Readers who have been following the Review Conference are most likely aware that the delegates adopted by consensus seven "understandings" concerning aggression in addition to a definition of the crime, the conditions of jurisdiction of the crime, and the elements of the crime. I believe that those understandings have no actual force and should be ignored by the judges when...
According to news reports, Oklahoma voters will consider a proposed amendment to their state constitution this fall that would ban "an local courts from considering Shariah or other international law in their rulings." I have little doubt it will pass, and that (since it is an amendment to the OK Constitution) it is constitutional. But it is really unnecessary and overbroad....
The following is a guest post by Greg Gordon, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies at the University of North Dakota. He attended the Review Conference on behalf of the International League for Human Rights. A VIEW OF THE AGGRESSION AMENDMENTS FROM KAMPALA Having been on the ground in Kampala, my take on...
I've long supported providing the ICC with jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe there is a great deal of truth to the IMT's insistence that "[t]o initiate a war of aggression...
In addition to saying kind things about me, which I appreciate, Julian noted in his earlier post that Eric Posner has an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal that uses Lincoln's blockade of the Confederate States of America (CSA) to defend the legality of Israel's blockade of Gaza. I find the editorial very unconvincing, for two reasons. First, it provides...
The news coming out of China of ten suicide deaths at Foxconn industrial park is terribly distressing. All of the workers who committed suicide were recent high school or vocational training school graduates aged between 18 to 24. One of the fatalities, Sun Danyong, jumped to his death after being interrogated over a missing iPhone prototype. Foxconn,...
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has just held that JCE III, otherwise known as "extended" joint criminal enterprise, did not exist under customary international law during 1975-1979, the period over which the ECCC has temporal jurisdiction. The decision is a stunning rebuke to the ICTY, which invented -- literally out of thin air -- that form of...
There's a post that's been making the rounds in the science fiction blogosphere that warrants note by those interested in international law, especially in regards to issues of international trade, development, and regulation. The piece is by Ghanaian writer Jonathan Dotse and it concerns the rise of African cyberpunk. Before getting to Dotse's post, though, a couple of words on cyberpunk itself. Cyberpunk is...
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its first-ever international family law opinion today in Abbott v. Abbott. You can access the decision here. In short, a 6-3 majority (authored by Justice Kennedy) found that the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction treats ne exeat rights (that is, rights to consent before the other parent takes the child...
[caption id="attachment_12297" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Judge Thomas Buergenthal"][/caption] Sure, some guy named John Paul Stevens is retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court, but there is another big judicial resignation this spring to note. Thomas Buergenthal, the U.S. member of the International Court of Justice, has announced that he will not finish out his term on the court. I am breaking some news...
Our own Ken Anderson joined a number of other law profs, including Prof. David Glazier, in testimony today before the National Security and Foreign Affairs subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to discuss, what else, the legality of U.S. targeted killings policy. Wired has a nice report summarizing the testimony, and the issues are already...
Julian beat me to the punch regarding the new Council on Foreign Relations report, From Rome to Kampala: The U.S. Approach to the 2010 International Criminal Court Review Conference. Not surprisingly, I don't share Julian's enthusiasm for it. On the contrary, I think it's extremely disappointing, little more than a reiteration of the same tired talking points that the...
