Search: Complementarity SAIF GADDAFI

Reacting to the still-imminent fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, U.S. presidential candidate (and likely future president if you believe these polls) Mitt Romney has called for the extradition of the mastermind of Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, to the United States. The demand raises an interesting dilemma. Megrahi was tried and convicted in a special Scottish tribunal set up specifically for the Lockerbie case. He was serving time, and then released in the belief he was terminally ill. He miraculously recovered, however. In any event, is there...

...there was room to discuss rebuilding in the Libyan context through the prism of R2P’s Pillar 2, namely, through providing assistance and capacity-building to post-Gaddafi Libya to ensure safeguarding from the resurgence of mass atrocity crimes. Reflecting more globally, Peake draws attention to an emerging trend on the international scene that seemingly counteracts the post-Charter move towards multilateralism that I describe in the book, namely, ‘shrinking multilateralism and the mounting nationalism’. Peake is spot on that emerging nationalist rhetoric threatens to unravel decades of work in which community interests such...

...have been paid to shill for delisting — supporting “good” terrorists is, of course, one of the few bipartisan acts still possible in the U.S. — are guilty of providing material support to terrorists, a felony punishable by life in prison. They will never be prosecuted, of course; now that MEK’s history of violence (all of six months old) has been consigned to the memory hole, Obama’s hypocritical “look forward, not backward” mantra automatically applies. BONUS TRIVIA: The MEK’s lobbying firm, Brown Lloyd James, has also worked for Gaddafi and...

This week on Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller wrote about Niger’s offer to extradite Saadi Gaddafi to the ICC, should this be requested. Kevin also discussed the conditions attached by the UK for a vote in favour of Palestine’s “non-member state” bid in the UN General Assembly. The requirement that the Palestinian authority does not apply for ICC or ICJ membership most likely proved to be a dealbreaker, as the UK ultimately abstained. Following the vote, Kevin argued that Palestine can accept the ICC’s jurisdiction retroactively by making a simple...

...EU now investigating alleged subsidies to Chinese manufacturers. Germany, France and the UK have condemned the approval of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as an obstacle to realizing a two-state solution. Reuters and the BBC analyse outgoing Chinese President Hu Jintao’s speech at the opening of the 18th Party Congress. The Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, has urged Libya not to grant amnesty for war crimes committed during last year’s uprising against the Gaddafi regime. Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of 31 activists that have...

...us all…. From this day forward, Libya is a free, self-governing republic…. She will advance on the road to freedom, the path of unity and social justice, … where injustice and exploitation are banished, … where all will be free, brothers within a society in which, with God’s help, prosperity and equality will … rule us all.” ~ Muammar Gaddafi, September 1, 1969 announcing the coup against the government of King Idris. Just a gentle reminder not to get too excited about the forces of change sweeping the Middle East....

...personal immunity. In 2001, the French Court of Cassation ruled against an order by the Court of Appeal of Paris in relation to the Libyan head of state, Muammar Gaddafi’s complicity in the commission of ‘crimes, regardless of [their] gravity’. The Court of second instance further characterized the decision to recommend the investigation of the complaint as a ‘disregard’ of the ‘customary law on the immunity granted to foreign heads of state […] consistently recognized by international society’. Some two years later, when a complaint was lodged by a civil...

...remains. Britain’s new Foreign Secretary Philip Hammonds reiterated his position from two years ago that if Britain does not get good renegotiation, it should leave the European Union. A former Libyan Islamist commander who says he suffered years of torture by Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen after British and U.S. spies handed him over to Libya will try this week to overturn a ruling blocking legal action against the British government. The remains of 284 victims of the Bosnian war were laid to rest on Sunday having been unearthed from what is...

...no reason to believe, however, that the warrant for al-Werfalli will be any more successful than the ones for Gaddafi and al-Senussi: the LNA has already made clear they will not surrender him to the ICC, and the GNA has zero prospect at present of capturing him. On Wednesday, Rodrigo Duterte, the President of the Philippines, instructed his police to shoot human-rights activists who are “obstructing justice” by investigating his war against (alleged) drug dealers. That war has involved at least 7,000 extrajudicial killings in the past 13 months and...

...to replace the murderous Assad regime. Regime change is not the same thing as regime improvement. Moreover, even if a new regime would be generally better than the Assad regime, that does not mean it would not do terrible things to certain disfavored groups. That is a lesson we should have learned in Libya: although no one is shedding tears for the Gaddafi regime, the new Libyan government has proven all too willing to commit atrocities against groups such as the Tawerghans. Indeed, as I discuss in this essay, there...

...Policy’s piece helps explain why Obama might be a little cold on a meeting. A Libyan judge has suspended the trial of Buzeid Dorda, a top intelligence officer in Gaddafi’s regime, after an appeal of unconstitutionality was entered by the defense. The UN has calculated that the Taliban raked in more than $400 million from various sources last year. US missions in Cairo and Benghazi were attacked yesterday, resulting in the loss of at least one State Department official, after protests broke out regarding a film allegedly offensive to Islam....

When I wrote my account of Melinda Taylor and her team’s detention, I somehow missed this gem in the OPCD’s response: 381. The inability of the particular prosecution authorities assigned to the case of Mr. Gaddafi to conduct credible or effective investigations and prosecutions is amply demonstrated by the fact that these same prosecution authorities claimed that an ordinary swatch watch worn by the ICC interpreter, was in fact a ‘spy watch’ (with video or GPS capabilities so hidden that even she and the swatch makers were unaware of them),...