[Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He returned to Yale in January 2013 after serving for nearly four years as the 22nd Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.] The editors of the rebooted Opinio Juris 2.0 and the International Commission of Jurists are most gracious to hold this impressive symposium on my...
To celebrate the launch of our new website and new members, Opinio Juris will be holding a symposium over the next two weeks on Harold Hongju Koh's new book, The Trump Administration and International Law, which was just published by Oxford University Press. (You can get a 20% discount by clicking on the OUP advertisement to the right of this...
The International Commission of Jurists organised a fascinating side-event yesterday at the Human Rights Council. Here is the ICJ's background statement: Particularly when crimes under international law are perpetrated on a large scale in situations of crisis, there is an urgent need to preserve evidence for use in eventual criminal proceedings, whether at the International Criminal Court or other national or...
Much has been made of how relations between the ICC have improved since the second term of Bush the Younger. I think we all expected that to change in the wake of Trump's election, particularly after the OTP announced its intention to investigate detention-related abuses in Afghanistan and in CIA black sites in Eastern Europe For a while, nothing much...
A number of commentators -- including me -- have questioned whether the OTP should open an investigation into Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya if that investigation would be limited to the crime against humanity of deportation. Here, for example, is what I wrote in April: [T]here is the question of situational gravity. Should the OTP investigate the Rohingya situation if it...
Okay, it didn't directly say that. But that is the logical consequence of the Pre-Trial Chamber's new decision upholding the Court's jurisdiction over the deportation of the Rohingya from Myanmar. According to the PTC (para. 71), the crime against humanity of deportation (unlike forcible transfer) necessarily takes place in two states, because one of the essential elements of the crime...
[Jean Galbraith is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.] Yesterday, President Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Iran deal. He is not claiming any major breach by Iran, but rather withdrawing because, in his view, it was a terrible deal from the start. As a matter of domestic and international law, he has...
We have published a series of fascinating posts in recent days debating whether the permanent members of the Security Council have a legal obligation under the UN Charter not to veto resolutions calling for the investigation or prosecution of atrocity crimes. Jennifer Trahan argued yes; Mohamed Helal responded no; and Trahan replied yes again. I am not convinced by Trahan's response...
I had the pleasure of participating yesterday in a superb -- and long! -- panel on the 2013 siege of Eastern Ghouta. The panel discussed the facts, the law, and the politics of the siege. I was joined by Hussam Alkatlaby, the Executive Director of the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre; Joost Hiltermann, programme director for Middle East & North Africa at...
You go to war with the President you have, not the President you wish you had. We should keep that basic truth in mind as the US inches ever closer to war with Syria -- and potentially with Russia, a far more terrifying possibility. Donald Trump does not care about civilians in Syria. He does not care about containing the spread...
Elena Chachko has an interesting post at Lawfare discussing Israel's recent public acknowledgement of what the international community has long known: that it was responsible for the 2007 attack on the Al-Kibar nuclear reactor in Syria. Although I agree with much of Chachko's post, I would take issue with what she says about how the failure of states to condemn...
As Patryk Labuda noted earlier today on twitter, the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) has ordered the OTP to provide it with additional information concerning the investigation in Afghanistan. Here are the key paragraphs of the order: 3. The Chamber observes that the Prosecutor seeks authorisation to initiate an investigation for crimes committed on the territory of Afghanistan from 1 May 2003 onwards,...