I am proud of many of my former students, but the one I am most proud of is Golriz Ghahraman, who took my international criminal law course many years ago at the University of Auckland and is still a dear friend. In the years since my course, Golriz has worked on the Karadzic case, earned an MSt in human rights from Oxford,...
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University.] As Jens Ohlin has written, a highly awaited verdict came out Wednesday, November 22, sentencing Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), to life in prison for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed from 1992-1995. The...
[Jeffrey Biller, Lt Col, USAF, is the Associate Director for the Law of Air, Space and Cyber Operations at the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, US Naval War College.] Those familiar with Patrick O’Brian’s Aubry-Maturin series of novels (brought to film in Master and Commander starring Russel Crowe) will know that the boarding and seizure of ships was...
[Alonso Gurmendi is Professor of International Law at Universidad del Pacífico, in Peru.] As seen in Part I, Colombian transitional justice mechanisms have played a key role in the evolution of the Inter-American Court’s jurisprudence on proportionality of punishment. In this second part, I will analyze whether the Court’s Colombian case-law can influence Peru’s discussion regarding a hypothetical humanitarian pardon for...
Spreading the Jam has a guest post today from Santiago Vargas Niño criticising my argument that the OTP was required to notify Burundi as soon as it decided to ask the OTP to authorize the investigation. Here is what he says: Professor Heller cites Article 15(6) to argue that, by receiving information under articles 15(1) and 15(2) of the Statute, the Prosecution has...
[Alonso Gurmendi is Professor of International Law at Universidad del Pacífico, in Peru.] In recent months, most commentaries coming out of South America have focused on the Colombian Peace Agreement with the FARC. There is, however, another post-conflict country positing interesting legal questions. In parallel to Colombia, Peru has been engaged in its own debate over whether international and domestic law...
[Lieutenant Commander Peter Barker is a Royal Navy barrister, currently serving as the Associate Director for the Law of Coalition Operations at the United States Naval War College. The views expressed in this article are personal and do not reflect the position of the United Kingdom government or Armed Forces.] Technology has changed many aspects of naval warfare and the rate...
At Spreading the Jam, Dov Jacobs defends the Pre-Trial Chamber's conclusion in the Burundi situation that the OTP is not required to notify a state until after the PTC has authorized an investigation. Here are the critical paragraphs from his post: Note the different language used [in Art. 18] depending on whether there is a referral under 13(a) (state referral) or...
Last week I argued that the OTP's failure to ask the Pre-Trial Chamber to authorize an investigation prior to Burundi's withdrawal from the ICC becoming effective -- 28 October 2017 -- meant that the Court no longer had jurisdiction over crimes committed on Burundi's territory prior to that date. I still think my legal analysis is correct, but my factual...
[Jeffrey Biller, Lt Col, USAF, is the Associate Director for the Law of Air, Space and Cyber Operations at the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, US Naval War College.] This May, the law of naval warfare took a significant step forward with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) release of an updated commentary on the Second...
[Sergey Vasiliev is an Assistant Professor of International Law, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. This is the second part of a two-part contribution. The first part can be found here.] Initiation of an investigation by the OTP post-withdrawal As I argued previously, no investigation in the Situation in Burundi can be initiated after 27 October 2017 unless the OTP made...
[Sergey Vasiliev is an Assistant Professor of International Law, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. This is the first part of a two-part contribution.] Questions raised by the ICC’s reaction to Burundi’s withdrawal On 27 October 2017, one year after Burundi notified the UN Secretary-General of its intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the withdrawal became effective in...
