I had the pleasure of participating yesterday in a superb -- and long! -- panel on the 2013 siege of Eastern Ghouta. The panel discussed the facts, the law, and the politics of the siege. I was joined by Hussam Alkatlaby, the Executive Director of the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre; Joost Hiltermann, programme director for Middle East & North Africa at...
[Christiane Ahlborn and Bart Smit Duijzentkunst are Associate Legal Officers at the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York. This post, and its sister post on EJIL:Talk!, mark the start of the seventieth session of the International Law Commission. Under the theme “70 years of the International Law Commission: Drawing a Balance for the Future”,...
[Matt Pollard is a Senior Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, Switzerland.] The Canadian Parliament is currently considering Bill C-262, “An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. The draft legislation is a “private member’s bill” introduced by an individual Member...
[Karolína Babická is a Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist’s Europe Programme.] European Union (EU) law has in the last two decades shaped and to some extent also harmonized national legislation governing asylum and migration in EU member states. This month, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has once again set out the very strict limits...
I like much of what Jennifer Trahan says in her recent post about the permanent veto. But I would take issue -- unsurprisingly -- with her claim that "there is in fact more past precedent for reliance on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention than is often recognized, including not only NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, but also African and Arab...
[Bianca Maganza is a PhD candidate in International Law and a Teaching Assistant at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.] Some days ago, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the CAR (hereinafter, MINUSCA) got involved in heavy fire exchange with an armed group known as KM5 in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic...
Opinio Juris readers might be interested in this letter from GLAN Legal -- the Global Legal Action Network -- to the Presidents and Attorneys General of Israel and Uganda. It was written by Itamar Mann, Yannis Kalpouzos, and Omer Shatz, with input from me. Here is the introduction: The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) is an organization of lawyers initiating transnational...
[Jennifer Tridgell is a Legal Intern at the International Criminal Court. She has previously worked at the Philippines Commission on Human Rights and the High Court of Hong Kong. The views expressed in this article are her own.] On 19 March 2018, President Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the Rome Statute (“Statute”). This decision is disappointing, yet unsurprising. The President has...
You go to war with the President you have, not the President you wish you had. We should keep that basic truth in mind as the US inches ever closer to war with Syria -- and potentially with Russia, a far more terrifying possibility. Donald Trump does not care about civilians in Syria. He does not care about containing the spread...
[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists and Simphiwe Sidu is a Legal Research Consultant for the International Commission of Jurists.] Miguna Miguna is a prolific Kenyan activist and lawyer who describes himself as a “General” in National Resistance Movement (NRM) Kenya. He ran to be elected as Governor of Nairobi in...
In my previous post, I offered three cautionary thoughts about the OTP's decision to ask the Pre-Trial Division to hold that the ICC has jurisdiction over Myanmar's deportation of the Rohingya to Bangladesh. In this post, I want to offer a few thoughts on what a successful outcome would mean for refugee crises elsewhere -- particularly in Libya and Syria. We...
Major news out of the ICC today: the OTP has formally asked the Pre-Trial Division to determine whether the Court has jurisdiction over the deportation of the Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Here is the introduction of the OTP's brief: 1. The Prosecution seeks a ruling on a question of jurisdiction: whether the Court may exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation...
