Two items of Sudan news to report. First, the Sudanese government has lawyered up, hiring the prominent British firm Eversheds LLP to represent it at the ICC. I wonder if that means Bashir is expecting the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue the arrest warrant; although Article 19 of the Rome Statute is not the picture of clarity, it seems to allow...
The Butare trial is the ICTR's largest and longest -- it began in June 2001, involves six defendants accused of genocide, and shows no signs of ending anytime soon. The trial is likely to go on even longer because two of the defendants, former Governor Alphonse Nteziryayo and ex-Mayor Elie Ndayambaje, are ill. And that comes not long after one...
Last month, I noted that the ICTR had formally reprimanded its Prosecutor for failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense in the Military II trial. Now Jerome Bicamumpaka, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the interim government who is accused of genocide, has made similar allegations: Inspired by this sanction inflicted to the prosecution by another formation of judges, Bicamumpaka...
The General Assembly and Security Council have just announced the election of two current and three new members of the International Court of Justice. Here is the key excerpt of the press release: The General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations yesterday elected five Members of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a term of office...
This according to the Sudan Tribune: A senior Chinese official suggested that his country has no plans to introduce a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution suspending the indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir. China’s special envoy to Africa Liu Guijin told the pro-government daily Al-Rayaam in a rare interview that he toured Washington, Paris and London...
I've only met Professor Christopher Greenwood of the Department of Law of the London School of Economics once, but I have long been an admirer of his work. He is a prolific and interesting scholar, as well as a leading practitioner of public international law. Greenwood's credentials for the ICJ are impeccable (check them out here). But he is facing flak at...
I have posted a substantially rewritten version of my essay "Situational Gravity Under the Rome Statute" on SSRN. Here, again, is the abstract: The ICC is often derided as the "African Criminal Court." That criticism cannot easily be dismissed: all of the Office of the Prosecutor's (OTP) current investigations focus on African states -- Uganda, the Central African Republic, the Democratic...
The Czech Republic is set to become the 109th member of the ICC. The lower house of the Czech parliament recently voted 140-6 in favor of ratifying the Rome Statute, which the country signed in 1999. The upper house voted to ratify the Statute in July. Kudos to the Czech Republic!...
Article XX(a) of the GATT allows countries to violate WTO rules if doing so is “necessary to protect public morals.” The “public morals” exception is notoriously elusive, with only one WTO case—the US-Gambling Services case—clarifying the scope of the exception. So in a real sense we don’t really know when “public morals” can or cannot be invoked. ...
Last week the ICJ issued an order for provisional measures (pdf is here) in the Case Concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation) . This case, along with the recent referral to the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the status of Kosovo, are the latest cases arising out of...
Today, Friday, October 24, is United Nations Day. If you are in the United States, however, your reaction is more likely to be - huh? What United Nations Day? This is not a feature of a right-wing blackout to prevent takeover by the 'black helicopters' - neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post (I checked the paper copies,...
One further side note to the discussion of Roger's article in Virginia journal on Nobel Prize winners ...
