Director's job, University of Ottawa Human Rights Centre

The University of Ottawa is advertising for a director of its human rights centre. For more information, see: http://www.hr.uottawa.ca/01b_postes03/TDRO0017QE_e.html

Law of armed conflict call for papers

The University of the West of England, in Bristol, will host a conference on the regulation of armed conflict by international law, on 3-5 September 2008. The conference themes are broad enough to cover a range of human rights subject areas. PhD students are invited to make submissions. See the call for papers: http://www.mediafire.com/?dwbytttvz0g

Customary law directly applies in Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada has clarified the direct application of customary international law within domestic law, in R. v. Hape, issued in June of this year: http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2007/2007scc26/2007scc26.html. For a comment on it in the International Legal Materials, see: http://asil.org/ilpost/infocus/071025.pdf. According to the Court, while Parliament has clear constitutional authority to pass legislation governing conduct by Canadians or non-Canadians outside Canada, its ability to pass extraterritorial legislation is informed by the binding customary principles of territorial sovereign equality and non-intervention, by the comity of nations, and by the limits of international law to the extent that they are not incompatible with domestic law. By virtue of parliamentary sovereignty, it is open to Parliament to enact legislation that is inconsistent with those principles, but in so doing it would violate international law and offend the comity of nations. Since it is a well-established principle of statutory interpretation that legislation will be presumed to conform to international law, in interpreting the scope of application of the Charter, a court should seek to ensure with Canada’s binding obligations under international law where the express words are capable of supporting such a construction.

Another suspect at the ICC in The Hague

On 18 October 2007, the International Criminal Court took custody of Germain Katanga, who is alleged to be a former senior commander of the Force de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri in the North East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Court was acting on an arrest warrant issued on 02 July 2007. As a militia leader, Katanga is charged with planning and carrying out an attack on the village of Bogoro, which he ordered fighters under his command to “wipe out”. According to the Prosecutor, ‘on 24 September 2003, members of Germain Katanga’s militia entered Bogoro village and began an indiscriminate killing spree. At least 200 civilians died. Survivors were imprisoned in a building filled with corpses. Women were abducted and sexually enslaved. The village was pillaged by FRPI militia men.’
This is great news for the Court, which now has two suspects in custody. Although it is operating more slowly than many of us would have liked, the wheels of justice are turning and progress is being made. It wasn't very long ago that some people working for the court were telling me they doubted whether anybody would ever be taken into custody. For more details, see: http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/291.html

Sane enough to die

One of the fascinating issues in death penalty studies concerns persons who are sentenced to death and who are mentally ill. As a general rule, societies that still retain the death penalty do not execute the insane. But when is someone insane enough that they cannot be executed? And can they be medicated, forcibly, to make them sane enough for exection? These and related issues are discussed by Michael Mello in 'Executing the Mentally Ill: When Is Someone SaneEnough to Die?' (http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/cjmag/22-3/executingmentallyill.pdf), appearing in the fall2007 issue of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section's Criminal Justice magazine, which has as its them 'The Criminally Mentally Ill'. The entire issue can be accessed at http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/cjmag/22-3/home.html.

Books on PhD studies

Dr Anthony Cullen, who finished his PhD earlier this year, has sent along a list of books that may assist you in preparing your dissertation. I've listed them at the bottom of the blog, and would appreciate suggestions about books to add to the list. Anthony says the book by Sternberg is particularly useful.

Customary international humanitarian law

About three years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross published its customary law study. For a summary, see: http://www.icrc.org/eng/customary-law. It has organised a series of seminars on the subject, the most recent being held in Asia. The proceedings are availabe at: http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/customary-law-publication-140907. The hard copy version can also be ordered, free of charge, from the ICRC Regional Delegation for South Asia in New Delhi.

European Union accession to the European Convention on Human Rights

This is an old subject, but it keeps coming back. Should the EU, as an international organisation, accede to the European Convention on Human Rights? The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europea has just produced a useful collection of documents on the subject: http://www.mediafire.com/?2mpxuvmjzsi

International Criminal Court and the State

The Human Rights Law Centre and Methods and Data Institute at the University of Nottingham is hosting a multi-disciplinary conference entitled 'The International Criminal Court and the State', to be held on 7 November. Here is the poster http://www.mediafire.com/?2pbwtmyk2e0 and the programme http://www.mediafire.com/?6kg2o0j5wmv.

Genocide denial from the White House

Last week, I posted the remarks about Darfur by former President Jimmy Carter. Taking a position consistent with that of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, not to mention important international NGOs, Carter said it was better to describe the atrocities as crimes against humanity. He was roundly and often quite viciously attacked by neocons in the American media and on the internet, and unfairly accused of trying to pander to the Sudanese regime.
Hardly days had gone by before the neocons indulged in their own brand of denial. When a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide passed a congressional committee, President Bush reacted. Avoiding the word ‘genocide’ Bush said: ‘This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror.’ On this, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/washington/11prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. The whole business provides a good example of the politicization of the term ‘genocide’, not to mention the hypocrisy of Bush and the neocons.