At Justice in Conflict, Mark Kersten calls attention to a recent motion filed by the Libyan government asking for more time -- read: stalling -- to reply to the OPCD's response to its admissibility challenge. The government doesn't actually want a deadline to respond; it would like to have 18 days from whenever it gets around to appointing a new...
In my previous post, I noted that Libya's admissibility challenge should fail regarding Saif Gaddafi because the government cannot demonstrate that it is able to obtain him from the Zintan militia that is holding him. It's now clear that the Libyan government has even less chance of obtaining al-Senussi: Mauritania's president has said former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi must be...
In my earlier post on Libya's admissibility challenge, I explained how the Libyan government's failure to provide Saif with due process could be relevant to the admissibility of the case against him. There is, however, a far stronger argument against Libya's admissibility challenge, one that I've discussed before: namely, that Article 17(3) deems a case admissible if "the State is...
In my post on the detention of Melinda Taylor and her team, I mentioned that the "guard" planted by the Libyan government to spy on the OPCD's official meeting with Saif first intervened when Saif tried to sign a statement describing his attitude toward the Libyan criminal-justice system. I thought readers might be interested in the statement itself: Unsigned statement/sentiments from...
Call for Papers The University of Liverpool is hosting a conference December 6-7, 2012, on Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law and is seeking abstract submissions of maximum 500 words before September 1, 2012. The University of Amsterdam's Center for International Law has issued a call for papers for a two-day seminar on Interfaces between International and National Legal Orders: An International Rule...
I have just uploaded a new essay to SSRN, entitled "The International Commission of Inquiry on Libya: A Critical Analysis." The essay is a chapter of a book on international commissions of inquiry that is being edited by the LSE's Jens Meierhenrich. Here is the introduction: This chapter provides a critical assessment of the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya, established...
When I wrote my account of Melinda Taylor and her team's detention, I somehow missed this gem in the OPCD's response: 381. The inability of the particular prosecution authorities assigned to the case of Mr. Gaddafi to conduct credible or effective investigations and prosecutions is amply demonstrated by the fact that these same prosecution authorities claimed that an ordinary swatch watch...
Of all my writing, my article on the relationship between national due process and the Rome Statute's principle of complementarity is almost certainly the most unpopular. (Except in the OTP.) My thesis is a simple one: the failure of a national investigation or prosecution to live up to international standards of due process does not make a case admissible before...
The OPCD has filed its formal response to Libya's admissibility challenge. It's a monster of a brief -- 92 pages -- so it will take a number of posts to deal with it adequately. In this first post, I want to pull together the various sections of the brief that provide unprecedented detail concerning Melinda Taylor's detention. Before I do,...
Calling all junior faculty members...
Add another name to the list of scientists that understand global warming is both real and the product of human activity. Come on down Richard A. Muller: CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research...
Call for Papers Transnational Dispute Management's call for papers for a forthcoming (January 2013) special issue on Corruption and Arbitration closes on Tuesday July 31. Melbourne Law School has issued a call for papers for its Fifth Annual Melbourne Doctoral Forum on Legal Theory, taking place in Melbourne on December 6-8, 2012. Abstracts of max. 500 words and biographies of 100 words should be...
