Harry J. Kazianis, the managing editor of The National Interest, has a smart post discussing the risk that the U.S. is taking if it tries to take more aggressive action to counter China in the South China Sea. Essentially, he argues the U.S. has no effective strategy to counter China's "non-kinetic" strategy to subtly alter the status quo by using...
Many people are surprised that Germain Katanga has dropped his appeal, particularly given Judge Van den Wyngaert's savage dissent. I'm not surprised in the least, because it locks in his sentence, which the OTP planned to appeal. Katanga's 12-year sentence is even shorter than Lubanga's, and he has already spent seven years in pre-trial detention. In fact, he'll be eligible for...
As everyone on Twitter knows by now, the US government has released the notorious memorandum in which the OLC provides the supposed legal justification for killing Anwar al-Awlaki. I'm a bit disappointed not to get a mention in the memo; people in the know have suggested that a post I wrote in April 2010 led the OLC to substantially rewrite it. Vanity aside, though, I'm...
Most of the discussion about Abu Khattallah's capture in Libya has focused on the operation's basis -- or lack thereof -- in domestic US law. Less attention has been paid to whether international law permitted the US to use force on Libyan soil. As Marty Lederman recently noted at Just Security, Abu Khattallah's capture can potentially be justified on two different grounds:...
I'm not sure how I missed this, but these are very strong -- and atypically blunt -- allegations by Fatou Bensouda: The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to investigate reports that the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) deliberately contributed in covering up crimes in the restive region. In reference to US-based Foreign Policy...
[caption id="attachment_30807" align="alignnone" width="130"] photo: NYU Law School[/caption] I am sad to mark the passing of one of the giants of international law, and one of my teachers, Professor Andreas Lowenfeld of NYU Law School. His career was exemplary; Andy operated at the highest levels of practice and academia. In an era when so many scholars and practitioners become hyper-focused on...
The conflict between China and Vietnam over a Chinese oil rig has (thankfully) calmed down a little bit, with fewer reports of rammings and water cannon fights in the South China Sea. But the war of press release and government-sponsored editorials has heated up and all of them are wielding international law as a weapon of authority and legitimacy. Vietnam's government...
Colum Lynch reports today at FP.com that the United States is pushing for the creation of a hybrid international criminal tribunal for Syria by...
There have been lots of reports out in the last 24 hours saying that the Government of Vietnam is planning to take legal action against China for its movement of an oil rig into disputed waters in the South China Sea. Indeed, the Philippines Government has stated that Vietnam has consulted it about its ongoing arbitration case against China and...
As I've noted before, Ukraine's Constitutional Court has held that the Ukraine cannot ratify the Rome Statute because -- in the words of the ICRC -- "the administration of justice is the exclusive competence of the courts and...
There are many reasons to be skeptical of the Security Council referring the situation in Syria to the ICC, not the least of which is that an ICC investigation is unlikely to accomplish anything given the ongoing conflict. (One that Assad is almost certainly going to win.) But just in case that's not enough, take a gander at this provision...
In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Medellin v. Texas that rulings of the International Court of Justice are not "self-executing" under U.S. law. For this reason, the Supreme Court refused to require Texas to stop executions that the ICJ had held in violation of U.S. treaty obligations. It looks like Colombia's Constitutional Court has followed that same approach...
