[Jonathan Hafetz is an Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School] A recent Washington Post story posits that the rendition of terrorism suspects has continued under the Obama administration. While the story fails to describe how renditions have changed since the Bush administration, it highlights several areas of concern. The story focuses on the prosecution of three European men with...
McClatchy reports that Israel now believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon until 2015 or 2016. That is progress of a sort; Netanyahu had previously been claiming that Iran would have the bomb no later than late summer 2013 -- around six months from now. But Israel is still insisting that Iran is only two or...
[I know that what this blog needs is yet another post on the China-Philippines UNCLOS Arbitration! We aim to please!] Steve Groves of Heritage asks in the comments to my prior post: What happens if China simply refuses to show up at the arbitration? Can an arbitral tribunal even be formed to rule on jurisdiction? This is something that I've wondered too, and...
David Bosco has an important post at The Multilateralist today reminding people that Palestine does not have to ratify the Rome Statute for the ICC to be able to investigate the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. As David notes, because Palestine has filed a declaration under Article 12(3) accepting the Court's jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis, the...
[John B. Bellinger III is a partner in the international and national security law practices at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, DC and an adjunct senior fellow in international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as The Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2005–2009.] Julian invited me to respond to his post...
A few days ago, I criticized Judge Pohl's rejection of al-Nashiri's claim that there was no armed conflict between the US and al-Qaeda at the time of the acts alleged in his indictment — such as the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 – thereby depriving the military commission of jurisdiction over those acts. Judge Pohl's decision relied almost exclusively...
Okay, I'm exaggerating. But only slightly. As Wells Bennett notes today at Lawfare, Judge Pohl has rejected al-Nashiri's contention that the US and al-Qaeda were not engaged in hostilities (an armed conflict in IHL terms) at the time of the acts alleged in his indictment -- primarily the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 -- thereby depriving the military commission...
[Eugene Kontorovich is Professor of Law at Northwestern Law. This post is cross-posted at The Volokh Conspiracy] In response to my post about Turkey's settlements, Kevin Jon Heller argues that from the perspective of International Criminal Court liability for "indirectly...
Eugene Kontorovich argues today at Volokh Conspiracy that Israel could minimize the likelihood of an ICC investigation into its transfer of Israeli civilians into the West Bank by emphasizing Turkey's similar transfer of Turkish civilians into Northern Cyprus, which it has been illegally occupying for more than four decades. Here are the key paragraphs: Cyprus was a state with clear borders...
The most common reaction to my post on Newtown and the drone program has been to point out that there is a difference between killing in peacetime and killing during war -- that we are both legally and morally more willing to accept the loss of innocent life in the latter, even if the loss in both can be considered...
There's been an interesting debate in the blogosphere recently about why people find the murder of 20 young children at Newtown so much more horrible than the routine killing of children in Yemen and Pakistan by U.S. drones. Glenn Greenwald and Falguni Sheth, a philosophy professor at Hampshire College, find the selective outrage indefensible. Ben Wittes and the Telegraph's Brendan...
In the comments to my first post on the ICC and retroactive jurisdiction, Johnboy4546 suggested that the Palestinians might self-refer only the situation in the West Bank to the Court. Such a referral would have two clear advantages for the Palestinians: (1) it would prevent the OTP from investigating Hamas's rocket attacks, which are almost always launched from Gaza, as well...
