Go On! ASIL interest group session: Fact-Finding in International Criminal Law

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

International criminal law enthusiasts should be sure to attend this week's ICL Interest Group meeting at the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., about which we've already blogged here, here, here, and here. The Interest Group, of which I am honored to serve as Co-Chair, is hosting a panel discussion with IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Nancy Combs, Cabell Research Professor of Law at William and Mary Law School (left), about her book, previously featured here. The session is Friday, March from 10:45 am - 12:15 p.m. (Full annual meeting schedule here).
The session will be moderated by the group's other Co-Chair, Linda Malone, the Marshall-Wythe Foundation Professor of Law and Director of the Human Security Law Program at William & Mary Law School (right).
The panel will also feature prepared remarks and questions by discussants drawn from our interest group, including:
►David Crane, Professor of practice at Syracuse University College of Law and founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (left).
► Hannah Garry, Director of USC Law's International Human Rights Clinic (right).
► IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Saira Mohamed, Assistant Professor of Law at Berkeley Law (below left).
► Dan Saxon, formerly a legal officer of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and now a lecturer at Cambridge University.
► IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Meg DeGuzman, Assistant Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law (right).
► Marko Oberg, Legal Officer at International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Go On! Religion & International Law

Santa Clara University School of Law's annual international law symposium will be on the topic of "Religion & International Law."
The event will be Friday, Feb. 18 and Saturday, Feb 19, 2011 in the California Mission Room, Benson Center, Santa Clara University.
The Symposium homepage is here. Online registration may be undertaken here (MCLE credit is available). The papers and proceedings will be published in our Journal of International Law.
The Symposium is organized around a series of papers by our main presenters as well as commentary from other experts. The full schedule is here.
Speakers and commentators include (full bios are here):
► Lama Abu-Odeh (Georgetown) (top right)
► Peter Danchin (U. Maryland)
► Haider Hamoudi (Pittsburgh)
► IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Saira Mohamed (Berkeley Law) (top left)
► Anissa Helie (John Jay College of Criminal Law & International Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws)
► Dr. Hisham Hellyer (Warwick)
► Asifa Quraishi (Wisconsin) (middle right)
► Brett Scharffs (Brigham Young)
► Shadi Mokhtari (American) (middle left)
► Dr. Manisuli Ssenyonjo (Brunel University)
► Seval Yildirim (Whittier) (bottom right)
► IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune (Rutgers-Newark) (bottom left)
The keynote speaker is Robert Steiple, the first ever U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.
Hope to see you there!

Guest Blogger: Saira Mohamed

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Saira Mohamed (left) as today's guest blogger.
Saira, who will join the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law this fall. She earned her J.D. in 2005; currently, she is the James Milligan Fellow at Columbia. While a student, she was Executive Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review, a James Kent Scholar, a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and recipient of the David Berger Memorial Prize for academic excellence in international law. Saira also holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and international studies, cum laude and with distinction, from Yale College.
Before beginning her fellowship, Saira was Senior Advisor to the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and Attorney-Adviser for human rights and refugees in the Department of State. Before that, she clerked for Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Her research and publications concentrate on public international law, international criminal law, and postconflict justice and reconstruction. In her guest post below, she discusses her analysis, in a new ASIL Insight, of the newest International Criminal Court decision respecting Darfur-related charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Saira dedicates her post to

lawyer, suffragist, and journalist Crystal Eastman, a founder of the modern American civil liberties movement, who recognized the connection between the domestic struggle for civil liberties and the worldwide movement for international peace.

Among other things Eastman (right), who lived from 1881 to 1928, cofounded the American Civil Liberties Union, drafted the 1st workers compensation law in the United States, helped to draft the Equal Rights Amendment, and took part in the formation of what today is known as the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom. After Eastman died in 1928 at age 47, a eulogist said of her:

'She was for thousands a symbol of what the free woman might be.'

Heartfelt welcome!

ICC Appeals Chamber & the Bashir warrant

(Many thanks to IntLawGrrls for inviting me to contribute this guest post)

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court recently ruled against Pre-Trial Chamber I's March 2009 decision granting granting an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (below left) only on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, but not for genocide charges. (photo credit) (Prior IntLawGrrls post) The Appeals Chamber's ruling has alternately been:
► Hailed as a momentous development in the ICC’s attempts to pursue Bashir; and
► Dismissed as a meaningless procedural move that could have been accomplished without an appeal—and without the seven months it took the five-member panel to reach a decision.
As I explain in my ASIL Insight on the decision, perhaps it is neither one. But it is important nonetheless.
The Appeals Chamber’s decision centered on the proper interpretation of Article 58(1)(a) of the Rome Statute, which requires the Pre-Trial Chamber to grant the Prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant if

[t]here are reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court.

The Appeals Chamber held that by requiring that genocidal intent be the only reasonable inference available from the evidence, rather than only one of the reasonable inferences available, the Pre-Trial Chamber had constructed too rigorous a standard for determining what constitutes “reasonable grounds to believe.”
The Appeals Chamber, however, left it at that, and it did not define a standard for evaluating whether “reasonable grounds to believe” exist; that determination is left up to the Pre-Trial Chamber. Nor did the Appeals Chamber use its power under the ICC’s Rules of Procedure to decide on its own to issue the warrant for Bashir on the genocide charges. That, too, is up to the Pre-Trial Chamber. Given the divergence of views about whether the violence in Darfur—which according to UN officials has caused some 300,000 deaths and forced more than 2.7 million people from their homes—constitutes genocide, a decision by the Pre-Trial Chamber to issue the warrant on genocide charges is not a sure thing. And with Bashir still in power—Bashir recently received the official nomination of his party to run again for the presidency in Sudan’s April elections—the Appeals Chamber’s decision looks even less like a development of much import in the fight for accountability in Darfur.
Perhaps that is a fair assessment of the decision.
But even if it results in the ICC eventually holding a sitting head of state criminally responsible for genocide, the Appeals Chamber’s decision is also significant, right now, for what it tells us about international criminal law and about the internal dynamics of the Court:
► As a preliminary matter, the Appeals Chamber corrected an error in the Pre-Trial Chamber’s interpretation of the “reasonable grounds to believe” standard, an error which, had the Prosecutor chosen not to appeal, would have impacted future cases dealing not only with genocide charges, but also with any other crimes under the ICC’s jurisdiction.
► Moreover, beyond this important advance in interpretation and application of the Rome Statute, the decision provides a fascinating glimpse into the Appeals Chamber’s vision of its own powers relative to the Pre-Trial Chamber, and of the Pre-Trial Chamber’s powers relative to the Office of the Prosecutor. In finding error in the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber, but reserving for that body for the ultimate determination about the standard for issuance of a warrant and the grounds for the warrant itself, the Appeals Chamber is protecting the Pre-Trial Chamber’s role as the gatekeeper for investigations, as the check on the Office of the Prosecutor, while at the same time it is preventing the Pre-Trial Chamber from too strictly performing these necessary functions.
In short, the Appeals Chamber has defined for itself a limited role in interlocutory appeals—a role that holds great power despite its limits.