Let me first thank Peter and the other members of Opinio Juris for providing this space for an online discussion of my new book. Let me also thank Ken, Francesca, and Fernanda for taking the time to offer comments. I am really looking forward to this exchange. As its title suggests, Power and Legitimacy grapples with what I see...
That question is raised by the ICC's investigation of the post-election violence in Kenya, which included a number of forcible circumcisions of Luo men. According to IRIN Africa, although the OPT originally alleged that the forcible circumcision qualified as the crime against humanity "other form of sexual violence" under Article 7(1)(g) of the Rome Statute, the Pre-Trial Chamber reclassified the...
Publicly, Israel has been nothing but critical of the Goldstone Report. Netanyahu responded to Goldstone's recent partial retraction, for example, by calling for the "twisted and nonfactual" Report to be thrown "into the dustbin of history." Behind the scenes, however, Israel has taken a different approach. According to the Jewish Press, the Report has led the IDF to adopt some very...
The San Francisco Chronicle has the story: The conference, titled "Litigating Palestine," took place at the San Francisco campus March 25 and 26. The 13 speakers - four of them Jewish, according to a school official - discussed legal issues and court cases involving Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, protests, consumer boycotts and related...
According to the Prosecutor, he needs 421 days to review 12,900 pages of documents that the Pre-Trial Chamber recently ordered him to disclose to the Ocampo Six so they can prepare for their confirmation hearings: International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has told the court he needs 421 days to review the evidence to comply with orders given last...
Sari Bashi is the Executive Director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that protects the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents. While many in the international community were unsure how to interpret Richard Goldstone's Washington Post op ed earlier this month withdrawing the allegation made in the Goldstone Report that Israel intentionally targeted civilians during the war in Gaza, within Israel,...
Luis Moreno-Ocampo wants to formally investigate crimes against humanity in Cote D'Ivoire. Cote D'Ivoire consented to the ICC's jurisdiction over crimes committed there eight years ago. So what's Moreno-Ocampo waiting for? Apparently, a state referral: "We are concerned about the recent information on massive atrocities committed in the western part of Cote d'Ivoire," he said. "We are trying to...
The following is a guest post by Anna Dolidze, a JSD candidate at Cornell Law School. In 2007-08, Dolidze was an Albert Podell Global Scholar at Risk at New York University Law School and a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. She has worked for a number of international organizations, including for Save...
This time concerning the Goldstone Report and whether Israel intentionally targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead as a matter of policy. You know a post is in trouble when it's entitled "Human Rights Watch Lies re: Goldstone Retraction," but then states, three paragraphs later, "Well, maybe lying isn’t quite right. Roth chose his words carefully, and I suppose...
The Kenyan government has filed a 30-page motion with the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II arguing that recent improvements to the Kenyan criminal-justice system render the cases against the Ocampo Six inadmissible. Here are the highlights of the reforms, from the motion's introduction (para. 2): 2. The Government's Application must be determined with a full understanding of the fundamental and far-reaching constitutional...
The following is a guest-post written by Orde Kittrie, a professor at ASU's law school, and Sandy Spector, the deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. They very much want input from OJ's readership, so please post your thoughts. Our thanks to Orde and Sandy for contributing the post! Seven years after A.Q. Khan publicly confessed to...
Critics of the Security Council's decision to refer the situation in Libya to the ICC normally argue that the referral denies Gaddafi the option of going into exile instead of fighting to the death. That may or may not be true -- as I've noted previously, Max Boot's reliance on Charles Taylor's prosecution to make that argument fudges the actual...
