16
Oct
Guest Post: Removing the cloak of immunity – the Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales accepts no immunity from criminal investigation into torture
16
Oct
Guest Post: Recent Reforms for More Orderly Sovereign Debt Restructurings at the IMF
[Yanying Li is a Ph.D researcher at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and a visiting research fellow at the University of Cambridge] Recent reforms for more orderly sovereign debt restructurings have been prompted by the so-called “trial of the century” in sovereign debt restructuring— NML Capital Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina. In short, various court decisions in New York found Argentina in breach of the pari passu clause in its defaulted bonds, and prohibited Argentina from making payments to those creditors who accepted the bond exchange offer unless other creditors who rejected the exchange offer (i.e. holdout creditors), including plaintiffs in this case, were paid the same percentage of the amount due to them. The pari passu clause in question provides that the debtor’s payment obligation under that particular bond series shall rank equally with all other existing and future unsubordinated and unsecured external indebtedness. Given that Julian has already addressed the latest development in this case, my little contribution here will only focus on the issues of legal reform in the context of sovereign debt restructuring. As discussed in my earlier post, on September 9, 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled “Towards the establishment of a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes”. The modalities for the intergovernmental negotiations and the adoption of the text of the multilateral legal framework will be discussed at the General Assembly’s 69th session plenary meeting on November 14, 2014. In the meantime, the directors and staff at the International Monetary Fund did not just sit back and relax. As noted in Press Release No.14/459dated October 6, the IMF’s Executive Board approved the staff paper on “Strengthening the Contractual Framework to Address Collective Action Problems in Sovereign Debt Restructuring”. The staff paper suggests a few contractual reforms designed to tackle collective action problems so as to achieve orderly sovereign debt restructurings. These reforms include potential changes to international sovereign bond contracts, namely the pari passu clause and the collective action clause (“CAC”).
14
Oct
Panel at George Mason on the ICC and Palestine
I will be participating next week in what should be an excellent event at George Mason University on the ICC and Palestine. The other participants are all excellent -- David Luban, Meg DeGuzman, George Bisharat, and the organizer, Noura Erakat. Here is the flyer: I hope at least some Opinio Juris readers will be able to attend and hear my dire prognostications in person. (If you do,...
12
Oct
A Quick Bleg on the US and Self-Defence
A few years ago, John Brennan articulated the US position concerning self-defence against non-state actors: Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qa’ida, the United States takes the legal position that —in accordance with international law—we have the authority to take action against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time. As the quote makes...
12
Oct
Events and Announcements: October 12, 2014
Events The Minerva Center for Human Rights at Tel Aviv University is pleased to invite the public to the conference “Lessons for Transitional Justice in Israel-Palestine”, to be held on November 16-17, 2014 at Tel Aviv University. The conference builds on an academic collaboration between Israeli, Palestinian and South African students and researchers who participated last summer in an intensive two-week Transitional...
05
Oct
Guest Post: Back to Square One after Sixty Years? The Tory Attack on the European Human Rights System
[Başak Çalı is Associate Professor of International Law at Koç University Law School, Turkey, and a member of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law] We, in the ‘from Reykjavik to Vladivostok’ Europe, have grown accustomed to being proud of the European Human Rights System in the last forty or so years. We teach courses on European Human Rights Law that distill over ten thousand European Court of Human Rights judgments. We start our lectures on European Human Rights Law by pointing out that Europe, despite all its flaws, has the most effective regional system. We note that the European Court of Human Rights has been cited by the US Supreme Court. We celebrate how the effective rights doctrine has recognised and empowered Irish catholic women trying to divorce, Cypriot gay men wishing to walk safely on the streets, Kurdish mothers looking for their disappeared sons, Bulgarian rape victims, Azeri journalists, British children wrongly placed in care and more, so many more. We underline the importance of the guidance that the European Court of Human Rights has provided to domestic judges, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and legislators on how to take into account human rights when doing their respective jobs. We also salute the fact that the European Human Rights System has brought those us of who live between Reykjavik and Vladivostok together in a recognition of our common humanity, its frailty and our desire for a common dialogue on human rights regardless of our jurisdictional differences. That is why a judge in Diyarbakır, Turkey has given some thought to Mr. McCann and the British military operation in Gibraltar in 1988. Why a judge in Scotland has asked herself what does the case of Salduz mean for her to respect fair trial rights. We also spend long hours in classrooms, courtrooms and parliaments discussing whether the European Court of Human Rights got the ‘margin of appreciation’ right this time. Now all that celebration and all the hard and painstakingly incremental gains of the European Human Rights System, a system based on solidarity to reach the common purpose of the promotion of human rights of all, is under serious threat. Unlike the debates that have ensued in the last ten years, the danger is not the Court’s famed gigantic case-load (as has been captured in the cliche of the ‘victim of its own success’) or the slow implementation of its judgments by some of the worst offenders. One political group in one country is out to shake the very foundations of the European Human Rights System.
05
Oct
Events and Announcements: October 5, 2014
Events International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will keynote “Children & International Justice,” a conference to be held on Tuesday, October 28, 2014, at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, home institution of the Prosecutor’s Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict, Professor Diane Marie Amann. Taking part will be experts from academia and the...
04
Oct
Further Thoughts: It is Indeed Legal for a U.S. Court Hold Argentina in Contempt
I am fascinated by the ongoing Argentina debt litigation saga (and not just because it looks more and more like a train wreck), but because it is forcing U.S. courts to burrow into even fuzzier nooks and crannies of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to figure out what exactly US litigants can do when suing an intransigent foreign sovereign like...
03
Oct
The Allure of Sovereigntism: U.S. Progressives and Libertarians Unite to Oppose Investor-State Arbitration
For decades, investor-state arbitration has enjoyed broad support in the U.S. (among those elites who know and care about such things). While there has been some backlash against investor-state in developed countries such as Australia arising out of controversial cases brought against it, the U.S. has remained pretty solidly in favor of it. But there are signs that the opposition...
01
Oct
Guest Post: Kenyatta (Finally) Has to Go Back to The Hague
[Abel S. Knottnerus is a PhD Researcher in International Law and International Relations at the University of Groningen.] The case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has reached a critical juncture. Almost six months ago, Trial Chamber V(B) adjourned the commencement of his trial until 7 October “for the specific purpose of providing an opportunity for compliance by the Kenyan Government with outstanding cooperation requests” (para. 2). Three weeks ago, however, the Prosecution submitted that the start of Kenyatta’s trial should again be adjourned, because the Kenyan government would still not have fulfilled its cooperation requirements. In response, the Chamber decided on 19 September that it will hold two status conferences on 7 and 8 October to discuss “the status of cooperation between the Prosecution and the Kenyan government” (para. 11). These conferences will determine the future, if any, of Kenyatta’s trial. Yet, before this ‘do-or-die’ moment, the Chamber first had to decide on another sensitive matter, namely whether Kenyatta would have to be physically present in The Hague for the second of the two status conferences. On Tuesday, the Chamber ruled, by Majority (Judge Ozaki partially dissenting), that Kenyatta indeed has to travel to The Hague. Assuming that Kenyatta will not disobey this direct order, this will be the first time that a sitting Head of State will appear before the ICC. Kenyatta’s excusal request and the Prosecution’s response In the initial decision announcing the status conferences, the Trial Chamber stated that “given the critical juncture of the proceedings and the matters to be considered, the accused is required to be present at the status conference on 8 October” (para. 12). Despite this clear language, Kenyatta’s defence requested the Chamber last Thursday to excuse Kenyatta from attending. Based on Rule 134quater of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence the defence argued that Kenyatta has to fulfil extraordinary public duties at the highest national level on the scheduled date, because he is due to attend the Northern Corridor Infrastructure Summit in Kampala, Uganda. The defence added that this meeting was arranged prior to the Chamber’s decision to convene the status conference and that Kenyatta would therefore also not be able to attend by video-link. In the alternative, the defence requested to reschedule the status conference and that on this new date Kenyatta would be allowed to be present through video-link in accordance with Rule 134bis. Instead of travelling to The Hague, a ‘skype session’ would enable Kenyatta “to perform his extraordinary public duties as President of Kenya to the greatest extent possible while causing the least inconvenience to the Court” (para. 13). In response to the defence’s request, the Prosecution submitted on Monday that Rules 134bis and quater are not applicable at this stage of the proceedings because Kenyatta’s trial has not yet commenced. According to the Prosecution, the Trial Chamber would have the (inherent) discretion to reschedule the status conference as well as to permit Kenyatta to attend by video-link. While not opposing the former option, the Prosecution as well as the Legal Representative for Victims (LRV) argued that the defence had given no clear reasons for attendance by video-link on a later date, other than the distance that the accused would have to travel and his status as Head of State. The (in)applicability of Rules 134quater and bis
29
Sep
The Invention of the Khorasan Group and Non-Imminent Imminence
I will be back blogging regularly soon, but I want to call readers' attention to a phenomenal new article at the Intercept by Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain about how the US government has cynically manipulated public fears of terrorism in order to justify its bombing campaign in Syria. Recall that Samantha Power -- the UN Ambassador formerly known as...
28
Sep