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Speculation is rife on the eve of the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) expected to be released on the 4th of March 2009, about the issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudan’s President, Omar Al Bashir. Last year, chief ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo asked the court’s judges to indict Bashir for orchestrating [...]
Filed under: ICC, International Courts, International Criminal Law, international justice | 1 Comment »
Chicago Public Radio recently published an interview with Benjamin Ferencz, one of the chief prosecutors of the Nuremburg Trials, that is well worth listening to. At the young age of 27 Mr. Ferencz became the prosecutor in the so-called Einsatzgruppen Trial, where (between September 1947 and April 1948) 24 members of the Einsatzgruppen were tried. The [...]
Filed under: International Criminal Law, international justice, Web contents | Leave a Comment »
Institute for Human Rights and Business has recently published the draft report on Business, Human Rights and the Right to Water: Challenges, Dilemmas and Opportunities, Roundtable Consultative Report. The Reports attempts to ‘summarise the points of view of a group of individuals representing business, international organisations, and civil society who have contributed to issues pertaining [...]
Filed under: Corporations in International Law, Human Rights, human rights and business | 1 Comment »
I wanted to follow up on Gentian’s post on recent activity at the ICJ with a more detailed consideration of the judgment in the Case Concerning Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea delivered by the Court at the beginning of February. Although both Romania and Ukraine are a party to the 1982 United Nations Convention [...]
Filed under: International Court of Justice, Law of the sea, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
Africa is a continent where conflict is rife. Peace and security is arguably absent in many African states and human rights are not protected. The responsibility for ensuring peace and stability lies with the African Union (AU), at least at the regional level. It is a good to reflect on the provisions within the AU [...]
Filed under: African Union, Public International Law, Regional Human Rights Protection | Leave a Comment »
Jurist has an interesting article on the need of the Obama Administration to redefine the concept of “enemy combatant”. The article picks up a discussion that has been going on for the last couple of years and which has been characterized by a clash of different schools of dealing with international terrorism from the perspective [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International terrorism, Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
Elections at the ICJ. On 6 February 2009 Judge Hisashi Owada (Japan) was elected President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by his peers and Judge Peter Tomka (Slovakia) was elected Vice-President, each for a term of three years. Elections were also held for the Chamber of Summary Procedure and of the Budgetary and [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, ICJ, International Court of Justice, International Courts, international justice | Leave a Comment »
Having only recently considered the normative importance and weight of the provision in Article 15(c) of the European Refugee Qualification Directive (mentioned here and here), the following is a timely and, to a certain extent, also welcomed judicial instance. On 17 January the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice rendered its preliminary ruling [...]
Filed under: ECJ, EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, EU/EC Law, Human Rights | Leave a Comment »
Following discussions in relation to the legality of the armed conflict in Gaza and the alleged violations of international law by the two belligerents (see here, here and here), some of you might find Professor Sloane’s recent paper, titled “The Cost of Conflation: Preserving the Dualism of Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello in [...]
Filed under: ICC, International Courts, International Humanitarian Law, Public International Law, Publications, Scholarship | Leave a Comment »
Today marks the one year anniversary of Kosovo declaring independence from Serbia. In many ways, the first year has been a mix of fortunes and misfortunes. Most importantly, Kosovo has largely remained peaceful despite initial warnings that the declaration of independence would lead to unrest and further fighting in the area. Kosovo’s politicians, its population [...]
Filed under: EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, EU-Law, Public International Law, United Nations | Leave a Comment »
There are growing signs of discontent with the ‘Buy American’ clause in the USA’s financial stimulus bill – a stipulation that “any public building or public works project funded by the new stimulus package use only iron, steel and other manufactured goods produced in the United States.” It now appears that this part of the [...]
Filed under: Public International Law, World Trade Organization | Leave a Comment »
Today, on Tuesday 17 February at 9 p.m. the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) open their first trial (see the court schedule on the ECCC website). With a delay of several decades the first Khmer Rouge will be tried for his involvement in crimes against humanity committed under the Pol Pot regime, [...]
Filed under: Human Rights, International Courts, International Criminal Law, international justice, Public International Law | 1 Comment »
* This post was co-authored with Benjamin Agsteribbe, formerly of the University of Amsterdam, and currently a researcher at HaMoked – Center for the defence of the individual in East Jerusalem. —- Some of our, and others’, previous posts have taken to outline the main legal issues that arise of the recent declaration submitted by [...]
Filed under: ICC, International Courts, International Criminal Law, international justice, Law of Treaties, Middle East Crisis, Public International Law | 2 Comments »
A new student-run but peer-reviewed international law journal has been launched by the Institute for Public International and European Law of the Georg-August University Göttingen. The journal will be available online and will be published in English only. First issue is out and it looks very promising.
Filed under: literature, Public International Law, Publications, Scholarship | Leave a Comment »
The UK Home Office has issued a February 2009 Operational Guidance Note on Israel, Gaza and the West Bank setting out the main types of asylum claim, human rights claim and Humanitarian Protection claim (whether explicit or implied) that are expected to be submitted on behalf of individuals arriving to the UK from the region. [...]
Filed under: EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, EU/EC Law, International Humanitarian Law, Middle East Crisis, Public International Law | 1 Comment »
NY Times reports that judges at the ICC have now approved the arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan. We have previously blogged on the issue here and here. The decision has not yet been made public. It is the first time that he Court is seeking the arrest of an incumbent head [...]
Filed under: African Union, Human Rights, ICC, International Courts, International Criminal Law, international justice | 1 Comment »
Following Dominik’s post below with regard to the Prosecutor of the ICC launching a “preliminary analysis” into the fighting in Gaza and the applicability of the ICC Statute, it might be worth directing the attention of our readers to the website of the ICC where you can find the actual documents relating to this “preliminary [...]
Filed under: ICC, International Humanitarian Law, international justice, Middle East Crisis | 1 Comment »
It could be that we have not paid much attention to what has been going on in the “outside blogosphere” this year, but a number of new relevant and highly interesting international blogs have recently been launched. These include Aid Watch which asks critical questions of the international aid community and its affiliates, Environment and [...]
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In recent years we have begun to see some of Africa’s most notorious warlords being brought to trial – notably Charles Taylor and Thomas Lubanga. It now also appears that there is at least some chance one of the continent’s bloodiest tyrants – Mengistu Haile Mariam – will finally face justice. As Chairman of the [...]
Filed under: Public International Law | Leave a Comment »
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted on its recent 50th session a number of concluding observations concerning state parties’ reports under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In this way, the Committee observed in relation to the situation of the Democratic Republic of Congo that: The right to life [...]
Filed under: Human Rights | Leave a Comment »
I wanted to introduce a wonderful old but often forgotten book that is not about international law, but about instances law attempts to avoid. It is Czeslaw Milosz’s book, The seizure of power (Zdobycie Wladzy) about the transition from totalitarian Nazi regime to the Communist totalitarian government in the post-Second world war Poland. It describes the fictional story [...]
Filed under: Book review, literature, Public International Law | Tagged: literature | Leave a Comment »
The EU Observer reports that the European Commission and the Swedish government (which takes over the rotating EU presidency in July), are contemplating plans for strengthening political cooperation in the Baltic Sea region in an attempt to address the problem of serious pollution in the area as well as the issue of energy supplies to [...]
Filed under: EC-Law, Environmental Law, EU/EC Law, International Environmental Law | Leave a Comment »
White phosphorous has become well-known in recent years, mainly as a result of the controversy surrounding its use during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the recent conflicts between Israel and Hizbollah and Hamas. It is primarily a smokescreen-producing agent, used to conceal troop movements, and is also a means of illuminating the [...]
Filed under: International Humanitarian Law, Middle East Crisis, Non Governmental Organizations, Public International Law | 9 Comments »
Our sincere thanks to the members of Masters in Criminal Justice for voting International Law Observer one of the top 50 foreign policy blogs (and one of only three under the category of international law).
Filed under: Blogroll, Web contents | Leave a Comment »
