[Ricardo Arredondo is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Buenos Aires.] [Ed. note: the final paragraph of the post has been revised from the original version.] At a time when the repercussions of the expulsions of diplomats generated by the poisoning of a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and her daughter Yulia have not yet been hushed, the Greek...
On Monday, the OTP filed a motion in the Bemba Witness Tampering Case entitled "Detailed Notice of Additional Sentencing Submissions." The OTP argues that, in determining the appropriate sentence for Bemba, Kilolo, and Mangenda, Trial Chamber VII should take into account the fact that the witness tampering by Bemba and his co-defendants led the Appeals Chamber to wrongly acquit Bemba in the...
A few readers have contacted me privately to note that my previous post significantly underestimated the number of ILO judgments against the ICC. I said at least three. In fact, the number is much, much higher -- the result of a series of recent judgments issued by the Administrative Tribunal since the beginning of 2017. Each of the judgments involves...
This is a major development, one that I hope does not get lost in the welter of commentary on the Bemba acquittal. If you recall, in June 2012 the Libyan government detained four ICC officials who were in Zintan on official Court business: Melinda Taylor from the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD), who had been provisionally appointed...
[Gaiane Nuridzhanian is a PhD candidate at University College London, Faculty of Laws.] Recent reports on release of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and his plan to run in Libya’s presidential elections have stirred some discussion about the future of the case The Prosecutor v. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi. A new development in the case came this June. The defence for Gaddafi lodged an...
[Jennifer Trahan is a Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] While there are many subsidiary issues and it will take substantial time to fully analyze each of them, the crux of the decision in the case of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, sentenced to 18 years by the Trial Chamber and acquitted of all charges upon appeal, rests on the margin of...
[Alexander Heinze is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign and International Criminal Law, Institute for Criminal Law and Justice, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. He is the author of the book “International Criminal Procedure and Disclosure” (Duncker & Humblot, 2014).] In less than a month’s time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Distinguished speakers will be calling into mind that the ICC was first...
[Melanie O’Brien is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the UWA Law School, University of Western Australia; and an affiliated researcher of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, University of Queensland.] Followers of Opinio Juris well know Kevin Jon Heller’s criticism of Crossing Lines and its portrayal of the ICC. I recently watched the action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, a...
[Roi Bachmutsky is a human rights lawyer, recent graduate of Harvard Law School, and a Public Service Venture Fund and Sinclair Kennedy Traveling Fellow.] The International Criminal Court (“ICC”) made headlines in April upon Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s filing of an Article 19(3) request for a ruling on whether the Court may exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of the Rohingya from...
Last Friday, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an Order Convening a Status Conference to consider the OTP's request for a ruling on whether the ICC has jurisdiction over Myanmar's deportation of the Rohingya to Bangladesh -- an issue I discussed here. According to the Order, the status conference will be held "on 20 June 2018...
[Chris Jenks is an associate professor of law and directs the criminal justice clinic at the SMU Dedman School of Law in the US.] On April 25th, I had the privilege of attending an ANZAC Day dawn service at Kranji War Memorial Cemetery in Singapore jointly sponsored by the Australian and New Zealand High Commissions. While the significance of ANZAC Day is...
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] I, too, would like to thank Opinio Juris for our mini-symposium and dialogue on the use of the veto in the face of atrocity crimes. I hope it stimulates further thought, analysis and work on these important issues. For those who missed the debates, I posted attacking the legality of Russia’s veto...
