Devon Whittle » Law

GoJIL Call for Papers: Third International Law Essay Competition

devonwhittle — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:20:42 +0000

I’m on a blogging hiatus while my lift shifts gears from studying to working (though still active on Twitter and Google Reader), but here’s a call for papers from the Goettingen Journal of International Law that might interest those of you studying international law.

The Goettingen Journal of International Law is currently seeking submissions for its 3rd International Law Essay Competition. This year’s topic is “The Rise of Self-Determination”.

The GoJIL is an e-journal of legal scholarship focusing on International Law. It is the first student-run International Law journal in Germany and is published exclusively in English. The journal is available online and free of charge.

Our Essay Competition offers law students a possibility to earn their first scientific publication. The winning article will be published in a regular issue of the GoJIL towards the end of 2010.

In the past, we were delighted to compliment Mr Marco Benatar and Ms Evelyne Schmid, whose successful contributions were published in GoJIL Vol 1 No 3 and GoJIL Vol 1 No 1.

The deadline for submissions is 15 June 2010, so best start thinking now if you’re interested in entering. Check out their website if you are interested.

GoJIL Call for Papers: Third International Law Essay Competition is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

Hartmann convicted for contempt at the ICTY

devonwhittle — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:21:31 +0000

The judgement isn’t out yet, but EJIL:Talk! reports that Florence Hartmann has been found guilty of contempt by an ICTY Trial Chamber for disclosing information that was protected by an order of an ICTY Chamber.

This was a particularly controversial case – Hartmann used to work as a spokesman for the ICTY Prosecutor, there were some issues involving the rights of States, and the information that she disclosed, in a book and an article, was argued to be already in the public domain. The Chamber seems to have disagreed – finding that the information was not in the public domain and fining her €7,000.

From the looks of the summary of the judgement, it likes like the ICTY is continuing down a very strict reading of the Rules in relation to contempt, that lowers the bar for contempt prosecutions. While, as noted by Kevin Heller at Opinio Juris, “There is no question that Hartmann knowingly violated Tribunal rules”, should this be enough to justify a finding of contempt?

Rule 77 of both Tribunals states that “The Tribunal in the exercise of its inherent power may hold in contempt those who knowingly and wilfully interfere with its administration of justice” (it also provides some examples of actions that can result in a finding of contempt, including disclosure of information in contravention of an order).

Following Margetic, Jovic, Haxiu and Nobilo, and mostly recently Nshogoza, the Tribunals have taken a very strict approach to this rule.

Beginning by establishing that a ‘mere’ a violation of a court order is an interference with the administration of justice, Chambers have gone on to say that this means that the mens rea for contempt is satisfied by the deliberate violation of a court order – all the Prosecution needs to prove is that the person committed the act deliberately and not accidentally, this is enough to show the person was also trying to interfere with the administration of justice.

I think that this approach is valid legally, but from a policy perspective is it really fair?

First of all, it is not clear to me that just because someone violates a court order they necessarily are “knowingly and wilfully” interfering with the administration of justice. It is conceivable that while a person knows their action violates a court order (and therefore interferes with the administration of justice), at the same time their intent (or will) was not to do so. For example, Hartmann’s disclosure, while technically in breach of a court order, was arguably not done with an intent to interfere with the administration of justice given she believed the information to already be in the public domain (whether or not it actually was is another question).

More problematic though, Nshogoza appears to say that even if the person violating the court order believed that their actions were legal, this would not excuse their breach. While ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’, when a Rule requires knowledge and intent it would appear that the state of mind of the accused is of the utmost importance.

Finally, just as the Appeals Chamber has found that Chambers should be using their power to sanction counsel for frivolous motions cautiously, I would argue that Rule 77 should be reserved only for cases that meet a requisite level of ’seriousness’. While perhaps not a legal argument, though there are some ICTR Trial decisions supporting this idea, it would mean less wasting of the Tribunals’ time and resources, a system perceived to be fairer in regards to punishment and perhaps less allegations of ‘vindictive’ prosecutions (See also Bill Schabas he would prefer national courts deal with these contempt cases as opposed to the Tribunals).

Nshogoza is currently on appeal, and the Hartmann judgement is yet to be issued, so it will be interesting to see how the law in this area is actually developing.

Hartmann convicted for contempt at the ICTY is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

What do you learn at a “Center for Transnational Legal Studies”?

devonwhittle — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:53:52 +0000

So I’m almost three weeks in to studies at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies here in London and the question has already come up a number of times – what exactly is that you are studying there?

Things are only just starting, but here’s a brief of summary of how it’s turning out.

First, it’s a lot of comparative law (or at least critiquing comparative law). In the core, compulsory unit, we have delved head first into how legal scholars classify and compare legal systems and how law is ‘transplanted/exported/shared’ between jurisdictions. The big debate has been the appropriateness of using ‘foreign law’ (by judges particularly), when and how it can be used and by whom.

Second, so far at least, it isn’t really about international law. In the subjects I’ve selected, the only convention we study is the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (though in the first two days we also did a practice exercise using the New York Convention). It has generally been a lot more about conflict (choice) of law issues and abstract legal theory; a mix between comparing jurisdictions and working out how transactions would across jurisdictions.

Third, a lot of what we are learning is from each other. By throwing 71 different students together from universities all over the world CTLS is hoping to teach us a lot about other legal cultures just by having us work together and argue over different approaches. It is actually quite interesting when students and lecturers from different countries start debating and seeing cultures clash in the class room. The difference in educational culture alone is fascinating.

During my first week here I was distracted by a big essay I had due, I’m slowly now getting used to how things work at Swan House in London. There’s been some thought provoking material so far, so hopefully, some of it will make its way here too.

What do you learn at a “Center for Transnational Legal Studies”? is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

ICC Legal Tools: Researching international criminal law

devonwhittle — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:26:44 +0000

When it comes to international criminal law jurisprudence, there hasn’t really been an easy starting point for legal research. Each of the Tribunals have their own websites where they list decisions, but these are often difficult to search and the links themselves can also be unreliable.

For my own use, I created an ICL search engine that used Google to search all of the different Tribunals at once – but this would only be effective while the sites kept their current structure.

Thankfully, the ICC this week re-launched their Legal Tools website, providing a new and better place to do ICL research.

Legal Tools is a comprehensive resource of international criminal case law, and relevant international and domestic material. It contains judgments from all the major international Tribunals, going back to Nuremberg and Tokyo; relevant international legal instruments and decisions; and relevant legislation and cases from domestic jurisdictions. Also, it doesn’t require registration, you just agree with the terms and conditions and you have full access to either search or browse the database.

Of course it isn’t perfect. At times it feels a bit clunky, it certainly isn’t at a Google-level of sophistication. The results are often limited by the format of the source database – which can sometimes mean non-text PDFs. And some sources can’t be clicked through to due to copyrights issues.

But it does look like it will be a fantastic resource. The advanced search particularly looks to be a very powerful tool for specific searches of international criminal law. It’d be nice if the results were more friendly to Google, so that you could run a typical Google search over the database – but hopefully that’s something for the future, this could be a great addition to Google Scholar.

Transparency and accessibility of the law is crucial to the legitimacy and efficiency of the Tribunals. Access is currently at an barely usable level, and things definitely could be better. The ICC Legal Tools is a significant step in the right direction and it’ll be interesting to see where things go from here. We’ve seen increasing demands for domestic transparency in governments, let’s hope this also is reflected on the international level soon.

ICC Legal Tools: Researching international criminal law is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

Bloggingheads.tv interview with Kevin Heller

devonwhittle — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:15:10 +0000

There’s a great interview between Mark Goldberg and Kevin Heller up at Bloggingheads.tv, especially recommended is their debate over the ICC. Bloggingheads.tv interview with Kevin Heller is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com. Related posts:What's it like in the ICTY UN Detention Unit? Intellectual debate on the proportionality in Israel's Gaza attacks Working [...]

Bloggingheads.tv interview with Kevin Heller is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

When international law and religion goes horribly wrong

devonwhittle — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:31:56 +0000

Slacktivist has a great post on the ludicrous views espoused and believed by some Christians in the USA. Their obsession with the all-powerful UN would be almost laughable if they weren’t so influential in stymying the development of international law. I particularly find it amusing how they like encouraging some ‘end times signs’ (eg. encouraging war in the Middle East) but then try the best to ‘limit the powers’ of the UN over the US. If they really thought one world government was a precursor to the end, and the UN was the route to that government, surely they’d be the biggest proponents of regional co-operation, merging of currencies etc?

When international law and religion goes horribly wrong is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

What's it like in the ICTY UN Detention Unit?

devonwhittle — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 02:21:13 +0000

Kevin Heller has an extremely interesting post on his first meeting with Radovan Karadzic in the UN Detention Unit in the Hague. It’s a fascinating insight into the world of international criminal law.

What's it like in the ICTY UN Detention Unit? is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

Ignorance of international law and protests

devonwhittle — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:22:12 +0000

It seems all posts on Israel/Hamas are bringing out the worst on both sides. Charles Lechner examines the folly of labelling Israel’s acts as genocide without a proper legal basis, but some people commenting refuse to accept that the legal definition matters or can see the real danger in the ‘exploitative’ use of the terms holocaust or genocide.

Ignorance of international law and protests is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

Money to victims at the ICC

devonwhittle — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:21:52 +0000

Great post by Schabas on ’supporting victims’. Two interesting tidbits: 1) “I suspect that there are more lawyers acting on behalf of the victims in the ongoing proceedings than there are lawyers acting on behalf of both the Prosecutor and the defence combined”; 2) the administration costs of the victim’s trust fund, currently sitting at EUR500,000, is about EUR700,000 per year!

Money to victims at the ICC is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.

Genocide or not?

devonwhittle — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:59:29 +0000

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention Kate Cronin examines some modern claims of genocide to see if they satisfy the law. Genocide or not? is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com. Related posts:Milanovic on the Genocide Convention after 60 years Genocide: 'a crime that has no name' Ignorance of international [...]

Genocide or not? is a post from: Devon Whittle. You can contact the author at devonwhittle@gmail.com.