Go On! "ICC @ 10" in St. Louis (live webcast, too)

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

Looking forward to seeing many 'Grrls and colleagues at "The International Criminal Court at 10," a conference to be held next Sunday and Monday, at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri.
The full program lists all events, available on both days via live webcast here. Highlights include:

Sunday, November 11
► Choreographer Monika Weiss presents "a public performance and sound composition devoted to commemoration of the victims of war crimes and of other globally perpetuated atrocities."
► Address by Stephen J. Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large, Office of Global Criminal Justice, U.S. Department of State
► Lecture by ICC Judge Hans-Peter Kaul

Monday, November 12
► "Ten Years of Trial Proceedings at the International Criminal Court."
Address by ICC Judge Joyce Aluoch, President of the Trial Division
► Panel on "Building the Institution: Challenges and Opportunities."
Speakers: David Crane, Syracuse Law; Sara Criscitelli, Prosecutions Coordinator, ICC Office of the Prosecutor; Richard Dicker, Human Rights Watch; Charles Jalloh, Pittsburgh Law; and Allen Weiner, Stanford Law. Moderator will be IntLawGrrls contributor Leila Nadya Sadat, Washington University Law and Director of its Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. Kudos to Leila for organizing this event.
► Panel on "The Early Jurisprudence of the Court."
Speakers: yours truly, Diane Marie Amann, Georgia Law; IntLawGrrls contributor Margaret M. deGuzman, Temple University Beasley School of Law; and William Schabas, Middlesex Law. Moderated by Michael Kelly, Creighton Law.
► "Reflections on International Criminal Justice: Past, Present and Future His Excellency," address by Hans Corell, former Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and U.N. Legal Counsel
► Roundtable on "The United States and the ICC in the Decades Ahead."
Speakers: Elizabeth Andersen, American Society of International Law; Christopher "Kip" Hale, ABA Center for Human Rights; Jordan Paust, Houston Law; John Washburn, American Coalition for the International Criminal Court; and IntLawGrrls contributor Ruth Wedgwood, Johns Hopkins. Moderated by Melissa Waters, Washington University Law.
► Panel on "Imagining Future Directions of the Court."
Speakers: IntLawGrrls contributor Linda Carter, Pacific-McGeorge Law; David Scheffer, Northwestern Law; and Noah Weisbord, Florida International University Law. Moderated by William Schabas, Middlesex Law.
Cosponsors include the American Branch of the International Law Association, the American Society of International Law, and the International Association of Penal Law.
Details and registration here.

Go On! The Broadway opening of International Law Weekend 2012, next week in New York City

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

I'm pleased to welcome all IntLawGrrls readers to next week's International Law Weekend 2012, sponsored by the American Branch of the International Law Association, for which I serve as President.
The weekend opens at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, October 25, with a blazing panel on China -- with former U.S. Ambassador to China Winston Lord, NYU Law School human rights expert Jerome Cohen, China environmental expert Liz Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations, and legal eagle John Crowley of Davis, Polk and Wardwell -- followed by a free cocktail reception. All these events will be at at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 42 West 44th Street.
As detailed in the full program, ILW 2012 continues 9 a.m. Friday, October 2,6 at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham Law School, 140 West 62nd Street. Highlights among the host of panels:

► A Conversation with famed former SDNY U.S. Attorney and Debevoise litigation chief, Mary Jo White, who indicted Bin Laden and pursued Siemens for foreign corrupt practices;
► A talk by the chief Yugoslav tribunal war crimes judge Ted Meron;
► A two-part series on ICSID investment arbitration with ICSID secretary general Meg Kinnear;
► A talk by Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng.
The clinch continues on Saturday with discussions of: the Alien Tort Statute; the Israeli-Iranian crisis and the nature of anticipatory self-defense; the cholera scandal in Haiti, where blame has been cast in the direction of U.N. peacekeepers; the prosecution of sexual violence in international law; intellectual property rights enforcement; sports law; offshore tax havens and transfer pricing; the situation in Egypt; Islamic finance; the law of outer space; and a career-path fair.
Many IntLawGrrls contributors are among the panelists.
The event is supported by 25 law schools and graduate law programs, as well as by blue chip law firms, bar associations, and law publishers. It is free for all students and members of the American Branch and our many meeting co-sponsors; $70 package deal for practitioners and law faculty who join the International Law Association and wish to attend the conference; and $50 for members of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
The full program is here. Registration is available here. See you there!

'Grrls, others on challenge in ICC trial of mass rape

Can the International Criminal Court sustain a conviction for the underlying crime of mass rape without testimony from victims?
This question – labeled "The Mass Rape Issue" – is currently addressed on the Human Rights & International Criminal Law Forum. Included are expert opinions from 3 IntLawGrrls contributors – Kelly Askin (Open Society Justice Initiative), Ruth Wedgwood (Johns Hopkins University) and yours truly, Anne-Marie de Brouwer (Tilburg University) – along with Catharine MacKinnon, Michigan Law Professor and ICC Gender Advisor, and Northwestern Sociology & Law Professor John Hagan.
According to the Forum's website:

'This Forum is run by Dr. Richard H. Steinberg of the Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Project at UCLA School of Law with the support of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The purpose of the Forum is to allow members of the legal community, governments, academics, and others to debate complex issues of international criminal law faced by the Office of the Prosecutor in the course of its work at the ICC. Membership and participation in this Forum are open to everyone. We welcome you to express your opinion, and we request a civil debate which directly addresses the legal issue set forth in the current question....
'The Forum will deal with one substantive legal issue at a time in the form of a question – we anticipate addressing five questions a year. The questions are developed jointly by the ICC OTP and UCLA Law. Some of the world’s preeminent legal experts on the issue raised by the questions will be invited to give their opinions. The relevant decisions of the Prosecutor or the Judges of the ICC will also be included. Those opinions, in turn, provide a strong foundation for further online discussion.'

You can participate in the discussion by going to the Forum’s website here.

Go On! ICC @ 10 @ Stanford Law

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

A conference entitled ICC Turns Ten: Reviewing the Past, Assessing the Future will be held on Friday, May 11, 2012, at Stanford Law School in California.
Organizers write:

'2012 marks the ten-year anniversary of the existence of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This significant milestone provides an opportunity to review and discuss the work of the ICC—its impact, successes and challenges over the past decade—with a view to anticipating what can the Court expect in the next decade, including with regard to ICC-US relations.'

Confirmed speakers include ICC Vice President Cuno Jakob Tarfusser; ICC Registrar Silvana Arbia;
Shamila Batohi, Senior Legal Advisor of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor; Stephen J. Rapp, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large, Office of Global Criminal Justice; former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz; Michael S. Greco, Chair, American Bar Association Center for Human Rights; David Kay, UCLA); Allen Weiner, Stanford; and IntLawGrrls contributor Ruth Wedgwood, John Hopkins.
Online registration here; details here.

Work On! ILW 2012 proposals sought

On! is an occasional item about workshops, roundtables, and other fora)

As I did in a post this time last year, wearing my hat as President of the American Branch of the International Law Association, I write to welcome proposals for International Law Weekend 2012.
This premier international law event of the fall season will be held in New York City, on October 25 at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and on October 26 and 27 at Fordham Law School. Cosponsoring along with ABILA is the International Law Students Association.
The overall theme of ILW 2012 is Ideas, Institutions, and Interests – Dynamics of Change in International Law. As detailed in our call for papers:

'The unifying theme for this year’s meeting is to explore the mechanisms of change in international law. Panels may focus on key regions undergoing particularly dramatic change, for instance in the Middle East or China, and subject matter areas undergoing rapid change, such as tariffs and trade, human rights and humanitarian intervention, immigration, labor, public health, sustainable development and the environment.'

We expect an audience that will include practitioners, professors, UN diplomats, business leaders, federal and state government officials, NGO leaders, writers, journalists, and interested citizens.
This year, we plan to have a broad array of public international law topics, but will also have dedicated tracks of private international law topics in each program slot. Thus, we welcome suggestions of cutting-edge issues in the international aspects of corporate, tax, securities, and investment law, as well as international arbitration and other forms of international dispute resolution. Equally welcome are topics in public international law and institutions, including issues regarding the United Nations, human rights, peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention, arms control, the development of regional and sub-regional organizations, etc.
We also encourage suggestions of varied formats, such as debates, roundtables, lectures, and break-out groups, as well as the usual practice of panel presentations.
You and your colleagues are invited to submit proposals online for panels, roundtables, debates, and lectures, on issues in public and private law, no later than April 13, 2012. How-to details and the online submission form are set forth in the full call for papers.
Serving with me on the 2012 ILW Program Committee are: Steve Hammond, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP; Nikolai B. Krylov, Winston & Strawn LLP; Vivian Shen, International Law Students Association; Mark R. Shulman, Pace Law School; and Michael Shewchuk, U.N. Office of Legal Affairs.

Go On! ILW 2011

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

Next month will see the 90th annual meeting of the American Branch of the International Law Association, for which IntLawGrrls alumna Ruth Wedgwood serves as President.
The meeting, of course, is International Law Weekend 2011, to be held the 4th weekend in October in New York: events on Thursday, October 20, will take place at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; on October 21 and 22, and at Fordham University School of Law.
Co-chairing the conference are Fordham Law Professor Martin S. Flaherty, Sahra Diament of the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs, and Jill Schmieder Hereau of the cosponsoring International Law Students Association.
Organizers write that the conference, themed International Law and National Politics,

will explore the intersection of international rules and norms and domestic politics and policymaking. To what extent do international standards influence the application and interpretation of national law including complementary or countervailing policies sought by domestic policymakers, non-governmental actors and/or civil society? Expert panels and discussion sessions will examine these and other issues with regard to such diverse areas as human rights and humanitarian intervention, national security, immigration, trade, labor, health care and the environment.

Delighted to see numerous IntLawGrrls contributors on the program: ABILA Vice President Valerie Epps (Suffolk), Chimène Keitner (California-Hastings), Molly Beutz Land (New York Law School), Margaret E. McGuinness (St. John's), Barbara Stark (Hofstra), Jennifer Trahan (NYU), and, of course, ABILA President Ruth Wedgwood (Johns Hopkins).
Registration for the conference, which is free to members of cosponsoring organizations, is here; full program details are here.

Join ILA's American Branch

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Ruth Wedgwood, who contributes this guest post)

Apart from the diversions of International Law Weekend in New York City October 20-22, 2011, which I described in a post last week, and International Law Weekend MidWest, to be held on September 9, 2011,
we at the International Law Association, American Branch -- sponsor of the International Law Weekends -- would like to invite you to consider becoming a formal member.
Apart from these annual conference activities, the practitioners, academics and diplomats who belong to the American Branch are actively engaged in drafting projects and studies, together with members from the 45 other states that belong to the Association.
The studies of the ILA -- bearing as they do the unique authority of a group founded in 1873, that has truly international membership and international exchanges of views -- are enormously influential. An example is the study by Maurice Mendelson QC on customary international law, which has been widely cited by courts, including the International Court of Justice, and by academic commentators.
Over 25 members of the American Branch of the ILA have recently served on these international committees, including:
► IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Barbara Stark (left), Professor of Law at Hofstra, as chair of the ILA International Family Law committee;
► Christina M. Cerna, Principal Human Rights Specialist at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as chair of the ILA International Human Rights committee;
► NYU Law Professor Linda J. Silberman, as a U.S. member of the ILA International Civil Litigation committee; and
► Duke Lecturing Fellow Coalter G. Lathrop, as rapporteur of the Law of the Sea Baselines.
Women have played a major role in the organization in other respects, with:
► Professor Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics as the current headquarters director of studies;
► Professor Catherine Kessedjian of the University of Paris as chair of the International Civil Litigation committee; and
► Professor Laurence Boisson de Chazournes (right) of the Unversity of Geneva as co-chair of the Practice and Procedure of International Tribunals committee.
There are also study committees of the American Branch itself, and its studies are published both in the biennial proceedings of the Branch and will soon be published on the web as well. The American Branch director of studies is IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Andrea K. Bjorklund (left), Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis.
Membership is a value-proposition, with lots of opportunity to break outside the bubble of American views of international Law. Besides, the next Biennial ILA meeting in August 2012 is in Sofia, Bulgaria, the pearl of the Black Sea. The 2014 meeting is set to be held in Japan, and the 2016 meeting in Washington, D.C.
For more information, contact yours truly, Ruth Wedgwood, President of the American Branch of the ILA, at rwedgwood@jhu.edu. Or visit the American Branch website for full details on membership.
We look forward to your participation!

Guest Blogger: Ruth Wedgwood

We at IntLawGrrls are honored to welcome Ruth Wedgwood (left) as today's guest blogger.
Ruth is the Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy and the Director of the International Law and Organizations Program at SAIS, the Washington, D.C.-based Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University.
In addition to teaching at SAIS, Ruth has been a Professor at Yale Law School, a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), Berlin Prize Fellow of the American Academy, and Charles H. Stockton Professor at the U.S. Naval War College.
From 2002 to 2010 she was a member of the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which monitors state compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; she's also been an independent expert for International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Ruth has served on the Advisory Committee on International Law of the U.S. Department of State, on the Defense Policy Board, and on the CIA Historical Review Panel. She was a U.S. public delegate to Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to the Wehrkunde Munich Security Conference. Among many other professional achievements, she is a founding member of Davos World Economic Forum Council on International Law, and has served as a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, as a Vice President of the American Society of International Law, on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law, as Director of Studies at the Hague Academy for International Law. Currently she is President of the American Branch of the International Law Association; her guest post below seeks participation in and proposals for sessions at ABILA's next annual meeting.
After earning her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was Executive Editor of the Yale Law Journal, Ruth served as law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court. She was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York before entering academia.
Ruth chooses to honor her great-grandmother, Belle Hamer, who, Ruth writes,

taught school in a one-room school house on the Olympic Peninsula in late 1800s, before Washington was a state ... hardly world historical, but my kind of gal ...

(credit for photo of a circa 1904 one-room schoolhouse in Port Angeles, largest city on the peninsula) Today Hamer joins IntLawGrrls' other foremothers in the list just below our "visiting from..." map at right.

Heartfelt welcome!

Go On! ILW 2011 proposals sought

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this Go On! guest post)

As President of the American Branch of the International Law Association, it's my pleasure to call for panel proposals for International Law Weekend, the annual New York-based meeting that we cohost with the International Law Students Association. This year's meeting will be held October 20-22, 2011, in conjunction with the 90th annual meeting of the American Branch. ILW 2011 will bring together hundreds of legal practitioners, professors, U.N. diplomats, experts from government, NGOs and private industry, and students. It will feature lively and contentious panels, distinguished speakers, and delicious receptions.
The overall theme of ILW 2011 is “International Law and National Politics.”
This year’s three-day conference will focus on issues arising from the interplay and intersection of international rules and norms and domestic politics and policymaking. For example:

To what extent do international standards influence the application and interpretation of national law including complimentary or contrary policies sought by domestic policymakers, non-governmental actors and/or civil society?

Expert panels and discussion sessions will examine these and other issues with regard to such diverse areas as human rights and humanitarian intervention, national security, immigration, trade, labor, health care, and the environment.
Though this is the primary focus of the conference, other inventive ideas and proposals, especially arising from current events, are always welcome for consideration as well.
The Co-Chairs of ILW 2011 are Martin S. Flaherty, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School, mflaherty17@yahoo.com, Sahra Diament of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, diament@un.org, and Jill Schmieder Hereau, Program Coordinator at the International Law Students Association, jshereau@ilsa.org.
The Co-Chairs invite proposals for panels for ILW 2011. Please submit proposals by email to each of the Co-Chairs no later than Wednesday, May 4, 2011. Please also submit a copy of your proposal to me, Ruth Wedgwood, at rwedgwood@jhu.edu and to Executive Committee Chairman John E. Noyes at jen@cwsl.edu.
The proposals should be structured for 90-minute panels, and should:
►Include a formal title, a brief description of the subjects to be covered (no more than 75 words), and the names, titles, and affiliations of the panel chair and three or four likely speakers, with their contact information.
► Describe the format envisaged (point-counterpoint, roundtable, or other). One of the objectives of ILW 2011 is to promote a dialogue among scholars and practitioners from across the legal spectrum, so whenever possible, panels should include presentations of divergent views. In addition, interactive discussions and moderated roundtables are welcome, rather than the traditional format of reading papers.
The inclusion of a broad range of speakers, including lawyers from the United Nations, diplomats from U.N. missions, private practitioners, government regulatory experts and experts from industry are welcome, quite apart from the usual broad range of academic writers and speakers. We seek, above all else, informative and interesting debate.

"Benevolent" Dictator Kagame?

Paul Kagame (left) has been newly re-elected President of Rwanda with 93% of the vote.
Despite that suspiciously high number, government electoral officials reported that the process functioned properly, without irregularities.
It is hard to cry foul -- except that no one else was allowed to compete.
Leading up to the election, all signs pointed to serious political repression. Opposition candidates and supporters were arrested for holding what was deemed an illegal rally. Moreover, the suspension of newspapers, the removal of a human rights researcher from the country, and the restructuring of military leadership all pointed to a regime consolidating power before the election. Some recent incidents of violence -- the attempted killing of an exiled Rwandan general, killing of the vice president of the Democratic Green Party, and the killing of a journalist -- have been attributed to Kagame's government. (Recall too the subject of a recent guest post, the arrest and detention of a U.S. attorney who was helping a would-be Kagame electoral opponent.)
Yesterday, in an interview with National Public Radio, Kagame denied allegations of impropriety. The interview was a troubling window into Kagame's administration, one in which nearly anything can be done with impunity, a lesson that U.N. Human Rights Committee member Ruth Wedgood, in an EJIL Talk! commentary posted on Sunday, has argued was learned as a result of

the West's failure to address Tutsi violations of the laws of war.

Responding in the NPR interview to criticism over the lack of opposition participation in the election, Kagame implied that there had been no opposition at all, or perhaps that the participation of Rwandan citizens in the electoral process did away with the need for organized political opposition. He said:

Well we've had a lot of criticisms indeed, most of which is just very unfair and have no basis. What we've done wouldn't have been successful if there had not been participation of Rwandans.

Kagame also diminished the responsibility of a ruling party to allow for opposition:

If other leaders are weak or there is no track record or, this is not something that we should be held responsible for. We should be held responsible for what we are doing or what we are not doing.

Most troublingly, Kagame stated:

What Rwanda suffers most is that it's a poor country, and when a country is poor, when a country is developing, there is that tendency for it to be described as undemocratic . . . I don't accept that. We don't accept that. So our future is about unity, stability, development, prosperity for our people, good governance, and so on and so forth.

Despite Kagame's total denial of the label "undemocratic," democracy notably fails to make the list of Kagame's major goals. The rhetoric that democracy is a luxury only available to the developed world, coded in unassailable terms of anti-imperialism, does not bode well. While Kagame has presided over a transition from horrific conflict to relative stability, it begs the question at what cost.
When asked to respond to other labels sometimes ascribed to him -- such as "authoritarian leader with a vision," or "benevolent dictator" -- Kagame replied ominously:

I think this is said by few, but very loudmouthed, people.

The NPR interview doesn't provide much hope that such dissenters will have a space to voice their opinions, let alone form opposition groups, during the next Kagame term. As Wedgwood wrote, and Opinio Juris blogger Kevin Jon Heller agreed, the United States needs to reevaluate its relationship to Rwanda.
In short, the international community needs to pressure Kagame to move away from a platform of unity and towards one that emphasizes civil liberties.

Go On! More ABA intlaw sessions

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest) In addition to the free session on the international death penalty about which we've already posted, other complimentary programs of intlaw interest are scheduled in tandem with the upcoming American Bar Association annual meeting in San Francisco.
According to an e-mail just received from the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, here are complimentary events (caveat: not always so flagged in the full ABA program) that the section has planned, in cosponsorship with the Section of International Law and a number of others:

Friday, August 6
► Immigration Reform: Court Reform and Beyond, 2-4 p.m., Moscone Center West, 747 Howard Street, Second Floor, Room 2009. Discussing various legislative and administration proposals will be Chief Counsel Roxana Bacon, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Director Lucas Guttentag, American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project; Judge Dana Leigh Marks, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges; and Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Juan Osuna, Chair of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Karen T. Grisez, Chair of the ABA's Commission on Immigration, will moderate.
► Cyber Security, Law and Liability - Thieves, Spies and Hostile Armies, 3:45-5:15 p.m. Moscone Center West, 747 Howard Street, Room 2022. Risks of and strategies to combat cyber-insecurity will be discussed by: Stewart A. Baker, former Assistant Secretary for Policy Department at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Pacific McGeorge Law Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker; and Council of Foreign Relations Fellow Robert K. Knake. Harvey Rishikof, who heads the ABA's national security standing committee, will moderate.

Saturday, August 7
► Standards in International Law: Anticipatory Self Defense and WMD Programs - The Use of Lethal Force, 8:30-10 a.m., Moscone Center West, 747 Howard Street, Room 2020. Discussing preemptive strikes, U.N. Charter obligations, and other use of force issues will be discussed by Army Col. W. Renn Gade; Professor Ruth Wedgwood (Johns Hopkins); Deputy Director Leonard S. Spector, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies; and Professor Orde Kittrie (Arizona State). Commander Chris Bidwell, National Security Counselor for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, will moderate.
► Careers in National Security Law, 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., Marriott Marquis, Golden Gate Hall, C1, B2 Level, 55 Fourth Street. Addressing private- and public-sector job growth in national security law and ways to find such work will be Lt. Colonel James Durant, Deputy Head of the Air Force Academy's Department of Law; Professor Michael Greenberger (Maryland); and Texas Tech law student and Iraq War veteran Jeff Mustin. Andrew Borene, Manager of Intelligence Community Programs at LexisNexis, will moderate.
For the full program of ABA annual meeting events is here.

On networking

Serendipity:
Soon after publishing yesterday's "a little networking can't hurt" post, we received this comment giving a bit of backstory on the news flash, posted by IntLawGrrl Stephanie Farrior earlier this month, that our colleague Dinah Shelton was elected to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:

This was an all IntLawGrrls effort -- we hosted a diplomatic campaign luncheon for Dinah at Johns Hopkins SAIS with a number of the Caribbean and Latin American delegates, organized by IL program coordinator Tiffany Basciano, GWU Law '07, to help mobilize the votes. It is key to celebrate the merits of great candidates with some old door-to-door canvassing, to get more women in positions of note in international organizations.

The commenter, our colleague Ruth Wedgwood, not only is Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy and Director of the International Law and Organizations Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C., but also is a longtime member of the Human Rights Committee, which monitors state party compliance vel non with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Ruth's reminder that good "old door-to-door canvassing" is key to success is a point very well taken. Heartfelt thanks!

ICC to go to Gaza?

The Los Angeles Times' Sebastian Rotella reports, from Madrid, that Luis Moreno Ocampo said yesterday the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court "will examine requests to investigate alleged war crimes during the recent combat in the Gaza Strip," about which we've posted.
Report of such an inquiry -- no official statement yet appears at the ICC website -- provokes immediate questions of international law and practice, among them:

► Last week the Palestinian Authority accepted the ICC's jurisdiction, according to Rotella. Even so, is it, for purposes of the Rome Statute of the ICC, a "state" that may become a "party" and so refer a situation on its territory?

Israel's Foreign Ministry gave the Times this categorical "no" to the question:

'The ICC charter is adhered to by sovereign states, and the Palestinian Authority has not yet been recognized as one, so it cannot be a member. It doesn't mean anything except that it's a good propaganda stunt.'

Palestinian Authority's Justice Minister, Dr. Ali Khashan, begged to differ:

'We have the fundamentals of a state and we have met all conditions required from a state. We have been demanding these rights for a long time, but no one has paid attention to us. Now we have decided to go to the ICC with this matter as a first step toward getting our rights through legal means.'

The debate entails questions of ICC statutory interpretation, and promises much pondering of the declaratory and the constitutive theories of statehood.
► As a practical matter, one has to ask what this announcement will mean for U.S. attitudes about the ICC. Softening of opposition was apparent even in the Bush Administration. As a candidate now-President Barack Obama pledged to call together experts to explore whether the United States might join the court. Just Monday, a high-level Task Force of the American Society of International Law called for a U.S. "policy of positive engagement" with the ICC. Detailed recommendations were set out by the Task Force, chaired by Patricia Wald, former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and William Howard Taft IV, former State Department Legal Adviser; other members: former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies Professor Ruth Wedgwood, former U.S. Rep. Mickey Edwards, Vanderbilt Law School Professor Michael A. Newton, former International Court of Justice President Stephen M. Schwebel, and former Deputy Prosecutor of the ICTY David Tolbert. Its report is welcome and timely -- and may prove an essential counterpoint criticism sure to come from some U.S. corners as a result of Moreno Ocampo's reported decision to examine conduct involving Israel.

Still wondering about liability for genocide

Last month's post on an International Court of Justice ruling wondered:

Can it be that a state's failure to prevent genocide -- long known as the crime of crimes -- incurs no duty to redress genocide's victims? That if the author of genocide is a nonstate actor, international law affords a victim state no reparations for its loss?

In a New York Times commentary, our colleague Ruth Wedgwood answers, in effect:

"Yes, Virginia, there is a grave problem with Bosnia v. Serbia."

Finding Serbia liable only for failure to prevent itself "fails to account for Belgrade's robust program of financing, equipping and supporting criminal militias," Wedgwood writes of the judgment "in a civil suit that should never have been brought if its result was to be so meager." She lists 3 reasons for the result: (1) the ICJ's rejection of the vicarious liability jurisprudence by which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has convicted a number of defendants; (2) the ICJ's use of criminal law's heavy proof burden in a civil suit; and (3) "a small jurisdictional embarrassment" arising out of the ICJ's earlier rebuff of Serbia's own lawsuit against NATO states.
This new judgment, Wedgwood asserts, "amounts to a posthumous acquittal" of deposed Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died a year ago yesterday amid his ICTY trial on genocide charges, and it further "limits the charges that can be brought against" indicted fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Perhaps so, perhaps not: Though the ICJ ruling surely complicates matters, it does not wholly foreclose the ICTY, another entity in today's nonhierarchical international legal order, from continuing to rule otherwise on critical issues of responsibility for the world's worst offenses.