At Just Security today, my friend Harold Koh has mounted a typically masterful defense of the legality of unilateral humanitarian intervention (UHI) in Syria and other places. I wish all advocates of UHI were as thoughtful. Not surprisingly, though, I'm not convinced by Koh's argument. Let me offer four (disconnected) thoughts on his claims below. A “per se illegal” rule would...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
[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...
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...
Ryan has a fascinating but problematic post today at Just Security in which he takes international-law scholars to task for opportunistically flip-flopping on whether the US is involved in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda. Here is the crux of his argument, taken from the post's introductory paragraph: Those arguments have been inconsistent with regard to one fundamental legal question: whether the...
Just Security is officially up and running. The lineup of contributors is amazing: the Editors-in-Chief are Steve Vladeck and Ryan Goodman; the Executive Editors are Mary deRosa, the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer, Fionnuala Ni Aolian, and Beth Van Schaack; and the Founding Editors are too numerous too mention but all extremely well known. (I won't play favorites by naming some of...
Eric Posner has a new Cassandra column at Slate, this latest one foretelling the doom of the ICC. There isn't much point in disagreeing with his basic thesis; no one knows at this point -- not him, not I -- whether the ICC will succeed. It is possible, however, to take issue with a number of assertions that Posner makes in...
