In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Organizations

09 Jul

In the tooting my own horn department, the estimable David Bosco, who authors the outstanding "The Multilateralist" blog at Foreign Policy (and who is also my American University colleague in the School of International Service), conducted an interview a few weeks ago with the Heritage Foundation's Brett Schaefer and me on the United Nations.  The idea was to ask how...

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02 Jul

Someone needs to explain this to me. The ICTY's official Twitter account just tweeted the following: Witness in Mladić trial, Dražen Erdemović, is testifying with facial and voice distortion. — ICTY (@ICTYnews) July 2, 2013 A witness normally testifies "with facial and voice distortion" in order to prevent the defendant from knowing his or her identity. So here we have the ICTY tweeting...

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24 Jun

After weeks of anticipation, I finally had a chance to watch the premiere of Crossing Lines, the new NBC drama about a police unit that works for the International Criminal Court. As a police procedural, the show is not bad. William Fichtner is fantastic as always. Production values are extremely high. Bringing together detectives and investigators from a number of...

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22 Jun

I considered adding a question mark to the title of this post, but there's really no need. I argued a couple of days ago that the real scandal concerning Judge Harhoff's letter was the Judge's willingness to reveal confidential discussions between the ICTY's judges. We now have to acknowledge another aspect of the scandal: quite understandably, defence attorneys are making...

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19 Jun

On 11 June 2013, Judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng asked the Presidency to excuse her from the Appeals Chamber concerning the recent denial of Libya's admissibility challenge to the case against Saif Gaddafi, which Libya is appealing. Judge Monageng's request was based on her previous participation (as Presiding Judge) in the Pre-Trial Chamber's decision to issue an Arrest Warrant for Saif...

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18 Jun

ICJ Judge Giorgio Gaja (who was also the special rapporteur on the International Law Commission for the Responsibility of International Organizations) has made the case that International Organizations have a duty to prevent.  The context was a talk he gave at the University of Amsterdam in April 2013 on the European Union and the ILC's Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations. If one takes...

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17 Jun

I have refrained from weighing in on the recent scandal at the ICTY concerning a letter written by the Danish judge, Frederik Harhoff, that accuses the President of the Tribunal, Judge Theodor Meron, of pressuring his fellow judges into acquitting high-profile defendants such as Gotovina and Perisic. I have done so not because the scandal isn't worth mentioning, but because...

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13 Jun

The U.S. Government has finally confirmed what other nations, and certain UN investigators, have been saying for weeks: the Syrian government has been using chemical weapons against the rebel opposition in its ongoing civil war and that at least 100 individuals have been killed. And the White House also repeats a version of the "red line" language President Obama first...

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