[We are pleased to have David Glazier, a professor of law at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, share his thoughts on the U.S. District Court's recent interpretation of the piracy statute in U.S. v. Said] As I read Judge Jackson’s decision, the crux of his holding boils down to the following syllogism: (1) Federal criminal statutes must be interpreted according to the...
In the first U.S. court opinion on piracy since 1820, a U.S. judge in Norfolk, Virginia has dismissed piracy charges against Somali defendants in United States v. Said. The Court held that attempted piracy is not piracy for the purposes of U.S. criminal law. (h/t Eugene Volokh). As I mentioned in an earlier post, the relevant U.S. statute criminalizing piracy leaves...
Two commenters on my previous post on Kagame's increasing authoritarianism questioned whether Rwanda arrested Peter Erlinder because of his representation of defendants at the ICTR. Fortuitously, Kate Gibson -- my colleague on the Karadzic case and a defense attorney at the ICTR -- has just published an ASIL Insight on the arrest that supports my claim. Here is a taste...
Hell must have had central air conditioning installed, because I find myself in complete agreement with Ruth Wedgwood's recent post at EJIL: Talk! on Paul Kagame's rapid descent into authoritarianism. Here is a snippet: The West’s failure to address Tutsi violations of the laws of war has allowed Kagame to conclude, justifiably, that he can do nearly anything with...
Actually, I'm not, although I'm confident Labor will pull out the election. But I'm endlessly fascinated by the fact that people place bets on the outcome of the election -- and that the latest odds are treated as serious news by The Age, the best newspaper in Australia: Labor has been the subject of a huge betting plunge on it winning...
El Universal -- along with other newspapers -- is reporting that one of President Uribe's final acts in office was to file a complaint with the ICC alleging that Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, is responsible for permitting FARC guerrillas to use Venezuela as a staging area for crimes committed in Colombia: Jaime Granados, the lawyer of Colombian outgoing president...
As discussed here, one of the key arguments that the Ecuador plaintiffs are making in response to Chevron’s Motion is that the damaging quotes are being taken out of context. Without question one of the most damning excerpts is when lead plaintiffs’ lawyer Steve Donziger is quoted as saying that “Because at the end of the day, this is...
The ongoing saga regarding Chevron’s legal travails in Ecuador took an interesting twist this week. As I reported earlier, Chevron has secured key outtakes of the movie Crude that appeared to show alarming collusion between the plaintiff lawyers and the Court-appointed expert. According to pleadings filed yesterday pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782, the outtakes include some amazing communications...
I've argued for the past couple of years that the ICC should open a formal investigation into the situation in Colombia, because it is a non-African situation that satisfies most, if not all, of my criteria for situational gravity: (1) crimes committed with government involvement; (2) systematic criminality; (3) socially alarming crimes such as enforced disappearance and torture. Here is...
Not surprisingly, the AU has condemned the ICC's decision to issue an arrest warrant against Bashir for genocide. Equally unsurprising, the new resolution seems to have been adopted with the same kind of back-room machinations that led to the AU's previous resolution condemning the ICC: Over the weekend, delegates from the AU countries reportedly fought a fierce battle that led...
[The following is a guest-post written by Ifeoma Ajunwa, a human-rights attorney who is beginning a PhD at Columbia University in the fall. Our thanks to her for contributing -- KJH] In April of 2007, as a representative for the NGO, Human Rights Advocates (HRA), I was privileged to attend the 4th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in...
[John Cerone is Professor of International Law, and Director of the Center for International Law & Policy at New England Law | Boston] The World Court’s conclusion that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was not unlawful is being with a resounding "duh" by most international lawyers. The International Court of Justice, in the narrow advisory opinion, simply found that the making of...
