Weekend Roundup: March 25 – April 7, 2019

Kevin kicked off the week of March 25th with a carefully reasoned post on the legal difficulties associated with the potential ICC investigation into the deportation of civilians from Syria to Jordan, with a particular emphasis on how they related to the divergent mentes reae of forcible transfer and deportation as crimes against humanity. In this way, Kevin distinguished the Syrian situation from the Myanmar situation.

Emma Irving and Nicholas Ortiz noted the use of social media by the UN Commission of Inquiry (CoI) in its investigation of the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, making four observations: (1) on the question of standard of proof for social media content, the CoI divided the information on which it relied into “direct” and “corroborating” information, providing criteria for both; (2) the CoI used social media to support making factual findings, which in turn assisted it determining the legality of killings; (3) the CoI highlighted how both sides used social media to spread misinformation; and (4) the CoI itself used social media for outreach to further its mission.

Luke Moffett offered a timely post on the International Reparation Initiative (IRI) for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV), discussing four challenges associated with the IRI: eligibility; international focus; funding; and assistance versus reparation. Luke also offered a critique of the overall scheme, highlighting some unintended consequences.

Mark Ellis discussed the ICC’s continuing legitimacy issues in light of the acquittal of Laurent Gbagbo in January of this year. He contrasted the ICC’s relatively lackluster track record against the ICTY’s successful indictments of 161 suspects and convictions of 90 war criminals and génocidaires, which underscored the important role that the “Great Powers” play in ensuring international criminal justice.

Kruthi Venkatesh addressed the elusive topic of holding investors accountable for human rights abuses, and provided some hope for advocates of such accountability by analyzing the Human Rights Clause in the Model Indian Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).

Kevin offered a scathing opinion on the reasons why Judge Ozaki must either resign or be removed from the ICC for first lying to the Presidency about her imminent ambassadorship to Estonia and then holding the Court hostage to her part-time plans, knowing full well that her early departure would trigger a new trial in the Ntaganda case. Unsurprisingly, the defence counsel for Ntaganda quickly responded to Judge Ozaki’s revelations, as Kevin noted the following day, by filing two motions aimed at preparing it for an eventual request for her disqualification pursuant to the rules of the court. Until the next episode of “As the World Turns”…

Many thanks to our guest contributors and have a great week!