In Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties: Law, Principles, Policy, Marko Milanovic has written an illuminating and comprehensive analysis of the increasingly contested question of the geographic scope of human rights treaties. Of course, this is a dynamic area of law—as Marko notes, many of the cases he examines are of quite recent vintage—so undoubtedly he will be at work...
I am very grateful for the opportunity to discuss my book on EJIL: Talk! and Opinio Juris, as am I grateful to the commentators on both blogs for taking the time to read and discuss it. In this introductory post I’ll try to outline the book’s main arguments and themes and my approach generally in analysing a very complex topic. The...
It's official -- or almost is, to be completely accurate. Mark Kersten first reported the news at Justice in Conflict, and a Reuters story has now confirmed it. On December 12, Fatou Bensouda will become the next ICC Prosecutor: An informal meeting of ICC members will be held in New York on Thursday to discuss the appointment, said Liechtenstein's U.N....
Well, not really today, but it was about twenty years ago that what we now call (incorrectly, at times) the "frozen conflicts"-- the separatist conflicts in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova-- weren't frozen but were actually brushfire wars before settling into stalemates. Long-time readers of this blog may remember my interest in these conflicts, starting with the ongoing conflict in Moldova...
So talks on a new cluster bomb treaty have collapsed due to the refusal of countries party to the 2008 Cluster Bomb Convention to sign on to a less restrictive treaty that would have included the U.S, Russia, China, India and other key military powers. The draft treaty was vigorously promoted by the United States and had the backing of other...
The ICC has announced that the Assembly of States Parties has eliminated Andrew Cayley and Robert Petit from consideration as Moreno-Ocampo's replacement: The Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (“the Assembly”) will hold its tenth session at the United Nation Headquarters in New York from 12 to 21 December 2011. The tenth session will be marked...
The High Court of Kenya has held that the government has an obligation to arrest Bashir if he sets foot on Kenyan territory: The Kenyan High Court ruling was the result of a case that the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) brought against Kenya's attorney general and internal security minster in 2010. "The courts have said that Kenya has an...
Dapo Akande has a typically excellent discussion of the surrender issue today at EJIL: Talk!, in which he agrees with Jens Ohlin and disagrees with me. In his view, Libya is entitled to challenge the admissibility of the case against Saif without having to first surrender him to the ICC. I find much of Dapo's argument convincing, but I am...
My friend and PhD supervisor Carsten Stahn has posted a very interesting discussion of Libya and the ICC at the Hague Justice Portal. Here is a taste: One possible option to reconcile domestic jurisdiction with accountability before the ICC may be a division of labor based on temporal jurisdiction. In line with the Council referral, the ICC enjoys ...
I've made more than my share of mistakes in my six years of blogging. It's painful and embarrassing, but it happens. All you can do is admit your mistakes and move on. Unfortunately, that is not the approach taken by the author of the terrible Mother Jones article I discussed yesterday. Suebsaeng doesn't believe that he made any mistakes. On the...
Lord knows I can't stand Mitt Romney. And I have never bought the idea that Ahmadinejad has committed direct and public incitement of genocide through his inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric. But this Mother Jones article is still staggeringly awful: When asked about Iran and Israel at Tuesday's CNN national security debate, on-and-off Republican front-runner Mitt Romney replied in his typically tough, ...
My friend Jens Ohlin -- Associate Professor of Law at Cornell and one of the very best substantive international criminal law scholars writing today -- has started a solo blog, LieberCode. Like his scholarship, the posts are top notch; recent entries address Libya and positive complementarity; the Florence Hartmann saga; targeted killing and citizenship; and the presumption of regularity regarding...
