As things continue to get ugly between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, the U.S. has tried to stay out of the way. Still, although the U.S. has tried to stay neutral on the territorial dispute, it appears the U.S. is obligated by treaty to defend any incursion by China into the Senkaku/Diaoyu. From Article V of the U.S.-Japan...
Yesterday, Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the U.S. State Department, spoke at the U.S. Cyber Command Inter-Agency Legal Conference on the applicability of international law to cyberspace and, particularly, cyberwar/ cyberconflict. For a couple of takes on the speech, see the Washington Post here and Defense News, here. In our ongoing efforts to make full-text presentations of international...
Here it comes: President Obama is exercising his Commander-in-Chief powers, a la Durand v. Hollins: The U.S. responded to the assault by dispatching two Navy destroyers, dozens of Marines, federal investigators and intelligence assets to Libya to protect Americans and hunt the suspected religious extremists who carried out the attack late Tuesday. U.S. officials described the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher...
Amidst the memorials to 9/11 yesterday came more tragic news with mob attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Benghazi, including the deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. My condolences go out to the victims' families and the U.S. Foreign Service community, the Marines who guard them, as well as the local...
Just another day in America's own gulag: A special Obama administration task force review found in 2009 that Latif, who had been held at Gitmo since early 2002 and had waged a long legal battle for his freedom, could be released, a conclusion that could only be reached by a unanimous vote of all U.S. intelligence agencies. That finding was buttressed a...
As I noted last week, I have just finished a long chapter critically assessing the work of the Human Rights Council-created International Commission of Inquiry on Libya (COI). My basic conclusion is that although the COI generally did an excellent job, particularly in terms of its fact-finding methodology, it seems clear that it was less interested in holding the rebels...
Not likely it seems. The tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado may be responsible for moving President Obama to talk about gun control as he did yesterday in New Orleans, despite a noticeable earlier reticence to engage that topic. But that speech was clearly aimed at a domestic audience, emphasizing a need for improved domestic regulations and responses to gun violence....
Although clearly a step up from its genocidal predecessor, Kagame's government in Rwanda is anything but progressive. According to the State Department, the government is responsible for -- inter alia -- illegal detention, torture, enforced disappearance, attempted assassinations of political opponents, restrictions on the freedom of speech and press, violence toward journalists and human rights advocates, discrimination against women/children/gays and...
It looks increasingly likely. Mali has formally self-referred the situation in the country to the ICC and the OTP has already opened a formal preliminary investigation. Here is yesterday's statement from Fatou Bensouda: Today I received a delegation from the Government of Mali led by the Minister of Justice, H.E. Malick Coulibaly. The delegation transmitted a letter by which the Government...
I want to call readers' attention to David Frakt's excellent essay on direct participation in hostilities as a war crime. Here is the abstract: This article addresses, in part, the question of what to do with civilian direct participants in hostilities who are not killed by opposing armed forces, but are captured. Specifically, the article address the potential criminal prosecution of...
Two quick research-related items. First, I'm pleased to report that the 2011 Digest of United States Practice is now available on the State Department website. Here's the description from today's press release: The digest provides the public with a record of the views and practice of the Government of the United States in public and private international law. The official edition...
A recurring criticism of the ICC is that it has little to show for its first 10 years -- just one conviction -- and has cost an inordinate amount of money. Here, for example, are the opening paragraphs of Eric Posner's recent attack on the Court in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "The Absurd International Criminal Court": Ten years ago, on...
