On May 27, 2015 Mr. Dire Tladi of South Africa was appointed Special Rapporteur for a new topic on the International Law Commission's agenda: jus cogens. The progressive development and codification of jus cogens principles marks a significant step forward. For many years it was considered, as Ian Brownlie once quipped, "like the car that never left the garage." The ILC's...
Two recent court filings bring to light important questions about the scope and nature of the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Who would have thought that so many years after 9/11 we would still be asking important questions about the nature of the hostilities there. First, on May 20, 1995, counsel for detainee Al Warafi filed a reply brief in his habeas...
The Argentina sovereign debt mess is still not resolved, but already folks are debating its larger consequences for international economic governance. In particular, there continue to be calls for a new international sovereign debt mechanism to prevent another Argentina-style U.S. litigation. But although I agree that there are decent arguments for some sort of international treaty-based mechanism for sovereign debt...
I have been following closely the U.S. Navy's plans to use military ships and aircraft to challenge China's aggressive land reclamation activities in the South China Sea, and China's not very positive reaction to these plans. But although there is a real dispute brewing here that could escalate into a sovereignty fight, I think media reports are making this dispute...
[Marina Aksenova is a post-doc in the Centre for Excellence for International Courts, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.] The ICC prosecution team has been conducting preliminary examinations in Colombia for over ten years and has yet to decide whether to move to the stage of formal investigations. In doing so, it must assess, among other things, whether reduced or suspended...
Africa Fighting in south Somalia between al Shabaab militants and government forces killed at least 24 people, while a rebel attack in the capital killed three Transport Ministry workers and a lawmaker, officials and the group said on Saturday. An unidentified gunman on Wednesday shot at United Nations vehicles in Mali's capital Bamako and targeted a house where U.N. staff were staying,...
Last week, I made the mistake of relying on an article in Electronic Intifada about a recent speech by Moshe Ya'alon, the Israeli Defense Minister. Here are the relevant paragraphs in the article: Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday said Israel would attack entire civilian neighborhoods during any future assault on Gaza or Lebanon. Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem, Yaalon...
It's becoming an old story: the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) rejects a charged mode of liability after a confirmation hearing, so the OTP simply asks the Trial Chamber (TC) to give the defendant notice that it will consider convicting him on the basis of the rejected mode anyway. This time, the defendant is Laurent Gbagbo. The OTP initially alleged that Gbagbo is responsible for various crimes against...
There are two important new reports up on the International Law Commission's website. First, Sean Murphy’s First Report on Crimes Against Humanity is now available. The UN Doc symbol is A/CN.4/680; link to the report here. The report is a terrific overview of the current gaps in the international legal architecture, and maps out steps towards a future convention. The report also proposes...
This week on Opinio Juris, Duncan posted his thoughts on the fog of technology and international law with respect to drone strikes and Kevin defended (!) Jeb Bush for his somewhat botched answer to Fox News' Megyn Kelly about the Iraq war. We had three great guest posts. The first, garnering a large amount of discussion, was from Eugene Kontorovich on Iran's...
[Rishi Gulati practices as a barrister in Melbourne. The author has not had any involvement with the Kompass case; and this post should not be construed as legal advice in any form whatsoever.] Highlighting Mr Anders Kompass’s suspension from duties as a senior official at the UN, the Guardian recently reported that Mr Anders Kompass, a senior UN staff member: “leaked an internal...
[Emma Irving is a PhD Researcher at the University of Amsterdam School of Law, and a visiting researcher at Cornell University.] Earlier this week was the final instalment of the story of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) first acquittal, with the removal of Mathieu Ngjudjolo Chui from the Netherlands back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was not altogether surprising when...
