[Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He returned to Yale in January 2013 after serving for nearly four years as the 22nd Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.] The editors of the rebooted Opinio Juris 2.0 and the International Commission of Jurists are most gracious to hold this impressive symposium on my...
The International Commission of Jurists organised a fascinating side-event yesterday at the Human Rights Council. Here is the ICJ's background statement: Particularly when crimes under international law are perpetrated on a large scale in situations of crisis, there is an urgent need to preserve evidence for use in eventual criminal proceedings, whether at the International Criminal Court or other national or...
A number of commentators -- including me -- have questioned whether the OTP should open an investigation into Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya if that investigation would be limited to the crime against humanity of deportation. Here, for example, is what I wrote in April: [T]here is the question of situational gravity. Should the OTP investigate the Rohingya situation if it...
[Ian Johnstone is the Dean ad interim of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. This contribution is cross-posted here.] Tributes to Kofi Annan have poured in since his death on August 18, praising his diplomatic skills, his dignified leadership, and his basic human decency. Having worked with him closely from 1996 to 2000, first in the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and...
[Luis F. Yanes is a Project and Research Assistant of the Essex Business and Human Rights Project and a PhD candidate at the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex. You can find him on Twitter @LuisFYanes.] As we now know, on the 19th of July 2018, the first draft for a Business and Human Rights Treaty was published (draft zero)....
On Monday, the OTP filed a motion in the Bemba Witness Tampering Case entitled "Detailed Notice of Additional Sentencing Submissions." The OTP argues that, in determining the appropriate sentence for Bemba, Kilolo, and Mangenda, Trial Chamber VII should take into account the fact that the witness tampering by Bemba and his co-defendants led the Appeals Chamber to wrongly acquit Bemba in the...
[Katayoun Hosseinnejad is a university lecturer of international law and attorney at law in Iran and Pouria Askary is an assistant professor of international law at law school of ATU and a visiting professor of law at Islamic Azad University and Tarbiat Modarres University.] On May 10, two days after the US President pulled his country out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of...
Last Friday, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an Order Convening a Status Conference to consider the OTP's request for a ruling on whether the ICC has jurisdiction over Myanmar's deportation of the Rohingya to Bangladesh -- an issue I discussed here. According to the Order, the status conference will be held "on 20 June 2018...
[Jean Galbraith is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.] Yesterday, President Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Iran deal. He is not claiming any major breach by Iran, but rather withdrawing because, in his view, it was a terrible deal from the start. As a matter of domestic and international law, he has...
We have published a series of fascinating posts in recent days debating whether the permanent members of the Security Council have a legal obligation under the UN Charter not to veto resolutions calling for the investigation or prosecution of atrocity crimes. Jennifer Trahan argued yes; Mohamed Helal responded no; and Trahan replied yes again. I am not convinced by Trahan's response...
I had the pleasure of participating yesterday in a superb -- and long! -- panel on the 2013 siege of Eastern Ghouta. The panel discussed the facts, the law, and the politics of the siege. I was joined by Hussam Alkatlaby, the Executive Director of the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre; Joost Hiltermann, programme director for Middle East & North Africa at...
I like much of what Jennifer Trahan says in her recent post about the permanent veto. But I would take issue -- unsurprisingly -- with her claim that "there is in fact more past precedent for reliance on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention than is often recognized, including not only NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, but also African and Arab...