Search: kony 2012
03 May Forget the Security Council: The General Assembly Can Admit Palestine
...admission. The Article 4(1) requirement of statehood would not be an obstacle for Palestine. In 2012, 138 states voted in the General Assembly to say that Palestine is a state, while only nine voted against. The Charter has no procedure to override a General Assembly resolution to admit a state. A favorable vote in the General Assembly would make Palestine a member state. [The author’s analysis is based on his article Who Admits New Members to the United Nations (Think Twice before You Answer , George Washington International Law Review,...19 Dec Bali High?
[Dan Bodansky is the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at the University of Georgia Law School and a leading expert on climate change regulation. He participated in the Bali meeting and contributed this report to Opinio Juris.] Only in the context of the climate negotiations could Bali be considered a “breakthrough,” as the press is reporting. In the past year, concerns about climate change have led to Nobel prizes, Academy Awards, and changes in governments; but the UNFCCC...
17 Apr Strategies for Appealing the Afghanistan Decision
...of Kenya against the ‘Decision on the Request for Assistance Submitted on Behalf of the Government of the Republic of Kenya Pursuant to Article 93(10) of the Statute and Rule 194 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence'”, ICC-01/09-78, 10 August 2011, paras. 15-16; Prosecutor v. Gaddafi and Al-Senussi, ICC A. Ch., Decision on the admissibility of the “Appeal Against Decision on Application Under Rule 103” of Ms Mishana Hosseinioun of 7 February 2012, ICC-01/11-01/11-74, 9 March 2012, para. 10). That said, I think it might be worthwhile for the...15 May The Fog of Technology and International Law
...– Giovanni Lo Porto. As President Obama himself announced, the United States inadvertently killed Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein, a USAID contractor, as part of a January drone strike targeting an al Qaeda compound in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Both aid workers were Al Qaeda hostages; Lo Porto had been kidnapped in 2012, while Weinstein was abducted in 2011. The story made global headlines for Obama’s apology that the United States had not realized these hostages were hidden on-site, and thus their deaths were a tragic mistake: As President and...
03 Dec Women in International Law: A Vanishing Act?
...the vice-presidency currently held by Judge Xue Hanqin of China. Judges Hanqin and Donoghue were elected in 2010, and Judge Sebutinde in 2012. Of the one hundred and eight ICJ judges past and present, there have been only four women, including Dame Rosalyn Higgins, who was on the bench from 1995 till 2006. At the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), of the twenty-one members currently, three are women. Of the forty-six members since 1996, the number of women remains static: Judge Elsa Kelly of Argentina (from...16 Dec Guest Post: General Court of the European Union annuls the EU-Morocco Free Trade Agreement on Human Rights Grounds but Forgets Self-Determination
...blog posts by David Hart here and Geraldo Vidigal here. The claim was brought by Frente Polisario (the internationally recognised interlocutor of the Saharawi people) against Council Decision 2012/497/UE of 8 March 2012. The original Council decision concerned an agreement between the EU and Morocco over reciprocal liberalisation measures on agricultural products, processed agricultural products, fish and fishery products. The judgement is important for two main reasons. First, the Court found the case admissible, taking a stance on the issue of the legal personality of Frente Polisario. Second, on the...28 Jun ILO Tribunal Finds Against ICC in the Libya Detention Debacle
This is a major development, one that I hope does not get lost in the welter of commentary on the Bemba acquittal. If you recall, in June 2012 the Libyan government detained four ICC officials who were in Zintan on official Court business: Melinda Taylor from the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD), who had been provisionally appointed Saif Gaddafi’s defence counsel; two officials from the Registry; and a translator, Helene Assaf. Libya charged all four with various criminal offences and ultimately detained them for 27 days. About...15 Oct Don’t Cry for the World’s Greatest Sovereign Deadbeat
...commercial court in Accra has refused Argentina’s effort to lift an injunction preventing ARA Libertad from leaving Ghana, holding that Argentina’s bonds waived applicable sovereign immunity defenses. Indeed, most courts seem to have agreed that Argentina has indeed waived its immunity defenses. Here is an excerpt of their waiver, as described in a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision: (E.M. Ltd. V. Republic of Argentina (2d Cir. Aug. 20, 2012) To the extent the Republic [of Argentina] or any of its revenues, assets or properties shall...17 Nov The Legality of Pardons in Latin America (Part II)
...part of international criminal law as retribution, and it will likely constitute another crossroads for the Court in the near future. In 2012, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (E/2012/51) explored “whether the continued incarceration of older persons is a disproportionately severe punishment”, stating that “[c]onsidering the purposes of punishment –retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation- there may be little justification for many older persons’ continued incarceration in the prison system in certain instances” and that “alternative forms of punishment may be preferable based on the financial, practical, and...
07 May Reassuring the Inviolability of Diplomatic Premises: Worrying Trends from Ecuador to Syria
...two decades in prosecuting the “War on Terror” against non-state actors. In the 2014 air campaign against ISIL, the United States endorsed the “unwilling or unable” doctrine of self-defence, in which action against a non-state threat is permissible so long as the state in which the non-state actor resides is either “unwilling” or “unable” to suppress the threat without external intervention. In 2012, Sir Daniel Bethlehem encapsulated these operational standards in a series of principles that has come to be known as the “Bethlehem Doctrine.” It states that the imminence...