You can find all 574 pages of it here. From the press release: The UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone on Tuesday released its long-awaited report on the Gaza conflict, in which it concluded there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed...
Although often critical of Israel, I have always been sympathetic to Israeli claims that the UN Human Rights Council has deliberately appointed individuals to investigate conditions in the Palestinian territories who were either actually biased against Israel or who at least could not avoid the appearance of bias. I was completely opposed, for example, to the HRC's decision to appoint...
Adjudicating Europe, a new blog dedicated to EU law, has just launched. Here's how the editors describe it: EU Law, despite its expansion and maturity, has not yet developed a comparable blogsphere of its own. Languages, the vastness of its scope, or a tendency to work and discuss inside national communities, have probably influenced this lack of blogging culture among EU...
I don't have any deeper insight into the situation than Ken, but there certainly has been pressure on the Prosecutor to investigate Afghanistan for some time -- both because it's not in Africa and because of US/NATO involvement in the armed conflict there. It is important to stress, though, that the OTP has not formally opened an investigation; it is...
Adam has kindly allowed me to post his response -- which first appeared at Making Sense of Darfur -- to my criticism of his claim that domestic trials or a TRC would likely have been better than the IMT. Here it is, in full: Neither truth commissions nor domestic trials are as black and white as Professor Heller’s critique of my...
Orin Kerr has an interesting post at Volokh noting a story reporting that NSA intercepts were used in the just announced conviction in the UK of terrorists in the liquid-mixing-chemicals case. Orin is right in saying the story deserves more notice than it will probably get. I found it particularly interesting that apparently a reason why the NSA finally signed...
I have been ignoring the latest salvos in David Bernstein's lonely war against Human Rights Watch, because they have not purported to be anything other than character assassination. But his latest effort to discredit Marc Garlasco, HRW's Senior Military Analyst, is so beyond the pale of acceptable discourse that something needs to be said. Here are the relevant paragraphs of...
The Ninth Circuit last week argued that it did not have personal jurisdiction over DaimlerChrysler Corporation AG because it did not have continuous and systematic contacts with the forum. The case of Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler AG arose out of the alleged kidnapping, detention and torture of Argentinian citizens in Argentina by Argentinian state security forces acting at the direction...
Rachel Irwin of IWPR has published a typically excellent article on the role of victims in Lubanga. (The article quotes me liberally, though, so you shouldn't take my word for that.) A taste: A total of 99 victims represented by seven lawyers are participating in the Lubanga trial at the International Criminal Court, ICC. The lawyers are present in the courtroom...
David Bernstein and I agree about one thing: Pat Buchanan is a very stupid man. But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start...
The blog Making Sense of Darfur has been hosting a symposium on Adam M. Smith's book After Genocide: Bringing the Devil to Justice, in which the author argues -- oversimplifying only slightly -- that international criminal trials are always inferior to domestic trials and non-punitive accountability mechanisms. I have neither the time nor the inclination to address the book's claims...
Dear Mr. Prime Minister: I noted with interest your recent statement that you believe an international criminal court should be created to prosecute individuals whom you believe have committed crimes against Iraqis. As reported by Xinhua: The Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday demanded again for the United Nations to form a criminal court to prosecute those involved in the killing...
