One of my favorite ICL scholars, Guenael Mettraux, recommends precisely that in a recent New York Times op-ed. Here is the core of his pitch: The Guantánamo detainees pose a similar conundrum today. Trying these men stateside would necessarily require the compromise of long-cherished principles of American law. Yet continuing to hold them without the prospect of a fair trial or...
Ruth Wedgwood comments at Forbes magazine website on the "compassionate" release of Al-Megrahi from prison in Scotland. I agree overall with Ruth: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, is now a free man. He was convicted in the specially created Hague trial court by a panel of Scottish judges, and his appeal was rejected by the Scottish appellate chamber. He remained in prison...
I want to offer a few thoughts on Dean Edley's email, which I appreciate Deb posting. I am much less impressed by his reasoning than Deb appears to be. (And please, Deb, correct me if I am wrong about that.) At the outset, it is important to note that I think Dean Edley's conclusion -- that Yoo cannot be fired, at...
Yesterday, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission awarded final damage awards for the fifteen partial and final awards on liability it rendered between July 1, 2003 and December 19, 2005. You can access the damages decisions for Eritrea here, and those for Ethiopia here. According to the AP, both sides will accept the awards, but neither is apparently thrilled with...
I know how much our readers like pirates, so I thought I would share the State of Victoria's remarkably loony criminal statutes on the subject. Here is s70B of the Crimes Act 1958: A person commits a piratical act if...
Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban commander who orchestrated, among many other things, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and many other atrocities, is dead. The initial, somewhat confused reports expressed some doubts, but experts are gradually concluding that a US Predator missile strike killed him. At the strategic level, this is one area in which the US is having success. One can find...
There has been a very interesting -- and potentially very troubling -- development in the Lubanga trial. In response to a submission by representatives for the victims and over a strong dissent by Judge Fulford, the majority of Trial Chamber I has given notice to the parties and participants in the trial "that the legal characterisation of the facts may...
Last month the Eleventh Circuit in Valencia-Trujillo v. United States rendered an unusual decision that required the court to decide whether a state was acting "pursuant" to a treaty. If it was, the defendant had standing to pursue the action. If it was not, then he had no such standing. In extradition jurisprudence, the so-called “specialty rule” provides that...
Marc Ambinder over at the Atlantic has posted his interview with Professor Glenn Sulmasy, whose new book The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror has just been published by OUP. Ambinder summarizes the central arguments and proposals of Sulmasy's book: Sulmasy expands on what he calls a "hybrid" approach to the quandary of...
Until his arrest by the Rwandan military earlier this year, General Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and former chairman of the Congolese Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), had been considered one of the key destabilizing figures in eastern Congo. Back in 2004, Nkunda and his rebel troops took control of the South Kivu town of Bukavu,...
As part of his latest attack on Human Rights Watch, David Bernstein insists -- again -- that HRW "absolutely refuses to apologize or retract" when it is "wrong about Israel." He also claims that, "[t]hough challenged," I have "yet to come up with another, legitimate example of HRW officially responded to legitimate criticisms from pro-Israel sources the way it responded...
Excellent news -- and a major blow to the AU's promise of impunity for Bashir, given the symbolic and practical importance of South Africa for the continent generally: SOUTH Africa will arrest Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir if he visits the country, despite an African Union decision to ignore a war crimes warrant against him, the foreign ministry said yesterday. Civil society...
