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[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice and Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Studies.This two-part post is based on a talk given at the seminar on Reconciliation v. Accountability: Balancing Interests of Peace and Justice, organized by the Centre for International Law Research and Policy on 29 May 2015 at the Peace Palace. Part...

[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice and Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Studies.This two-part post is based on a talk given at the seminar on Reconciliation v. Accountability: Balancing Interests of Peace and Justice, organized by the Centre for International Law Research and Policy on 29 May 2015 at the Peace Palace.] Introduction Punishment...

The ALL CAPS headline of the last few hours involves news that social security and other identifying information for some 4 million U.S. federal workers was compromised in a cyber exploitation that, if one believes the unofficial finger pointing, came at the behest of the Chinese government.  Of course, it was just yesterday, that the Council on Foreign Relations' Adam Segal was...

Earlier this week, the Appeals Chamber rejected Cote d'Ivoire's challenge to the admissibility of the case against Simone Gbagbo. The challenge was based on Gbagbo's 20-year sentence for disturbing the peace, forming and organising armed gangs, and undermining state security. Like the Pre-Trial Chamber, the Appeals Chamber concluded that Gbagbo's domestic convictions failed to satisfy Art. 17's "same conduct" requirement, making...

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...

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...

[Rishi Gulati practices as a barrister in Melbourne. The author has not had any involvement with the Kompass case; and this post should not be construed as legal advice in any form whatsoever.] Highlighting Mr Anders Kompass’s suspension from duties as a senior official at the UN, the Guardian recently reported that Mr Anders Kompass, a senior UN staff member: “leaked an internal...

[Emma Irving is a PhD Researcher at the University of Amsterdam School of Law, and a visiting researcher at Cornell University.] Earlier this week was the final instalment of the story of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) first acquittal, with the removal of Mathieu Ngjudjolo Chui from the Netherlands back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was not altogether surprising when...