The ICTY prepares for Mladic

As the procedure for Mladic's extradition continues in Serbia and questions of his fitness for trial arise, the ICTY awaits his arrival eagerly.

First of all, the judges for the Trial Chamber have been assigned. Among them is Dutch Judge Alphonse Orie, which is interesting, given the Netherlands' ambiguous role in Srebrenica. It is also ironic that a Dutch judge will be a part of accountability for what happened there, given that the a Dutch court decided in 2008 that the Netherlands were not responsible for what happened because they were under UN command, and that the UN itself could not be sued before a national court because of its immunity, thus removing all means of reparations for victims.

Second of all, the Court granted the Prosecutor's request to amend the Mladic indictment, which he had filed... over a year ago! One could of course cynically think that the imminent arrival of Mladic explains the sudden interest for a request which has likely been buried in the "to do" box for a year... But the professionalism that defines the work of the ICTY should guard us from such cynicism and the delay probably only means that the judge has been extremely thorough in reviewing the request and its accompanying documents.

Third of all, as predicted in my previous post, Karadzic's counsel has raised the issue of the effect of Mladic's arrest on the Karadzic trial, and the question of whether a suspension and joinder might be an option.

BREAKING NEWS: Mladic apparently arrested!

The press is announcing that war crimes suspect Radko Mladic has been arrested in Serbia. The president of Serbia has confirmed this information in a press conference. He claims that this "closes a chapter" in the history of Serbia and its cooperation with the ICTY (although he did mention that Hadzic is still out there). I think this is wishful thinking. Because 1) the turbulent history of the Balkans and Serbia's role in it will not just disappear with Mladic's rendition to the ICTY. There will be a long trial which will delay any closure for many years. and 2) is sending Mladic for trial in The Hague really the way to deal with the past? I know that the ICTY has primacy over the case, but if I were Serbia, I would actually fight that and request to try him, under international supervision, in Serbia. The trial would definitely have more meaning in my opinion.

It will also interesting to hear the world leaders praise the arrest and the fact that Maldic will be brought to justice... just weeks after they praised the killing of Bin Laden as "justice being done"...

Finally, it will of course be important to see the effect of the arrest on ongoing cases at the ICTY. Let's see Mladic, for example, prove that he is not the author of the diaries that were entered into evidence in a number of cases. Also, if I were Karadzic's counsel, I would request a suspension of his trial and a joinder of cases, given the JCE that is claimed against both of them. That would create quite a procedural mess...

Follow-up post on Amnesties in Uruguay: when popular sovereignty defies human rights actvitists

I'll be posting in Libya in the coming days, but for now a short follow up on the Amnesty law in Uruguay

A while back, I posted on the Uruguay amnesty law which has been universally condemned by rights groups and, at the time, found unconstitutional. In March, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights apparently condemned the law as well and in April, the Uruguay senate voted to overturn the law.

Well, last week, a vote in the House of Representatives to repeal the law failed. Apparently, there is some support for that law in the country, which, as I mentioned in my initial post, was approved twice by referendum.
Whatever one thinks of the law itself, there is clearly a clash of logics here. On the one hand, the universalist approach to human rights and on the other, the question of popular sovereignty. Indeed, this law is clearly not being imposed from the top by a dictatorial regime. It is, as far as I can tell, a reasonably functioning democracy. This certainly raises the question of the limits of outside intervention when a population chooses a certain path for itself and I find it disturbing that, in an era where "local ownership" is the new catchphrase, human rights activists are so adamantly trying to force a certain mechanism on a country which so clearly does not want it.

International Law Reporter is back!

I have been frustratingly unable to blog in recent weeks, despite some nice topics to cover (most notably at the ICC). I hope I can rejoin the world of blogging soon, when the workload relents...

In the meantime, a short announcement. The International Law Reporter, a invaluable source of information on recent publications for many years, had announced that it was shutting down last February. Apparently, Jacob Katz, probably by popular demand, has changed his mind, and the blog has resumed work this week.

Let's hope it lasts!

new Article on Kosovo Advisory Opinion: searching for the responsibility of the UN and Kosovo

Regular readers of this blog will know that I was critical of the ICJ's advisory opinion as soon as it was released last July. I criticized it in a live blogging session from the ICJ on the day it was issued, and in subsequent posts, both here and on the Hague Justice Portal.

In an article just published in the Leiden Journal of International Law by myself and Yannick Radi, we explore more systematically and systemically the flaws of the opinion, considering that most of the difficulties that arise stem from the fact that the ICJ accepted to answer a question relating to non-State entities, i.e, the authors of the declaration of independence, rather than its core ratione personae jurisdiction, that are States and the UN.

You can follow the full extent of our reasoning in the article, and, for those who have a little less patience, the summary that we published on EJIL Talk!.

For those who have even less patience, one of the core arguments we make is that the acts of the Kosovo assembly, as established under the authority of the UNSC, can be attributed under international law to the UN, thus raising the rather interesting question of whether the UN can unilaterally declare the independence of a State. Pushing the logic even further, we argue that the ICJ implicitly recognises a new legal entity, Kosovo, to which the declaration could be alternatively attributed. I won't elaborate here, and let you read the article to see how we pulled this one off!