Scott Horton has a typically excellent post today at Harpers.org discussing the perversity of right-wing commentators who defend the use of torture. But I was troubled by the following comment about the ICC, which he offers in agreement with an old editorial by David Rivkin and Lee Casey: Rivkin’s history is much like that of Reynolds and Goldberg. Back when the...
Having finally resolved the disclosure issue, the Lubanga trial is set to begin on January 26, a little more than one month from today. Unfortunately, the problems with the case continue: The senior trial lawyer in charge of the first case to be tried at the International Criminal Court has been taken off the case little more than...
It turns out that all is not lost for the Lisbon Treaty (aka the EU Reform Treaty). It had all the markings of an unperfected treaty after Ireland gave it a "no" vote this past summer via a referendum. (Interestingly, Ireland was the only state to hold one, since negotiators had designed the Reform Treaty to avoid such reviews given what they did to the...
A lawyer and human-rights activist with whom I spent some time while I was in Sarajevo, Adnan Kadribasic, has given me permission to turn his comment to my Karadzic post into a post of its own. I think it's remarkable, and I want everyone to see it. Here it is, edited only for typos: Dear Kevin, I support all of your...
The UN Security Council has passed unanimously a US drafted resolution authorizing attacks upon pirates, whether by land or sea. It is one of those rare security issues in which the great powers, and many small ones, have been willing to come together, at least in granting authority. As the Washington Post reports: The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize nations...
Just in time for Christmas too. Of course, it was not really him. Rather, it was Judge José Luis Jesus, the newly elected president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). President Jesus addressed the UN General Assembly on December 5, 2008, and met separately with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a day earlier. Although these annual speeches traditionally provide...
Scott Malcomson, an editor on foreign affairs at the New York Times Magazine, as well as being one of the Really Smart People I Know, had a short, interesting review in the NYT book review, on Sunday, December 14, 2008 of books on humanitarianism and intervention, "When To Intervene." Scott blogs over at HuffPo, but for this book review especially,...
My friend (and OJ alum) Marko Milanovic has a superb post today on the new EJIL: Talk! about the strengths and weaknesses of the Genocide Convention. Here is a taste: Before we ask ourselves whether the Convention does what it was supposed to do, we need to look at what it actually says. And it says very, very little. The definition...
A number of readers have e-mailed to ask why, given my interest in all things ICTY, I have not said anything about the Karadzic case. The answer is relatively simple: I have been serving for the past two months as one of Dr. Karadzic's primary legal advisers, which raises a number of complicated issues vis-a-vis blogging. On the one hand,...
International Anti-Corruption Day is sanctioned by the UN as a day to increase awareness of corruption and its effects upon governance and public life. I realize that today's events in Chicago raise the possibilities of some heavy-handed irony - but actually, I'm pleased in a quite un-ironic way. If one has to have the phenomenon of this day for this,...
Douglas Burgess, Jr., has an editorial in today's New York Times arguing that piracy should be considered terrorism in order to facilitate its prosecution. It's an interesting piece, but I have to take issue with the basic premise of his argument: Are pirates a species of terrorist? In short, yes. The same definition of pirates as hostis humani generis could also...
An association of 15 human-rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the Save Darfur Coalition, released a devastating report today on the Sudanese government's cynical -- and mendacious -- PR campaign to convince the international community that it is committed to bringing peace to Darfur. Here is a snippet of the executive summary: This report focuses on four...
