[The following is a guest-post written by Ifeoma Ajunwa, a human-rights attorney who is beginning a PhD at Columbia University in the fall. Our thanks to her for contributing -- KJH] In April of 2007, as a representative for the NGO, Human Rights Advocates (HRA), I was privileged to attend the 4th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in...
[John Cerone is Professor of International Law, and Director of the Center for International Law & Policy at New England Law | Boston] The World Court’s conclusion that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was not unlawful is being with a resounding "duh" by most international lawyers. The International Court of Justice, in the narrow advisory opinion, simply found that the making of...
[The following is a guest-post by Lt. Col. Chris Jenks, the Chief of the International Law Branch in the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General. He is blogging in his personal capacity.] The day ICC supporters and detractors alike hoped would come, albeit for very different reasons, arrived on Wednesday, July 21st -- Sudanese President Omar Bashir publicly...
Now that I've had a chance to read through the ICJ's advisory opinion, following are a few initial reactions. (I will consider the separate opinions in another post.) Marko Milanovic has done a great job parsing the main issues that were at bar, namely 1. Whether the ICJ should exercise advisory jurisdiction in this case; 2. How broadly or narrowly the question posed by...
Two items worth noting. First, as Julian pointed out the other day, Moreno-Ocampo's refusal to comply with the Trial Chamber's order to disclose the identity of an intermediary to Lubanga's defense team has led the Trial Chamber to order Lubanga's release pending appeal. (The OTP filed the appeal today). It is bad enough that the "independent statutory obligation" to protect...
Greg McNeal has passed along the sad news that Charles Gittings, a long-time commenter on Opinio Juris, has passed away at an untimely 57. Here is a snippet from his obituary in the Los Angeles Times: Though not a lawyer, Gittings had a life-long interest in military tactics and law that led him to become an invaluable resource to some...
As I predicted, the Pre-Trial Chamber has approved genocide charges for Bashir: The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir - this time for charges of genocide. He already faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which he denies. The ICC first indicted him in March 2009 but he has not...
As I noted in my previous post, the OTP argued that it had an "independent statutory obligation" to protect witnesses that permitted it to ignore the Trial Chamber's order to reveal the intermediary's identity to the defense. The Trial Chamber rejected that claim, and rightfully so. There is no such obligation -- or, perhaps more precisely, there is no such...
I don't make that claim lightly. Despite my belief that Moreno-Ocampo has been a disaster as a prosecutor, I have consistently opposed calls for his removal, whether because of his retaliation against an employee for accusing him of sexual harassment or because he decided to pursue genocide charges against Bashir. I even opposed his ouster when his misuse of confidentiality...
I hope I'm not stepping on the toes of my Wronging Rights friends, but I couldn't ignore why Linsdey Lohan thinks she doesn't deserve to be sent to jail for 90 days for violating her probation: It is clearly stated in Article 5 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights that...
I discovered the error this morning, as I was re-reading the Appeals Chamber decision for the joint criminal enterprise section of my book on the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The decision cites Einsatzgruppen as an example of JCE I, "basic" joint criminal enterprise, and then attributes the following quote to the Einsatzgruppen tribunal (para. 200): the elementary principle must be borne in...
Not according to Yaacov Lozowick, an Israeli historian: Here's my input, on a point no-one else seems to be noticing: There was no Nazi invasion of the Sudetenland, no invasion of Slovakia, hardly one of Austria and even less of Bohemia. Nazi Germany brutally invaded many countries, but those weren't among them. Go check the history books and...
