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30 Jan

Today, the ICTY Appeals Chamber affirmed genocide convictions in the Srebrenica case, Prosecutor v. Popović et al. The full Appeals Chamber judgment is here. The PDF document is 792 pages (including a few short dissents), which is long-ish but certainly not extraordinary by ICTY judgment standards. In my opinion, the most critical part of the judgment relates to the connection between the defendants, their Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE), and the perpetrators who actually performed the killings. As you will recall, back in the old days when the JCE...
30.01.15 | |

02 Jun

...of Desert. Jonathan Barron commented how international criminal law is in transition from second-party to third-party punishment and Adil Haque questioned whether Andrew’s suggestions would make the international criminal law regime no longer a criminal regime or no longer a legal regime. Jens Ohlin debated Andrew’s assumption that international criminal law is fundamentally retributive and his application of social science insights about the power of moral sentiments to crowd out consequentialist calculations. Andrew’s response can be found here. The second article, by Alvaro Santos, discussed how developing countries can carve...
02.06.12 | |

18 Oct

I am very sorry to report the shocking news, that many have already seen on Twitter, that Håkan Friman has passed away, much too young. Anyone involved in international criminal justice surely knows Håkan’s name, and more likely than not, knew Håkan personally. In addition to his many many academic publications on international criminal law (including the well-known Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure by him, Robert Cryer, Darryl Robinson, and Elizabeth Wilmshurst), Håkan was a Judge on the Solna District Court in Sweden, and also held...
18.10.16 | |

29 Jan

News reports indicate that Jordan is engaged in frantic negotiations with the Islamic State (ISIS) over a proposed hostage swap. Jordan is apparently willing to turn over a prisoner, would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi, in exchange for ISIS releasing both a Jordanian air force pilot and a Japanese captive. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the deal appears to have collapsed. Earlier video appeared to show that another Japanese hostage was murdered by ISIS–a development that provoked shock and outrage in Japan. ISIS hostage-takers had earlier demanded $200...
29.01.15 | |

21 Sep

...it has built. A senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday that additional sanctions were a possible response to any North Korea missile launch and the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific said he favored deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea. Europe With a troubled peace plan for the Ukrainian conflict nearing its deadline, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg will attempt a balancing act to reassure Kiev of the West’s support without antagonizing Moscow when he visits Ukraine on Monday. Bitterly-divided European leaders will seek to find...
21.09.15 | |

28 Oct

...Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Legal Studies; Associate Professor, Corvinus University of Budapest Duncan B. Hollis, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Law, Temple University School of Law María-José Cervell Hortal, tenured professor of Public International Law, Universidad de Murcia, Spain Kristine Huskey, Clinical Professor of Law, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law Mark Janis, formerly Fellow of Exeter College & Reader in Law, University of Oxford Eric Talbot Jensen, Robert W. Barker Professor of Law, Brigham Young University Derek Jinks, A.W. Walker Centennial...
28.10.20 | |

05 Apr

...article 18 or 19. Readers will recall that Dapo Akande, Jens Ohlin, and I have been involved in a friendly debate about whether Article 95 applies to surrender requests, as they believe, or only to requests for the collection of evidence, as I believe. (See here and here.) Libya’s latest request gave the PTC an opportunity to give us an answer — but, unfortunately, the judges ducked the Article 95 issue, holding that Libya’s failure to bring a formal admissibility challenge pursuant to Article 18 or 19 meant that they...
05.04.12 | |

15 Jun

I’m not one to get hysterical over ICC news, but this recent development today strikes me as deeply problematic, and perhaps a tipping point. But perhaps not the tipping point that the ICC detractors have in mind. Sudanese President al-Bashir was attending a conference in South Africa this weekend with other heads of state and officials from several African nations. The government of South Africa took the position that Bashir was entitled to immunity and could not be arrested; apparently, this was Bashir’s assumption as well, otherwise I...
15.06.15 | |

13 Apr

As I write this, the ASIL annual meeting is conducting a well-timed, previously unannounced panel discussion about the legality of the missile strikes against Assad’s airbase in Syria. In addition to Harold Koh (Yale Law School), who has argued in support of humanitarian intervention, the speakers include moderator Catherine Powell (Fordham Law School), Jennifer Daskal (AU Washington College of Law), Steve Pomper (US Holocaust Memorial Museum), and Saikrishna Prakash (UVA School of Law).  I’m sure that it is/was a terrific panel and I’m sorry to have missed it. I want...
13.04.17 | |

08 Nov

This week on Opinio Juris, Peter continued his commentary on the Zivotofsky hearing and Kristen posted the transcript of the recent hearing in the Haiti Cholera case. Jens wrote about the DOD’s plans for a Defense Clandestine Service, and welcomed the news that President Obama will seek congressional authorization for the ISIS campaign. Kevin discussed the passage in the OTP’s Mavi Marmara decision where the OTP finds that Israel is still occupying Gaza, and explained why the Comoros’ appeal will have little effect in practice. In guests posts, Nikolaos Ioannidis...
08.11.14 | |

23 Sep

Thanks to Kevin Govern and Duncan Hollis for providing the two previous posts (here and here) in this book symposium on Cyber War: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts. In my post, I want to explore the difficulties arising from causal investigations in cyber attacks. Everyone knows that the increasing threat of cyber attacks will place immense pressure on the operational capacities for various intelligence and defense agencies. Speak with anyone in military operations (from several countries), and their lists of security concerns are remarkably similar: Russia, ISIS,...
23.09.15 | |

11 Apr

...considering “the balance of consequences,” one must question whether airstrikes are reasonably calculated to lessen, rather than intensify conflict, and thus, civilian suffering, in Syria. Our doubts about the legality of the attack are not, however, an end in themselves. Jens Ohlin sees the many opinions objecting to the bombing on either domestic or international legal grounds and concludes that “everyone seems to have lined up against humanitarian intervention.” Not us. We firmly endorse the notion of humanitarian intervention but fault the Security Council for not doing its job. Thus,...
11.04.17 | |