On August 22, 2016, Ahmad Al-Faqi Al Madhi admitted guilt at the start of his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Al Madhi’s trial was concluded two days later on August 24, 2016. According to the press release, Al Madhi was accused of the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against historical monuments and buildings dedicated to religion. As a member of Ansar Eddine, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al Madhi was accused of destroying nine mausoleums and one mosque in Timbuktu, Mali, between June 30 and July 11, 2012....
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 August 17, 2016, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights published Roca and others v. Peru, a ruling (only available in Spanish) it had taken in June, holding Peru responsible for violations of the American Convention on Human Rights and the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearances in a case involving the forced disappearance of Tenerio Roca. According to the press release, Roca was travelling on a bus with his wife in July 1984 when he was arrested by members of the Navy and Investigative Police and taken to the Municipal Stadium of Huanta. His family was not...
On August 12, 2016, the Swiss Federal Tribunal ordered Israel to pay $1.1 billion to Iran in a decades-old dispute relating to the Eliat-Ashkelon Pipeline. According to a news report, the pipeline was initiated in 1968 as a joint project between the countries and was designed to transport Iranian oil to Europe. After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the relationship between the countries collapsed and Iran pursued arbitration proceedings to claim its share of the proceeds generated by the venture. The Swiss court rejected Israel’s appeal against an arbitration ruling of last year, citing...
On August 12, 2016, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution approving the deployment of an additional 4,000 peacekeepers to the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). The resolution authorized the renewal of UNMISS’s mandate through June 30, 2017, and emphasized the mission’s focus on protection of civilians. According to the press release, the Security Council passed the resolution in response to concerns about fighting in the capital city of Juba, obstruction of UNMISS and other humanitarian actors by the South Sudanese Transitional Government...
On August 6, 2016, the United States released a redacted version of the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG). The eighteen-page document—issued in May 2013 and reportedly referred to formally as the PPG and informally as the “playbook”— establishes procedures for capture and kill operations by U.S. forces targeting terrorists outside of the United States and areas of active hostilities. (In July 2016, the Obama administration clarified that current areas of active hostilities include Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan). According to reports, the redacted PPG was released in response to a 2015...
On August 4, 2016, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said in a statement that preliminary UN investigations into the recent fighting in South Sudan reveal that government security forces carried out killings, rapes, lootings, and destruction of property. Fighting erupted in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, on July 7, 2016 between government forces known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), loyal to President Salva Kiir, and the “SPLA in Opposition,” who back First Vice-President Riek Machar. The fighting displaced thousands of people and SPLA...
On August 4, 2016, nine Central and North American states released the San Jose Action Statement, wherein they endeavor to take concerted action to strengthen protection for refugees fleeing Central America. Most refugees from the region are forced to flee pervasive violence caused by heavily armed, transnational criminal gangs, particularly in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. In the statement, the governments of Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and the United States asserted: “[W]e are confronted with a growing number of asylum seekers and...
On August 3, 2016, North Korea fired an intermediate range ballistic missile into Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Sea of Japan. According to a press source, the missile landed within 155 miles of the Japanese coast, the closest a North Korean missile has come to Japan since 1998. U.S. Strategic Command reported that the missile was one of two “No Dong” missiles fired near the city of Hwangju; the other exploded shortly after launch. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the missile launch, stating, “That it landed in our nation’s E.E.Z. makes it an intolerable act of...
On August 2, 2016, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued an advisory ruling (not yet available in print) that those caught fishing illegally in waters claimed by China could face up to one-year in prison. According to reports, in its ruling, the SPC stated, “judicial power is an important component of national sovereignty,” and “People’s courts will actively exercise jurisdiction over China’s territorial waters.” The opinion defined waters over which Chinese courts could exercise jurisdiction as including contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones (EEZ), and the Asian continental...
On July 29, 2016, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled that damages for defamation claims must be awarded in accordance with the law, practice, and traditions of the state in which the injury occurred and cannot be assessed on the basis of a comparison of awards made in other Caribbean territories where prevailing socio-economic conditions, including GDP, are different. According to the press release, the case concerned an article and two caricatures published in the Kaieteur News in 2000, which “refer[ed] to Dr Ramsahoye in exceptionally disparaging terms.” Ramsahoye sued...