Further to Just Security‘s coverage on Tuesday of the potential war crimes liability of U.S citizen/Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar, this article discusses the distinction under international criminal law between (1) ordering the commission of offenses and (2) being found liable under the doctrine of superior responsibility for failing to prevent or punish the commission of abuses by subordinates.…   continue »

The International Criminal Court very recently issued an arrest warrant for a militia leader in Libya which should catch the attention of U.S. policymakers, diplomats and prosecutors because of the possibility that his most senior commander—an American citizen by the name of Khalifa Haftar—ordered soldiers to commit war crimes.…   continue »

A lot has happened before the International Criminal Court since we last reported on the Palestine and related situations. The timeline below picks up where my last timeline of relevant events left off. At that time, the Prosecutor had opened a preliminary examination into the Comoros referral based upon events on the Mavi Marmara, which was part of the Gaza freedom flotilla.…   continue »

As I wrote yesterday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced last week that it had issued a new arrest warrant for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli, a militia leader in Libya. As a commander of the Al-Saiqa Brigade in the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), Al-Werfalli is alleged to have directed or participated in a series of seven executions of 33 prisoners in total between June 2016 and July 2017, constituting the war crime of murder.…   continue »

On Monday, U.S. federal judge Terrence Boyle ruled that Inocente Orlando Montano Morales (Montano)—who headed El Salvador’s National Police as Vice Minister for Public Security in the 1980s—can be extradited to Spain to stand trial for his role in the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter on the grounds of the University of Central America (UCA).  …   continue »

Word out of Washington is that the Trump Administration has started to restructure the State Department and particularly the Under-Secretariat for Civilian Security, Democracy & Human Rights.  “J” (as it is called around Foggy Bottom) encompasses a number of Bureaus and Offices, including the Bureau of Counter-Terrorism and Countering Violent Extremism (CT/CVE), the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP).…   continue »

An important foreign military partner in our armed conflict against al-Qaida in Yemen—the United Arab Emirates—has faced a series of allegations that it is engaged in systematic torture of detainees in different parts of that country. The US government and individual US officials may be implicated in these abuses under domestic and international law, as Steve Vladeck explained in an analysis for Just Security.…   continue »

The latest Guantánamo military commission case to make headlines—the new charges against Encep Nurjamen (a.k.a. Hambali)—is shrouded in an unusual amount of secrecy. But when that veil is lifted, it reveals a charge sheet containing a legal flaw significant enough for the Pentagon’s newly appointed senior official in charge of such matters—Convening Authority Harvey Rishikof—to demand a do-over.…   continue »

[Editor’s note: for an analysis of the policy issues raised by this news, see Luke Hartig’s post “Reported Emirati Abuse of Detainees and the Perils of U.S. Partnerships.”]

There is a lot to say about Maggie Michael and Maad al-Zikry’s deeply disturbing Associated Press story out early this morning—that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has operated (and may still be operating) a number of different secret terrorism detention centers in Yemen; and that there is evidence that dozens of individuals suspected of being al Qaeda (and/or AQAP) members were tortured and subjected to other abuses by UAE agents at those facilities.…   continue »

The Saudi-led coalition’s near three-year conflict in Yemen appears to be converging on the Houthi-controlled city of Hodeidah. Foreign diplomats, international humanitarian NGOs, and experts have rightly voiced concerns of the humanitarian disaster that would result if an operation to recapture the city takes place.…   continue »