Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is in trouble in the UN, according to a dismayed account in this week's Economist ("An idea whose time has come - and gone?" Economist, July 25, 2009, p 58). I'm dismayed, too. At the 2005 UN reform summit of the General Assembly, says the Economist the biggest-ever gathering of world leaders accepted the principle that they have...
David Bernstein is back with yet another attack on Human Rights Watch. This time, Bernstein is up in arms that, in 2006, HRW retracted a claim that armed Palestinian groups had committed war crimes by using human shields -- an action that he believes proves, in light of HRW's refusal to apologize for its allegedly false criticisms of Israel, that...
There's gall -- and then there's the Sudan: Sudan said on Monday it had referred Chad to the U.N. Security Council, accusing its neighbour of launching an air raid inside Sudanese territory. Sudan's army said two Chadian planes attacked a region inside the west Darfur district on Thursday -- the fourth raid Khartoum says N'Djamena has carried out in Sudan in two...
A recent poll conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org has found that the public in four Muslim-majority and African countries support the ICC's arrest warrant for Bashir, despite the fact that the governments in those countries oppose it: That's remarkable -- but the results of another question, designed to assess support for intervening in Darfur, by force if necessary, should the much-feared...
David Bernstein is in high-dudgeon mode again about Human Rights Watch's fundraising in Saudi Arabia. This time, he is up in arms about a statement Ken Roth made to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg during a recent email exchange. Goldberg asked Roth if his "staff person attempt[ed] to raise funds in Saudi Arabia by advertising your organization's opposition to the pro-Israel...
Two updates of note. First, the Ugandan government has said in no uncertain terms that it will arrest Bashir if he enters the country: Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda's minister for international affairs, spoke after meeting with the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in Kampala. Police "will ensure that he is arrested" if al-Bashir arrives, Okello said. Ocampo added: "It is...
PBS will be airing an important documentary about the ICC, The Reckoning, on July 14. Here is PBS's description of the film, which is directed by Pamela Yates, who received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008: Over 120 countries have united to form the International Criminal Court (ICC) — the first permanent court created to prosecute perpetrators, no matter how powerful, of...
Thanks, Eugene, for the thoughtful reply. I look forward to your subsequent posts and will leave a more substantive reply until then. For now, I just wanted to offer a few thoughts. 1. I don't think anyone should feel "better" if removing the settlers qualified "only" as a crime against humanity, instead of as genocide. Both are incredibly grave crimes, and...
The U.S. and Europe have been vigorously insisting that Israel stop all "settlement growth," including "natural growth." There has been some question as to what those terms mean. In a June 16 press briefing, Sen. George Mitchell said that Israel must stop “natural growth” in settlements, and specified that he means “births” as well. Here is the State Department's transcript...
The case of Diallo v. Maryland presents a tragic story of a diplomat father and his prodigal son. In October 2006, David Reeves left a party in suburban Baltimore looking for drugs. He approached Abdel Diallo and asked if he had drugs for sale. Diallo said no. Reeves became angry and aggressive, and a struggle ensued. Both Diallo...
Botswana has refused to go along with the AU resolution that -- in theory -- guarantees Bashir safe travel around Africa: Botswana says it will not abide by an African Union (AU) decision to ignore an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir. Countries signed up to the ICC have a duty to help arrest...
That's the question underlying my new essay, The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences, in the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 20, No. 2, June 2009). And I'm very curious as to whether anyone else shares my general feeling that the very success, on important metrics, of international criminal law is tending to swallow, as it...
