Search: palestine icc

...sovereign equals, elevating the status of the non-state actor in order to elevate the status of the agreement itself. But with Crimean separation being widely condemned, the reverse would seem to be the case here: a collective decision to shun one of the parties has the effect of denying it legal capacity to enter into a treaty. Some argue that an internationally acknowledged self-determination unit (e.g., Palestine) may conclude a treaty notwithstanding the state-centric definition in Article 2 of the Vienna Convention. This argument relies on Article 3 of the...

Ken, since I have commitments most of today, I can answer only briefly and perhaps a little too abruptly, the surprising, even astonishing remarks in your last post, remarks so surprising, given their source, that I am wondering whether someone pretending to be you actually made the post. Let’s begin with the granular. In my post on the Israeli-Palestine conflict I say the following: “I neither claim nor believe that the U.S. and the Islamic world would like down together like the lion and the lamb in the Peaceable Kingdom...

went into effect] and that the number of immigrants in the past decade has been relatively small, likely in the thousands. Contrast that with Israeli immigration: the number of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank in 2002 was around 214,000; there are more than 350,000 living there today — an increase of approximately 136,000 civilians. [Prof. Heller seems to assume, as he has argued before, that ICC jurisdiction over Palestine could be retroactive to 2002, if it files an Art. 12(3) declaration. I think that position has real textual...

...effort to wage war. Clearly, this debate has a certain resonance with the ongoing controversies surrounding the tension between retribution and peace – think of the ICC’s intervention in Sudan, or that of Human Rights Watch in Colombia most recently. Strikingly, however, both experts seem to have a very selective – and problematic – understanding of the historically ambiguous, yet constantly changing relationship between the two fields of international law in wartime – jus in bello and jus ad bellum. In this post, adhering to Moyn’s call for a new...

...that provides a legal framework to actions not promoting the key aims of TJ – reconciliation, and peacebuilding. The approach taken by Justice Barak-Erez, differs tremendously from the discourse around potential TJ processes in Israel and Palestine, due to the problematic categorization of victims in it. Conclusion Perhaps the terminology of TJ will play in the future a larger part in Israeli case law, both normative and descriptive, as it has played in the Sheikh Jarrah case. The way TJ was structured in the case leads to biases and misses...

...territory, effective government, and capacity to enter international relations. It also manifests upon declaration, with or without the recognition of others, at least according to the Convention. In realpolitik, the picture is murkier. For example, Palestine meets the criteria, and it declared statehood in 1988. In addition, over 130 states recognise it as a state. Yet, it continues to wallow in a state of not-quite-statehood, Israel and its occupying cabal dictating life and death to gruesome effect. Closer to home, we recall Catalonia held a referendum and, with overwhelming popular...

Note: I serve as Special Adviser to the ICC Prosecutor on War Crimes. Twitter is awash with commentary about tweets issued by the Registry that explain the difference between arrest warrants and summonses. Many people have speculated that perhaps the tweets are related to the Palestine situation. Any such speculation is unwarranted, as the tweets are part of a long-scheduled series explaining how the ICC works and are not connected to any situation or any specific judicial development. Given the speculation, however, it is worth explaining how arrest warrants and...

is that since Hamas is committing war crimes against Israel, any Palestinian initiative at the ICC would expose Hamas officials to proceedings before the ICC. In fact, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council Ibrahim Khraishi has explicitly stated that Hamas’ launching of missiles at civilian objects constitutes a crime against humanity, warning that this makes an application to the ICC problematic for Palestinians (See here). What is largely overlooked is the commission of similar acts by armed factions of the Fatah party, particularly the Al Aqsa Martyrs’...

...conducting a preliminary examination only when it considers a situation to have significant potential for formal investigation. Indeed, the OTP has itself made that clear: The Office has made public its preliminary examination of 13 situations, including those that have led to the opening of investigations (Uganda, DRC, CAR, Darfur, Kenya), those dismissed (including Venezuela and Iraq), and those that remain under preliminary examination (Colombia, Afghanistan, Cote d’Ivoire, Georgia, Palestine and Guinea). All of those preliminary examinations were high-profile and involved very serious crimes. The situation in South Korea satisfies...

The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change kicks off today in Doha, Qatar, for a last ditch effort to negotiate new emission reductions before the current ones expire at the end of the year. The Guardian has an article about what to expect. The BBC has an article about Mahmoud Abbas’ (non-)role in the recent Gaza conflict and the impact thereof on the upcoming UN vote on observer status for Palestine. Abbas has called on Britain to support the Palestinian...

According to a Kenyan military spokesman, Kenyan forces have captured the Somali port city of Kismayo, a bastion for Al-Shabbab fighters. At the UN General Assembly, China’s foreign minister accused Japan of stealing the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said he will seek a vote on an upgraded status for Palestine to non-member state, like The Vatican, from the UN General Assembly. At the UN, Tunisia’s President has called for the creation of an International Constitutional Court with the power to declare domestic laws unconstitutional when they...

...Peace Prize in Oslo, but not without criticism. Israel’s ambassador to the US has told in an interview to Fox News that Israel will respond if Syrian chemical weapons fall in the hands of Israel’s enemies, such as Hezbollah. Critics of US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, argue that she is protecting Rwanda by not criticizing its role in the eastern DRC. ASIL has published an Insight into the legal implications of the UN General Assembly vote on Palestine. Beijing tightens rules against anti-China protests as Tibetan self-immolations rise....