This is very interesting. The Union of the Comoros, a state party to the Rome Statute since 2002, has formally referred Israel's attack on the flotilla that included the MV Mavi Marmara to the ICC. The question I want to address in this post is whether the Court has jurisdiction over the flotilla attack. I think it's clear that it does...
The ICC's website is its public face. Scholars, activists, and interested laypeople -- many who live in the situations under investigation -- rely on it as their primary source of information about the Court's activities. So it is imperative that the Court update its website in a timely fashion. Time and again, however, it does not. Case in point: three new...
Ever since my friends at Wronging Rights flagged the upcoming NBC series Crossing Lines, which is about an ICC police unit, I've been scouring the internet for more information about what will no doubt be an absolute train-wreck of a TV show. Tonight I found this: Set in exotic locations around Europe, “Crossing Lines” follows a disgraced New York cop, played...
The Kenyan government has asked the Security Council to pass a resolution deferring the prosecution of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, the newly-elected President and Deputy President of Kenya. That's not surprising; the Kenyan government has been doing everything in its power to undermine the ICC. What is surprising, though, is that Ruto has explicitly disavowed the request: Through lawyer Karim Khan, Ruto...
Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has flagged a very interesting ATS case that is due to be re-argued in light of the Supreme Court's recent -- and much discussed here at Opinio Juris -- decision in Kiobel. Here is CCR's description of the case, Al Shimari v. CACI: Al Shimari v. CACI was originally...
This according to the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which has considerable investigative ability. Reuters: (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday. The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen...
Ari Fleischer, former Bush press secretary, explaining why terrorists are more dangerous than Nazis: They [the Nazis] followed the law of war. They wore uniforms and they fought us on battlefields. These people are fundamentally, totally by design different. And they need to be treated in a different extrajudicial system. Noted with horror but without comment....
I have no desire to get into an argument with Eugene Kontorovich about the ostensibly "landmark" decision of a French intermediate court -- especially because, like him, I am far from fluent in French and the decision strikes me as quite legally complicated. But it is important to push back against claims like these (emphasis mine): This is an extraordinarily important holding in...
I have now had the opportunity to read both Judge van den Wyngaert's request to be excused from the Kenyatta case and the Presidency's decision to grant that request. There is no question that workload did indeed play a role in the Judge's decision to withdraw. But it also seems clear that there was at least one other reason, as...
From the Court's press release: Today, 26 April 2013, Leiden University won the final round of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Trial Competition, English version, held in ICC Courtroom I in The Hague (Netherlands). Osgoode Hall Law School of York University (Canada) and Bond University (Australia) won, respectively, second and third place. The Best Speaker award went to Katherine Stewart of...
I cannot find the relevant document on the ICC website, but Kenya's CapitalFM is reporting that Judge Christine van den Wyngaert, sitting in the Trial Chamber, has withdrawn from the case against Uhuru Kenyatta because of concerns about the prosecution's behavior: In her opinion the prosecution failed to disclose to the Pre-Trial Chamber on the credibility of witness four and disclosing new...
Professor David Kaye has a thoughtful essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs analyzing the growing level of cooperation between the U.S. and the ICC. He correctly notes that the U.S. is not only no longer actively hostile, but it has taken various steps in recent years to actively support the work of the ICC (most notably in Uganda against...
