavi Marmara qualifies as a “situation.” States are permitted to refer situations to the Court, not specific crimes. Here is Art. 14(1):

A State Party may refer to the Prosecutor a situation in which one or more crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court appear to have been committed requesting the Prosecutor to investigate the situation for the purpose of determining whether one or more specific persons should be charged with the commission of such crimes.

Is Comoros referring a situation to the Court? All of the situations currently being investigated by the OTP — Kenya, Libya, Cote D’Ivoire, etc. — are much broader than the situation being referred by Comoros. That said, the referral is not limited solely to the attack on the MV Mavi Marmara. As Comoros’ supporting documentation notes, one other ship in the attacked flotilla, the MV Sofia, was registered to a state party — Greece. Moreover, the referral suggests that Israel’s June 6 attack on the MV Rachel Corrie, which was registered to Cambodia, a state party, should also be included in the overall situation. (The referral tries to link the attack on the flotilla to the situation in Gaza, suggesting that the attack would be part of any situation referred to the Court by Palestine. That’s clever but irrelevant, at least at this point, because Palestine has not yet ratified the Rome Statute.)

In terms of the Rome Statute’s legal requirements, I think that Comoros has indeed referred a situation to the Court. Article 14(1) speaks of situations in which “one or more crimes… appear to have been committed,” suggesting that even one crime can, in the right circumstances, qualify as a situation. (An attack with a nuclear or chemical weapon, for example.) The limited scope of the situation being referred by Comoros, therefore, should not legally disqualify the referral.

In short, the ICC does indeed have jurisdiction over the attack on the flotilla (and the later attack on the MV Rachel Corrie), so the OTP would be well within its rights to open a formal investigation into the attack. The real question is whether the OTP will open an investigation. A full answer is beyond the scope of this post, but I think it’s exceedingly unlikely. Although the limited scope of the referred situation is not legally disqualifying, I think it significantly reduces the situation’s overall gravity. To begin with, it is not clear whether any international crimes were committed on the MV Sofia or the MV Rachel Corrie (readers should feel free to weigh in), so the referred “situation” may, in practice, be limited to crimes allegedly committed on the MV Mavi Marmara. I don’t want to minimize the tragedy of nine civilian deaths, and I am no fan of determining gravity by simply counting victims, but I think the OTP would have a difficult time justifying a decision to prioritize the flotilla attack over many of the other situations it is considering, such as Colombia, Georgia, or Afghanistan.

Moreover, and more fundamentally, it does not seem sensible for the OTP to investigate one isolated component of the much larger conflict between Israel and Palestine. If the OTP ever does investigate that conflict — which, as I’ve discussed before, I don’t think it should — it needs to address all of the potential crimes, both Israeli and Palestinian. And that, I think, is the fatal flaw in the Comoros referral: it is essentially asking the OTP to investigate crimes committed by only one side of the conflict, Israel. Even if Israel’s account of the attack on the flotilla is correct and the IDF killed the civilians in self-defense, the ICC would still not have jurisdiction over the civilians’ actions — it is not a war crime to attack a soldier (though it could, of course, be a domestic crime).

Finally, a plea to the media: please do not overstate the importance of the OTP’s “decision” to open a preliminary examination into the attack on the flotilla. As the ICC’s press release notes, the OTP is required to conduct such an examination into every state referral, regardless of merit. I have no doubt that the OTP takes state referrals more seriously than referrals from individuals and human-rights groups. But that does not mean, nor does it even suggest, that the OTP will decide to open a formal investigation into the flotilla attack. Indeed, for all the reasons mentioned in this post, I think that is exceedingly unlikely.

The ICC’s website is its public face. Scholars, activists, and interested laypeople — many who live in the situations under investigation — rely on it as their primary source of information about the Court’s activities. So it is imperative that the Court update its website in a timely fashion.

Time and again, however, it does not. Case in point: three new documents concerning decisions by the Libya Pre-Trial Chamber appeared for the first time today, May 13. One is dated April 24; one is dated April 26, and one is dated May 10. None is more than a few pages long, and fortunately none is particularly substantively important. But there is still no excuse — much less any justification — for making them publicly available so long after they were issued by the PTC.

Even more troubling, the April 26 document — granting a request by Ben Emmerson for leave to reply to a recent motion by Libya regarding al-Senussi — mentions that the Registrar was required to “provide a report on the status of the arrangements of the visit to Mr Al-Senussi by his Defence counsel by Friday, 3 May 2013.” That report is obviously critical, as Libya has long been lying about its efforts to arrange such a visit. According to the PTC’s decision, the Registrar’s report should have been submitted 10 days ago. Yet there is no trace of the report on the Court’s website.

The ICC always emphasizes the need for effective outreach. It should start by keeping its website up to date.

UPDATE: Mark Kersten agrees and adds additional important thoughts at Justice in Conflict.

The Kenyan government has asked the Security Council to pass a resolution deferring the prosecution of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, the newly-elected President and Deputy President of Kenya. That’s not surprising; the Kenyan government has been doing everything in its power to undermine the ICC. What is surprising, though, is that Ruto has explicitly disavowed the request:

Through lawyer Karim Khan, Ruto says that the application neither represents government policy nor his personal wishes. In an interview with Capital FM News, Khan says that his client never had input in the application.

“His Excellency the Deputy President would like to dissociate himself with the application by ambassador Macharia Kamau as it does not represent his desire. He was never consulted in the making of the application and not in the presentation.

He said that Ruto who was sworn into office last month was committed to upholding the Constitution which included respect for independent institutions.

Khan said that President Uhuru Kenyatta – also indicted by the ICC – had also given his word on honoring international obligations.

Khan reiterated that the United Nations Security Council had no power to terminate proceedings saying that the ICC was an independent court. He said that it is only the ICC judges could make a decision on the termination of the cases or otherwise as the court, which he said had independent judges fully seized of the matter.

“The application is a distraction from the reality which is that no institution can interfere with the independence of the court. The judges have sworn an oath and they are the only ones who can make a decision on the matter,” he said.

He maintained that Ruto who had cooperated with the court since he was named among the suspects who have the greatest culpability in the 2007/08 post poll chaos will continue to cooperate with the court until he is vindicated.

Khan is wrong, of course, when he says that the Security Council cannot terminate the case. Article 16 of the Rome Statute gives the Security Council just that power — although it would have to pass a new deferral resolution each year, because Article 16 limits individual deferrals to 12-month increments.

That aside, Ruto’s statement raises some interesting questions. First, if Kenyatta agrees with Ruto, how can the “Kenyan government” be asking the Security Council to intervene? Reports indicate that the request was signed by Kenya’s ambassador to the UN — who presumably works for Kenyatta and Ruto. So it would seem that Kenyatta and Ruto would be well within their rights to withdraw the request. Does their failure to do so indicate that, in fact, Kenyatta and Ruto are not actually on the same page?

Second, why has Ruto disavowed the request? Color me skeptical that his opposition is motivated by a principled belief in the authority and legitimacy of international organizations. More likely, he simply believes that he is unlikely to be convicted — a not unreasonable assumption, given the many problems that have plagued, and continue to plague, the Kenya cases. If Ruto is confident of acquittal, his opposition to deferring the prosecution makes perfect sense: he will have much more freedom to operate as an acquitted war criminal than as an accused one. (See, e.g., Omar al-Bashir.)

We’ll see how this plays out.

UPDATE: Kenya’s Attorney General has now also disavowed the request. What is this, a UN Ambassador gone rogue?

This according to the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which has considerable investigative ability. Reuters:

(Reuters) – U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

“This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” she added, speaking in Italian.

Recent news reports indicate that the Obama administration has been rethinking its opposition to arming the Syrian rebels. The Commission’s revelations, if true, not only complicate that idea but also deprive those who (in my view misguidedly) want to invoke the responsibility to protect to justify military intervention in Syria of one of their most potent rhetorical weapons. It’s easy to justify intervening in a civil war when one side is “good” and the other is “bad.” The situation is much more complicated, however, when a civil war involves two bad sides, even if one side — here, clearly the Syrian government — is worse than the other.

PS. As Ty McCormick points out at FP.com, the Commission’s findings would seem to validate Obama’s unwillingness to conclude — as demanded by the British, French, and Israelis — that the Syrian government has been responsible for using chemical weapons.

Peter beat me to the punch in commenting on Samuel Moyn’s interesting take on the ATS and Kiobel in Foreign Affairs, but I’m going to add a somewhat different point from Peter’s about what the body of ATS law has meant over the past few decades. I didn’t intervene in the earlier discussion about Kiobel because that discussion seemed to me properly focused mostly on the internal legal aspects of the decision – everything from jurisdiction to state courts, and much else besides.  I want to raise something external to Kiobel and the ATS as “law” – the distinction between international law and what (in various postings here and there) I’ve referred to as the “law of the hegemon.”

One way of looking at the ATS, including the body of cases built up over the years, is that it is “international law.”  Of course that’s not literally true; it is a domestic statute that refers to international law as the basis of some form of liability; violations of treaties or the law of nations.  But in a broader sense – the sense in which its supporters have long seen it – the ATS offers a domestic law vehicle by which to work out, interpret, express and, perhaps most important, make effective the requirements of international law.

This is surely the sense that, for example, Judge Jack Weinstein had when he opened the ATS hearing in the Agent Orange case ten years ago – this court sits, he said, in some fashion as an international court.  Sitting in the courtroom, it was entirely plain that he both took seriously and took real pleasure in seeing this District Court as sitting in judgment on the same types of crimes as raised at Nuremberg. There are several practical problems for this broader view, of course – how to figure out the relationship between the domestic law piece of the statute and the international law piece, for one.

Another, however, is that if this is supposed to be the working out in some broad sense of “international law” in American courts and using the tools available to American law, how does one keep the link between international law and its sources, processes, standards of interpretation, etc., as they exist in the international arena – and the application of this in an American law setting that has its own sources of authority, standards of interpretation, etc.  It’s fine to say that the ATS is the working out of international law in US courts, but international law is made in the international framework and evolves according to things that are different from and quite alien to the American legal system.  A telling example of the problem is found simply in the status of US court cases interpreting the ATS and, in the process, interpreting features of international law in ways that bear little relationship to how the international community might do it, now or in the future.  Yet in an American domestic law system, those distinctively US cases have greater authority than the international authorities.

One can say that this is precisely the problem of the American court system in dealing with human rights cases; it ought to recognize the international law sources and authorities as such, rather than privileging its own processes.  But this is hard, given that plaintiffs want simultaneously to reach to the special features of the US litigation system to achieve their aims; those special features of the US litigation system include many things, such as civil liability, corporate liability, etc., that don’t obviously exist in the international system.  It isn’t likely that one can pick and choose in the most favorable way – whether one is the plaintiff or the defendant – and if you go with the American system, you take its doctrine of sources, methods of interpretation, and much else besides, even as it applies to international law questions.  But those don’t match up very well with how the “international” actors in international law see those fundamental questions.  The questions are not substantive or procedural in the usual sense – they are, rather, the fundamental doctrines of authority, precedent, methods of interpretation.

A better way of seeing the law of the ATS, it has long seemed to me, is to treat it not as a particular state’s working out of international law in its courts, but rather a quite different category.  It seems to me best understood as the hegemonic power working out the law of the hegemon in ways that are intended to be somewhat parallel to “international law” on these issues.  There is a shared impulse rooted in morality, but what the hegemon does is within the terms of its own legal system.  It depends in large part upon the extent to which the hegemonic power is willing to allow the capital of its power to be exercised roughly to these ends – and the extent to which other important actors are willing to go along as a sort of rough way of getting international law actually enforced. (more…)

I have no desire to get into an argument with Eugene Kontorovich about the ostensibly “landmark” decision of a French intermediate court — especially because, like him, I am far from fluent in French and the decision strikes me as quite legally complicated. But it is important to push back against claims like these (emphasis mine):

This is an extraordinarily important holding in light of the decades old-debate about the meaning of 49(6) in the context of Israeli civilian migration into the West Bank. It is in direct opposition to the political and international law position on settlements. In the standard narrative, any migration of Israeli Jews past the Green Line, or the expansion of their residences and communities once there, is a war crime. Thus when private citizens decides to buy or build a house across the Green Line, or even expand an existing one, it is a war crime.

Moreover, Israeli citizens who migrate to the West Bank are often said to be guilty of war crimes themselves as aiders-and-abettors. The Versailles decision would seem to reject such a position.

There are two significant problems here. First, despite emphasizing war crimes, Eugene’s post focuses solely on the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on the transfer of civilians into occupied territory; it simply ignores the Rome Statute’s very different war crime of direct or indirect transfer. Here is Art. 49(6) of GC IV (emphasis mine):

The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

And here is Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute (emphasis mine):

(viii)     The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory.

To begin with, it’s worth noting that it is anything but self-evident that Art. 49(6) requires “actually organizing and moving population en masse (compare to individual transfers in 49.1),” as Eugene claims in the comments to his post. His analogy to the Nazis’ colonization of Poland and Ukraine — in which civilians “weren’t merely encouraged, but rounded up” — is misplaced, because unlike Art. 49(1), Art. 49(6) does not require the transfer of civilians to be forcible. Moreover, the war crime in question — Art. 8(2)(b)(viii) — even more clearly does not require “actually organizing and moving population en masse,” because it prohibits both direct and indirect transfer. Art. 8(2)(b)(viii) thus prohibits a much broader range of actions than Art. 46(1). And, of course, a violation of Art. 8(2)(b)(viii), unlike a violation of Art. 49(6), gives rise to individual criminal responsibility.

The second significant problem with Eugene’s post is that, in fact, the French intermediate court’s decision appears to say nothing at all about whether settlement activities qualify as war crimes. Given my French, I am loathe to conclude unequivocally that it does not. But the decision does not mention either the Statut de Rome or Art. 8(2)(b)(viii), nor does it mention crimes de guerre (war crimes) or transfert… indirect (indirect transfer) — two obviously critical expressions in the French version of the Rome Statute.

The French intermediate court’s decision may well be a landmark concerning corporate responsibility; I’m sure Eugene will tell us in his next post. But I think it is to safe to say that the decision tells us little, if anything, about whether Israel’s settlement activities qualify as the war crime of direct or indirect transfer of civilians into occupied territory.

Note: I have restructured the post for clarity.

I have now had the opportunity to read both Judge van den Wyngaert’s request to be excused from the Kenyatta case and the Presidency’s decision to grant that request. There is no question that workload did indeed play a role in the Judge’s decision to withdraw. But it also seems clear that there was at least one other reason, as I will explain below.

To begin with, though, I want to apologize to anyone — especially the Judge! — who saw my post as an attack on Judge van den Wyngaert’s integrity. That was certainly not its intent; I have nothing but respect for the Judge. Indeed, I intended the post to praise the Judge for her willingness to challenge the prosecution’s conduct openly and in writing, while still questioning whether withdrawing from the case was a good idea or consistent with the ICC’s rules. Unfortunately, having re-read the post a few times, I can see that I was nowhere near clear enough in expressing my intent. I should have avoided talking about “convenient excuses” and the like. My apologies again to anyone who thought I was attacking the Judge.

Now, my thoughts in light of the newly-released documents. First, my (at least partial) misinterpretation of the Judge’s actions reflects an ongoing problem with the Court’s release of information to the public. Had the Court made the relevant documents available in a timely fashion, I would have written the post differently — and more importantly, the Kenyan press would have found it more difficult to further discredit the case against Kenyatta by drawing a connection that may not actually exist. All too often, though, critical documents are either never put on the ICC website or are uploaded days after decisions themselves attract attention. I can usually hunt down documents I need, whether through personal connections or by asking for them here on the blog. But too many others depend solely on the website. Something needs to be done.

Second, to echo David Koller’s comment to my previous post, I am a bit baffled by the idea that Judge van den Wyngaert was only temporarily assigned to the Trial Chamber in the Kenyatta case. Here is paragraph 2 of her request to be excused:

On 30 March 2012, I was requested to accept temporary assignment to Trial Chamber V, in view of the limited capacity of judges in the Trial Division, as the newly elected judges assigned to that Division had not yet been called to The Hague. I accepted this assignment on the clear understanding that it would be limited in time and only for the purposes of the preparation of the two Kenya trials.

I am not completely convinced that the Rome Statute and Rules of Procedure and Evidence allow such a temporary assignment. Art. 39(4) of the Rome Statute does provide that “[n]othing in this article shall… preclude the temporary attachment of judges from the Trial Division to the Pre-Trial Division or vice versa, if the Presidency considers that the efficient management of the Court’s workload so requires.” My guess, though, is that the drafters of Art. 39(4) assumed that PTC judges would be temporarily assigned to the TC for the duration of a particular case, not simply for part of it. I could be wrong about that and invite readers to weigh in. Regardless, such temporary assignments are a terrible idea — not only because the departure of a judge just before trial can prejudice one of the parties (as I still believe is the case regarding the defence in the Kenyatta case), but also because they actually waste judicial resources by requiring two different judges to familiarize themselves with the case.

Third, and most importantly, I still have to disagree with those who insist — in the comments to my previous post or via email — that Judge van den Wyngaert withdrew solely because of her workload. Two very cryptic statements in the Presidency’s decisions contradict that idea (emphasis added):

The Judge submits that her assignment to that Chamber was temporary, only for the purpose of the preparation of the two Kenya cases for trial. REDACTED.

[snip]

The Presidency, having considered the matter before it, finds the request to be well founded. In coming to this conclusion the Presidency took particular note of the workload and REDACTED of the Judge as described above.

The second statement in particular makes clear there is more to the Judge’s desire to withdraw than just workload. I have no idea what the other rationale might be — although it’s impossible not to speculate that it is indeed that the Judge does not trust the prosecution to conduct itself fairly in the Kenyatta case. (And no, that’s not a criticism of the Judge!)  Maybe it’s not; maybe the rationale is completely different. But once again we have an optics problem: I think the public has a right to know precisely why a judge who has been so openly critical of the prosecution in an important case wants to be excused from that case. And I fail to see what could possibly justify the Presidency’s decision to redact the additional rationale — with no explanation whatsoever.

We need answers, and we need them sooner rather than later.

I cannot find the relevant document on the ICC website, but Kenya’s CapitalFM is reporting that Judge Christine van den Wyngaert, sitting in the Trial Chamber, has withdrawn from the case against Uhuru Kenyatta because of concerns about the prosecution’s behavior:

In her opinion the prosecution failed to disclose to the Pre-Trial Chamber on the credibility of witness four and disclosing new evidence after confirmation stage.

“There are serious questions as to whether the prosecution conducted a full and thorough investigation of the case against the accused prior to confirmation. I believe that the facts show that the prosecution had not complied with its obligations at the time when it sought confirmation and that it was still not even remotely ready when the proceedings before this Chamber started,” she stated.

She further agreed with Kenyatta’s argument that the prosecution introduced evidence and witnesses that had not been disclosed before.

“I stress the concerns expressed in the decision about the overwhelming number of post confirmation witnesses and the quantity of post-confirmation documentary evidence, as well as the very late disclosure of the latter.

Wyngaert observed that even though the prosecution faced challenges it has not justified how so many witnesses were interviewed after charges against Kenyatta were confirmed.

“The Prosecution offers no cogent and sufficiently specific justification for why so many witnesses in this case were only interviewed for the first time post-confirmation. The mere invocation by the Prosecution of generic problems with the security situation in Kenya, without explaining how this situation affected each of the individuals involved, does not adequately justify the extent and tardiness of the post-confirmation investigation,” she opined.

However in her concurrence with the other two judges, she explained that the hitches on the side of prosecution were not weighty enough to warrant a referral to the Pre Trial Chamber or withdrawal of charges against Kenyatta.

Wyngaert was replaced by Judge Robert Fremr who was previously assigned to the Trial Division 4.

I’m not sure quite what to make of this, and it’s difficult to draw conclusions without reading Judge van den Wyngaert’s concurrence. That said, three (tentative) points. First, and perhaps most obviously, Judge van den Wyngaert’s withdrawal casts the prosecution in an extremely unflattering light. I cannot imagine that the Judge would have withdrawn unless she was profoundly concerned by the prosecution’s actions.

Second, I have serious reservations about the Judge’s decision to withdraw, given that — ironically — it clearly benefits the prosecution. If Judge van Wyngaert’s concerns were simply procedural, the prejudice to the defence might be minimal. But the CapitalFM article seems to imply that the Judge has questions about the merits of the prosecution’s case — its failure to conduct a thorough investigation in particular. (Recall that Article 54 of the Rome Statute provides that the prosecution must, “[i]In order to establish the truth, extend the investigation to cover all facts and evidence relevant to an assessment of whether there is criminal responsibility under this Statute, and, in doing so, investigate incriminating and exonerating circumstances equally.”) As a result, Judge van den Wyngaert’s withdrawal may well replace a judge who is skeptical of the prosecution’s case with one more inclined to accept it. That hardly seems fair to the defence.

Third, and finally, I am not sure whether there is even a legal basis for Judge van den Wyngaert to withdraw. Art. 41(1) of the Rome Statute provides that “[t]he Presidency may, at the request of a judge, excuse that judge from the exercise of a function under this Statute, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure and Evidence.” The key is the final clause, because Rule 35 of the RPE says that “[w]here a judge, the Prosecutor or a Deputy Prosecutor has reason to believe that a ground for disqualification exists in relation to him or her, he or she shall make a request to be excused” (emphasis added). A request to withdraw from a case thus seems to require the presence of one of the grounds for disqualification listed in Rule 34 — personal interest in a case, conflict of interest, etc. Disagreeing with the prosecution’s conduct in a case is not such a ground for disqualification, although it is important to acknowledge that Rule 34 does not make the list exclusive (“inter alia“). Even so, I think it sets a very bad precedent for the Presidency to agree to excuse a judge on the ground that she has a problem with the prosecution’s conduct. That hardly seems like a ground for disqualification, no matter how liberally such grounds are construed.

UPDATE: Zach was kind enough to provide a link to Judge van den Wyngaert’s concurrence. The concurrence reinforces my point that the Judge’s withdrawal is significantly unfair to the defence, because it deprives Kenyatta of a judge who was clearly willing to question the strength of the prosecution’s evidence. Paragraph 4 is particularly revealing:

Finally, there can be no excuse for the Prosecution’s negligent attitude towards verifying the trustworthiness of its evidence. In particular, the incidents relating to Witness 4 are clearly indicative of a negligent attitude towards verifying the reliability of central evidence in the Prosecution’s case. This negligent attitude is particularly apparent in relation to Witness 4′s evidence because, as the Prosecution concedes, ‘the Office as a whole was on notice, prior to the confirmation hearing, of the inconsistencies in the account Witness 4 gave during his [second] screening’. The Prosecution offered a number of explanations for overlooking the problems with Witness 4′s evidence. However, what all these explanations reveal is that there are grave problems in the Prosecution’s system of evidence review, as well as a serious lack of proper oversight by senior Prosecution staff. Clearly, thorough and comprehensive due diligence with regard to the reliability of the available evidence is an ongoing obligation of the Prosecution under article 54(1)(a), which is as important as the collection of that evidence itself.

If I were the defence, I would try to challenge Judge van den Wyngaert’s withdrawal. Nothing in the Rome Statute expressly permits a party to challenge or appeal a judicial disqualification, but such a right would seem to be implied by Article 41(2)(b), which provides that “[t]he Prosecutor or the person being investigated or prosecuted may request the disqualification of a judge under this paragraph.” The right to request disqualification should be accompanied by the right to challenge the same.

UPDATE 2: Writing for Reuters, Thomas Escritt says that Judge van den Wyngaert withdrew from the Kenyatta case because of her workload, not because of her criticisms of the prosecution. I do not doubt that Escritt’s reporting is more accurate than the Kenyan media’s, but I find it difficult to believe that there is no connection between the Judge’s criticisms and her decision to withdraw. She certainly could have withdrawn from a different case — one in which she had not savagely criticized the prosecution — instead. “Workload” strikes me as little more than a convenient excuse — and I stand behind the suggestion that the defence should challenge the Judge’s decision to withdraw. Still, it is important to acknowledge Escritt’s reporting.

Professor Craig Allen of University of Washington alerts me to this excerpt from the press conference held yesterday at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  It is the first time, as far as I know, that a Chinese government spokesman has offered a detailed explanation of China’s legal position in the Philippines arbitration.   It still doesn’t fully make sense, or at least it is still not fully responsive, but it is something at least.  China’s explanation goes something like this.

1. It is the Philippines that is illegally occupying various islands in the South China Sea, not China.

2. Although the Philippines claims it is not seeking to contest sovereignty in the arbitration, it has consistently said it is seeking a “durable solution” to dispute.  This is “self contradictory.”

3. The principle of the “Land Dominates the Sea” means that all of the Philippines’ claims are essentially maritime delimitation claims that “inevitably” involve resolving questions of territorial sovereignty over various islands and reefs. But these are the questions excluded from UNCLOS arbitration. Hence, China’s rejection of arbitration has a “a solid basis in international law.”

4. Every nation in the region, including China and the Philippines, has committed to the Declaration of the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, which obligates them to resolve disputes on territorial and maritime rights through bilateral negotiations.

Let’s toss out points 1 and 4 since they don’t really change much of the legal analysis on whether China’s rejection of arbitration has a “solid basis in international law.”

The really interesting parts of the statements are in points 2 and 3.  To China, the Philippines is misleading everyone by pretending to be interested in the Law of the Sea when they are really trying to advance their sovereignty claims. I am not sure that “durable solution” necessarily means “resolving sovereignty claims” but I suppose it is plausible.

The most important point is Number 3, which is that the disputes over the island/rock/reef distinction or the Nine Dash Line are so inextricably linked with sovereignty that they cannot be separated.

This is really what a jurisdictional challenge would look like, if China argued its case.  I think this is the most plausible part of China’s argument, but it is not exactly a slam dunk.  First of all, China’s invocation of the “Land Dominates the Sea” doesn’t help their argument much here since the infamous Nine Dash Line doesn’t seem to flow from any land claims, or at least China has usually based the Nine Dash Line on “historic rights,” not land.

In any event, the Philippines is not rejecting the “Land Dominates the Sea” principle.  They are just arguing that the “land” China is relying on is a rock, not an island within the meaning of UNCLOS Art. 121(3), and hence cannot grant China a 12 mile territorial sea even if China did have sovereignty.  Since some of these rocks/islands fall within the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone, this is not a sovereignty issue but a UNCLOS issue.  I am not sure that the Philippines is right about this, but they certainly have a good case.

It is also worth noting that the Chinese statement is conspicuously silent on China’s obligation under UNCLOS to at least allow a UNCLOS arbitration tribunal to determine whether it has jurisdiction (UNCLOS Art. 288(4)).  China’s statement simply assumes that the jurisdictional issue is clear, and it has no further obligations.  As almost any lawyer could tell you, jurisdictional issues are almost never clear, and even when they are, you have an obligation to go to court/arbitration to resolve them.

So China is slowly beginning to engage on this issue, and they are making a bit of progress. Still, they need better talking points. (And they need to be careful invoking the phrases like the “Land Dominates the Sea,” that could come back to hurt them later.)

The Pre-Trial Chamber has granted the OPCD’s request to withdraw from the case and has appointed the OPCD’s chosen replacement, John RWD Jones QC, to represent Saif until such time as he is either able to choose his own lawyer or the ICC finally rules on Libya’s admissibility challenge. Jones is a fantastic choice — he successfully represented both Oric and Markac at the ICTY, established the Defence Office at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and is one of the world’s leading extradition scholars and practitioners.

That said, the OPCD’s rationale for withdrawing should give us all pause:

The OPCD submits that an imminent depletion in staffing will disrupt the continuity of Mr Gaddafi’s representation and will significantly affect its ability to fulfil its mandate in a timely and effective manner. The OPCD suggests that replacement of counsel for Mr Gaddafi at this juncture would facilitate a smooth transition in representation and would ensure that new counsel has sufficient time to acquaint themselves with the case in advance of potential appellate proceedings.

Reading between the lines, it seems clear that the OPCD is facing a significant funding crisis. That’s a serious problem, given the critical role the OPCD plays in the overall defence scheme at the ICC.

The OPCD deserves our praise for its advocacy of Saif’s interests — efforts that never wavered, even when Melinda Taylor and her colleagues were illegally and unconscionably detained by the Libyan government. Best of luck to Jones, whom I have no doubt will do an equally superb job.