Jacob Cogan has just let us know that he is restarting his blog, the International Law Reporter, after a three month break. Those are welcome news! ILR has been an invaluable resource, and many thanks are due to Jacob for his effort, as well as to Don Anton who has recently started his weekly international law digest.

On a different note, the Disobeying the Security Council book discussion will start tomorrow, due to the volume of posts today.

Kevin Heller sends on this very interesting call for papers – it’s bound to be an excellent symposium.

THE EICHMANN TRIAL AT 50

A two-day international symposium to discuss one of the most important trials of the 20^th Century

Melbourne Law School

14-15 October 2011

Presented by The Asia Pacific Centre for Military Law, Melbourne Law School, and supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant

Organizers: Kevin Jon Heller & Gerry Simpson

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline for Abstracts: 15 June 2011

On 11 April 1961, the trial of Adolf Eichmann began in the District Court of Jerusalem.  The trial was broadcast internationally, the first televised trial in the history of television, drawing millions of viewers around the world.  Eight months later, after the testimony of nearly 100 witnesses had changed perceptions of the Holocaust forever, the court convicted Eichmann and sentenced him to death.  Five months after that, Eichmann was hanged and his ashes were scattered at sea, bringing to a close one of the most important trials of the 20^th century.

2011 marks the 50^th anniversary of the Eichmann trial.  The trial has had a profound impact on a variety of academic disciplines – law, philosophy, literary theory, political science, and history, to name only a few – yet scholars in those disciplines have rarely interacted with each other.  The goal of symposium is to bridge that gap by bringing together scholars who have nothing in common other than a shared interest in the trial.  The organizers thus encourage proposals from any discipline on any topic related to Eichmann.

The symposium will be held over two days.  We regret we cannot offer travel or accommodation expenses, but lunches and teas (morning and afternoon) will be provided.  A speakers’ dinner will be held on the evening of the 14th and an informal dinner on the 15th for those who remain in town.

The symposium is the third of four symposia being held as part of the Australian Research Council-funded project “Invoking Humanity: A History of War Crimes Trials.”  The organizers intend to publish a selection of papers presented at the symposium as an edited book, although there will be no obligation to publish.  Conversely, the organizers are happy to consider contributions to the book from scholars who are unable to attend the symposium.

If you are interested in presenting a paper at the symposium or contributing to the planned book, please send a 300-500 word abstract and a short C.V. no later than 15 June 2011 to Kevin Jon Heller, c/o Cathy Hutton, the APCML Administrator (c.hutton {at} unimelb.edu(.)au).  Doctoral students are welcome to submit abstracts.  Participants will be selected by July 1 to facilitate travel plans.

Questions about the symposium should be directed to Kevin at kheller {at} unimelb.edu(.)au.

The report of the Panel of Experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to investigate the circumstances of the conclusion the Sri Lanka war has been made public today – full report here, BBC News article here. The report was disclosed to the Sri Lankan government a few weeks ago; regrettably and quite predictably, the government already dismissed it as incorrect and biased. As in many other cases of conflict and atrocities inspired by ethnic nationalism, several competing versions of reality have already emerged. While the government claims that it pursued a policy of zero civilian casualties, the Panel report paints a very different picture, finding widespread violations of international human rights and humanitarian law on both sides, but particularly on that of the government.

On the legal side of things, one of the appointed experts was the well-respected international lawyer Steve Ratner, professor of international law at the University of Michigan Law School. The report’s discussion of the applicable law and legal findings, at p. 52 et seq, seem to me to be more or less watertight. There are no flights of fancy here; even when broad or progressive, the legal findings are appropriately cautious when caution is warranted (e.g. as to whether non-state actors are bound by human rights, at para. 188).

The Panel has recommended that the Secretary-General establish an independent international investigative mechanism; he has refused to do so absent the consent of the Sri Lankan government or action by other member states. The Sri Lankan conflict has been overshadowed by other events and the international community has been remarkably passive with regard to the war crimes committed in its conclusion. Hopefully this report will not be the end of the matter.

(I would have quoted a number of paragraphs from the report, but whoever made that PDF disabled the copy and paste functions, which is really stupid beyond belief. I do hope somebody fixes that.)

UPDATE: Dov Jacobs has most helpfully created a quotable version of the report, which is available here: http://www.mediafire.com/?tl6szs1uo2991vx

The Military Law and the Law of War Review / Revue de Droit Militaire et de Droit de la Guerre is a journal specialised in matters of interest for both civilian and military legal advisors as well as legal scholars and academics.  It is among the oldest publications at the international level in the areas of military/security law and the law of war.  For decades, the Review has been an important forum of discussion for scholars and practitioners from all over the world.

On the occasion of the 50^th Anniversary of its foundation, a dedicated issue of the Review’s 2011 Volume will deal with ‘The Role and Responsibilities of Legal Advisors in the Armed Forces: Evolution and Present Trends’. Another issue of the 2011 Volume will mostly concern the current military operations in Libya.

The Role and Responsibilities of Legal Advisors in the Armed Forces: Evolution and Present Trends

Articles related to this topic should in principle be between 2500 and 6000 words long (footnotes included) and should be submitted by 15 July 2011 at the latest.  The Editorial Board welcomes in particular contributions from current/former civilian/military legal advisors who have experience in this field.  Contributions should focus on legal questions associated with the conduct of operations (taking jus in bello and international human rights law, as applicable, duly into account) and may embrace one or more of the strategic, operational, or tactical level perspectives.

The Editorial Board will select papers for publication in The Military Law and the Law of War Review by 31 August 2011.

Selected papers may also be circulated as background readings at the International Conference on Military Justice, to be held in Rhodes (Greece) from 28 September 2011 to 2 October 2011, organized by the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War.  This conference will see the organization of separate special panel on ‘The Role and Responsibilities of Legal Advisors in the Armed Forces’.  Selected authors will receive an invitation to attend this conference, including the special panel, and may be approached to present their paper to the participants.

This initiative is intended to be the starting point for a continuing global dialogue on the same topic, under the auspices of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, with a view to promoting the rule of law worldwide.  It is understood that this dialogue will also benefit from contributions addressing legal aspects of cooperation between armed forces and civilian government agencies as well as with private sector entities (such as contractors and non-governmental organizations).

Military Operations in Libya

Articles discussing legal questions associated with the current military operations in Libya should be submitted by 15 September 2011.  The Editorial Board welcomes brief contributions (about 3000 words – footnotes excluded) as well as larger contributions (about 6500 words – footnotes excluded) from practitioners and scholars.  Focus areas may include – but are not limited to – questions regarding the interpretation and application of Chapter VII of the UN Charter (e.g. the measures carried in the framework of the ‘No-Fly Zone Plus’ and the embargo operations), including in relation to the Responsibility to Protect (in the context of which recent UNSC Resolutions regarding Cote d’Ivoire may also be considered relevant); the manner in which Balkans/Rwanda Lessons Learned have been taken into account in the decision-making process concerning UNSCRs 1970 and 1973; the conduct of operations; and the legal ramifications of the recognition of and cooperation with the Libyan insurgency.

The Editorial Board will select papers for publication in The Military Law and the Law of War Review by 1 November 2011.

The Editorial Board may be contacted at: soc-mil-law {at} scarlet(.)be

Seow Zhixiang is an officer in the Singapore Legal Service. The views here are his own.

 The High Court of Singapore has recently delivered its grounds of decision in a case which considers the impact of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran in an admiralty context. The Sahand [2011] SGHC 27 (available at Singapore Law Watch) involved three merchant vessels – the Sahand, the Tuchal and the Sabalan – which were owned by German companies and arrested in Singapore waters. The German companies were wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), the state shipping line of Iran. Certain IRISL entities are subject to the asset freeze imposed by the UNSC on Iranian entities, and the Sahand case illustrates the difficulties that may arise in interpreting the broad language of the relevant resolutions for the purposes of applying them to specific cases, and in identifying links to expressly sanctioned entities. The case also  gives an idea of the disruptive effect that sanctions may have on commercial activities, both by a sanctioned entity and those dealing with it.  These points are not only relevant to the UNSC resolutions on Iran, but also to other similarly worded sanctions.

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Wanted Dead or Alive? The Use of Unmanned Drones in Current Conflicts as a Legal Challenge

Since his inauguration, US President Barack Obama has ordered over 120 drone attacks on Pakistani territory. Targeted killings and the use of drones by the US administration raise serious questions of international law. Are the killings covered by the right to self-defense under the UN Charter? Is the lack of a judicial trial justified under human rights law? Are states allowed to concede the right to kill to other states? These are just a few of the numerous questions you can address in your essay. We are looking forward to your ideas!

Deadline: 29 July 2011.
Max. word count: 3 000 words (without footnotes).

If you would like to write an article or are already working on the subject, send in your essay! The best article will be published in the Goettingen Journal of International Law – GoJIL 3 (2011). If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at info {at} gojil(.)eu!

The Third ILDC Colloquium on ‘Domestic Courts as Agents of Legal Development’ is to be held in Glasgow on 19 and 20 May 2011. The Third ILDC Colloquium, part of COST Action 0602 on International Law in Domestic Courts, is organized by the Amsterdam Center for International Law of the University of Amsterdam and the School of Law of the University of Glasgow.

The Colloquium will address the function of domestic courts as agents for the development of international law, will aim to give a detailed account of domestic court influence on international law, and to help clarify the general problem of how to situate domestic courts within the international law-making process.

Registration is open, and those interested can find the Colloquium’s programme, as well as information about registration and accommodation on the Colloquium’s website.

The Research Project on Shared Responsibility in International Law (SHARES) is pleased to announce the official launch of the SHARES website: www.sharesproject.nl.

The website includes a detailed description of the SHARES project and its project members. The website also features news, events, publications, blog posts and resources on shared responsibility in international law.

The ambition of the SHARES project is to examine an unexplored and largely unrecognized problem: the allocation of international responsibilities among multiple states and other actors. It seeks to uncover the nature and extent of the problem of sharing responsibility in an increasingly interdependent and heterogeneous international legal order. SHARES will therefore offer new concepts, principles and perspectives for understanding how the international legal order may deal with shared responsibilities.

The SHARES project is a research project of the Amsterdam Center for International Law, led by Professor André Nollkaemper, and funded by the European Research Council.

Antonios Tzanakopoulos is Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Glasgow.

In this post I analyse the legal basis for the current use of force by the UN and France in Côte d’Ivoire, examining how that use of force impacts the status and exceptions of the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the Charter and in customary law. In particular, I want to discuss the scope of the authorizations by the UN Security Council to use force, comparing the situation in Côte d’Ivoire with the on-going situation in Libya. The similarity between the two cases is more obvious than has been observed, as in both cases the UN has authorized the use of force in order to protect civilians, and in both cases those authorised by the Security Council to use force have directed that force against one side in an ongoing civil war, including targeting buildings belonging to the leader of that side who claims to be head of State (Col. Gaddafi & Laurent Gbagbo, see here and here). In both cases, questions have arisen as to the scope of the mandate and to whether recent uses of force overstep that mandate (see here with regard to Côte d’Ivoire).

I. The History of the Conflict in Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire has been in a state of turmoil since an attempted coup led to the country being split into southern areas, controlled by the government, and northern areas, controlled by rebels, in 2002. At the time, France used force in Côte d’Ivoire, allegedly to protect its nationals in the country, but was accused by both the government and the insurgents as taking sides (BBC). An eventual cease-fire in 2003 proved to be fragile, with the rebels refusing to disarm, and the French intervening in response to government attacks on French troops stationed in Côte d’Ivoire in 2004. ECOWAS, AU, and UN efforts facilitated an agreement between the factions, and elections were scheduled to take place in 2005 (see SCRs 1464 [2003] and 1479 [2003]). These kept being postponed due to the precarious security, but were finally held in November 2010.

Ouattara, Gbagbo’s rival, won the very close election, the results of which were certified by the UN (see SCR 1765 [2007] para 6), and accepted by the EU, the AU, ECOWAS, and most States that cared to form an opinion (with the notable exception of Angola and Lebanon). However, Gbagbo refused to accept defeat (see for further background Jean d’Aspremont’s excellent post). In the aftermath of the election, both leaders were inaugurated in separate ceremonies, and claimed to be the President of Côte d’Ivoire. Since there seemed to be no forthcoming solution in the impasse, the AU gave Gbagbo an ultimatum, inviting him to hand over power to Ouattara by 24 March, while the EU, the US, and ECOWAS imposed sanctions on Côte d’Ivoire, a move welcomed by the UN Security Council (see SCR 1962 [2010] preamble). When the ultimatum expired with Gbagbo still refusing to leave, pro-Ouattara forces marched from their strongholds in the north towards Abidjan to seize power by force. They are now in Abidjan, having taken over most of the rest of the country, and are laying siege to the Presidential compound, where Gbagbo has taken refuge. (more…)

Today the Court by 10 votes to 6 upheld a preliminary objection by the Russian Federation that it lacked jurisdiction in its dispute under CERD with Georgia, as Georgia failed to exhaust a preliminary requirement under Art. 22 CERD to attempt to resolve the dispute by negotiation before submitting it to the ICJ. The press release and summary are available here; the judgment will be available shortly.  The Court in effect overturned its (provisional) earlier finding in its provisional measures decision a few years back that Art. 22 did not impose such an obligation. In part at least due to changes regarding the composition of the bench, the erstwhile majority became the minority. I’m sure the dissenting opinions will be well worth a read.