In association with the International Commission of Jurists

National Security Law

01 Dec

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the ICC just released its 2013 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities. There is much to chew over in the report, but what is most striking is the OTP's slow-walking of its preliminary examination into crimes committed in Afghanistan. The OTP divides preliminary examinations into four phases: (1) initial assessment, which filters out requests for...

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26 Nov

According to the Washington Post, the Department of Justice has essentially decided against trying to prosecute Julian Assange for publishing the Chelsea Manning documents: The officials stressed that a formal decision has not been made, and a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks remains impaneled, but they said there is little possibility of bringing a case against Assange, unless he is implicated in...

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24 Nov

A few days ago, in response to reports of an imminent deal between P5+1 and Iran concerning Iran's uranium enrichment, Tyler Cullis and Ryan Goodman debated whether Iran has a "right" to develop nuclear power for civilian purposes. Tyler argued that Iran does, citing (inter alia) Art. IV of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT): Nothing in this Treaty...

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16 Nov

A couple of weeks ago, Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum said he was surprised that Syria has, by all accounts, voluntarily given up its chemical-weapons capability: I don't really have any comment about this, except to express a bit of puzzlement. As near as I can tell, Bashar al-Assad is really and truly sincere about destroying his chemical weapons stocks.1 But why?...

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13 Nov

I am delighted to announce the publication of a new book that I co-edited with my colleague and dear friend Gerry Simpson, The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials. As the title indicates, the book contains a number of essays that discuss little-known trials (such as the Franco-Siamese Mixed Court)  or re-narrate better known but misunderstood trials (such as the...

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12 Nov

On November 6, the United States signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury and deposited an instrument of acceptance indicating its consent to be bound by the treaty on its entry into force, making it the first nation to do so.  Here's how UNEP summarizes the Convention: The Minamata Convention for Mercury is a global treaty to protect human health and the...

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08 Nov

[Michael W. Lewis is a Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University. He is a former Navy aviator and Topgun graduate.] Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International released reports last week criticizing the use of drones in Yemen and Pakistan.  Both reports have significant flaws in the way the factual information was presented and in how they characterize international law and US...

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06 Nov

Lots of commentary today here and elsewhere on yesterday's oral arguments in Bond v. United States, with vote-counters quick to predict the Court will retreat from Missouri v. Holland and the question is only how much.  I have views on the merits, but, frankly I'm having trouble getting passed the fact that two Supreme Court justices, the Solicitor General, and one of...

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06 Nov

The debate over autonomous weapons is not so visible in the United States, but the ban campaign launched by Human Rights Watch a year ago - an international NGO coalition called the "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots" - has been quite active in Europe and at the UN, where a number of countries raised the issue in their statements to...

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05 Nov

Lyle Denniston is first out of the gate with his take on the oral argument in the much-anticipated U.S. Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Bond.  His general take: The argument in Bond v. U.S. (docket 12-158) reached the grand constitutional scale that has been its potential all along.   At the end of an hour-long hearing, it appeared that the government might just have...

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