Apologies for the light blogging the past couple of weeks -- although the upside is that I am now officially Dr. Heller, having successfully defended my dissertation at Leiden University in the Netherlands a few days ago. It was an amazing (and amazingly formal) experience, and I'll blog about it once I get the official photos from the university. I've been...
This according to the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, in Screed Number 1345 about how the evil ICC is preventing peace on earth and goodwill toward men: Libyans are stuck in a civil war in large part because of Gaddafi’s international prosecution. Diehl, of course, offers precisely zero evidence in defence of this ridiculously stupid thesis. Even better, his own column refutes the...
I have just posted a new essay -- my first since finishing the NMT book! -- on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Scholars have long debated to what extent the Rome Statute’s principle of complementarity permits states to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide as ordinary crimes such as rape and murder instead...
In honor of the US government's decision to charge Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men responsible for 9/11 with the non-existent war crime of conspiracy, I want to call readers' attention to an excellent new article by Samuel Morison about the equally non-existent war crime of material support for terrorism. Morison vivisects the government's attempt to justify material support...
I'm traveling in Europe for the next few weeks, so posting will be a bit light. As always, I'm happy to meet up with Opinio Juris readers in the places I'm visiting. Here's my schedule: June 4-7, Helsinki; June 7-9, Tallinn; June 9-13, Berlin; June 13-15, Leuven; June 15-18, Amsterdam; June 18-20, London. On June 6, I'm giving a talk...
In Serbia, not surprisingly: Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of overseeing the worst massacre in Europe since the end of World War II, has been arrested, Serbian authorities said Thursday. Mladic is Europe's most wanted war crimes suspect for his alleged role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the enclave of Srebrenica,...
Readers will be delighted to know that Jacob has restarted International Law Reporter, your one-stop-shopping center for all new international-law scholarship. And I'm delighted to learn that Jacob's new essay, entitled "The Regulatory Turn in International Law," is now forthcoming in the Harvard International Law Journal, which has recently partnered with our blog. The essay looks fascinating; check it out...
According to TPM Muckraker, the DOJ has authorized prosecutors to indict John Edwards. So in case you were wondering about the Obama administration's priorities, here they are: violating election laws to cover up an affair, not acceptable. Ordering torture, no problem. Glad we cleared that up....
This according to the New York Times: The charges — brought by prosecutors Mr. Mubarak had appointed — included hints that former subordinates might testify against him, as onetime allies and government insiders turn on one another. A Cairo criminal court is expected to set a trial date within days, and the Egyptian people could soon see the leader...
The following post was written by Luna Droubi. Droubi, who is Syrian American, was Editor in Chief of the New York Law School Law Review from 2010-2011 and received her J.D. this month. As a child, I remember sitting with my grandfather on my grandparent's balcony in Homs, Syria on hot, sticky summer nights. We'd swat away at mosquitoes as...
In his post below, Harold Koh continually refers to the existence of an "armed conflict" between the U.S. and al Qaeda. Koh does not specify what kind of armed conflict the U.S. believes exists, but he references Common Article 3 in the detention section of the ASIL speech that he quotes, indicating that the U.S. believes it is in a...
Mark Kersten has a useful post today at his excellent Justice in Conflict blog about what will happen once the OTP announces the results of its investigation of the Libya situation. Check it out!...
