Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
02 Oct Handcuffed by Statehood: Justice and Palestine
...in the pursuit of global justice, something that surely keeps the dreamers of international criminal justice up at night. It really wasn’t supposed to go this way. The ICC was meant to be a shining star in the liberal cosmopolitan trajectory which instructed the peoples of the world that no one could hide behind state sovereignty anymore. What mattered in global politics and ethics wasn’t still supposed to be states over all else. Slowly, but surely, the post-WWII global conscience was intended to wither away the rigidity of statehood as...14 Mar Complementarity and a Potential Settlements Case: A Response to the OTP’s Report on its Preliminary Examination of the Situation in Palestine
...OTP’s findings should be revisited. This contribution argues the OTP should pay a qualified deference to decisions of Israel’s Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice (“HCJ”) when conducting complementarity analysis with respect to a potential settlements case. We argue that this position is consistent with a textual interpretation of the Rome Statute, the Court’s jurisprudence to date, and sound policy reasons too. Complementarity and the Rome system of justice The Rome Statute contemplates a system of justice which is essentially based on two pillars. The first is...02 Oct Rwanda’s Troubled Gacaca Courts
a larger role for the ICTR together with something along the lines of Truth Commissions, would have better served the myriad ends of justice (transitional, reconciliatory, retributive, etc.) in Rwanda, all things being equal.... * Please see his contribution to Heather Strang and John Braithwaite, eds., Restorative Justice and Civil Society (2001): pp. 35-55. **Alison Des Forges and Timothy Longman, "Legal Responses to Genocide in Rwanda,' in Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein, eds., My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermatn of Mass Atrocity (2004): pp. 49-68...24 Oct Philippines Supreme Court Threatens Law Faculty With Contempt After Allegations of Judicial Plagiarism
Justice del Castillo had committed plagiarism and misuse of plagiarized works, holding that Justice del Castillo’s clerk/court researcher accidentally deleted the attributions, which could not have been detected since “the Microsoft word program does not have a function that raises an alarm when original materials are cut up or pruned.” The full text of the decision can be found here: http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2010/october2010/10-7-17-SC.htm 7. The newest member of the Court, Justice Lourdes Aranal-Sereno, strongly dissented along with (Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales) from the Court’s findings and showed why plagiarism and misrepresentation was committed...21 Sep Comparative Experiences of Women in the Judiciary
five women are members of the European Court of Justice, two as judges and three as advocates-general. Women account for eight out of eighteen judges on the International Criminal Court; one of them serves as that court’s first vice-president. I think it is interesting to consider Justice Ginsburg’s point about the comparative success of women in the judiciary across jurisdictions. She certainly is correct that the United States is not leading the way on this issue. Of course, until Justice O’Connor’s retirement we had two of nine justices who were...01 Sep How Not to Defend Transitional Justice Mechanisms
The blog Making Sense of Darfur has been hosting a symposium on Adam M. Smith’s book After Genocide: Bringing the Devil to Justice, in which the author argues — oversimplifying only slightly — that international criminal trials are always inferior to domestic trials and non-punitive accountability mechanisms. I have neither the time nor the inclination to address the book’s claims at length; interested readers should take a look at the critiques offered by Sarah Nouwen, Sadia al Imam, and Bridget Conley-Zilkic. I just want to highlight a claim that the...24 Jul Gacaca’s End and Its Legacy
demise, coincident with Rwandan criminal justice system reform initiatives, is motivated in part by the government’s efforts to make extradition to Kigali look like a more attractive option to Europeans harboring genocide suspects — not that gacaca is used for such suspects but general justice system appearances can be important). I noted, and academic literature has amply explored, the Frankenstein monster assemblage of a local, non-systematized, oral-tradition civil dispute mechanism (traditional gacaca) with a codified, state-centric criminal justice bureaucracy (what the Rwandan government has been operating). Clearly, traditional gacaca was...08 May Important New Book on the Limits of International Criminal Law
As Mark writes, “[i]nternational criminal justice largely is operationalized through criminal tribunals. Courtrooms have gained ascendancy through adversarial third-party adjudication, conducted in judicialized settings, and premised on a construction of the individual as the central unit of action.” Mark rejects this “liberal-legal” model of international criminal law; in his view –- and this is the central thesis of his book –- “the preference for criminalization has prompted a shortfall with regard to the consideration and deployment of other legal, regulatory, and transformative mechanisms in the quest for justice,” such as...14 Nov Guest Post: Bidding for Justice
...and attempt to outsource the cost of justice, as with Senegal’s claim it would delay the trial of former Chadian President Hissene Habre pending receipt of roughly $38 million for the trial. As unpleasant as those options sound, the alternatives seem even worse. Laudable though the trial was on many levels, Munyaneza clouds more than clarifies the road ahead for international criminal justice. Instead, the way forward requires an uncomfortable discussion on reassessing due process norms and how much justice the international community can afford or impunity it can tolerate....14 Feb RIP Justice Antonin Scalia: The Misunderstood Internationalist
Like many lawyers who study constitutional law, I was saddened when I heard last night of the unexpected death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The internet being what it is, commentators have already offered their quick takes on Scalia’s substantial and multifaceted jurisprudential legacy (indeed, I think we’ve already moved on to debating his replacement). Most of these analyses have been fair, but I have been a little irritated with the glib and mostly inaccurate descriptions of Justice Scalia’s attitude toward international law. For instance, Rosa Brooks writes...