Search: crossing lines

...of a court. Wood expresses a deep commitment to international law precisely because of its horizontal interpretive nature; it is for government legal advisers to demarcate the acceptable boundaries of policy versus international law, providing apparent ‘clear bright lines’ beyond which policy cannot traverse without incurring international illegality. Not so, according to the government, if instructing Independent Counsel. In a document declassified and released by the Attorney General’s Office dated 13 March 2003 (ie on the eve of formal invasion) the legal secretary to the Attorney General, David Brummell, considered...

...transitional justice contexts have risen ( Bell and O’Rourke 2007 ; see for instance O’Rourke 2013 ; Bueno-Hansen 2017 , 2015 ). Oddly enough, these efforts, however much needed and welcomed, were already deeply grounded in Baldwin’s prose, which extrapolated on structural barriers in American society and disclosed racial fault lines and sexual taboos and challenges in the 1970s and earlier (See for in Baldwin 1972 ). The novelty of mainstreaming peripheral and marginalized perspectives lies in introducing these issues to the field of transitional justice and expanding also the...

...closure of cases) require further structural attention. Holding local hearings (e.g., Ntaganda) may facilitate visibility and access to victims, and foster the perception that ‘justice is seen to be done’. But it is not in itself sufficient to facilitate a structural dialogue locally. (ii) Challenging‘friend/enemy’ clusters Many trials suffer from the reproduction of binaries, and are perceived as obstacles to reconciliation, if they remain entrenched in ‘friend/enemy’ clusters, or associate crime or victimhood across pre-configured collective identities (e.g., ethnic lines). International criminal justice may reduce these frictions, if it pays...

...Third, the detainee must be informed of the factual basis for detention and be given a genuine opportunity to respond. Even if the international standard on judicial review is developed along those lines, however, states would have some discretion on how best to implement it within their domestic legal systems. In other words, the standard would continue to permit some variance, and whether a particular detention scheme satisfies the standard would be assessed on the facts. Yet, in my view, that variance would not by itself demonstrate a lack of...

...20 of the concurring opinion of van den Wyngaert, J. The Prosecutor’s attempt to synthesize common principles from parallel lines of jurisprudence is therefore welcome; however, if it succeeds it will do so against the run of play. Nevertheless, such harmonization is arguably possible. The principles underlying perpetration by means were canvassed at the international level well before the ICC and ICTY existed, in the same body of sources that ground what is now termed JCE doctrine. Consider, for example, the first treaty provision on parties to offences, Article 6...

...application of Guyana to admit the case concerning the validity of the Arbitral Award of October 3rd, 1899 and the ensuing territorial dispute between itself and Venezuela over the Esequibo territory. How did the dispute arrive to the Court? This dispute dates back to the end of the 19th century when an arbitral tribunal decided that the demarcation between the British Guiana and Venezuela would be drawn along the lines of the Esequibo river. A few decades later, the personal correspondence of a diplomat who participated in the proceedings- as...

...to mount a global response to corruption. Symbols Posters, slogans, and other promotional material on International Anti-Corruption Day have featured a slogan or logo that takes up two lines. The first line reads “CORRUPTION” in capitalized red words, and underneath are the words “Your NO counts”. Most the second line is written in black text except for the word “NO” which is highlighted in red capital letters within a white speech bubble. The UN logo is also associated with promotions for this event. It features a projection of a world...

...Watts offers. However, I am not convinced that modifying the bright lines produced by the presumptions of the law of war in order to address the factual over-breath at the fringe is worth the cost of opening the door to altering the group based presumptions that define who may participate in hostilities. In my view, his argument is analogous to an argument that a police officer or a district attorney need not be advised of Miranda rights prior to custodial interrogation because doing so is really just adherence to empty...

...‘[march] in lock step with the permanent members’. The most recent example of the Prosecutor and the ICC’s supporters’ cozy relationship with the Security Council, and its insidious effects, concerns the ongoing disputes regarding President Al-Bashir’s claim to Head of State immunity (debates that have become somewhat moot since his removal from office). Over the past decade academics have fiercely debated the status of President Al-Bashir’s immunity, and so when the issue finally came before the ICC Appeals Chamber in 2018 the Prosecutor was presented with a number of lines...

In an excellent recent blog post at Just Security, Tom Dannenbaum identified four options for prosecuting Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine: [T]he International Criminal Court, an ad hoc international tribunal (whether along the lines proposed at Chatham House or pursuant to a General Assembly resolution), a domestic court exercising territorial jurisdiction (in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine), or a domestic court exercising universal jurisdiction. All four options have their costs and benefits. The ICC would offer economy of scale, given that the Prosecutor has already initiated, at the request of 41...

This morning the Supreme Court will hear Morse v. Frederick, a case about a high school student who held up a banner advocating “Bong Hits for Jesus” at a school function associated with the passing of the Olympic torch through Juneau, Alaska. The school principal, Deborah Morse, refused to allow Joseph Frederick to display the banner, and he was later disciplined for his conduct. Given that several of the justices are strongly committed to the principled use of comparative constitutionalism, I’m confident that something along the lines of the following...

...permanent transnational criminal court established by treaty between all Caribbean and Latin American signatories of the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime 2000 (and its protocols). A Draft Statute has been produced and circulated which provides for a permanent independent court modelled, somewhat, along the same lines of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In other words, a permanent, independent organisation with international legal personality, that boasts an independent Prosecutor, and which is founded on the principle of complementary (for an overview, see Rob Currie and Jacob Leon). It is...