In association with the International Commission of Jurists

OTP Formally Requests First Non-African Investigation

13 Oct

Fatou Bensouda has just formally asked the Pre-Trial Chamber to authorise an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by South Ossetian and Georgian forces between 1 July 2008 and 10 October 2008. Here are the relevant paragraphs from the ICC's press release: The Situation in Georgia has been under preliminary examination by the Office of the Prosecutor since August 2008, when armed clashes...

|
11 Oct

Last month, Ashley Deeks claimed that France appeared "to be prepared to invoke the 'unwilling or unable' concept in the Syria context." France did indeed attacks ISIS targets in Syria. And it reported those strikes to the Secretary-General of the UN, claiming self-defence under Art. 51 of the UN Charter as a rationale for violating Syria's sovereignty. But then something funny...

|
08 Oct

[Kai Ambos is Professor for Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Comparative Law and International Criminal Law at the Georg August Universität Göttingen, Judge at the District Court in Göttingen,  Director of the Centro de Estudios de Derecho Penal y Procesal Latinoamericano (CEDPAL) of Göttingen University and has worked in Colombia in various capacities over the last 25 years.]  On 23 September, the Colombian President Juan...

|
06 Oct

[Dr. Başak Çalı is Director for the Center of Global Public Law and Associate Professor of International Law at Koç University, Turkey. She the secretary general of the European Society of International Law. The following is written in her personal capacity. This is a follow-up post to the open letter we published 24 September.] The open letter from international lawyers to the...

|
05 Oct

The U.S. and eleven other Pacific Rim countries announced they have reached agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which will more tightly integrate 40% of the world's economy into a single regional bloc. There will be a huge fight in Congress over the TPP by progressive Democrats in the U.S. Even presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has already announced...

|
05 Oct

I stopped watching Crossing Lines about five episodes into Season 2 – about the time the ICC started investigating a series of home invasions. (Yes, really.) I had no intention of watching again, but I decided to give the show one more try at the urging of my friend Mel O’Brien. So a couple of nights ago I watched the...

|
04 Oct

Announcements iCourts (Center of Excellence for International Courts), The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark is seeking applications for two or three positions as postdoc within the research area of one of the Faculty’s research centres - iCourts (the Center of Excellence for International Courts). The positions are available from 1st February 2016, and for duration of two (2) years. Start...

|
02 Oct

I wanted to flag for interested readers the upcoming ASIL Research Forum in Washington, D.C., on October 23-24, 2015  I've been to a couple of the previous iterations and can attest that it's a great way to catch up on some new scholarship and to hear a mix of new and old voices in the field.  This year's event looks...

|
02 Oct

It's been widely reported over the past few days that Russia has been bombing the Free Syrian Army under the pretext of joining the fight against ISIS. That development spurred an interesting post at Lawfare by Bobby Chesney about whether Art. II of the Constitution -- the Commander-in-Chief Clause -- would permit the US to defend the FSA, which it has been...

|
01 Oct

The UN General Assembly is set to vote once again (for the 24th consecutive year) on a Cuba-sponsored resolution condemning the United States' economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba.  This resolution will probably get near majority support, and perhaps even unanimous support.  Indeed, there are rumors that the U.S. government itself may abstain from voting against the resolution, which is...

|
30 Sep

[Matt Brown is a current LLM student at Leiden University, studying Public International Law, with a specific interest in international criminal law, transitional justice and cultural heritage law. He tweets about these and other topics @_mattbrown.] The International Criminal Court concerns itself with the ‘most serious crimes of concern to the international community.’ Often we understand this term to reflect examples...

|