In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Kevin Jon Heller

03 Jan

So this is baffling: The international legal team representing the Muslim Brotherhood has filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court, reported state-owned media agency MENA. The team has previously said on 16 August and on 15 November that, following their investigations, they have gathered evidence showing that members of the “military, police and political members of the military regime have committed...

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30 Dec

Train wreck, fiasco, disaster, dumpster fire, bad joke, kangaroo court, show trial -- take your pick, the description applies. Eviatar's post at Just Security a while back is a must-read; here is but one particularly disturbing snippet: Recent pre-trial hearings have revealed, for example, that the Guantanamo courtroom was equipped with microphones able to eavesdrop on privileged attorney-client communications; that the CIA...

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27 Dec

John Sexton, the controversial President of NYU, has spoken out against the American Studies Association's much-debated resolution in favour of boycotting Israeli universities. Here is his statement, issued jointly with NYU's provost: We write on behalf of New York University to express our disappointment, disagreement, and opposition to the boycott advocated by your organization of Israeli academics and academic institutions. This boycott...

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22 Dec

British artist Banksy knocks it out of the park again, with a rather unusual rendering of a Nativity scene: As ArtInfo notes, this is not Banksy's first comment on the Israel/Palestine conflict. He painted nine amazing murals directly on the wall in 2005, including a boy drawing a chalk ladder over the wall and a girl floating over the wall with...

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19 Dec

Oklahoma City police are obviously upset that the UK has pulled ahead of the US in the competition to have the most absurd definition of terrorism. Hence this: On Friday, Oklahoma City police charged a pair of environmental activists with staging a "terrorism hoax" after they unfurled a pair of banners covered in glitter—a substance local cops considered evidence of a faux biochemical assault. Stefan...

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16 Dec

PRESS RELEASE (Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document) The Hague, 25 December 2013 MS/PR1593e Acquitted defendants to be immediately apprehended and executed The Trial Chamber on Saturday issued a decision on the status of the freedom of individuals acquitted by the Tribunal. The Chamber unanimously ordered all such individuals immediately apprehended and executed. The Chamber's order is made pursuant to Rule...

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16 Dec

So, it's official: the ICTY Trial Chamber has decided to let Judge Niang replace Judge Harhoff on the Seselj case: The Trial Chamber on Friday issued a decision on the continuation of the proceedings in the case of Vojislav Šešelj, following the disqualification of Judge Frederik Harhoff and appointment of Judge Mandiaye Niang to the Bench. The Chamber unanimously ordered that the...

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14 Dec

In my previous post, I questioned Ryan's claim that Amnesty International's totals concerning the number of states exercising universal jurisdiction over at least one international crime "may be significantly inflated." I pointed out that, contrary to what he was asserting, the report did not count a state simply because it it had incorporated the Rome Statute into its domestic legislation; on...

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13 Dec

Not long ago, Amnesty International released an updated version of its massive study "Universal Jursidiction: A Preliminary Survey of Legislation Around the World." The report concluded, inter alia, that 86% of the world's states exercise universal jurisdiction over at least one kind of international crime. (Most commonly, war crimes.) In a post today at Just Security, my friend and regular sparring...

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06 Dec

The two-part series I mentioned in my previous post seems designed to rehabilitate Judge Harhoff's image in the international-law community. Unfortunately, the articles, which draw heavily on an interview with the judge himself, simply underscore why it was necessary for the ICTY to remove him from the Seselj case. To begin with, consider what the judge says in the second...

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