Search: palestine icc
19 Dec Sudan Blocks ICC Probe on Darfur
...for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by government officials and Janjaweed members, it has made no genuine effort to investigate — much less discipline or prosecute –any of the individuals responsible. Instead, it has created a facade of accountability through sham prosecutions and created ad hoc government committees that produce nothing. This development raises a couple of interesting questions. First, what is the standard under the Rome Statute of the ICC for “complimentarity,” the requirement that the ICC only prosecute cases where the state with primary jurisdiction is...
17 Aug States of Justice Symposium: Quo Vadis? A Review of Oumar Ba’s ‘States of Justice: The Politics of the International Criminal Court’
presumed weak and strong states to the extent that even when the Prosecutor sought to launch the first major investigation that implicates a major world power in Afghanistan, the result has been a strong rebuke from the US government. Even within the weaker states where the ICC has operated in most of its existence, state agents who have been targeted have found it easier to attack the ICC on the basis of perceived bias against weaker states. The pushback has resonated well especially when it is punctuated by sentiments of...
02 Jul The Use of Benchmarks in the Colombia Situation: An Opportunity for a Victim-Oriented Approach to ICC Complementarity
...the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC in the context of its ongoing preliminary examination in Colombia. In accordance with the ICC’s complementarity principle, the OTP is closely monitoring whether Colombia’s national efforts towards accountability for crimes potentially falling under ICC jurisdiction are sufficient, or whether they warrant the opening of a formal investigation. Recently, the OTP announced that it will use benchmarks for this determination. This post proposes a central role for victim’s rights and interests in the OTP’s analysis and the conceptualization of said benchmarks. Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for...
09 Jul Never Two Without Three: On the – To Be Reopened – ICC Preliminary Examination in Iraq
of the ICC practice in relation to the complementarity assessment are evident. Therefore, judicial review is required in view of the dramatic impact of the adopted complementarity assessment, on the present situation and beyond it, as the overly restrictive approach adopted by the Prosecutor in this situation may have grave consequences for other preliminary examinations and investigations. In light of the above, a new determination on the issue will only reinforce the Court and enhance confidence in the ICC Prosecutor’s independence, as the request notes referring also to the strong...21 Mar ICC Watch: Ugandan Leaders Seek Delay in Arrest Warrants
As I sip my half pint of Weiznenbier “Edelweiss” here at Cafe Leopold in Vienna, I thought I would blog a few short posts using the cafe’s free WLAN: Representatives from North Uganda visited the Hague last week to ask the ICC to hold off on arrest warrants for leaders of the Lords’ Resistance Army. As I have noted before, the Uganda situation presents the ICC with an important first test of its political (rather than legal) judgment. Should the ICC issue arrest warrants here? Or should it hold back...18 Mar Lubanga Decision Roundtable: Lubanga in Context
...from the specter of colonialism, the pervasive fear of double-standards to the detriment of Africans and what Mutua Makau famously calls the metaphor of “savages, victims and saviors”? After all, we should not forget that many will view the Lubanga judgment as confirmation that, to cite Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the ICC is “a new form of imperialism created by the West to control the world’s poorest countries.” This, in my view, is clearly over-stated, but it is hard to turn a blind eye to some facets of the ICC’s...03 Nov Initial Thoughts on the ICC’s Decision to Investigate Afghanistan
it would probably see doing so as an acknowledgment of the investigation’s legitimacy — it will no doubt rely on Mike Newton’s argument in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law that the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Afghanistan and the United States precludes the ICC from exercising jurisdiction over American soldiers. (The SOFA presumably doesn’t apply to CIA operatives, who are not part of the US armed forces.) Oversimplifying a bit, Mike argues that Afghanistan has no jurisdiction that it can delegate to the ICC, because the SOFA provides...17 Aug And So It Begins… Social Media Evidence In An ICC Arrest Warrant
[Emma Irving is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University] The ICC’s most recent arrest warrant, issued on the 15th August 2017, should have us all talking for one important reason: it is the first ICC arrest warrant to be based largely on evidence collected from social media. This was a move that was bound to come, and it aligns the ICC with the realities of many of today’s conflicts. The ICC arrest warrant in question was issued against...
29 May Affective Justice Symposium: Other Geographies, Other Pushbacks–Affective Justice as a Diagnosis for International Criminal Law
[Sara Kendall is a Senior Lecturer in International Law at The University of Kent in the Faculty of Law. She is also Co-Director of The Centre for Critical International Law.] In early March 2020, the US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo gave a press briefing concerning the ICC Appeals Chamber’s decision on Afghanistan. As is widely known by Opinio Juris’s readership, the ICC’s prosecutor aimed to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of Afghanistan as well as other crimes linked to the situation, which could...
23 Jun The Sentencing of Dominic Ongwen: A Normative Inquiry
these two questions, highlighting important issues with the Court’s reasoning behind its abstention from imposing a life sentence in this case. Through this, it attempts to shed much-needed light on the considerations that underlie the ICC’s sentencing of convicts. Analysing the Sentence The ICC has a difficult role in functioning as a victim-centric Court, while attempting to balance this against the rights of convicts. As the Court noted in Ongwen’s sentencing, while victims should be heard, ‘revenge’ should not guide judicial decision-making. Article 78(1) of the Rome Statute requires it...