There are lots of benefits to multilateral military intervention, but quick and decisive action is not one of them. Darfur is a case study. The game of pass the buck between the U.N. and Sudan has led to an underfunded relatively ineffective peacekeeping force combined with delays over further deployments of U.N. forces. Meanwhile, the ICC, a year...
The NYT is now reporting that the autopsy of Milosevic has turned up a antibiotic that none of the doctors treating him had prescribed for him. In other words, the evidence from one of the autopsies suggests that Milosevic may not have died of completely natural causes. One of the local Dutch doctors has a theory that Milosevic...
Last week the WTO Appellate Body issued its ruling in the Mexico sweetener dispute with the United States. I had reported earlier about the panel decision here. One of the more interesting issues in the case is the argument for judicial abstention. Mexico argued that the WTO had jurisdiction over the case but that it should exercise...
According to IPS, the United States is now completely alone in opposing the U.N. proposal to create a new Human Rights Council. A significant majority of the U.N.'s 191 member states have come out in favor of the proposal, including the 25-member European Union and the 114-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of developing nations. The proposal is also supported by...
The ICC has re-elected Philippe Kirsch of Canada to a new three-year term as president. Akua Kuenyehia of Ghana was re-elected as first vice-president and Judge Rene Blattmann of Bolivia was elected second-vice president. Here is Judge Kirsch's official ICC bio: Judge Kirsch is member of the Bar of the Province of Quebec and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1988. ...
In his first major address as Chief Justice, on Wednesday John Roberts addressed a crowd of 1,000 participants at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Details of the speech are available here. The Chief Justice also addressed a group of about 100 Pepperdine law students immediately prior to the speech. (It doesn't hurt when your current dean was the Chief...
The NYT notes that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and the Defense Department are considering plans to resume military aid to certain Latin American countries that had defied U.S. demands that it exempt U.S. soldiers from the ICC's jurisdiction. Along with the U.S. agreement to refer Sudan to the ICC, this latest move suggests that the U.S. is adopting...
Slobodan Milosevic is dead. The final chapter in European liberation from Communist rule is over. If you must read the details of his death, go to the BBC here. But far more interesting is their insightful obituary of the butcher of the Balkins. Paddy Ashdown has it right, "There is no doubt that of the evil that stalked the...
As reported here, kidnapped pacifist Tom Fox was found slain in Iraq this week. He was one of four members of the organization called Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) who were held hostage by a militant Islamic group known as the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. The CPT released a statement yesterday that struck me as quite remarkable. Not a single negative...
In response to the aforementioned U.S. Human Rights report, China released its own report on the situation of human rights in the United States. It paints a horrible picture indeed and one wonders how Americans can survive amid the endemic poverty and pervasive violent crime. One further wonders why immigrants from China and elsewhere continue to move to...
On Wednesday the State Department issued its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The full text is available here. Here is an excerpt from the Introduction: To be sure, violations of human rights and miscarriages of justice can and do occur in democratic countries. No governmental system is without flaws. Human rights conditions in democracies across...
A few weeks ago, I discussed the critical role accurate translations play in international trials. A recent decision by the ICTY illustrates the point: largely due to a translation error involving a single word, the Appeals Chamber has reduced the sentence of Momir Nikolic, a security and intelligence officer at Srebrenica, from 27 to 20 years. Nikolic was...
