In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

19 Oct

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, has introduced a potentially revolutionary amendment to every international lawyer's favorite statute, the Alien Tort Statute. While Sen. Feinstein calls her amendment a "clarification," it looks to me like she is proposing a near-complete evisceration of the Alien Tort Statute as we (international lawyers) know it. And such an evisceration is almost certainly...

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19 Oct

From this Thursday through Saturday, the American Branch of the International Law Association (and co-sponsors including the NY City Bar and the American Society of International Law) will hold International Law Weekend 2005 at the House of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 42 West 44th Street, NY, NY. Links to the...

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19 Oct

Michael Scharf argues that the trial of Saddam Hussein is the "mother of all trials." He makes this argument based on (1) the scale of atrocities; (2) the status of the accused; (3) the level of interest of the international community; (4) the legal precedent the trial will set; and (5) the effect of the trial.Personally, I have a hard...

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19 Oct

Michael Scharf at Case Western Law School, together with a group of other law professors and professionals with deep knowledge about international war crimes tribunals, has put together a very useful website and blog on the Saddam Hussein trial, aptly named Grotian Moment. It is well worth a visit.Update: Of course, Julian posted this blog endorsement a couple of...

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19 Oct

Sometimes, countries really act in ways that don't appear motivated by narrow material self-interest. Australia's recent campaign to win a Security Council referral against Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is a good example of this type of moralist foreign policy. Australia has no obvious national interests at stake in Southern Africa. It stands pretty much alone in...

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18 Oct

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has praised the issuance of the ICC arrest warrants for top Ugandan LRA rebels. He noted that "the ICC only intends to prosecute those LRA senior leaders who are alleged to bear the greatest responsibility for the most serious crimes. He therefore urges all eligible LRA combatants to take advantage of existing disarmament and reintegration programmes."...

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18 Oct

Ian Fishback's open letter to Senator John McCain cried out for clear rules on detainee interrogation. He wrote: "For 17 months, I tried to determine what specific standards governed the treatment of detainees by consulting my chain of command ...

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17 Oct

Sometimes being virtuous pays off. The Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights has been awarded jointly to Justice Richard Goldstone and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour. The two well-known figures from the human rights community will share the prize of $75,000. Thomas Dodd, the father of current U.S. Senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd,...

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17 Oct

October 16, 2002: "Iraqi officials say President Saddam Hussein has won 100% backing in a referendum on whether he should rule for another seven years. There were 11,445,638 eligible voters-and every one of them voted for the president, according to Izzat Ibrahim, Vice-Chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council." (Link) October 16, 2005: "I voted then, for Saddam,...

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14 Oct

The ICC Prosecutor has unsealed the arrest warrants issued in July 2005 against five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The warrants can be found here. Not surprisingly, these warrants allege pretty grisly crimes including:murder, abduction, sexual enslavement, mutilation, as well as mass burnings of houses and looting of camp settlements ...

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14 Oct

Speaking of Grotius, a Dutch court ruled this week that it would not extradite an alleged Al Qaeda suspect to the U.S. because his fundamental legal rights could not be guaranteed. The Court held, according to AP: “[t]he risk that the [individual] will be confronted with suspicions of involvement in the al Qaeda network is certainly not imaginary. … This...

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