In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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14 Sep

[Mohamed Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law  at the Moritz College of Law & Affiliated Faculty – Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University.] Even the most cursory scan of the foreign policy and international affairs commentariat in the western world reveals a pervasive sense of uncertainty, unease and apprehension, or even hysteria, about the state of...

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14 Sep

[Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg is Professor of International Law at Universidad del Pacífico, in Peru.] I want to draw readers’ attention to a recent decision of the Brazilian Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), Brazil’s top electoral court, regarding the mandatory nature of UN treaty body decisions. The case centers on former President Luis Inazio da Silva’s (better known as “Lula”) disqualification from the...

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13 Sep

[Adam Irish is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at California State University, Chico.] President Donald Trump’s pronouncements that the United States needs to develop a “Space Force” were initially met with derision by national security establishment. In a letter to lawmakers, Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, wrote that he did not “wish to add a separate service that would likely...

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13 Sep

[Andrea Raab is a graduate of the University of Oxford and has worked at Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice as well as the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. Siobhan Hobbs is the Legal and Programme Director at Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice.] The opening of the Al Hassan case before the ICC earlier this year has the potential to...

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12 Sep

[Jennifer Trahan is a Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] Monday, at the Federalist Society, National Security Adviser John Bolton delivered a major foreign policy address, devoted almost entirely to attacking the International Criminal Court, a court established to prosecute the most egregious crimes of concern to the international community. At a time when the US does indeed face many...

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12 Sep

[Steven Kay QC is Head of Chambers at 9 Bedford Row. He has appeared as leading counsel in many significant international criminal trials (Tadic, Milosevic, Musema, Gotovina, Kenyatta) – and represented heads of state and leading figures at UN tribunals and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Joshua Kern is a barrister at 9 Bedford Row. He specialises in complex criminal cases...

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11 Sep

[William S. Dodge, Anthea Roberts, and Paul B. Stephan served as co-reporters for the jurisdictional sections of the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law. They write here in their personal capacities.] In a recent post, Dean Austen Parrish questions whether the soon-to-be-published Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law is “remaking international law” when it says that “[w]ith the significant exception of various...

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07 Sep

[Emma Irving is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University.] The OHCHR Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar drew the world’s attention last week by issuing a report finding that genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups took place in Myanmar last year. The Mission went further, drawing up a non-exhaustive list of...

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06 Sep

Okay, it didn't directly say that. But that is the logical consequence of the Pre-Trial Chamber's new decision upholding the Court's jurisdiction over the deportation of the Rohingya from Myanmar. According to the PTC (para. 71), the crime against humanity of deportation (unlike forcible transfer) necessarily takes place in two states, because one of the essential elements of the crime...

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06 Sep

[Austen Parrish is the Dean and James H. Rudy Professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He is the author of Judicial Jurisdiction: The Transnational Difference. A draft of the article is available on SSRN.] This month, the American Law Institute will publish its Fourth Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. It’s an impressive document,...

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03 Sep

[Ian Johnstone is the Dean ad interim of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. This contribution is cross-posted here.] Tributes to Kofi Annan have poured in since his death on August 18, praising his diplomatic skills, his dignified leadership, and his basic human decency.  Having worked with him closely from 1996 to 2000, first in the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and...

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