In association with the International Commission of Jurists

The Arbitrariness of ICTY Jurisprudence (Specific-Direction Style)

15 Dec

Last week, the ICTY Appeals Chamber reversed the acquittals of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, the former head and deputy head of the Serbian secret police under Milosevic, and ordered them retried. One of the two grounds for reversal was the Trial Chamber's adoption of the specific-direction requirement; in the majority's view (the vote was 3-2), specific direction is not an element...

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15 Dec

[Dan Bodansky is the Foundation Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Law and Global Affairs at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He was in Paris last week for the climate change negotiations. This is his seventh and final post regarding the conference. Professor Bodansky has consulted for the government of...

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13 Dec

Announcements The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Freie Universität Berlin are accepting applications for the third round of Doctoral and Post-Doctoral fellowships in the fully-funded joint 3-year interdisciplinary Doctoral Program “Human Rights under Pressure – Ethics, Law and Politics” (HR-UP), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Einstein Foundation Berlin. HR-UP offers young researchers a unique opportunity to conduct cutting-edge...

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13 Dec

[Ruti Teitel is the Ernst C Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School and the author of Globalizing Transitional Justice (OUP paper2015).] I have learned a great deal from the thoughtful responses to my article (.pdf) by the participants in this symposium. Dinah PoKempner is correct to say that my article doesn’t address the merits of a “right of...

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10 Dec

[Hari Osofsky is a law professor, faculty director of the Energy Transition Lab, and director of the Joint Degree Program in Law, Science & Technology at the University of Minnesota. She is serving as chair of the American Society of International Law’s observer delegation at the 2015 Paris climate change negotiations. Any views expressed are those of the author and...

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10 Dec

Here is Moreno-Ocampo's latest doozy, concerning the possibility of Israelis being prosecuted for war crimes related to Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank: Where the Israeli High Court of Justice has approved specific settlements as legal, this could provide a complete defense to any allegations that they are war crimes, former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the Jerusalem...

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09 Dec

[Cesare Romano is Professor of Law, Joseph W. Ford Fellow, and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. He is also Senior Research Fellow of iCourts, University of Copenhagen, and of Pluricourts, University of Oslo.] Last September, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, and Timoleón Jiménez, the top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces...

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08 Dec

[Ruti Teitel is the Ernst C Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School and the author of Globalizing Transitional Justice (OUP paper2015).] I am very pleased to participate in this Opinio Juris roundtable on my just-published article Transitional Justice and Judicial Activism: A Right to Accountability? (.pdf), and particularly to engage with Dinah PoKempner, Professors Cesare Romano, Chandra Sriram...

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06 Dec

We wanted to pass along a quick update from our friends at the UN Office of Legal Affairs who continue to build out an on-line international law research portal that can hopefully have lasting impact: The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website, which provides high quality international...

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03 Dec

I can't resist one final post to complete an earlier discussion between myself and professors Bruce Ackerman and David Golove on the legal status of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal.  As several others in the blogosphere have noted, the U.S. State Department has confirmed, in a letter to Congress, the following: The...

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30 Nov

Reports suggest that the Japanese government will resume whaling in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica early next year.  This news is causing lots of teeth-gnashing and anger in Australia and New Zealand, whose governments had brought and won a recent International Court of Justice decision finding Japan's previous whaling program in violation of the International Whaling Convention.  The news also reveals (again) the...

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