In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Africa

27 Jun

A quick update on the OTP's efforts to include genocide charges in Bashir's arrest warrant.  Pre-Trial Chamber I has now granted leave to appeal the issue I've discussed before -- whether it misunderstood Article 58's "reasonable grounds" requirement when it rejected the genocide charges. It's a very defensive decision, almost certainly written by Judge Steiner, who is the only holdover from...

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18 May

Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC has summoned Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, a Darfuri rebel leader, to appear before the court to face war crimes charges: Abu Garda, member of the Zaghawa tribe of Sudan, is charged with three war crimes allegedly committed during an attack carried out on 29 September 2007 against the African Union Mission in Sudan (“AMIS”), a...

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28 Apr

No sooner had I read Peter's thought-provoking post about transparency in arbitration than I received a link to a complete webcast of this month's arbitration before the Permanent Court of Arbitration between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army over the Abyei region.  This appears to be the first videotape/webcast of an arbitration between a state and...

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26 Apr

Despite his checkered past, I'm beginning to like Jacob Zuma, who is set to become the next President of South Africa, more and more: The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir will not be invited to the inauguration ceremony of the South African president-elect Jacob Zuma, according to news reports. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) headed by Zuma has an absolute majority...

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22 Apr

U.S. prosecutors charged the sole surviving Somali pirate from the Maersk Alabama incident, Abduwali Muse, yesterday on charges of piracy, conspiracy to seize a ship by force, discharging a firearm during a ship seizure, conspiracy to commit hostage-taking and brandishing a firearm during a hostage taking.  The list of reported charges seems to confirm Eugene Kontorovich's suggestion yesterday in a great post over at...

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18 Apr

In today's Washington Post, Curtis Bradley and Jack Goldsmith have an editorial attacking the recent refusal of a federal judge to grant a motion to dismiss in Khulumani v. Barclays National Bank Ltd, the ATS lawsuit brought by victims of apartheid against 23 corporations who did business with the South African government during the apartheid era.  It's a remarkably unpersuasive...

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18 Apr

More evidence that the CIA interrogators did not rely in good faith on the OLC memos: Bradbury's 30 May 2005 memo acknowledges (p. 37) that the CIA Inspector General's report found that the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah 83 times in August 2002.  That regime far surpasses the CIA's own internal guidelines...

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15 Apr

Der Spiegel reports from Germany (the article is detailed and worth reading in full): In the latest dispute over the European Union's anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia, lawyers representing two suspects being detained in Kenya have filed suits against the German government. They want Berlin to foot the bill for the suspects' defense and ensure they are given a...

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09 Apr

All news is local, I guess, even in this supposedly globalized age.  So it is not surprising that it took an attack on a U.S. ship with a U.S. crew to focus the American public's attention on the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia.  But as readers of this blog can attest, the piracy issue has been flagged, addressed,...

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08 Apr

(Update:  It appears that the ship has been retaken, by the crew, according to the NYT.  There have also been some reports that at least one pirate is in custody, or anyway control, of the crew.  Here, then, is my question.  If one of the (alleged) pirates has been taken into custody, what should legally follow?  The US has been...

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31 Mar

I recently posted an invite to a Chatham House international law discussion group about the new African Court on Human Rights.  The event was obviously a rousing success, as the following report by Sonya Sceats indicates: Last Monday night (23 March 2009) at Chatham House we were very privileged to host a fascinating discussion about Africa's new regional human rights court,...

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