For quite some time I zealously followed all of the various filings in the Libya cases -- by Libya, al-Senussi and Gaddafi, the Registry, the OPCV, everyone. I also regularly blogged about those filings. But I haven't lately, as consistent readers will know. The reason? The ICC judges seem to have lost all interest in actually making decisions. The record is quite...
I was fortunate to participate in a discussion held at a hearing of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board today in Washington D.C. I say "participate in a discussion" because it was not like giving testimony to a congressional hearing where the congressman make speeches and ask questions unrelated to your testimony. Rather, it was closer to a mini-oral...
Last week, the U.S. Senate held confirmation hearings for Vice-Admiral Michael S. Rogers to replace General Keith Alexander as head of U.S. Cyber Command. It's interesting to see how both men received almost identical written questions in their respective 2014 and 2010 hearings. More interesting perhaps are the similarities and variations in their responses with respect to how international law operates...
I am looking forward to the contributions to our "insta-symposium" on Ukraine and international law. I don't have a tremendous amount to add at this point, except to point out that President Obama has been aggressive about accusing Russia of violating international law and about the importance of international law generally. This has gone beyond merely charging Russia with violation...
[I ended my previous post stating that I would next consider the options available to Russia, Ukraine, the EU, and the U.S. But then this conversation started… I’ll come back to the “next steps” question in a following post.] Julian, Eric Posner, and others look to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and its takeover of Crimea and see the limits of international...
I agree with Peter that the mere breach of the international law governing the use of force does not mean that all international law is useless and meaningless. But I don't think Eric Posner's pithy challenge to the international law academy on Ukraine can be so easily dismissed. International lawyers need, especially in this area, to provide a meaningful theory...
Saturday began with reports that Russia had seemingly used private security contractors to take control of the airport in Simferopol, Crimea. Then reports (like this one from CNN) of President Putin requesting from Russia’s Parliament an authorization to use military force in Ukraine because of “threats to the lives of Russian citizens and Russian military personnel based in the southern...
Reprieve, the excellent British human-rights organisation, has submitted a communication to the ICC asking it to investigate NATO personnel involved in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Here is Reprieve's press release: Drone victims are today lodging a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing NATO member states of war crimes over their role in facilitating the US’s covert drone programme in Pakistan. It...
The BBC is reporting that dozens of people have died today in new fighting between police and protestors in Ukraine. For a background to what is underlying the protests, see these posts concerning the struggle over the norms that will define Ukraine, how Ukraine's domestic disputes interact with Russian and European regional strategies, and the significance of the eastward spread...
It's an excellent post, well worth reading in its entirety. I just want to flag two particularly important points. The first concerns whether, in light of Šainović, Perišić can really be considered fundamentally flawed. Schabas compellingly argues no: But the Prosecutor is not claiming that any ‘new fact’ has been discovered. Rather, the Prosecutor is arguing that the law has changed as...
As Jeffrey Bader of Brookings notes, the U.S. government has, for the first time, publicly rejected the legality of China's "Nine Dash Line" claim in the South China Sea (for a little background on the unusual Nine Dash Line, see an earlier post here). This is a semi-big deal as it shows how the US is going to use international...
President Obama has issued the following memorandum concerning US participation in the UN's Mali stabilisation mission: By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and consistent with section 2005 of the American Servicemembers' Protection Act of 2002 (22 U.S.C. 7424), concerning the participation of members of the Armed Forces...
