Okay, I'm exaggerating. But only slightly. As Wells Bennett notes today at Lawfare, Judge Pohl has rejected al-Nashiri's contention that the US and al-Qaeda were not engaged in hostilities (an armed conflict in IHL terms) at the time of the acts alleged in his indictment -- primarily the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 -- thereby depriving the military commission...
[Peter Margulies is a Professor of Law at the Roger Williams University School of Law focusing on the balance of liberty, equality and security in counter-terrorism, and author of Law's Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration (NYU Press 2010).] The days of Donald Rumsfeld chiding “Old Europe” are gone, but targeted killing has renewed debate on counter-terrorism strategies between the US and...
Jennifer Daskal (who, I'm delighted to say, has just accepted an offer to join the faculty at my school, Washington College of Law) has an important op-ed in the New York Times today titled, simply, "Don't Close Guantanamo." Many of us know Jen Daskal from her earlier positions in the Obama administration Justice Department and, before that, Human Rights Watch...
My friend Luc Reydams, who teaches at Notre Dame (which clearly has a better faculty than football team...
In the comments to my first post on the ICC and retroactive jurisdiction, Johnboy4546 suggested that the Palestinians might self-refer only the situation in the West Bank to the Court. Such a referral would have two clear advantages for the Palestinians: (1) it would prevent the OTP from investigating Hamas's rocket attacks, which are almost always launched from Gaza, as well...
I had an interesting -- and respectful -- disagreement with André de Hoogh last week concerning the right of non-states parties to retroactively accept the jurisdiction of the Court pursuant to Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute. I argued in my post that Palestine could accept the Court's jurisdiction retroactive to whenever it became a state under international law. Andre challenged...
Well, bibliography is too grand for what I've done over at Lawfare, which is put up a list of articles and reports, with links and a brief description, of documents currently in the debate over the regulation of autonomous weapon systems. I will update it periodically - I won't start adding older documents, but as new things come out I'll...
In my essay on signature strikes, I criticize (and I'm not alone) the U.S. practice of considering military-age males in an area of known terrorist activity to be lawful targets. That signature, however, pales in comparison to the possibility that the U.S. is targeting "children with potential hostile intent," as well: The US military is facing fresh questions over its targeting policy in Afghanistan after...
A number of commentators have challenged my claim that Articles 11(2) and 12(3) of the Rome Statute would permit Palestine to accept the ICC's jurisdiction retroactively, whether as a member-state or on an ad hoc basis. Here, for example, is what my friend Jennifer Trahan wrote yesterday at IntLawGrrls: Even if an entity becomes a "state," should there be jurisdiction that...
I've been meaning to discuss the AP's recent claim that an obviously fraudulent graph provided to it by an unnamed country (almost certainly Israel) proves that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. As is often the case, however, Glenn Greenwald beat me to it. If the AP were capable of shame, it would immediately retract the...
In the wake of today's long-overdue vote to upgrade Palestine to observer-state status, there seems to be persistent confusion concerning what would happen if Palestine ratified the Rome Statute. In particular, a number of commentators seem to think that it is unclear whether the ICC would have jurisdiction over crimes committed prior to Palestine's ratification. (See Colum Lynch at FP,...
The United Nations General Assembly is set to decide Thursday whether to upgrade Palestine to "non-member state" status, on par with the Vatican. The resolution will almost certainly pass, given that more than 130 states have already recognized a Palestinian state. The interesting question is whether powerful Western states will vote in favor of the resolution. France...
