In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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17 Mar

One of the Bush administration's central justifications for invading Iraq was the supposed "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. The link, according to the administration, was Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq, from the bombing of the UN's headquarters to the beheading of Nicholas Berg. Recall Colin Powell's...

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17 Mar

The ICC has reached another milestone -- it now has its first indictee in custody: Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese national and alleged founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court as part of the judicial proceedings under the Rome Statute (the “Statute”). Thomas Lubanga is alleged to have...

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17 Mar

In the first Tribunal decision to deal with the actions of Mujahedin soldiers in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ICTY Trial Chamber II has found two former Bosnian Muslim army commanders, General Enver Hadzihasanovic and Brigadier Amir Kubura, guilty of war crimes committed against Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb civilians during the 1992-95 war. Both men were convicted...

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17 Mar

There is an interesting Pew Research poll published this week regarding the public's attitude regarding foreign investment, free trade, and the Dubai ports deal. While discussing the survey results, I want to weave comments from Richard Posner and Gary Becker into the discussion because I find their take to be an intellectual articulation of what appears to be...

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16 Mar

I'm not sure anyone still believes that newspapers — or news services — objectively report the news, but here's a good example of how different takes on the same event are not only possible but likely. From the AP: FEW MOURNERS COME TO SEE MILOSEVIC COFFIN BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - The flag-draped coffin of Slobodan Milosevic went on public display Thursday, but...

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16 Mar

A group of NGOs including Amnesty International and Oxfam have started a "Control Arms Campaign" to lobby for tougher international arms control. They have issued a report today complaining about the failure of countries to abide by international arms embargoes against a variety of countries. They are also calling for an international treaty to obligate countries to codify...

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16 Mar

The U.S. is pulling almost all of its military forces out of Iceland. This is not exactly big news, except perhaps in Iceland itself, which has no other military force. Indeed, the Iceland government has actually been trying to convince the U.S. military to stay, but the U.S. (rightly, I think) has decided that Iceland is no longer...

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16 Mar

Justice Ginsburg revealed in a speech that she and Justice O’Connor were the targets of death threats over their citation to foreign and international law. As reported by Tony Mauro of the Legal Times, Ginsburg said: “Although I doubt the current measures will garner sufficient votes to pass, it is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support… And one not-so-small concern...

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16 Mar

With some fanfare, the President has released a revised National Security Strategy . The major papers and the media are already dissecting the strategy with each focusing on a different part (e.g. the BBC highlighting the commitment to preemptive attacks while the NYT focusing on the document's attention on Iran as the single greatest threat. The document obviously has no...

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16 Mar

I really like this short post by Nicholas Kristof on his blog. One of those rare instances in which a columnist of Kristof's stature forthrightly tells how he actually obtains the stories like the genocide in Sudan. I think many bloggers sometimes forget just how hard it is for real columnists like Kristof to do the heavy labor of primary research...

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16 Mar

Nice article in the IHT by David Kaye on the impact of Milosevic's death on the reputation of the ICTY. "What's a trial without a verdict but a waste of time and money, which could have been better spent on rebuilding the Balkans? But it's not as easy as that. For all the trial's weaknesses, its lessons and legacy bear learning...

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15 Mar

After being one of four countries to vote against the new Human Rights Council, the U.S. has announced that it will cooperate and even support funding for the new council. If that's the case, I'm not exactly sure what was the point of U.S. opposition in the first place In any event, as I've suggested, the new Human Rights Council...

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