In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Organizations

16 Nov

Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy has suggested that if NATO invokes Article V's collective self-defense language against ISIS as a result of the terrible Paris attacks over the weekend, President Obama's ongoing use of military force against ISIS could be "legalized" as a matter of U.S. constitutional law.  Here is Ilya: Article 5 provides a much stronger justification for the war...

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13 Nov

It was only a matter of time before the far right began to attack Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for being in league with the Taliban -- and thus implicitly (nudge nudge, wink wink) the actual party responsible for the US's notorious assault on its hospital in Kunduz. And the attack has now begun. Here is a snippet from an article today in the Daily Caller: International...

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06 Nov

In my post on biological and chemical weapons yesterday, I rejected the idea that Art. 8(2)(b)(xviii) "squarely appl[ies]" (Ralf Trapp) or "plainly applies" (Alex Whiting) to chemical and biological weapons by arguing that the drafters of the Rome Statute intended Art. 8(2)(b)(xviii), the war crime of “[e]mploying asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases,” to have precisely the kind of "special meaning" that Art. 31(4) of...

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27 Oct

I  have finally made my way through the OTP's 162-page request to open an investigation into the situation in Georgia. I hope to write a few posts in the coming days on various aspects of the request; in this post I simply want to note my surprise that the OTP has not alleged that Georgia is responsible for two interrelated war crimes:...

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26 Oct

Last week, the inestimable Chase Madar gave a fascinating talk at SOAS entitled "The Weaponisation of Human Rights." More than 100 people showed up, and I was privileged -- along with Heidi Matthews, a British Academy postdoc at SOAS -- to respond to Chase's comments. Here is Chase's description of the talk: Human rights, once a rallying cry to free prisoners of...

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13 Oct

Fatou Bensouda has just formally asked the Pre-Trial Chamber to authorise an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by South Ossetian and Georgian forces between 1 July 2008 and 10 October 2008. Here are the relevant paragraphs from the ICC's press release: The Situation in Georgia has been under preliminary examination by the Office of the Prosecutor since August 2008, when armed clashes...

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11 Oct

Last month, Ashley Deeks claimed that France appeared "to be prepared to invoke the 'unwilling or unable' concept in the Syria context." France did indeed attacks ISIS targets in Syria. And it reported those strikes to the Secretary-General of the UN, claiming self-defence under Art. 51 of the UN Charter as a rationale for violating Syria's sovereignty. But then something funny...

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02 Oct

It's been widely reported over the past few days that Russia has been bombing the Free Syrian Army under the pretext of joining the fight against ISIS. That development spurred an interesting post at Lawfare by Bobby Chesney about whether Art. II of the Constitution -- the Commander-in-Chief Clause -- would permit the US to defend the FSA, which it has been...

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01 Oct

The UN General Assembly is set to vote once again (for the 24th consecutive year) on a Cuba-sponsored resolution condemning the United States' economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba.  This resolution will probably get near majority support, and perhaps even unanimous support.  Indeed, there are rumors that the U.S. government itself may abstain from voting against the resolution, which is...

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22 Sep

The ICC has always had a legitimacy problem in Uganda. In particular, as Mark Kersten ably explained earlier this year, the Court is widely viewed by Ugandans as partial to Museveni, despite the fact that the OTP is supposedly investigating both the government and the LRA: From the outset, the ICC showcased a bias towards the Government of Yoweri Museveni. In 2004 and following months...

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10 Sep

Professors Bruce Ackerman and David Golove argue in this Atlantic essay that the next President cannot withdraw from the Iran agreement because it is a "congressionally authorized executive agreement." They argue that Senator Marco Rubio's pledge to terminate the Iran Deal on day one "would destroy the binding character of America’s commitments to the IMF, the World Bank, NAFTA, and the World...

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