In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

20 Dec

The ICJ yesterday handed down a decision in Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda, ruling that Uganda violated the principles of non-intervention under Art 2(4) of the UN Charter and further violated international human rights and humanitarian law when it launched military operations in the DRC between 1998 and 2003. The Court explicitly rejected Uganda's claim of self defense in...

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19 Dec

The government of Sudan has announced it will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court investigation into atrocities in Darfur. No one should be surprised, since the Sudanese government is itself complicit in the very acts being investigated. In a report released last week, Human Rights Watch lays out in great detail the responsibility of the Sudanese government:Since July 2003,...

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18 Dec

Well, Evo Morales sure does and, as the man likely to be Bolivia’s next President, he’s going to make sure Washington remembers it as well—for the reasons it least wants to. Morales is the Socialist candidate for Bolivia’s presidency and he promises to reverse the any-coca growing campaign. Bolivia is the world’s third largest producer of coca. And in a...

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18 Dec

Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates have been named Times’ People of the Year for their high-profile and effective philanthropic work. (See also this report.) Of particular note was their combined work on DATA, Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa, an organization they founded to focus on the combination of challenges facing Africa, and also the One Campaign, a U.S. campaign to...

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18 Dec

In yesterday's Washington Post, we find an article in which Detlev Mehlis, the chief UN investigator into the murder of Rafik al-Hariri, actually accuses Syria of direct involvement in the assassination, as well as linking Syria to the murder of Gibran Tueni. While we can only sit and wait for the UN to release its evidence, let's hope that what...

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17 Dec

Last Monday, I attended a conference at Vanderbilt Law School, sponsored by the American Society of International Law’s Interest Group on International Law in Domestic Courts. It was a great conference on many levels. For one thing, it afforded me the chance to see several of my Opinio Juris colleagues--Julian, Peggy, Roger and recent alum, Bobby Chesney--in person (for those...

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16 Dec

While on the subject of the extraterritorial application of state laws, a federal district court in Washington D.C. this week rendered an important and puzzling decision applying state tort laws to combat terrorism abroad. The case of Damarrell v. Iran concerns the Iranian government's involvement in the Beirut embassy bombings of 1983, one of the defining moments in...

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16 Dec

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I published an op-ed in the Detroit News (8/28/02; the page is no longer available on the paper's web site, but if you want to see it, email me and I'll send it to you) arguing that the president did not need Congressional authorization to deploy troops for the invasion. My...

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15 Dec

As Duncan notes below, President Bush has reached a deal with Senator John McCain on the so-called anti-torture bill. I agree with Duncan that as a political, and maybe as a moral matter, the bill is a victory for McCain and critics of the U.S. detainee policies. I disagree with Duncan, however, that the bill is a "legal victory". As...

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15 Dec

Those in favor of a “gloves off” approach to the war on terror are finding themselves increasingly isolated both politically and legally. Last week, Secretary of State Rice made front-page news with her pronouncement that “As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States’ obligations under the CAT [the Convention Against Torture], which prohibits, of course, cruel and inhumane...

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15 Dec

In the December 19th issue of the New Yorker, Orhan Pamuk (one of my favorite writers, the author of Snow and My Name is Red) has a fascinating piece about his impending trial in Turkey for insulting "Turkish identity" by discussing the Armenian genocide following World War I. Pamuk discusses his confusion at why a state like Turkey that is...

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15 Dec

Unsurprisingly, and as I suspected, the UN is having difficulty maintaining its focus in the investigation into Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. And, while the investigation has been extended by six months, several members of the Security Council, including Russia, China (both with veto power) and Algeria, have resisted calls to accuse Syria...

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