It was another busy week on Opinio Juris. Victor Kattan kicked things off with a systematic analysis of the false premises undergirding Israel’s claims to the West Bank in two parts (here and here). Alonso provided a detailed post on the interplay between human rights and investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), with a particular focus on indigenous “social license” in investment...
Call for Papers The University of Hamburg Faculty of Law has published a call for submissions for young scholars in public international law to discuss their research (chapter of a doctoral thesis, post doc paper, other drafts or research ideas). The workshop will be held from 20 - 21 September 2019 in Hamburg. The deadline for abstracts is 10 June 2019. Abstracts can be...
[Gabor Rona is a Visiting Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School, where he directs the Law and Armed Conflict Project.] The Decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to decline to proceed with cases involving Afghanistan “in the interests of justice” is not only likely ultra vires, it is appalling. That’s not to say that...
In my previous post, I defended the right of the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) to review the OTP's assessment of whether there were, to quote Art. 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute, "substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice." In this post, I want to explain why I think the PTC got that review completely,...
Dov Jacobs has a typically excellent post at Spreading the Jam on the PTC's decision to reject the Afghanistan investigation. I agree with nearly all of it, but I do take issue with this comment: First of all, and perhaps most importantly, the exercise that the Pre-Trial Chamber did is most likely ultra vires. Indeed, Article 53(1)(c) is very clear that...
I will write a longer post tonight criticising the PTC's understanding of the "interests of justice," but I thought I'd start by cutting to the legal chase: can the OTP appeal the PTC's decision to reject its request to investigate the situation in Afghanistan? As I read the Rome Statute, I don't think so. Here is the text of the relevant...
[Kingsley Abbott is the International Commission of Jurists' Senior Legal Adviser for Global Redress and Accountability & Saman Zia-Zarifi is the Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists. This is the second part of a two-part post. Part I can be found here.] Some important questions In the previous installment we raised some of the arguments in favor of creating...
[Kingsley Abbott is the International Commission of Jurists' Senior Legal Adviser for Global Redress and Accountability & Saman Zia-Zarifi is the Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists. This is the first part of a two-part post.] Introduction The International Independent Investigative Mechanism for Syria and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar are recent examples of States responding to situations where...
[Christopher “Kip” Hale currently serves a legal advisor on atrocity crime investigations in conflict zones. Previously, Kip has worked at the American Bar Association, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the UN-International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Santiago Vargas Niño is a Legal Officer at the Tribunal for Peace of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Colombia. The...
At a time when the International Criminal Court is facing significant challenges, many are questioning the trajectory of the global international criminal justice project. However, universal jurisdiction presents refreshed avenues for justice, particularly in the case of the atrocities committed in Liberia during the civil war in 1989-2003. Last week, the Swiss Office of the Attorney General announced that former United...
I am very happy to welcome Opinio Juris 2.0's first guest blogger: Angela Mudukuti, a Zimbabwean international lawyer who currently works for the Wayamo Foundation. Angela focuses on enhancing the domestic capacity of African prosecutors and investigators to investigate and prosecute core international crimes. She previously worked for the superb Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) in South Africa, where she was involved with precedent-setting...
Let me start this post with a short story, currently making headlines in my home country. In 2004, Swiss mining giant Xstrata won a public tender to develop one of the most ambitious mining projects in Peru’s history. “Las Bambas”, as the site was called, was supposed to be a model of sustainable development and human rights, featuring a new...