In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Guest Post: Kontorovich on Missing Judges as a Design Choice

18 Dec

[Eugene Kontorovich is a Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law.] What should an international court do when the judges hearing a case are not around to decide it, as has happened on the ICTY in the Seselj case that Kevin has written about? The death or serious illness of an international judge during the pendency of a case is an entirely foreseeable matter. International...

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16 Dec

PRESS RELEASE (Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document) The Hague, 25 December 2013 MS/PR1593e Acquitted defendants to be immediately apprehended and executed The Trial Chamber on Saturday issued a decision on the status of the freedom of individuals acquitted by the Tribunal. The Chamber unanimously ordered all such individuals immediately apprehended and executed. The Chamber's order is made pursuant to Rule...

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16 Dec

Today and tomorrow, we are joining forces again with the American Journal of International Law to bring you a discussion of Kristina Daugirdas' article, "Congress Underestimated": Using the World Bank as a case study, this article casts doubt on the empirical foundation for the claim that international organizations undermine democracy by undermining legislatures, at least in the United States. The article...

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16 Dec

So, it's official: the ICTY Trial Chamber has decided to let Judge Niang replace Judge Harhoff on the Seselj case: The Trial Chamber on Friday issued a decision on the continuation of the proceedings in the case of Vojislav Šešelj, following the disqualification of Judge Frederik Harhoff and appointment of Judge Mandiaye Niang to the Bench. The Chamber unanimously ordered that the...

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14 Dec

In my previous post, I questioned Ryan's claim that Amnesty International's totals concerning the number of states exercising universal jurisdiction over at least one international crime "may be significantly inflated." I pointed out that, contrary to what he was asserting, the report did not count a state simply because it it had incorporated the Rome Statute into its domestic legislation; on...

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13 Dec

Not long ago, Amnesty International released an updated version of its massive study "Universal Jursidiction: A Preliminary Survey of Legislation Around the World." The report concluded, inter alia, that 86% of the world's states exercise universal jurisdiction over at least one kind of international crime. (Most commonly, war crimes.) In a post today at Just Security, my friend and regular sparring...

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11 Dec

As the political crisis in Ukraine over the government’s decision not to sign an Association Agreement with the EU passes its second week, this conflict and the positioning over other Russian “Near Abroad” countries (especially Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia) are good examples of the interrelationship of norms and geopolitical strategy. The situation has been largely described in terms of Putin’s reaction to...

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08 Dec

Calls for Papers As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Commission Report approaches, the recurring dispute over the boundaries of the post-9/11 national security state is once again in full swing. Governing Intelligence will move beyond the surveillance debate to start an interdisciplinary dialogue about the power and limits of intelligence agencies from a comparative and international perspective. The Stanford Journal of International Law seeks contributions by...

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07 Dec

The WTO's new Director-General Roberto Azevedo is celebrating a rare event:  The WTO's entire 159-country membership has finally reached  a new multilateral agreement.  This is the first time that the WTO's membership as a whole (as opposed to smaller groups of its member states) has reached an agreement since it was formed in 1994 and the first set of agreements under...

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06 Dec

The two-part series I mentioned in my previous post seems designed to rehabilitate Judge Harhoff's image in the international-law community. Unfortunately, the articles, which draw heavily on an interview with the judge himself, simply underscore why it was necessary for the ICTY to remove him from the Seselj case. To begin with, consider what the judge says in the second...

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