The Washington Post has an interesting story in the Sunday, February 22, 2009, edition (A16) by its longtime UN reporter, Colum Lynch, "With Rivals in Key Posts, U.S. Faces Hurdles at U.N." The article points out that many key UN posts are occupied by countries, and often individuals, hostile to the United States. The General Assembly, for example, is headed by...
There is an interesting discussion going on at Alex De Waal's blog Making Sense of Darfur about the various theories of liability that might be used to hold Bashir responsible for genocide. The discussion as a whole is well worth checking out; what I want to discuss here is whether Bashir could be convicted of genocide via JCE III, so-called...
Sometimes reporters and their editors get caught up in a narrative, and forget to check facts. In the case of Obama and Bush, every Obama pronouncement is presumed to represent a reversal of Bush policy. But this is simply not true (see, e.g., the predictable and apparently uncontroversial Obama retention of Bush policies on "extraordinary rendition" and airstrikes in Pakistan). And so it...
Although prospects of a marriage remain somewhat fanciful, if the ASIL Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward the International Criminal Court has its way, the Obama Administration will take steps to engage with the ICC in a much more positive way than the Bush Administration. The Task Force issued a press release today, proposing several significant shifts in U.S. policy. ...
In the comments to my post below on the BBC story, Mark C has kindly provided a link to the "formal request" allegedly submitted on behalf of "millions" of Sudanese who oppose arresting Bashir. (The request also opposes arrest warrants for the rebel leaders, although perfunctorily -- protecting Bashir is its primary objective.) I hope to address the request's numerous...
Regular readers no doubt know that I am obsessed with the media's seemingly congenital inability to grasp the law and politics of the ICC. My new favorite comes via the BBC, in an article about the impending arrest warrant for Bashir: Two Sudanese groups have formally requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) not to issue an arrest for President Omar al-Bashir. He...
ICC silliness doesn't just affect the media. States and NGOs suffer the malady, as well. Case in point: the recent, repeated calls for the ICC to prosecute Israel for war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza. First up, Bolivia: "The Andean state says it is intended to make regional allies take a unified stance against "the Israeli political and military leaders responsible...
Those who defend Israel's use of armed force -- in Gaza and elsewhere -- often complain that critics reflexively assume the worst about Israel's intentions. There is more than a grain of truth to that, but Israel doesn't help itself with its inability to admit that faulty intelligence sometimes leads it to make mistakes. Case in point: the attack on...
Comments like this one, made not by some obscure commenter but by David Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason and a member of The Volokh Conspiracy, in response to my Dershowitz post below: Herein the phoniness of international law. Humble Law Student has raised several significant questions with Heller’s analysis, including whether it matters under international law, as it surely...
Alan Dershowitz published an editorial yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that argues Israel's attacks on Hamas in Gaza are "perfectly proportionate." I have no desire to argue the substance of that point, in part because views on Israel and Palestine are largely impervious to facts or argument (on both sides), but largely because the concept of proportionality is so...
Germany has sued Italy before the ICJ challenging successful Italian lawsuits that have denied Germany's sovereign immunity arising out of World War II forced labor claims. The ICJ press release is here. Here is Germany's key argument: “In recent years, Italian judicial bodies have repeatedly disregarded the jurisdictional immunity of Germany as a sovereign State. The critical...
The Jordanian Bar Association (JBA) is on a roll. In addition to participating in the seminar I discussed in my last post, the JBA has also asked the Jordanian government -- Jordan is one of three Arab states that have ratified the Rome Statute -- to formally request the ICC's Assembly of States Parties (ASP) remove Moreno-Ocampo from office because...
