Srebrenica Genocide Convention by Bosnian Courts

Last Friday, the War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia and Hezegovina issued convicted Milorad Trbić of genocide. Trbić was transferred to Bosnia from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in June 2007, pursuant to Rule 11 bis. The judgment will not be available for a few months. According to the press release:

On 16 October 2009, the War Crimes Chamber found Milorad Trbić guilty of
genocide, for his participation in a joint criminal enterprise, between 12 July
and 30 November 1995, together with Colonel Ljubiša Beara, Liutenant Colonel
Vujadin Popović, Lieutenant Drago Nikolić and others, which consisted of the
common purpose and plan to capture, detain, summarily execute and bury all able
bodied Bosniak (Muslim) males from Srebrenica enclave, who were brought into the
Zvornik Brigade zone of responsibility. The Court found that this common purpose
and plan amounted to the commission of the crime of genocide. The Court
sentenced Trbić for his participation in the joint criminal enterprise to
30 years imprisonment.

Popović has been tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and a judgment of the Trial Chamber is expected later this year.
Thanks to Fidelma Donlon and Melissa Ruggiero.

Funded Doctoral Positions at Leiden

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies (Leiden Law School & Campus Den Haag) has two PhD vacancies for the project ‘Post-Conflict Justice and Local Ownership’ funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The project will involve research and testing of the design and management of international criminal justice. It examines rationales and methodologies of external intervention in justice responses, the societal impact of international criminal proceedings, based on analysis of the first practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the contribution of the ICC to capacity-building and legal harmonisation in conflict and post-conflict situations.
Fo more information: http://www.grotiuscentre.org/com/doc.asp?DocID=44 or write to Dr. Carsten Stahn (cstahn@campusdenhaag.nl) or Dr. Larissa van den Herik (L.van.den.Herik@LAW.leidenuniv.nl).

Can Palestine Join the International Criminal Court?

There is a report that Palestine is preparing to become a ‘member’ of the International Criminal Court: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=232793. The report says that information has been requested from the Court with a view to carrying this out. According to article 125 of the Rome Statute, ‘This Statute shall be open to accession by all States. Instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.’ Thus, Palestine can join to the extent that it is a ‘State’. Indeed, an attempt to accede to the Rome Statute could be interpreted as a manifestation of statehood. But the Palestinian Authority is knocking on the wrong door. It is not the Court that decides who may join; this is the job of the depository, which is the Secretary-General of the United Nations. I would be very surprised if the depository were to accept an instrument of accession from Palestine. Of course, Palestine might then apply to the Assembly of States Parties which, I think, could probably override a decision by the depository.
But isn’t the real problem that Palestine has not yet manifested its desire to be considered a State, or at least not recently? I am sure that if Palestine were to declare itself a State, it would be recognised by many other States very quickly. But it has to take this step first.
Thanks to Michael Kearney.

Death Penalty Research Centre Established in China

I was in China on the weekend, attending the final seminar of the EU-China Project on capital punishment, and attending the launch of the International Research Centre on Death Penalty Reform, which will be hosted by the law school of the Beijing Normal University. The meeting was attended by many senior judges, government officials and academics.

The photo shows my colleague Huang Fang, who is a professor at the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She recently received a prestigious award for the publication of a translation of my book Introduction to the International Criminal Court.

The seminar brought out all of the contradictions in the ongoing debate about the death penalty in China. On the one hand, there is more writing, publishing and research activity on the subject than ever before. Moreover, it is obvious that views continue to evolve, and that there has also been a substantial drop in the use of capital punishment in the last few years. At the same time, many Chinese experts cling stubbornly to the idea that there is great support among the people, and that the government cannot go ahead with reform until this changes.

Our colleagues at Wuhan University, together with the Max Planck Institute in Fribourg, produced a detailed public opinion survey whose results were presented during the weekend meeting. These results were analysed by Professor Roger Hood, professor emeritus of criminology at Oxford, who explained that they should encourage moves towards abolition. According to Professor Hood, the results demonstrate that there is a majority in support of capital punishment only for the crime of murder, and that there are many other indications in the survey showing that the people of China are far less enthusiastic about capital punishment than their leaders claim. In fact, the survey shows that there is much greater support for the death penalty among the professionals in the system than among the ordinary population. Professor Hood says this is a case of those engaged in the system trying to justify what they do.

The new International Research Centre in Beijing is headed by a dynamic senior scholar, Professor Zhang Bingzhi, and we hope it will continue to lead the debate within China. Professor Hood, Professor Hans-Jörg Albrecht of Max Planck, myself and others will be involved with the Centre in an advisory capacity.

Iran Violates Prohibition on Juvenile Executions

Iran has hanged a man for a crime committed when he was seventeen years of age: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/10/13/Iran-hangs-man-sentenced-when-17/UPI-23491255453386/. This violates Iran's obligations under article 6(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 37(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and under customary international law as codified in the Safeguards adopted by the Economic and Social Council in the early 1980s.
Iran is probably the only country in the world to persist in such violations. The United States of America ceased executions for juvenile offences in 2005, following a ruling of the Supreme Court.
The prohibition on executions for juvenile crimes has become a universal norm since it was first set out in the fourth Geneva Convention in 1949. It isn't the only problem Iran has with modern human rights standards, but it is certainly a flagrant one.

Richard W. Sonnenfeldt RIP

Richard Sonnenfeldt, who played an important role in the Nuremberg trial, has passed away. Students of mine hwo have seen the film Nuremberg: The Nazis Faced with their Crimes, may remember the interview with him.
Richard Sonnenfeldt was born in Germany in 1923, a Jew and, at various points, a refugee from Nazism, a young student in England, an 'enemy alien' interned in the United Kingdom, a refugee in Australia and India, an immigrant to the United States, an engineering student, a U.S. citizen, an American soldier fighting in Italy and Germany, an Office of Strategic Services interpreter, the chief interpreter, a key interrogator and a very central player on the U.S. prosecution staff at Nuremberg. For his obituary in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/nyregion/13sonnenfeldt.html?scp=1&sq=richard%20sonnenfeldt&st=cse. His 2007 interview with Charlie Rose: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8475. The 'Jackson List' post by John Q. Barrett: http://www.stjohns.edu/media/3/cf01f851490643c6b0e6e331a781462e.pdf.
Also, 2003 and 2004 Jackson Center interviews with Richard (near bottom, under “Other Nuremberg Trial Participants”): http://www.roberthjackson.org/Center/videolist/.
Thanks to John Q. Barrett.

Irish-American Exchange on Human Rights

This past weekend, a group of lecturers and doctoral students from the Irish Centre for Human Rights met with our colleagues at the Centre for Civil and Human Rights of the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana. It was the first of what we plan as an annual meeting of the two Centres. The purpose is to discuss and debate emerging issues and developments in human rights in a relatively unstructured and collegial manner. We are already planning next year's event, to take place in Galway on 16-18 October. Our hope is to enlarge the circle beyond our two institutions, and that academics, officials, journalists and activists who are interested in human rights will join us for these meetings.

This year's exchange heard presentations on post-conflict justice in Rwanda, the Obama administration's record on counter-terrorism measures, the influence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, legal issues concerning the use of combat drones, the abolition of the death penalty and the record of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals. A bit eclectic, but that was always the general idea. Presenters include Doug Cassel, Mary-Ellen O'Connell, Steven Smith, Shane Darcy, Ximena Medellín, Meg de Guzman, Jimmy Gurule, Gerald Gahima, Brian Farrell, Sean O’Brien and myself.

We were honoured by the attendance of Father Ted Hesburgh, founder of the Notre Dame Centre and former President of the University. The photo shows Father Hesburgh with Dr Vinodh Jaichand, deputy director of the Irish Centre (middle) and myself.

We're grateful to our hosts at Notre Dame for a fabulous weekend, and hope we can be as courteous when they visit us next year.

Lemkin Papers and Upcoming Conference

Raphael Lemkin was the Polish-Jewish scholar who invented the term ‘genocide’. He devoted much of his life to campaigning for the adoption and the widespread ratification of the Genocide Convention. A collection of his papers has been digitized and is available on line: http://digital.cjh.org/R/?func=collections-result&collection_id=1634.
A conference on Lemkin is being held in New York City on 15 November 2009: http://www.cjh.org/lemkin/.

NUI Galway Makes Big Jump in University Ratings

The National University of Ireland, Galway has jumped to 243rd position in the World University Rankings, which are issued annually by the Times Higher Education Supplement. According to last year’s ratings, Galway went from 484th place in 2007 to 358th place. So this year we leapt another 125 places. It places NUI Galway in the top 95th percentile of universities in the world. NUI Galway scored the biggest gain of all of the Irish Universities. We were also ranked 272nd in the top 300 in the Arts and Humanities Area.
We’re not (yet) in the same league as Harvard and Oxford, but we’re an energetic and dynamic institution that prides itself on its centres of excellence, one of which is the Irish Centre for Human Rights.

Human Rights Executive Position with Law Society

The Law Society is looking for a 'human rights executive' to work three days per week. The job is described as: 'C0ompleted or be undertaking a PhD in a field relevant to access to justice aqnd human rights...' See: http://www.mediafire.com/?dcy55bmm1u2.