On December 17, 2013, Timor-Leste instituted proceedings against Australia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding Australian agents’ seizure and subsequent detention “of documents, data and other property which belongs to Timor-Leste and/or which Timor-Leste has the right to protect under international law.” According to the press release, Timor-Leste also filed a request for the indication of provisional measures in order to “protect its rights and to prevent the use of seized documents and data by Australia against the interests and rights of Timor-Leste in the pending...
International Law in Brief
International Law in Brief (ILIB) is a forum that provides updates on current developments in international law from the editors of ASIL's International Legal Materials.
On December 16, 2013, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda delivered a judgment in the Prosecutor v. Grégoire Ndahimana case. According to the press release, the Appeals Chamber “set[] aside some of the Trial Chamber’s findings and increas[ed] the sentence of 15 years of imprisonment imposed on Mr. Ndahimana by the Trial Chamber to a sentence of 25 years of imprisonment.” The Appeals Chamber affirmed Ndahimana’s convictions for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity “for failing to punish his subordinates from the Kivumu communal...
On December 16, 2013, a new international criminal justice research tool was released online, tailored specifically to the jurisprudence produced by the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). According to the press release, the ICTR/ICTY Case Law Database (CLD) includes “almost 1,800 entries, covering pronouncement on the elements of statutory crimes, modes of liability, and other issues,” and it “[...] expounds the pioneering case law produced by the two tribunals...
On December 11, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Lozano v. Alvarez, a case arising out of issues regarding “equitable tolling” under Article 12 of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Article 12 of the Convention requires that an abducted child be returned if the other parent files a petition for the child’s return within one year of the abduction. Thus, Article 12 ensures that the abducting parent not benefit from the laws of the nation to which he or she has abducted the child. Should the left-behind...
On December 13, 2013, Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, according to the press release, unanimously ordered that the proceedings in the Prosecutor v. Šešelj case “would resume from the point after the closing arguments, and move into the deliberations phase as soon as Judge Niang has familiarized himself with the file.” The Chamber ruled that “a new judge is able to assess witness testimony given in his absence through other means, including video recordings,” and therefore that “Judge Niang will be . . . able to evaluate the...
On December 12, 2013, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed an application requesting the adjournment of the provisional trial date in the Prosecutor v. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta case. According to the press release, the Prosecutor encountered problems with key witnesses and thus concluded that her case “does not satisfy the high evidentiary standards required at trial.” The Prosecutor further stated that she “need[s] time to complete efforts to obtain additional evidence” and consider whether the evidence meets such standards. She also stated that the “decision...
ICSID Tribunal Rules For Disqualification of Arbitrator in Burlington v. Ecuador (December 13, 2013)
In Burlington v. Ecuador, a dispute arising out of two production-sharing contracts, the Chairman of the Administrative Council of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) upheld a proposal to disqualify Professor Orrego Vicuña according to Arbitration Rule 9(1), which provides that “a party proposing the disqualification of an arbitrator pursuant to Article 57 of the Convention [. . .] promptly, and in any event before the proceeding is declared closed, file its proposal with the Secretary-General, stating its reasons therefore.” The Chairman found...
In Ali v. Obama, the federal appeals court in Washington, DC denied the petitioner’s writ of habeas corpus petition, holding that “determining whether an individual is part of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or an associated force almost always requires drawing inferences from the circumstantial evidence, such as that individual’s personal associations.” In March 2002, the petitioner was captured in Pakistan while staying at a guesthouse of Abu Zubayadah (an ally of Osama bin Laden), declared an enemy combatant, and subsequently detained at Guantanamo Bay.
The petitioner denied any...
On December 13, 2013, the International Court of Justice ruled in Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica) and Certain Activities carried out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) that the circumstances, as they now present themselves . . . are not such as to require the exercise of its power . . . to indicate provisional measures.” According to the press release, Nicaragua had requested provisional measures “to protect certain rights which, in its view, are affected by the road construction works being...
On December 13, 2013, a majority of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court dismissed the Prosecutor’s appeal relating to the temporal scope of charges in The Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang case. According to the press release, in January 2012, Pre-Trial Chamber II confirmed the charges against the two accused for, inter alia, crimes against humanity allegedly committed between January 1, 2008 and January 4, 2008 in the greater Eldoret area in Kenya. In July 2013, after the Trial Chamber was constituted and had set the date for...