What a shock: the Appeals Chamber has upheld Richard Harvey's appointment as stand-by counsel. I would engage in a detailed account of its reasoning, but the short decision -- 16 pages, only five of which are analysis -- provides none. Here, for example, is the AC's response to the heart of Dr. Karadzic's challenge, the irrationality of the procedures the...
The Economist Intelligence Unit has just released its annual list of the world's most livable cities -- and my adopted home of Melbourne ranks third, behind only Vancouver and Vienna. It thus seems like an appropriate time to mention that Melbourne Law School is looking to hire new faculty at all levels, from Lecturer to Professor: This year we...
That's the allegation made by Dr. Karin N. Calvo-Goller, a senior lecturer at the Academic Center of Law & Business in Israel, against Joseph H.H. Weiler, a professor at NYU who is the Editor-in-Chief of the marvelous European Journal of International Law. In 2007, globallawbooks.org (GLB), a book-review website associated with EJIL that Professor Weiler also edits, published a negative...
The Administration and Personnel Division at the International Court of Justice has asked us to inform our readers that the Court is looking to hire new clerks. According to the announcement, the General Assembly has assigned the Court six additional clerkship positions, permitting each judge to have a full-time clerk of his or her own. The vacancy announcement can be...
I am delighted to announce that Opinio Juris has formed a partnership with the Melbourne Journal of International Law, one of the leading non-US journals in the field. Twice a year, beginning tomorrow, we will be hosting the same kind of symposia that we have been holding the past couple of years for the Yale Journal of International Law and...
Eight Oscar nominations and accolades at the Museum of Tolerance -- not a bad week for Mr. Tarantino: Last night at a special community screening at The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance, internationally renowned rabbi Marvin Hier addressed the film’s growing cultural significance among a panel that included Tarantino, ‘Basterds’ producer Lawrence Bender, actor Eli Roth ...
I intend to closely follow the reactions to the Appeals Chamber's decision on the genocide charges against Bashir. The pushback has already begun in a predictable place: the Making Sense of Darfur blog, which has led the charge against the arrest warrant. The post itself, in which David Barsoum asks "what is the ICC really after in Sudan?", is not...
As I predicted, the Appeals Chamber has rejected the Pre-Trial Chamber's interpretation of the "reasonable grounds" standard: Appeals judges said the court was wrong to conclude in March that there was insufficient evidence to merit charging al-Bashir with three genocide counts. Instead, it had charged him with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly...
I want to offer two thoughts on Glennon's article, which -- though I am generally skeptical of the ICC's attempts to define the crime -- I find anything but convincing. The first has to do with his central thesis: that the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression's proposed definition of aggression "would constitute a crime in blank prose...
If you haven't seen this already, you should. The eight-minute video shows the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent, 24-year-old Kseniya Simonova, dramatizing the effect of Operation Barbarossa on the Ukraine through a series of drawings on an illuminated sand table. It is absolutely mesmerizing -- beautiful, disturbing, moving. As you will see, many members of the audience...
The Trial Chamber has granted certification to appeal its decision upholding the Registry's selection of Richard Harvey as stand-by counsel. Here are the relevant paragraphs: 10. With regard to the first limb that must be met before certification to appeal can be granted under Rule 73(B) of the Rules, the Chamber notes that the Decision Denying Motion to Vacate concerned the...
I've been writing Chapter 3 of my book on the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which traces the evolution of the Office of the Chief of Counsel's trial program -- how it selected the twelve cases, why it abandoned others, which suspects it included and which it excluded. It's a fun chapter to write, both because no one has ever done it...
