I am delighted to announce that Angela is the newest permanent member of Opinio Juris! We have thoroughly enjoyed her blogging this past month and look forward to hearing much more from her in the future. As a reminder, Angela is a Zimbabwean international lawyer who currently works for the Wayamo Foundation. She focuses on enhancing the domestic capacity of African prosecutors...
Call for Papers The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas at Austin, School of Law invites submissions for an interdisciplinary conference on the theme of "Prison Abolition, Human Rights, and Penal Reform: From the Local to the Global," which will be held from the 26-28 September 2019 in Austin, Texas. Mass incarceration and overcriminalization...
Call for Papers The National Research University Higher School of Economics and PluriCourts are pleased to announce a call for papers for their conference on "Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property: Emergence of New International Customary Law Rules – by Whom?" on 3-4 October 2019 in Moscow, Russia. Paper proposals should be submitted via e-mail to Prof. Geir Ulfstein (geir [dot]...
On 17 May 2017, Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut gave a talk at Peking Law School about the role of victims at the ICC. The talk, which was recorded and then transcribed, included a number of shocking comments, such as describing "the Africans" as "a group of 54 countries who provide the suspects and the accused" to the Court. Judge...
[Nikhil Purohit is a law student at the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, India and the Chief Editor of the Indian Journal of Law and Technology.] India recently tested an Anti-satellite (ASAT) missile by shooting down one of its own satellites. In public announcements, this move was touted as necessary in boosting the defence of space assets of the country. With...
I thought I was done blogging about the Pre-Trial Chamber's authorization decision, but there is another aspect of it that keeps nagging at me: the limits PTC II would have imposed on the OTP's investigation if it had authorized it. Here are the key paragraphs (emphasis mine): 40. More specifically, the precise width and breadth of the Prosecutor's power to investigate...
Call for Papers The Faculty of Legal Studies, South Asian University, New Delhi (India) is organizing a two-day international conference on South Asia in the Era of International Courts and Tribunals on 28-29 February 2020. The conference theme invites engagement with a range of issues broadly falling within the following three sub-themes: (1) The Composition and Competence of International Courts and...
The Amazon is a 7,000,000 km2 ecosystem, containing the world’s largest rainforest, boasting some 390 billion trees, 2.5 million species of insects and over 2,000 species of birds and mammals, spanning the territories of eight states (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela). It is also the name of a company worth 810 billion dollars. Back in 2012, Amazon – the company – applied to register...
I have been thinking more about how the OTP can appeal the Pre-Trial Chamber's refusal to authorize the Afghanistan investigation. I was perhaps a bit too dour in my assessment of whether the Appeals Chamber is likely to get the chance to reverse a decision that I consider fundamentally flawed. The most obvious option would be to seek leave to appeal the...
Many thought this day would never come, and I consider myself one of them. Last week President Omar al Bashir became former President Omar al Bashir after months of citizen led protests and a definitive intervention by the Sudanese Army. The remarkable power of citizen protests and the dogged determination to topple a corrupt regime has been inspirational to observe...
Call for Papers The University of Hamburg Faculty of Law has published a call for submissions for young scholars in public international law to discuss their research (chapter of a doctoral thesis, post doc paper, other drafts or research ideas). The workshop will be held from 20 - 21 September 2019 in Hamburg. The deadline for abstracts is 10 June 2019. Abstracts can be...
[Gabor Rona is a Visiting Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School, where he directs the Law and Armed Conflict Project.] The Decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to decline to proceed with cases involving Afghanistan “in the interests of justice” is not only likely ultra vires, it is appalling. That’s not to say that...