In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Organizations

10 Oct

In my previous post on the Taylor appeal, I noted two troubling aspects of the Appeals Chamber's judgment concerning customary international law: (1) its erroneous belief that legal principles that narrow criminal responsibility have to have a customary foundation; and (2) its hypocritical affirmation that recklesness is the mens rea of aiding and abetting (which goes beyond the ICTY and ICTR)...

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07 Oct

Looking back at all the debates over whether the United States could have legal authority to use force in Syria, I was struck by the presence of two very different types of arguments about the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).  For some, the R2P questions were interpretative in nature -- what did R2P mean (i.e., does it require Security Council authorization)...

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03 Oct

I'm late to this story, which has already outraged Greenpeace and other supporters worldwide. Greenpeace activists who were seized while protesting against Arctic oil drilling face up to 15 years in a Russian jail after being formally charged with piracy. The 14 charged include four British nationals. Kieron Bryan, a freelance videographer, and the activists Alexandra Harris, Philip Ball and Anthony Perrett were all accused of...

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01 Oct

Ryan has kindly responded to my post commenting on his claim that "arguments have been inconsistent with regard to one fundamental legal question: whether the US is, as a matter of law, in an armed conflict." Unfortunately, our conversation has something of a Pinteresque quality: in claiming that I mischaracterized one of his central claims, he mischaracterizes my central claim....

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29 Sep

I pointed out last month that Owen Bowcott, a legal affairs correspondent for the Guardian, incorrectly claimed that "[g]enerals and politicians could evade responsibility for war crimes in future because of a ruling requiring proof that they 'specifically directed' atrocities." That is not what Perisic does: the Appeals Chamber did not say that a perpetrator must specifically direct a crime; it said that a perpetrator...

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28 Sep

The Pre-Trial Chamber has ordered the Registrar to arrange a privileged visit between al-Senussi and his ICC lawyer, Ben Emmerson, in Libya. On the positive side, the PTC seems to have learned something from Libya's abhorrent detention of Melinda Taylor. Witness the following language in the order: 15. Taking into account the purpose of the visit, the provisions of the ad...

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27 Sep

As one commenter to Ken's post on the draft UN Security Council Resolution notes, there will be no Security Council referral to the ICC on Syria. Currently there is one paragraph in the draft resolution expressing the Security Council's "strong conviction that those individuals responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic should be held accountable;"  That's not...

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27 Sep

As readers know, the Special Court for Sierra Leone's Appeals Chamber upheld Charles Taylor's conviction and 50-year sentence yesterday. It's been interesting to watch human-rights groups and advocates claim, predictably, that the judgment is a milestone in the fight against impunity, a position that seems to wilfully ignore the significant failure of the prosecution in the case. After all, both...

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25 Sep

For the non-twitterati, Omar al-Bashir has -- unsurprisingly -- cancelled his trip to the UN. That decision reflects an underappreciated "soft power" aspect of the ICC: even an unexecuted arrest warrant limits the freedom of a suspect facing charges. There may be no reasonable prospect of Bashir being arrested anytime soon. But there is also no reasonable prospect that he...

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25 Sep

[John P. Cerone is Visiting Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (Tufts University) and Professor of Law at the New England School of Law.  He has also served as Special Advisor to the US delegation to the UN Human Rights Council and as a legal advisor to international criminal courts.] Omar al Bashir, President of...

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25 Sep

I've been surprised how quiet the Obama Administration has been in terms of treaty actions in its 5 years in office -- you can pretty much count on one hand the number of treaties that have gone through the Senate Advice and Consent process (and nothing at all has happened this Congress). Now, some of the blame for this certainly...

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