Charles Taylor’s Conviction Upheald on Appeal

Yesterday, 27 September 2013, the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone upheald former Liberian President Charles Taylor’s conviction and 50 year prision sentence for 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This judgment is interesting for its apparant departure from the recent jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, however, this aspect will have to be analyzed in greater detail. For now, you can find the judgment here.

The {New} International Law at the ELI Projects Conference

Yesterday, today and tomorrow the European Law Institute will be having its General Assembly and discussing its present and future projects. Right now the panel is is using the European Foundation Statute. Later today there will be a discussion on coordination in criminal law proceedings. For more information on his new and important institute, you can see their website here.

I will post pictures of the events as soon as I can.

One down, two to go?

As has been noted on this blog, Judge Harhoff was recuesed from the bench in the case before the ICTY against Vojislal Seselj. I had questioned what would happen since the case was for all intents and purposes concluded and the judgment soon to be rendered. We now have the answer.

Judge Carmel Agius, acting president of the tribunal, issued a decision today wherein he held that the rules applying to the incapacitation of a judge sitting in a partially heard case will apply mutatis mutandis. This means that the remaining judges on the case will conference with the accused to hear his views on continuing the proceedings with a substitute judge, or if he prefers to have a new trial. The decision is available here.

For those who are not familiar with Mr. Seselj, he is quite the firey chap. What I would not give to be in the courtroom for that discussion….