Month: May 2019

Command responsibility in 2018 judgment, topic of Georgia Law Professor Amann’s ICC Forum essay

Honored to have contributed on the doctrine of command responsibility to the newest edition of ICC Forum, an online publisher of essays on human rights and international criminal law. My essay was one of several responding to this question, posed by the editors:

“What does the Bemba Appeal Judgment say about superior responsibility under Article 28 of the Rome Statute?”

My own response, entitled “In Bemba, Command Responsibility Doctrine Ordered to Stand Down,” amplified an argument I’d made in an EJIL: Talk! contribution last year (prior post).

Specifically, it traced the development of the international-humanitarian- law/law-of-armed-conflict-doctrine that places on military commanders a burden greater than that shouldered by other combatants. It then turned to the International Criminal Court Appeals Chamber’s 2018 judgment in Bemba. The majority’s interpretation of the ICC Statute’s command-responsibility provision, my essay argued, risks tolerating “derelictions of duty” so as “to condone indiscipline,” and thus “to increase the risks of the very harms that the doctrine of command responsibility is intended to dispel.” As a result, perhaps “no one can be held to account.”

Other invited experts who contributed essays were: Miles Jackson, Associate Professor of Law, Jesus College, University of Oxford; Michael A. Newton, Professor of the Practice of Law and Political Science at Vanderbilt University Law School; Nadia Carine Fornel Poutou, Executive President Association of Women Lawyers of Central African Republic; and Leila Nadya Sadat, James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University School of Law.

ICC Forum is supported by the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law; UCLA Law Professor Richard H. Steinberg serves as Editor-in-Chief.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Georgia Law faculty present and comment on international law papers at annual ASIL Southeast workshop

University of Georgia School of Law faculty were well represented at the  annual American Society of International Law Southeast scholarly workshop, held this year at Washington & Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia.

Kathleen A. Doty, Director of the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center (above, 2d from left), presented on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) initiative established by the UN Security Council. Commenting on her paper, entitled “Rethinking the WPS Agenda in Light of International Relations Studies of Women in Conflict,” was Washington & Lee Law Professor Mark Drumbl.

Serving as commentators during the daylong workshop were 2 additional Georgia Law faculty: Professor Melissa J. Durkee, J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law (above right), was the discussant for “The Corporate Keepers of International Law” by William & Mary Law Professor Jay Butler; and Christopher Bruner (above, 2d from right), Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law, commented on “The Pendulum of International Financial Regulation” by George Mason Law Professor Paolo Saguato.

Georgia Law student Hanna Karimipour elected to International Law Students Association board

Congratulations to Hanna Karimipour, member of the Georgia Law Class of 2020, who has just been elected to serve during her 3L year as a worldwide Student Director of the International Law Students Association.

Devotion to international law has been a hallmark of Hanna’s career here at the University of Georgia School of Law. In spring 2018, the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center awarded her a Louis B. Sohn Professional Development Fellowship to volunteer at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C.; that summer, she took part in our Global Governance Summer School and externed at the nongovernmental organization No Peace Without Justice in Brussels, Belgium. During the academic year, she competed on Georgia Law’s Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court team, was a student in a special minicourse on Executive Branch Lawyering, and served as President of the International Law Society, Georgia Law’s ILSA chapter. She soon will begin a position as a Summer Associate at a law firm in Tallahassee, Florida.

Hanna’s election to this position follows a long-standing Georgia Law tradition. Previous worldwide ILSA student officers have included Chanel Chauvet (JD’18), who this fall will begin LLM studies in International Humanitarian Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Switzerland; Kaitlin Ball (JD’14), who this year earned her PhD in the Department of Politics & International Studies at the University of Cambridge, England; Stephany Sherriff (JD’15), Legal Advisor and Agency Policy Chairwoman at Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency in Atlanta; and another Atlanta attorney, Richard Alembik (JD’91).

Georgia Law Professor Amann speaks on accountability at Save the Children-Chatham House London conference

“Justice for Children in Conflict” is the title of a panel on which Professor Diane Marie Amann spoke last week in London, England, as part of a centenary symposium on children and armed conflict cosponsored by Save the Children and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the latter more commonly known as Chatham House.

Amann (2d from left above) is the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law. Since 2012, she has served as the Special Adviser to International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict – service that included assisting in the research and drafting of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor Policy on Children (2016).

Aspects of the Policy were a focus of Amann’s talk in London last Tuesday. Asked by moderator Veronique Aubert, Senior Conflict & Humanitarian Policy & Research Advisor for Save the Children (at left above), to name the root causes of the deficit in accountability for international crimes against and affecting children, Amann cited matters like evidence-gathering and witness protections, but stressed absence of political will to prevent and punish such crimes.

Other speakers included (from center to right) Shaheed Fatima QC, a barrister at Blackstone Chambers, Jessica Gladstone, a partner at Clifford Chance LLP, and Salah Uddin, International Campaign Officer for the British Rohingya Community. The panel was one of several throughout the day’s events, held at Church House, Westminster.