Moreno-Ocampo's inability to avoid allegations of bias has long haunted his tenure as Prosecutor. It's impossible to forget, for example, photos of him standing next to the Ugandan President, Youweri Museveni, as he announced that he was investigating the situation in Northern Uganda -- an act that Ugandans widely perceived, rightly in light of the OTP's failure to seriously investigate...
The bankruptcy of the U.S. military-commissions system is currently on full display in the trial of Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri. Readers who can stomach the spectacle of a tortured detainee being prosecuted for imaginary war crimes committed at a time when there was no armed conflict between the U.S. and al-Qaeda anywhere in the world can find excellent coverage of the...
The Texas International Law Journal has published its mini-symposium on Karl Chang's article that argues the law of neutrality provides the applicable legal framework for the United States' conflict with al-Qaeda. There are two responses to the article: one by Rebecca Ingber, who is currently a fellow at Columbia Law School; and one by me. Here is the abstract of...
Mr. Davenport makes some very strong claims in his post concerning the OTP's refusal to accept the Palestinian declaration. Although I am on record with my belief that accepting the declaration would be a terrible political move for the ICC, I have a number of questions about Mr. Davenport's claims. I hope he will take the time to answer them...
[David Davenport is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution] In the end, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court made the only “legal” decision he could: the ICC has no jurisdiction to act on the complaint of the Palestinian National Authority since Palestine is not a State and the Court is limited to accepting submissions by States. The only case in favor...
The ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber I (PTC) has rejected Libya's request to postpone the surrender of Saif Gaddafi so that he can be prosecuted domestically for other crimes. That request was based on Article 95, which reads: Where there is an admissibility challenge under consideration by the Court pursuant to article 18 or 19, the requested State may postpone the...
[Michael Kearney is an LSE Fellow in the Law Department of the London School of Economics] Michael Kearney guest blogs with us to share his knowledge of the Palestinian situation as an external consultant for the Palestinian human rights NGO Al-Haq "I heard from the Americans," Abbas reports. "They said, 'If you will have your state, you will go to the ICC....
As I noted in my previous post, the OTP has implied that it would accept a determination by the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) that Palestine qualifies as a state for purposes of the ICC's jurisdiction. That raises an interesting question: why have the Palestinians never (to the best of my knowledge) asked the ASP to make such a determination? ...
As most readers probably know by now, the Office of the Prosecutor has finally -- after three inexcusable years of inaction -- officially rejected Palestine's attempt to accept the ICC's jurisdiction pursuant to Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute. Politically, I think the OTP has made the right decision; the ICC has enough problems without interjecting itself into one of...
I think it's safe to say that the ECCC is in serious trouble, despite having an excellent International Co-Prosecutor in Andrew Cayley and many intelligent, dedicated staff. As readers probably know, the international reserve co-investigating judge, Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, is resigning his position because interference by the Cambodian government is making it impossible for the Tribunal to investigate new cases. Kasper-Ansermet...
Dawood Ismail Ahmed, a Pakistani lawyer and JSD candidate at the University of Chicago, has a very interesting article today at Foreign Policy on Pakistan's opposition to drone strikes. He argues that if Pakistan really wants to put an end to the strikes, which have killed hundreds of innocent Pakistani civilians, it needs to start taking advantage of its options...
Lawfare has published a very interesting guest post by Haridimos Thravalos on whether conspiracy is a war crime. The whole thing is worth a read; here is the intro: In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President George W. Bush’s use of military commissions to try suspected members of al-Qaeda in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557...
