Who would have thought that the US would emerge as the most committed supporter of the ICC in Darfur? From the "Hague Invasion Act" to protecting the Court from the spinelessness of its erstwhile supporters, the UK and France: "If asked—if forced to vote today—the United States, even if it was 191 countries against one, would veto an Article 16 [resolution],"...
The following post was written by Chimène Keitner, an Associate Professor at Hastings. Our thanks to her for contributing it. The Ninth Circuit issued a panel opinion this week in Abagninin v. AMVAC Chemical Corp., a corporate Alien Tort Statute (ATS) case that had largely been flying under the radar screen of many of us who follow these cases, myself included....
The trial of Charles Taylor's son, "Chuckie," for acts of torture committed in Liberia began today in Miami: Chuckie Taylor is the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is on trial for war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. The son is accused of responsibility for torture committed between 1997 and 2003 while he headed Liberia’s...
Apparently, France will no longer even insist that the Sudan try Haroun and Kushayb. It only wants Haroun to be removed from his government position: France had previously stressed that Sudan must turn over Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb who are wanted by the ICC in connection...
The Seventh Circuit in Osagiede v. United States earlier this month ruled that an attorney's failure to provide information as to the client's Vienna Convention rights may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Effective performance by counsel representing a foreign national in a criminal proceeding is reasonable performance “under prevailing professional norms.” ...
Last week, I defended deferring the ICC's investigation of Bashir for a year in exchange for, inter alia, the Sudanese government turning Harun and Kushayb over to the ICC for prosecution. That would have been a strong demand on the part of France and the UK -- one that, I argued, Bashir would be unlikely to accept. Lest they be accused...
I have posted a new essay on SSRN, "Situational Gravity Under the Rome Statute," which is forthcoming in Future Directions in International Criminal Justice, a book that Carsten Stahn and Larissa van den Herik are editing for TMC Asser/Cambridge University Press. Here is the abstract: The ICC is often derided as the “African Criminal Court.” That criticism cannot easily be dismissed:...
Two months ago, I predicted that the Security Council would not have the votes necessary to defer the ICC's prosecution of Bashir. Nostradamus I'm not: In a last-ditch attempt to prevent ICC judges from issuing an arrest warrant for Bashir in the next few weeks, Bashir's supporters - the Arab League, the African Union, China and Russia - will use the...
More than two years after his acquittal was confirmed by the ICTR Appeals Chamber, Rwanda's former Minister of Education, Andre Rwamakuba, is no longer a virtual prisoner in a UN safehouse in Arusha: Former Rwandan Education Minister Andre Rwamakuba ( 58) has joined his family at Vaud, Switzerland after spending two years in Arusha, seat of the International Criminal Tribunal for...
It's a tiny bit off topic, but it's worth noting that after much bluster about how the ICC was destroying the "peace process" in the Sudan by indicting Bashir, none of the Security Council members put deferring the prosecution under Article 16 of the Rome Statute on the Council's agenda for September. Over at UN Dispatch, our colleague John Boonstra...
The World Bank last week released new figures - reflecting new and improved methodology - on the number of people in poverty around the world. The effect was to increase the number from roughly a billion people to something like 1.4 billion. The Economist explains: IN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first...
As frustration with the Bush administration's War on Transparency continues to mount, scholars and pundits are beginning to suggest that the U.S. should think about creating a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the administration's many crimes. Nicholas Kristof is one example. Richard Clarke is another. And a third is Katherine Tiedemann, writing in The American Strategist: The South...
