Author: Kevin Jon Heller

Don't worry, I will not be linking to any and all reviews of my book.  (Only the good ones.)  I mention this review -- a review essay written by the distinguished scholar David Fraser at Nottingham (sub. req.) -- because it uses my book as a springboard to discuss a number of important historiographic issues concerning World War II scholarship...

A group of distinguished Nuremberg scholars, including myself (minus the distinguished part), have filed an amicus brief in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum on behalf of the petitioners.  The brief argues that although the Nuremberg trials themselves did not involve the prosecution of juridical persons such as corporations, a wide variety of Allied actions outside of judicial fora indicate that...

My friends at Leiden -- my alma mater -- have asked me to post the following call for papers: Call for Papers for the Jus Post Bellum Project Launch Conference The Jus Post Bellum Project at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University has issued a call for papers for the Project's launch conference. The conference, entitled "'Jus-Post-Bellum': Mapping the...

Ashley Deeks, a fellow at Columbia and a former member of the Office of the Legal Adviser, has posted an essay on SSRN -- forthcoming in the Virginia Journal of International Law -- entitled "Unwilling or Unable: Toward an Normative Framework for Extra-Territorial Self-Defense."  Here is the abstract: Non-state actors, including terrorist groups, regularly launch attacks against states, often...

That's the question asked by my friends at Wronging Rights, in response to a recent article in Time: TIME claims to have obtained an internal ICC memo showing that the Court is "compiling evidence of possible recent war crimes in southern Sudan, allegedly directed by Sudanese Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein." Apparently, in addition to the Prosecutor's request...

It's official -- or almost is, to be completely accurate.  Mark Kersten first reported the news at Justice in Conflict, and a Reuters story has now confirmed it.  On December 12, Fatou Bensouda will become the next ICC Prosecutor: An informal meeting of ICC members will be held in New York on Thursday to discuss the appointment, said Liechtenstein's U.N....

The ICC has announced that the Assembly of States Parties has eliminated Andrew Cayley and Robert Petit from consideration as Moreno-Ocampo's replacement: The Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (“the Assembly”) will hold its tenth session at the United Nation Headquarters in New York from 12 to 21 December 2011. The tenth session will be marked...

The High Court of Kenya has held that the government has an obligation to arrest Bashir if he sets foot on Kenyan territory: The Kenyan High Court ruling was the result of a case that the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) brought against Kenya's attorney general and internal security minster in 2010. "The courts have said that Kenya has an...

Dapo Akande has a typically excellent discussion of the surrender issue today at EJIL: Talk!, in which he agrees with Jens Ohlin and disagrees with me.  In his view, Libya is entitled to challenge the admissibility of the case against Saif without having to first surrender him to the ICC. I find much of Dapo's argument convincing, but I am...

My friend and PhD supervisor Carsten Stahn has posted a very interesting discussion of Libya and the ICC at the Hague Justice Portal.  Here is a taste: One possible option to reconcile domestic jurisdiction with accountability before the ICC may be a division of labor based on temporal jurisdiction. In line with the Council referral, the ICC enjoys ...