I want to offer two thoughts on Glennon's article, which -- though I am generally skeptical of the ICC's attempts to define the crime -- I find anything but convincing. The first has to do with his central thesis: that the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression's proposed definition of aggression "would constitute a crime in blank prose...
The Trial Chamber has granted certification to appeal its decision upholding the Registry's selection of Richard Harvey as stand-by counsel. Here are the relevant paragraphs: 10. With regard to the first limb that must be met before certification to appeal can be granted under Rule 73(B) of the Rules, the Chamber notes that the Decision Denying Motion to Vacate concerned the...
I've been writing Chapter 3 of my book on the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which traces the evolution of the Office of the Chief of Counsel's trial program -- how it selected the twelve cases, why it abandoned others, which suspects it included and which it excluded. It's a fun chapter to write, both because no one has ever done it...
My friend and IntLawGrrl contributor Beth van Schaack has asked me to post the following call for papers: Call for Papers: Women & International Criminal Law Special Issue of the International Criminal Law Review Dedicated to Judge Patricia M. Wald The International Criminal Law Review invites submissions for its 2010 special issue entitled "Women and International Criminal Law," to be guest-edited by...
Last year, as I was reading an early draft of the agenda for the ICC's Review Conference in 2010, I asked myself what I would change about the Rome Statute if I was King of the Assembly of States Parties. My answer was that I would amend Article 17, the complementarity provision, to make a case admissible if a national...
The Trial Chamber has -- completely unsurprisingly -- rejected Dr. Karadzic's motion challenging Richard Harvey's appointment as stand-by counsel. As I explained in a previous post, that challenge was based on three grounds: (1) Harvey's appointment violates Article 21(4) of the ICTY Statute, which provides that a defendant has the right “to communicate with counsel of his own choosing” and...
One of my favorite issues of the New York Times Magazine is its "year in ideas" issue, which comes annually in December. Because OJ is a repository of things related to battlefield robotics and law and ethics, I wanted to flag for your attention the item by Dara Kerr, "Guilty Robots." [I]magine robots that obey injunctions like Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative...
B. Don Taylor, a former legal officer at the ICTY and a good friend, has argued in the comments to a recent post that although Dr. Karadzic's criticisms of the procedure the Registry used to appoint Harvey may well have merit, Dr. Karadzic's request for certification to appeal the Rule 44 issue did not adequately raise the issue. I disagree...
[This is a guest post by Professor Greg Gordon of the University of North Dakota. Professor Gordon is the Director of the UND Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies, an expert on international criminal law and a past guest blogger at Opinio Juris.] Earlier this week, Spanish National Court Judge Balthazar Garzon initiated money laundering proceedings against the widow...
Americans who defend the legality of the invasion of Iraq almost invariably point to the fact that Britain's Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, also approved the invasion. That argument has always been questionable; rumours have long circulated that Lord Goldsmith did not believe that the invasion was legal, but was pressured by Downing Street into approving it anyway. According to an explosive...
I criticize the Registry regularly, so it's important to acknowledge when it does something right. I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the Registry's indefensible position that Dr. Karadzic's trial had not started, so the defence team was not entitled to any funding until the trial "began" in March. The Registry has now reversed its decision and approved 250...
The Nation has just published an extensive article documenting the "secret war" Blackwater employees have been conducting in Pakistan. The opening grafs: At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which...
