Search: Complementarity SAIF GADDAFI

...pointed out, the ICC has nothing to gain by considering Libya’s admissibility challenge regarding Saif, because Libya has indicated that it has no intention of complying with an adverse decision. The same problem exists even more acutely in situations in which multiple states challenge admissibility, as permitted by Article 19. It makes no sense for the ICC to risk alienating member-states by resolving competing admissibility challenges when the custodial state will simply refuse to extradite the suspect should the ICC give the other state priority to prosecute. That is not...

...hearings. On the US-ICC relationship, Julian ventured that a cultural change is required if it is to blossom into a love affair. More news from the ICC came from Kevin, who worried that a funding crisis was behind the OPCD’s request to withdraw from the Saif Gaddafi case, and the Pre-Trial Chamber’s approval of a new lawyer. Finally, Kevin corrected an old post on whether Bill Keller of the NYTimes can be charged with aiding and abetting the enemy like Bradley Manning. As always, we listed events and announcements that...

The trial against Ratko Mladic at the ICTY continued today, with testimony today covering the systematic execution of 8,000 Muslim men and boys. However, due to prosecutorial error, Judge Orie has suspended the presentation of evidence indefinitely, originally to begin May 29. Foreign Policy takes us back to the early days of the tribunal with this graphic representation. In Libya, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is refusing to appoint a defense lawyer for domestic charges against him in that country. ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said yesterday that he would not oppose a...

...justice in Libya. Further on Libya and the ICC, Kevin Heller discussed the contrasting, and counter-intuitive, motions of the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor and the Office of the Public Counsel for the Defence on the issue whether Libya should surrender Saif Gaddafi to the ICC. Kevin also addressed the question whether the ICC can prosecute NATO forces for war crimes in Libya, and argued that UNSC Resolution 1970 which grants exclusive jurisdiction over the actions in Libya by nationals of non-ICC members to their home state is incompatible with...

...A drone strike in eastern Yemen has killed at least five people in the first such raid since the army launched an offensive against al-Qaeda-linked fighters last month. At least 40 people have died and 51 have been rescued after a boat carrying migrants sank off Libya’s coast. Libya’s interim interior minister has warned that Tripoli could “facilitate” the passage of those people seeking to get to Europe illegally unless the European Union (EU) helps it combat the problem. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has appeared via videolink at a court in...

A four-member delegation from the ICC in Libya, who went to meet with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, has been detained by Libyan authorities after one of the lawyers, Melinda Taylor, was found allegedly carrying suspicious documents. Syrian government forces renewed their attacks on Homs, killing at least 35. Protesters in Chile rallied against a documentary honoring Augusto Pinochet. The world’s newest country, South Sudan, struggles to open embassies, with only about a dozen open to this point. After a blast that killed women and children over the weekend, NATO has vowed...

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has appeared in a court for the first time since his capture last year, in the western town of Zintan, where he is facing charges related to a visit by an ICC lawyer last year. Jurist has more here. US and ECOWAS troops will support France’s mission in Mali. Armed Groups in International Law has an insightful post on the French intervention in Mali and Additional Protocol II. African Union peacekeepers trying to dislodge Islamist rebels from Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region shot dead at least seven civilians...

...Beijing had called off human rights talks. Japan and Australia have clinched a bilateral trade deal. Middle East and Northern Africa The trials have begun in Tripoli against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and his younger brother, Saadi, on charges including murder and plundering state coffers. Their co-accused include the former intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi and former prime ministers, al-Baghdadi al-Mahmudi and Bouzid Dorda. Israel is holding secret talks with some Arab states that do not recognize it, looking to establish diplomatic ties based on a common fear of Iran according Israeli...

...also strange that SOAS would simply replace the original examiners with new ones after two “not pass” results and a subsequent allegation of bias. Why would a student who failed to correct his dissertation twice be given a third bite of the apple with different examiners? Page is hardly the first student to allege bias when he received a failing mark — and it’s not like he’s Saif Gaddafi or anything. Something is seriously wrong here. SOAS is a world-class university with very high academic standards — one I’m proud...

I had the privilege last week of speaking in London at a superb Chatham House/Doughty St. Chambers symposium on the ICTY’s recent high-profile acquittals in Perisic, Gotovina, and others. My co-panelists were John Jones, QC, Saif Gaddafi’s ICC-appointed lawyer, and Elies van Sliedregt, the Dean of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Chatham House’s Elizabeth Wilmshurst was the moderator. I don’t believe the symposium was recorded, so I thought I would post the detailed outline of my remarks. My talk was, not surprisingly, a defence of Perisic‘s specific-direction requirement; it developed and systematized...

Libya will challenge the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in order to try him on Libyan soil. Mark Kersten at Justice in Conflict has more analysis about the battle of where the trial will be held. Police in Sierra Leone have arrested an investigator employed by former Liberian President Charles Taylor’s defense team on charges he attempted to bribe prosecution witnesses to recant their testimony during Taylor’s war crimes trial. Nigerian soldiers have shot more than 30 civilians dead in the northeastern Nigerian city of...

This week on Opinio Juris, Julian noticed the apparent truce between the American right and the ICC, but didn’t go as far as calling it peace. Further on the ICC, Kevin pointed out a flagrant mistake at the Washington Times, and argued that the OTP was wrong in concluding that Libya is able to try Saif Gaddafi, because the Rome Statute does not consider a trial in absentia to meet that standard. Talking about criminal prosecutions, Peggy asked whether Pope Benedict XVI could be sued in the child sex abuse...