"It is of utmost importance to the victims' families, as a matter of record, history, justice, and closure that the full truth be revealed and discovered." ---Mohamed Chande Othman On Monday the 7th of October the UN published its report, compiled by former Chief Justice of Tanzania, Mohamed Chande Othman, on the investigation into the mysterious circumstances resulting in tragic...
[Ralph Janik teaches international law at the University of Vienna, Webster University Vienna, and the University of Rostock. He specializes in the interplay of international law and international relations. Twitter: @RalphJanik] A couple of days ago the research services of Germany’s parliament (the Bundestag) published an expert opinion on the legal aspects of Turkey’s Syria invasion. Its principal findings are clear: “Operation Peace Spring”...
[Nicolás Zambrana-Tévar teaches international commercial law and dispute resolution at KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan).] Introduction: The War that Never Ends In 897 A.D., Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed and brought before the papal court, to be tried after death. The Cadaver Synod sheds a macabre light unto the recent decision of the Spanish Supreme Court to exhume the corpse...
[Todd Carney is a student at Harvard Law School. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Communications. He has also worked in digital media in New York City and Washington D.C.] Last July, after months of tension, the EU punished Turkey for illegally drilling for gas off the coast of Cyrpus. The penalty had the EU withdraw $164...
A few months ago, I was invited by the Polish Ministry of Justice to participate in a one-day conference on the responsibility of lawyers for judicial crimes, part of Poland's Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. The Ministry asked me to discuss American prosecutions of Nazi lawyers at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals -- something I wrote...
[Owiso Owiso is a Doctoral Researcher in Public International Law at the University of Luxembourg and a member of the PhD Academy of the Cross Cultural Human Rights Centre, VU Amsterdam.] Introduction With the celebratory dust finally settled, stakeholders are beginning to take stock of the performance of the greatest achievement of the international criminal justice movement, the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). Tough questions are now...
[Jean-Pierre Gauci is the Arthur Watts Senior Research Fellow in Public International Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (UK) and the Director of The People for Change Foundation (Malta). Eleni Karageorgiou, is a Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Law at Lund University and Researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Sweden).] Two shipwrecks close...
[Sabina Garahan is a doctoral candidate at the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex.] The law is replete with references to reasonableness. Although the concept is a familiar one, however, its significance in the field of pre-trial detention is yet to be understood. My doctoral project seeks to address this gap by analysing the theory and use of the reasonableness concept at the pre-trial stage by domestic...
Róisín Pillay is Director of the ICJ's Europe and Central Asia Programme In the slow and sometimes frustrating business of international human rights litigation, interim measures stand out as an icon of practicality. In countless cases, they have saved lives – epitomising the principle of real and effective rather than theoretical and illusory protection of human rights. Indicated by international courts to prevent irreparable harm to...
[Caleb H Wheeler is a lecturer in law at Middlesex University London and his first book, The Right To Be Present At Trial In International Criminal Law was published by Brill in 2018.] French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier was discovered beaten to death outside her holiday let in the village of Schull, Ireland on 23 December 1996. Suspicion soon fell on Ian Bailey, a man living nearby. Following...
[Ricardo Arredondo is professor of Public International Law at the University of Buenos Aires and at the University of Palermo. He is Professor of Diplomatic Law and Practice at the Institute for the Foreign Service of Argentina.] After more than two decades of negotiation, on June 28, Mercosur and the European Union reached “a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement”, according to the...
“From the big ship they were making calls, but said: ‘Sorry, we can’t take you, it’s not my fault, orders are that Libyans will come to take you’. Meanwhile, I could see people dying on the other boat, pieces of boat were floating and bodies too. [By the time] a small Libyan ship came to get us...