Search: crossing lines
03 Aug The Relevancy of Diplomacy
...But we also remember those who made a difference to the organization and the US relationship with it, e.g., Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke made a difference at the UN beyond what the administration might have envisioned for the job. He directly and successfully lobbied across party lines to get Congress to pay US arrears to the UN. He succeeded in part through sheer force of personality, in part through convincing the Hill that paying the dues would be central to the US ability to clean up some of the messes at...08 Dec African Withdrawals Mask the Real Issue at the Assembly of States Parties 15
...allowed the OTP to open their 2016 investigation into Georgia (p10), a cost now incorporated into the 2017 budget; but at €7,000,000 (p169), the contingency fund is not designed to cover the costs of entire unplanned investigations. In closing, and to use the United Kingdom as but just one example, the opening and closing lines of their general debate address highlights the point that States more than ever are unwilling to back up their rhetoric with adequate financial support.continued support for, and commitment to the International Criminal Court’, only to...
12 Mar By Practioners, For Practitioner: ABA’s ICL Best Practice Project Publishes Guidance on Judgment Drafting
...often measured by how effective and efficient prosecution authorities are. Yet, much more attention should be placed on the judiciary along these same lines. How well judges, and most importantly, chamber staff perform is another critical component in measuring just how successful international criminal processes are. Putting aside the substance of judgments (which often engenders heated debates, to say the least), it is commonplace for the timeliness and length of international criminal judgments to be subjected to withering complaints as well. It is not hyperbolic to state that the total...20 Oct Guest Post: Bolivia’s First Triumph in The Hague
...is strong and clear, as this judgement follows a bad experience in the case about the maritime delimitation with Peru (solved by the ICJ in 2014). Moreover, to face the further proceedings on the merits, Chile´s legal team has to change its strategy based in the 1904 Treaty, which was specifically excluded from the discussion by the Court. In this regard is worth asking what were the arguments of the parties? And does Bolivia really have a good case? In the following lines I will try to address these two...
11 Jul What Is a Mass Grave? Why Protect Mass Graves? How to Protect Mass Graves?
...it is possible that surface scattered human remains (i.e. at the side of a road) may also constitute a mass grave, and reports point to the existence of such circumstances. How Are Mass Graves Protected? Protection of the site is paramount to preserve the integrity of remains, associated evidence and lines of enquiries. Protection measures ought to safeguard the human remains against contamination, desecration, robbery, scavengers and the movement/relocation of bodies to secondary sites, where a perpetrator is seeking to evade detection. Image from Protocol Appendix 3. Assuming that access...
20 Jan Geoengineering and the Use of Force
...within the current understanding of armed attack justifying self-defense, but as that threat begins to emerge more clearly, one can certainly anticipate that arguments will be made that it is close enough. To the extent that there is strong resistance to such efforts to relax the “armed attack” standard, scenarios such as explored here will tend to blur the lines between self-defense and such justifications as necessity and countermeasures. It is widely accepted that necessity cannot be invoked as a justification or defense for violating the prohibition on the use...
20 Aug Symposium on Informers Up Close: Weaponizing the Populace
...mistreated by their superiors, they are simply enduring what they signed up for. So, too, with soldiers in the American all-volunteer military, or the former prisoners who have secured a way out of prison by agreeing to deploy to the front lines in Russia’s war against Ukraine without proper training or equipment. The fact that someone has chosen a life, however, does not vitiate the state’s responsibilities to treat that person as an individual with dignity. What that means, of course, will vary according to the particular context. But the...24 Oct The Hariri Report, the UN, and Legitimacy
...implies that, like reports of other international organizations, this report ends up with “muddy, often useless conclusions in an attempt to avoid rocking the boat.” Well, I guess someone better tell all those demonstrators in Damascus to calm down. That is not the result of a document that avoids rocking the boat. What is even more interesting are the comments of some of the Syrians in the street when asked about the report. Comments were along the lines of, “well, if these allegations turn out to be true then whoever...16 Oct Obama Will “Engage” on Sudan (And Ignore the ICC)
...Scott Gration, said that the policy, to be announced Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would make use of a mix of “incentives and pressure” to put an end to the human rights abuses that have left millions of people dead and displaced while burningDarfur into the American conscience. General Gration said the administration would set strict time lines for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan to fulfill the conditions of a 2005 peace agreementthat his government signed with rebels in southern Sudan; under the agreement, a proposal for...