Sunday, November 21, 2010

IntLawGrrls

IntLawGrrls

Guest Blogger: Olivia Swaak-Goldman

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 03:00 AM PST

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Olivia Swaak-Goldman (left) as today's guest blogger.
Olivia is the International Cooperation Advisor in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In that position, she's responsible for the Office's external relations. (photo credit)
Prior to joining the ICC, Olivia was Senior Legal Counsel at the International Law Department of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she was responsible for international criminal law and international humanitarian law. She has also served as a Legal Assistant at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She was a Research Fellow at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She earned a degree in political science from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, her law degree from Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, D.C., and her LL.M degree from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Along with former ICTY Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, Olivia co-edited the 2-volume Substantive and Procedural Aspects of International Criminal Law (2000). She's published extensively, in journals and books, on areas of international criminal law.
A member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, Olivia took part, during ASIL's recent midyear meeting, in a panel on international criminal accountability. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts)
In her guest post below, Olivia sets forth the Prosecutor's perspectives on the trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, set to begin before Trial Chamber III (comprising Judges Elizabeth Odio Benito (Costa Rica), Joyce Aluoch (Kenya), and Adrian Fulford (Britain)) at 2:30 p.m. Hague time tomorrow. You can watch video streaming of proceedings here, and follow trial updates here.


Heartfelt welcome!

Opening of Trial in Bemba – Perspectives from the ICC Office of the Prosecutor

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 01:30 AM PST

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post)

At 2:30 p.m. Hague time tomorrow, Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court is scheduled to begin trial in Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba, a case about which IntLawGrrls frequently have posted.
In this guest post, I set forth the allegations against the accused, which the Office of the Prosecutor intends to prove through evidence adduced in the course of this trial.
Between October 2002 and March 2003, the troops of the MLC, or Mouvement de Libération du Congo, under the command of Jean-Pierre Bemba (below right), crossed the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo into the Central African Republic. The MLC troops' primary mission, we allege, was to terrorize anyone who was perceived as an enemy or a supporter of the enemy. The enemy in this case was the rebel group fighting against the then-President of the Central African Republic, Ange-Félix Patassé.
Persons suspected of support were innocent civilian men, women and children. The weapon of choice was rape.
It is our contention that in a systematic and organized manner, the MLC troops undertook a targeted and deliberate mass campaign of rape and sexual violence. Women and young girls, men in positions of authority, community leaders, and protectors, were brutally raped in front of their families or in public.
As planned, we allege, by the accused Bemba, the impact of the emotional and physical devastation of rape went beyond the individual scale. It extended to entire communities. These communities became powerless as their dignity, their social structures, and their way of life wer being destroyed. Community leaders lost their standing. Parents watched helplessly as their children were raped. And many victims were infected with HIV. For those who attempted to resist, death was the only option.
In the face of the impunity that for too long has characterized sexual and gender crimes, the opening of the ICC's investigation into the situation in the Central African Republic is a turning point. Building on the important work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda regarding the criminal characterization of sexual crimes, the ICC's investigation is the first time that the international criminal justice system chose to address a situation where allegations of sexual crimes far outnumber alleged killings.
The Bemba trial is also another milestone for its novel use of command responsibility doctrine. A military commander is being prosecuted by an international court for failing to properly control his troops, and for not preventing them from committing massive sexual crimes:
► The prosecution will demonstrate that as sole President and Commander-in-Chief of the MLC, Jean-Pierre Bemba failed in his duties as a military commander to prevent, repress and punish crimes of rape, murder and pillage committed by his MLC forces against civilians in the Central African Republic.
► We allege that Bemba knew that his MLC forces were committing or about to commit these crimes, but he chose not to act. In the limited instances when Bemba did choose to act, despite an attempt to create the impression of bona fide measures, his actions were in fact designed to cover-up the crimes; minimize the gravity of the crimes; and allow his subordinates to escape justice.
We in the Office of the Prosecutor believe that the trial against the accused Bemba will have a broad impact regardless of its outcome in the courtroom. It will send a strong signal to military commanders around the world: they can and will be held accountable for their failure to contain violence within the bounds of the law, including sexual violence committed by individuals under their command.

On drones

Posted: 21 Nov 2010 12:00 AM PST

The United States is putting on the pressure to expand the scope of U.S. drone operations, but getting nowhere, according to reports published in the last couple days.
For readers trying to figure out this hot-button global issue, there's The International Law of Drones, a new ASIL Insight by IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Mary Ellen O'Connell (prior posts).
In the Insight, Mary Ellen traces the history of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as drones officially are called. (UAV photo credit; O'Connell photo credit)
Then she describes how they've been used as weapons -- since the 1st U.S. attack, launched from Djibouti into Yemen, in 2002 -- through to current deployment at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Next she tries to fit the issues surrounding such uses into the framework of international law respecting the use of force; that is, term-of-art concepts such as "armed conflict," "armed attack," and "self-defense."
Finally, Mary Ellen points to a need for greater research, particularly on the psychological effects that drone warfare has on those who wage it.
Well worth a read.

On November 21

Posted: 20 Nov 2010 10:04 PM PST

On this day in ...
... 1990 (20 years ago today), at the same summit (left) discussed in a few days ago in this post, global leaders adopted the Charter of Paris for a New Europe. The charter redirected OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, to correspond to a new geopolitics. (photo credit) As WikiPedia explains:
In effect, the Paris Summit was the peace conference of the Cold War: Perestroika had ultimately put an end to the ideological and political division of the Iron Curtain. Pluralist democracy and market economy were together with international law and multilateralism seen as the victors, and as the common values and principles of national and international conduct that now ruled from Vancouver to Vladivostok.



(Prior November 21 posts are here, here, and here.)
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