In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Kevin Jon Heller

14 Aug

It's been a slow blogging week, so I think I can get away with a completely self-serving post about the awesomeness of Melbourne.  And yes, Melbourne is awesome.  The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Survey says so -- again: 1. Melbourne 2. Vienna 3. Vancouver 4. Toronto 5. Calgary 5. Adelaide 7. Sydney 8. Helsinki 9. Perth 10. Auckland The survey assesses 140 cities on factors in five categories: stability, healthcare,...

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13 Aug

As I noted last week, I have just finished a long chapter critically assessing the work of the Human Rights Council-created International Commission of Inquiry on Libya (COI).  My basic conclusion is that although the COI generally did an excellent job, particularly in terms of its fact-finding methodology, it seems clear that it was less interested in holding the rebels...

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13 Aug

I am delighted to report that Oxford has just published my friend Sandy Sivakumaran's massive tome, The Law of Non-International Armed Conflict.  Here is the publisher's description: This book brings together and critically analyses the disparate conventional, customary, and soft law relating to non-international armed conflict. All the relevant bodies of international law are considered, including international humanitarian law, international criminal...

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08 Aug

I honestly believed that the Libyan government couldn't make a public claim more ridiculous than the one about the Swatch with a hidden camera and GPS locator.  Silly me for my lack of imagination!  Mark Kersten, whose Justice in Conflict blog should be prominently featured in your newsreader, called my attention to this recent gem from the prosecutor in charge...

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08 Aug

For you, dear reader, I risked life and limb to obtain the schematics of the video/GPS Swatch that the OPCD's interpreter used to undermine Libya's national security.  After assuming deep cover, prowling some of the world's most dangerous locales, and making contact with too many shadowy characters to count, I finally succeeded.  Here it is -- look at your own...

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06 Aug

At Justice in Conflict, Mark Kersten calls attention to a recent motion filed by the Libyan government asking for more time -- read: stalling -- to reply to the OPCD's response to its admissibility challenge.  The government doesn't actually want a deadline to respond; it would like to have 18 days from whenever it gets around to appointing a new...

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06 Aug

In my previous post, I noted that Libya's admissibility challenge should fail regarding Saif Gaddafi because the government cannot demonstrate that it is able to obtain him from the Zintan militia that is holding him.  It's now clear that the Libyan government has even less chance of obtaining al-Senussi: Mauritania's president has said former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi must be...

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05 Aug

In my earlier post on Libya's admissibility challenge, I explained how the Libyan government's failure to provide Saif with due process could be relevant to the admissibility of the case against him.  There is, however, a far stronger argument against Libya's admissibility challenge, one that I've discussed before: namely, that Article 17(3) deems a case admissible if "the State is...

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05 Aug

In my post on the detention of Melinda Taylor and her team, I mentioned that the "guard" planted by the Libyan government to spy on the OPCD's official meeting with Saif first intervened when Saif tried to sign a statement describing his attitude toward the Libyan criminal-justice system.  I thought readers might be interested in the statement itself: Unsigned statement/sentiments from...

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04 Aug

I have just uploaded a new essay to SSRN, entitled "The International Commission of Inquiry on Libya: A Critical Analysis."  The essay is a chapter of a book on international commissions of inquiry that is being edited by the LSE's Jens Meierhenrich.  Here is the introduction: This chapter provides a critical assessment of the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya, established...

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03 Aug

When I wrote my account of Melinda Taylor and her team's detention, I somehow missed this gem in the OPCD's response: 381.  The inability of the particular prosecution authorities assigned to the case of Mr. Gaddafi to conduct credible or effective investigations and prosecutions is amply demonstrated by the fact that these same prosecution authorities claimed that an ordinary swatch watch...

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02 Aug

Of all my writing, my article on the relationship between national due process and the Rome Statute's principle of complementarity is almost certainly the most unpopular. (Except in the OTP.)  My thesis is a simple one: the failure of a national investigation or prosecution to live up to international standards of due process does not make a case admissible before...

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