Author: Kevin Jon Heller

A few months ago, I noted the repeated failure of Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, the special prosecutor investigating past government abuses in Mexico, to indict former president Luis Echeverria on genocide charges. Carrillo has finally succeeded: a Mexican court of appeals held on Friday that it had sufficient evidence to charge Echeverria with genocide in connection with the "Tlatelolco massacre,"...

Excellent news out of Manila: last week the Philippines became the 125th country to ban the use of capital punishment for all crimes, a move that commutes the death sentences of nearly 1,200 prisoners to life imprisonment. This is the second time that the Philippines has abolished capital punishment; although the country's constitution eliminated the death penalty in 1987,...

For the Hamdan-weary among you — and my thanks to Peter, Roger, Julian and the others who have saved me from having to read the opinion myself — there's a fascinating article in today's Daily Mail (UK) discussing the British government's belief in 1961 that the only way to defend Hong Kong against an attack by the Chinese would have...

The Spanish newswire service EFE is reporting that the Bush administration is reconsidering its policy of refusing to provide economic and military aid to countries that refuse to sign Bilateral Immunity Agreements with the U.S (BIA's). Such agreements — commonly known as "Article 98 agreements," in reference to the Rome Statute provision dealing with requests for surrender — prohibit...

As a dedicated fan of NFL football, I always thought rugby was a silly game. For the record: I was wrong. The denizens of my newly-adopted country are rugby mad, and having watched two tests between New Zealand's All Blacks -- the world's best rugby team -- and Ireland, I now understand why. It's an amazing game,...

The ICC's Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression has released an annotated agenda of its intersessional meeting last week at Princeton. The meeting addressed four interrelated issues: [1] The relationship between the crime of aggression and Article 25(3) of the Rome Statute, which establishes the possible forms of participation in a crime. Two different approaches have...

The Cambodian government has announced that the judges of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal will be sworn in on July 3, with prosecutors to begin "the formal launching of judicial work" on July 10. Trials are expected to begin in 2007. Cambodia and the UN agreed in 2003 to set up a hybrid tribunal to prosecute surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for...

I'm back, now blogging from the southern hemisphere. It's winter in Auckland — which means it's in the mid-60s. Because it's at the northern end of New Zealand, Auckland has a remarkably temperate climate, with temperatures rarely climbing higher than 85 or lower than 45. (I don't know if we have any readers in New Zealand, but...

A district court in the Hague has sentenced Gus Kouwenhoven to eight years in prison for smuggling weapons for Charles Taylor in violation of a UN arms embargo. In their ruling on Wednesday, the judges said Mr. Kouwenhoven's assistance to Mr. Taylor was "crucial," and suggested his motivations were not political, but rather "guided purely by financial interests." ...

We have a new guest-blogger starting today — Adil Haque, a recent graduate of Yale Law School who is currently clerking for Judge Newman on the Second Circuit. Adil's expertise ranges from criminal law theory to international criminal law to Islamic law, and he has already amassed a publication record any new assistant professor would envy. His latest...

If anyone out there still believes that Iraq "reconstruction" is about something other than enriching the Republican party's corporate cronies, read this post, which explains how the White House and the Republican majority are making sure that new funds cannot be audited by the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, who had committed the most mortal of all sins in...

The Rwandan government has asked Emmanuel Bagambiki, the former Prefect of Cyangugu, to turn himself in to Rwandan authorities to stand trial on rape charges. Bagambiki was recently acquitted by the ICTR of genocide and crimes against humanity, but is still in the care of the Tribunal because he has been unable to find a country willing to take...