The report is here. I have neither the time nor the stomach to fully engage with it, but I couldn't let paragraph 82 pass without comment: 82. The United States is currently at war with Al Qaeda and its associated forces. President Obama has made clear that the United States is fully committed to complying with the Constitution and with all...
Dave has kindly sent another post on piracy. Here it is. Kevin graciously offered me the chance to respond to his contrasting reading of the logic of Judge Jackson’s decision dismissing the piracy charge. But since we both reach the same ultimate conclusion—that the correct legal definition of piracy should be that contained in the 1958 High Seas Treaty/1982 UN Convention...
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...
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...
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...
[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...
Now that I've had a chance to read through the ICJ's advisory opinion, following are a few initial reactions. (I will consider the separate opinions in another post.) Marko Milanovic has done a great job parsing the main issues that were at bar, namely 1. Whether the ICJ should exercise advisory jurisdiction in this case; 2. How broadly or narrowly the question posed by...
Two items worth noting. First, as Julian pointed out the other day, Moreno-Ocampo's refusal to comply with the Trial Chamber's order to disclose the identity of an intermediary to Lubanga's defense team has led the Trial Chamber to order Lubanga's release pending appeal. (The OTP filed the appeal today). It is bad enough that the "independent statutory obligation" to protect...
Greg McNeal has passed along the sad news that Charles Gittings, a long-time commenter on Opinio Juris, has passed away at an untimely 57. Here is a snippet from his obituary in the Los Angeles Times: Though not a lawyer, Gittings had a life-long interest in military tactics and law that led him to become an invaluable resource to some...
I discovered the error this morning, as I was re-reading the Appeals Chamber decision for the joint criminal enterprise section of my book on the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The decision cites Einsatzgruppen as an example of JCE I, "basic" joint criminal enterprise, and then attributes the following quote to the Einsatzgruppen tribunal (para. 200): the elementary principle must be borne in...
