You go to war with the President you have, not the President you wish you had. We should keep that basic truth in mind as the US inches ever closer to war with Syria -- and potentially with Russia, a far more terrifying possibility. Donald Trump does not care about civilians in Syria. He does not care about containing the spread...
In my previous post, I offered three cautionary thoughts about the OTP's decision to ask the Pre-Trial Division to hold that the ICC has jurisdiction over Myanmar's deportation of the Rohingya to Bangladesh. In this post, I want to offer a few thoughts on what a successful outcome would mean for refugee crises elsewhere -- particularly in Libya and Syria. We...
Major news out of the ICC today: the OTP has formally asked the Pre-Trial Division to determine whether the Court has jurisdiction over the deportation of the Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Here is the introduction of the OTP's brief: 1. The Prosecution seeks a ruling on a question of jurisdiction: whether the Court may exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation...
As Patryk Labuda noted earlier today on twitter, the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) has ordered the OTP to provide it with additional information concerning the investigation in Afghanistan. Here are the key paragraphs of the order: 3. The Chamber observes that the Prosecutor seeks authorisation to initiate an investigation for crimes committed on the territory of Afghanistan from 1 May 2003 onwards,...
Nikolas Stürchler, the Head of International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Justice Section at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, has a new post at EJIL: Talk! discussing the ASP's decision to completely exclude states parties from the crime of aggression unless they ratify the aggression amendments -- the "opt-in" position advocated by a number of states, most notably...
Justice in Conflict has a guest post today from a scholar who has written a book about the Lubanga trial. I think the post makes some excellent points about the problems with the trial. But I have serious reservations -- acknowledging that I have not read the book -- about the author's take on why the trial did not focus...
Although aggression received most of the attention at the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) last month, the ASP also adopted a series of amendments to Art. 8 of the Rome Statute, the war-crimes provision, prohibiting the use of three kinds of weapons in both international armed conflict (IAC) and non-international armed conflict (NIAC): [W]eapons, which use microbial or other biological agents, or...
[Jennifer Trahan is Associate Professor, The Center for Global Affairs, NYU-SPS and Chair of the International Criminal Court Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association] On Thursday, December 14, 2017, the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) took the historic and significant decision, by consensus, to activate, effective July 17, 2018, the ICC’s jurisdiction over its 4th crime,...
A friend who is even more jaded than I called my attention to the following curious paragraph in the Draft Resolution the ASP has just adopted by consensus: 3. Reaffirms paragraph 1 of article 40 and paragraph 1 of article 119 of the Rome Statute in relation to the judicial independence of the judges of the Court. This paragraph is new --...
It went down to the wire, but it's over. States reached consensus on adopting the aggression amendments -- after those in the opt-out camp gave in to the opt-in camp. The adopted Draft Resolution provides the following: Confirms that...
A new document is being circulated at the Assembly of States Parties entitled "Draft Resolution: Activation of the jurisdiction of the Court over the crime of aggression." Operative Provision 1(b) seems to indicate that the opt-out camp, led by Liechtenstein, has conceded the jurisdictional point to the opt-in camp, led by Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Here is the text of OP1(b): (b) ...
The US submission to the ASP has finally appeared. It is not very long -- about 1.5 pages -- but manages to pack in a good number of false claims and bizarre interpretations of the Rome Statute. In terms of falsity, the US repeats its longstanding claim that the Court has no jurisdiction over the nationals of non-state parties, even when those...
