On May 27, 2015 Mr. Dire Tladi of South Africa was appointed Special Rapporteur for a new topic on the International Law Commission's agenda: jus cogens. The progressive development and codification of jus cogens principles marks a significant step forward. For many years it was considered, as Ian Brownlie once quipped, "like the car that never left the garage." The ILC's...
Two recent court filings bring to light important questions about the scope and nature of the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Who would have thought that so many years after 9/11 we would still be asking important questions about the nature of the hostilities there. First, on May 20, 1995, counsel for detainee Al Warafi filed a reply brief in his habeas...
The Argentina sovereign debt mess is still not resolved, but already folks are debating its larger consequences for international economic governance. In particular, there continue to be calls for a new international sovereign debt mechanism to prevent another Argentina-style U.S. litigation. But although I agree that there are decent arguments for some sort of international treaty-based mechanism for sovereign debt...
I have been following closely the U.S. Navy's plans to use military ships and aircraft to challenge China's aggressive land reclamation activities in the South China Sea, and China's not very positive reaction to these plans. But although there is a real dispute brewing here that could escalate into a sovereignty fight, I think media reports are making this dispute...
[Marina Aksenova is a post-doc in the Centre for Excellence for International Courts, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.] The ICC prosecution team has been conducting preliminary examinations in Colombia for over ten years and has yet to decide whether to move to the stage of formal investigations. In doing so, it must assess, among other things, whether reduced or suspended...
Africa Fighting in south Somalia between al Shabaab militants and government forces killed at least 24 people, while a rebel attack in the capital killed three Transport Ministry workers and a lawmaker, officials and the group said on Saturday. An unidentified gunman on Wednesday shot at United Nations vehicles in Mali's capital Bamako and targeted a house where U.N. staff were staying,...
Events The University of Essex is hosting the Spring Conference of the International Law Association (British Branch) on 29th – 30th May 2015, on the theme of ‘International Law as a Mechanism for Justice’. The keynote speakers will be Howard Morrison CBE QC, Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Professor Francesco Francioni, European University Institute. The programme and information...
Last week, I made the mistake of relying on an article in Electronic Intifada about a recent speech by Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli Defense Minister. Here are the relevant paragraphs in the article: Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday said Israel would attack entire civilian neighborhoods during any future assault on Gaza or Lebanon. Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem, Yaalon...
[Dr Rick Lines is Executive Director of Harm Reduction International, and a Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex. Damon Barrett is the Director of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy at the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Law, Stockholm University. Patrick Gallahue is the Communications Director...
It's becoming an old story: the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) rejects a charged mode of liability after a confirmation hearing, so the OTP simply asks the Trial Chamber (TC) to give the defendant notice that it will consider convicting him on the basis of the rejected mode anyway. This time, the defendant is Laurent Gbagbo. The OTP initially alleged that Gbagbo is responsible for various crimes against...
There are two important new reports up on the International Law Commission's website. First, Sean Murphy’s First Report on Crimes Against Humanity is now available. The UN Doc symbol is A/CN.4/680; link to the report here. The report is a terrific overview of the current gaps in the international legal architecture, and maps out steps towards a future convention. The report also proposes...
Events Today and tomorrow, at the Cardozo School of Law, New York, New York, the conference, Constitutional Conflicts and the Judicial Role in Comparative Perspective will be held. This conference, which marks the launch of the Israeli Supreme Court Project at Cardozo Law, will explore the Court’s jurisprudence on complex and challenging questions facing open and multi-cultural societies everywhere. Because these issues are salient...
