international criminal law

Georgia Law Professor Amann on depicting Nuremberg artist Laura Knight for symposium on Carsten Stahn’s new Oxford monograph, “Justice as Message”

In this post Professor Diane Marie Amann, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, discusses her most recent publication.

Among the more captivating women who worked at the 1st Nuremberg trial – women whose stories I’m now researching – was Dame Laura Knight. Already celebrated as the 1st woman in over 150 years to win election to Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts, Knight, then 68, arrived in January 1946, about a third of the way before the year-long proceedings before the International Military Tribunal. Soon after her departure 4 months later she unveiled a 5-foot by 6-foot oil painting, “The Nuremberg Trial,” at a London exhibition.

That work forms the centerpiece of “What We See When We See Law … Through the Eyes of Dame Laura Knight,” my contribution Monday to an ongoing Opinio Juris symposium on Justice as Message: Expressivist Foundations of International Criminal Justice, a new Oxford University Press book by Carsten Stahn, an international criminal law professor at Leiden Law School and Queen’s University Belfast.

My post began by discussing Stahn’s 2020 book in light of my own 2002 article about expressivist theories and international criminal law. The focus was Nuremberg: not only is it much-discussed in Stahn’s book, but the book’s cover features her 1946 painting, pictured above. Those facts launched my post’s cameo about Knight-as-messenger, available here.

Contributors of other posts in the book series include Marina Aksenova, Mark A. Drumbl, Angela Mudukuti, Darryl Robinson, Priya Urs, and Stahn himself.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Georgia Law Professor Amann’s “Glimpses of Women at the Tokyo Tribunal” in just-published book

Professor Diane Marie Amann, holder of the Emily & Ernest Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has published an essay entitled “Glimpses of Women at the Tokyo Tribunal.”

It appears in a new book, The Tokyo Tribunal: Perspectives on Law, History and Memory, produced by four editors: Professor Kerstin von Lingen, Universität Wien, Austria; Professor Philipp Osten, Keio University, Japan; and Dr. Viviane E. Dittrich and Jolana Makraiová, both of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, Germany. 

These four took part last week in a launch discussion, archived at YouTube, along with two others among the book’s contributors: Professor Gerry Simpson, London School of Economics and Political Science, England; and Professor Yuma Totani, University of Hawai’i, United States.

Further contributing essays to The Tokyo Tribunal were, besides Amann, David M. Crowe, Diane Orentlicher, Kayoko Takeda, Robert Cribb, Donald M. Ferencz, Marina Aksenova, David Cohen, Narrelle Morris, Beatrice Trefalt, Sandra Wilson, Franziska Seraphim, Kuniko Ozaki, and Christoph Safferling.

Here’s the abstract for Amann’s contribution (prior post):

Compared to its Nuremberg counterpart, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East has scarcely been visible in the seven decades since both tribunals’ inception. Recently the situation has changed, as publications of IMTFE documents have occurred alongside divers legal and historical writings, as well as two films and a miniseries. These new accounts give new visibility to the Tokyo Trial – or at least to the roles that men played at those trials. This essay identifies several of the women at Tokyo and explores roles they played there, with emphasis on lawyers and analysts for the prosecution and the defense. As was the case with my 2010 essay, “Portraits of Women at Nuremberg,” the discussion is preliminary, offering glimpses of the Tokyo women in an effort to encourage further research.

The Tokyo Tribunal volume, which was published by the Brussels-based Torkel Opsahl Academic Epublisher, may be downloaded as an e-book, or ordered in hard copy, here. It is also available at outlets such as Amazon.

It is the third book in the “Nuremberg Academy Series” produced by the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, located at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. It was in Courtroom 400 of that building that a conference took place which launched this just-published volume.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Georgia Law Professor Amann in symposium on next Prosecutor of International Criminal Court

In this post Professor Diane Marie Amann, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, discusses her recent international law commentary.

Caution in giving too much credit, or blame, to one individual formed the focus of my contribution to last week’s symposium on “The Next ICC Prosecutor.”

Entitled “Placing the Prosecutor within the International Criminal Justice Project,” my post appeared Friday at Opinio Juris, cosponsor along with Justice in Conflict of the online symposium.

My post began by welcoming the rich dialogue – in anticipation of December’s election of the 3d Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court – that had unfolded all week. Fueling that discussion were contributions from a couple dozen commentators on international criminal law: Ewan Brown, Danya Chaikel, David Crane, Geoff Dancy, Tom Dannenbaum, Christian De Vos, Elizabeth Evenson, Kate Gibson, James Goldston, Douglas Guilfoyle, Kevin Jon Heller, Mark Kersten, Patryk Labuda, Stephen Lamony, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Jonathan O’Donohue, Mariana Pena, Priya Pillai, William Schabas, Melinda Taylor, Valerie Oosterveld, Beth Van Schaack, and Kate Vigneswaran, Alex Whiting, and William H. Wiley.

My post then pointed to risks involved in “placing too much weight on the person and position of Prosecutor.” These included:

  • the risk of generating expectations, “inevitably doomed to disappoint”; and
  • the risk that “the very association of a complex project with a lone person or position” obscures the myriad ways that many other actors “play roles, in helping to construct perceptions of the project and in contributing, or not, to the project.”

My contribution is available in full here. For additional posts in the symposium, see list here.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann blog)

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann on her article, in International Review of the Red Cross, on ICC OTP Policy on Children, accountability for conflict-related crimes against children

In this post Professor Diane Marie Amann, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, discusses her most recent article related to the effects on children of armed conflict and similar extreme violence.

Very pleased to announce the publication of my new article, “The Policy on Children of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor: Toward greater accountability for crimes against and affecting children.”

As indicated in the just-before-publication version that I’ve posted at SSRN, the International Review of the Red Cross placed this article online last month, on February 21. Currently, that published version is available to Cambridge Core subscribers at a First View page; once it appears in print, in a special issue on “Children and War,” it will be freely accessible at the Review‘s website.

Here’s the abstract:

The Policy on Children published by the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor in 2016 represents a significant step toward accountability for harms to children in armed conflict and similar extreme violence. This article describes the process that led to the Policy and outlines the Policy’s contents. It then surveys relevant ICC practice and related developments, concluding that despite some salutary efforts, much remains to be done to recognize, prevent and punish the spectrum of conflicted-related crimes against or affecting children.

This article represents my latest effort to assist in raising awareness and developing strategies respecting children and conflict (prior posts). It’s an effort in which I’ve been deeply involved since my 2012 appointment as the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Special Adviser on Children in and affected by Armed Conflict.

Central to this effort was the multiyear process of researching and drafting, along with an Office of the Prosecutor working group and in consultation with others, of the document published in 5 languages and launched in November 2016 as the Policy on Children. Other aspects have included:

Happy to provide further details. And as always, comments welcome.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann blog)

Georgia Law Prof Amann among scholars at Temple Law roundtable on new international criminal law book

University of Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann was one of a dozen scholars from the United States, Canada, and Italy who took part in a book roundtable Friday at Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia.

Organized by Temple Law Professor Margaret M. deGuzman, the roundtable focused on Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law, a forthcoming Cambridge University Press volume by Professor Darryl Robinson of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Scholars touched on issues including both the interrelation of international criminal law with other fields of law and the methodologies of interpreting international criminal law – and how these considerations affected doctrines like mens rea and command responsibility. Contributions to the roundtable are due to be published in a future issue of Temple’s international law journal.

Professor Amann is the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at Georgia Law. Her prior work on command responsibility includes writings here and here.

(Roundtable photo above thanks to another scholar-participant, Mark Kersten)

Georgia Law Professor Brown authors biography of internationally known rights lawyer, Ramsey Clark

The work of an internationally known civil rights and criminal defense lawyer is the subject of a new Stanford University Press biography by Professor Lonnie T. Brown Jr., who holds the A. Gus Cleveland Distinguished Chair of Legal Ethics and Professionalism and is a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Defending the Public’s Enemy: The Life and Times of Ramsey Clark examines the life of a man – due to celebrate his 92d birthday later this month – who followed his 2 years of service as Attorney General, the United States’ top law enforcement officer, with decades as the legal representative of a range of individuals and groups at odds with US policies. His foreign clients included the Palestine Liberation Organization, Qaddafi’s Libya, an accused Rwandan génocidaire, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević – and as detailed in Chapter 11, Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq for nearly a quarter-century before he was deposed, captured, convicted by a tribunal, and executed.

Professor Brown’s book details these cases and others, and explores – in chapters enriched by interviews with Clark and his colleagues – what has motivated Clark to pursue this career path.

2019 Global Governance Summer School concludes with briefings at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court

THE HAGUE – On this final day of the 2019 Global Governance Summer School, students visited two preeminent international tribunals — the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court — for high level briefings. They were also treated to a visit from Dr. Kaitlin Ball (JD ’14), a Georgia Law alumna who recently finished a PhD at Cambridge and is living in Europe.

The group started the day at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an audience with Hendrik Denys, law clerk to the Honorable Joan Donoghue, the American judge on the International Court of Justice. Mr. Denys, an alumnus of our partner school, KU Leuven, spoke with students about the history of the Peace Palace, the structure and procedure of the Court, and several representative decisions of the ICJ’s jurisprudence. He also provided advice for preparing a career in international law.

In the afternoon, the group visited the International Criminal Court (ICC), located on the dunes near The Hague’s North Sea coast. Student first had a meeting with Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, for whom our summer school’s co-director, Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, serves as Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. Bensouda described her own path to practicing international criminal law. While acknowledging the barriers to achieving justice, she expressed the urgency of continuing the effort, on behalf of global society as well as the victims of international crimes.

The second audience at the ICC was with the Honorable Kimberly Prost of Canada, who serves as a Judge in the Trial Division. Judge Prost discussed the history of the Court and the many of the challenges facing it. She also emphasized the important concept of complementarity in regards to the ICC’s relationship to national courts.

Students also had the opportunity to view the confirmation of charges against Al Hassan, who is suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in 2012 and 2013 in Timbuktu, Mali. During the portion of the hearing that time permitted the group to observe, students heard from one of the Legal Representatives of the Victims, who emphasized the impact of the alleged crimes.

All in all, it was a great day, a successful trip, and we look forward to returning next year!

Global Governance Summer School: after travel day and World Cup match, Special Tribunal for Lebanon kicks off The Hague briefings

From left, Gamble Baffert, Charles Wells, Lauren Taylor, Emily Snow, Emily Doumar, Leila Knox, Amanda Shaw, Alicia Millspaugh, Briana Blakely, Jessica Parker, Steven Miller, Ayman Tartir

LEUVEN & THE HAGUE — Yesterday, Georgia Law students participating in the Global Governance Summer School left Leuven, Belgium, where they had been in residence for classroom sessions and professional development opportunities. They traveled by train to The Hague, Netherlands, and arrived just in time to watch the U.S. – Netherlands Women’s World Cup match. What a place to watch!

From left, Emily Doumar, Jessica Parker, Briana Blakely, Lauren Taylor, Kathleen Doty, Charles Wells, Emily Snow, Gamble Baffert, Holly Stephens, Leila Knox, Steven Miller, Alicia Millspaugh, Ayman Tartir, Amanda Shaw.

Students spent this morning in briefings at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Established in 2009, the STL’s mandate is to hold trials for the people accused of carrying out the February 14, 2005 attack in Beirut that killed the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, and twenty-two others.

Representatives from all four of the court organs presented to the students. They included: Romy Batrouny, Assistant Legal Officer in Chambers, who gave an overview of the tribunal’s history, mandate, and structure and an introduction to the work of lawyers in Chambers; Edel Regan, Associate Legal Officer with the Registry Legal Office, who explained the various legal issues encountered in the administration of the court, ranging from immunities to the protection of victims and witnesses to procurement; Matthias Neuner, Trial Counsel in the Office of the Prosecutor, who challenged students to think about the purpose of international criminal tribunals and the development of the law in the fight against impunity for terrorism; and Paula Lynch, Associate Legal Officer in the tribunal’s Defence Office, who discussed the unique position of defense counsel in the STL structure, and the challenges of representing the defendants in absentia.

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From left, Lauren Taylor, Briana Blakely, and Jessica Parker.

In the afternoon, students enjoyed a cultural excursion to the Mauritshuis museum, home to masterpieces from Dutch and Flemish artists, including Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicoleas Tulp, and Potter’s The Bull.

Tomorrow, the group will continue with a briefing at the Hague Conference on Private International Law where they will learn about the operation of private law in the global arena.

Georgia Law Professor Amann speaks at Oxford University conference on transnational human rights

“Victors’ Justice and the New Turn to Transnational Process” is the title of a paper that Professor Diane Marie Amann presented earlier this month in England, as part of an Oxford University conference, which took place over the course of 2 days at the Law Faculty’s Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Mansfield College, and at St. Antony’s College.

Through the lens of the “victors’ justice” critique that some late 20th century scholars used to describe post-World War II trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo, the paper examines contemporary interest in transnational means of prosecuting international crimes.

An expert in international criminal law and human rights, Amann 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. For a portion of 2018, she was a Research Visitor/Visiting Fellow at Bonavero/Mansfield College.

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)