The European Parliament has just overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the use of armed drones. I'll leave it to others to do the hard work of analyzing the resolution, but I couldn't let this paragraph pass without a mention (emphasis mine): E. whereas drone strikes outside a declared war by a state on the territory of another state without the consent...
Susanne Mueller, who works at Boston University's African Studies Center, has published a very interesting essay on the relationship between Kenya and the ICC. I want to bring it to our readers' attention, because it's published in the Journal of East African Studies, which many international-law folk may not normally read. Here is the abstract: Kenya's 2013 election was supremely important,...
According to VOA News, the Ukrainian Parliament would like the ICC to investigate recently-deposed President Yanukovych: Ukraine’s parliament voted on Tuesday to send fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych to be tried for ‘serious crimes’ by the International Criminal Court once he has been captured. A resolution, overwhelmingly supported by the assembly, linked Yanukovych, who was ousted on Saturday and is now on the...
Opinio Juris readers who are based in London may be interested in coming to a lecture I'll be giving for the ILA at University College London next week. Here is the relevant information: International Law Association (British Branch) Lecture What is an international crime? Wednesday 5 March 2014, 6-7pm Speaker: Professor Kevin Jon Heller (Prof. of Criminal Law, SOAS) Chair: Dr Kimberley Trapp (UCL) Venue: UCL Faculty of Laws Admission: Free...
Reprieve, the excellent British human-rights organisation, has submitted a communication to the ICC asking it to investigate NATO personnel involved in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Here is Reprieve's press release: Drone victims are today lodging a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing NATO member states of war crimes over their role in facilitating the US’s covert drone programme in Pakistan. It...
I rarely get excited about a new book before I've read it -- but I'm excited about this one, Mark Lewis's The Birth of the New Justice: The Internationalization of Crime and Punishment, 1919-1950. Here is OUP's description: The Birth of the New Justice is a history of the attempts to instate ad hoc and permanent international criminal courts and new international...
Eugene has graciously responded to my earlier post; you can find his new post here. It's well worth a read. I just want to offer a few thoughts on Eugene's response, because I think it fails to address the core of my critique: that it is incorrect to claim, as Eugene did in his first post, that Europe's opposition to the...
I'm currently in Belgium, teaching an intensive course on international criminal law at Katholieke University Leuven. So I was struck by Eugene Kontorovich's most recent post at the Volokh Conspiracy, in which he uses a new Belgian law permitting euthanasia for minors to criticize the Supreme Court's abolition of the juvenile death penalty in Roper v. Simmons. Here is the crux of...
Although the ICTY's recent high-profile acquittals have been getting all the attention, it's worth noting that the ICTR Appeals Chamber has just acquitted two high-ranking defendants, Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former chief of staff of the Rwandan paramilitary police, and François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, the former commander of a military reconnaissance battalion, on the ground that the Trial Chamber erred in concluding that they...
Sergey Vasiliev, an excellent young ICL scholar, has posted at the Center for International Criminal Justice a superb -- and very long -- analysis of the relationship between Perisic and Sainovic entitled "Consistency of Jurisprudence, Finality of Acquittals, and Ne Bis in Idem." I agree with almost everything Sergey says, although I don't think we should consider the Perisic AC's...
It's an excellent post, well worth reading in its entirety. I just want to flag two particularly important points. The first concerns whether, in light of Šainović, Perišić can really be considered fundamentally flawed. Schabas compellingly argues no: But the Prosecutor is not claiming that any ‘new fact’ has been discovered. Rather, the Prosecutor is arguing that the law has changed as...
Fresh from its victory in Sainovic, the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has now asked the Appeals Chamber to reconsider its final judgment in Perisic on the ground that it would be unjust to permit Perisic to remain acquitted. As the legal basis for such reconsideration 11 months after final judgment, the OTP cites...
