Free Republic

Could the U.S. rest easy if its only military base in the Indian Ocean were under the sovereign authority of an African government instead of the U.K.? At center stage is Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, a critical hub for U.S. forces. The base is the sole reason that the U.K. clings onto the 58 small Indian Ocean isles that make up the Chagos Archipelago, of which Diego Garcia is the largest. For decades, London has made Diego Garcia available to the Pentagon on the most favorable terms imaginable: no rent, few restrictions and little oversight. The island is an...

Law: President Obama's nominee for State Department legal adviser could be a future Supreme Court pick. He believes U.S. law should be based on foreign precedent, and even Shariah law could find a home here.We have commented many times on the opinion of a number of U.S. Supreme Court justices that American jurists should include foreign law and precedent in their decisions. In several prominent cases, this has already happened. In a speech in South Africa, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the March 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, in which a 5-4 majority ruled against executing murderers who were 17...

The UN’s top court ruled on Thursday that the Rohingya face a “real and ongoing” threat of genocide in Myanmar, and emergency provisional measures should be implemented to protect the Rohingya inside the country. The provisional measures should be implemented to protect the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar during the next stage of the hearing, said the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court also ruled that it has jurisdiction over the genocide case and the next stage of the hearing can go ahead. The Gambia brought the case to the ICJ on behalf of an organization of Muslim nations,...

The United States on Monday asked judges at the International Court of Justice to throw out a claim by Iran to recover $1.75 billion (€1.5 billion) in national bank assets seized by U.S. courts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the assets must be turned over to American families of victims of the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, among others. The hearings at the tribunal were separate from Iran’s claim relating to current U.S. sanctions against Tehran. Iran’s claim in both cases is based on a 1955 Amity Treaty, which was signed 24...

The United States was handed yet another snub by the United Nations last week when its International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered it to undo sanctions against Iran that would interfere with the importation of humanitarian goods and services to that country. Specifically, the court ordered the United States to remove those sanctions dealing with "medicine and medical devices, food and agricultural commodities and spare parts and equipment necessary to ensure the safety of civil aviation." The United States immediately cried foul with John Bolton, the United States National Security Advisor, pointing out that the ICJ had allowed itself to...

THE HAGUE -- The United Nations' top court on Wednesday ordered the United States to lift sanctions on "humanitarian" goods to Iran that President Donald Trump re-imposed after pulling out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously ruled that Washington "shall remove by means of its choosing any impediments arising from the measures announced on May 8 to the free exportation to Iran of medicines and medical devices, food and agricultural commodities" as well as airplane parts, said judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf. The court said sanctions on goods "required for humanitarian needs... may have...

Iran went to the United Nations’ highest court Monday in a bid to have U.S. sanctions lifted following President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to re-impose them, calling the move “naked economic aggression.” Iran filed the case with the International Court of Justice in July, claiming that sanctions the Trump administration imposed on May 8 breach a 1955 bilateral agreement known as the Treaty of Amity that regulates economic and consular ties between the two countries. At hearings that started Monday at the court’s headquarters in The Hague, Tehran asked judges at the world court to urgently suspend the...

Iran has filed a lawsuit against the United States alleging that Washington’s decision in May to impose sanctions after pulling out of a nuclear deal violates a 1955 treaty between the two countries, the International Court of Justice said on Tuesday. A State Department official said the application was without merit and the United States would fight it in the court. “While we cannot comment on the specifics, Iran’s application is baseless and we intend to vigorously defend the United States before the ICJ,” a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. […] Iran said in...

The UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon says its prosecutor has issued indictments for the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The names of the accused remain confidential for now, but are widely believed to include members of the armed Shia group Hezbollah. A pre-trial judge now decides whether to issue warrants. Last week, Hezbollah and its allies brought down Lebanon's government in a dispute over the tribunal. The group, which denies any role in the killing, has dismissed the tribunal as a US and Israeli plot that is designed to discredit it. It has demanded that Lebanon cease...

Last week's International Court of Justice decision on Kosovo could have a significant global effect. While there is less there than meets the eye in legal terms, how the ruling is read politically may be quite different.....

Six years after the state Supreme Court dismissed his $433 million lawsuit against the gun industry, Mayor Daley today called for a change of venue — to the World Court normally reserved for disputes between nations and crimes against humanity. Wrapping up the sixth annual Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum, Daley convinced more than a dozen of his counterparts from around the world to approve a resolution urging "redress against the gun industry through the courts of the world" in The Hague. "This is coming from international mayors. They're saying, 'We’re tired of your guns, America. ... We don't...

KEVIN Rudd has promised to take Japan to the International Court of Justice if it doesn't agree before November to stop Antarctic whaling, but a behind-closed-doors deal with the Japanese could blow a big hole in the Prime Minister's case before then. A proposed compromise deal in the International Whaling Commission that would allow Japan to continue its so-called scientific whaling, though on a more limited basis, could wreck Australia's core claim that the practice is illegal under international law. A tough talking Mr Rudd yesterday demanded Japan reduce to zero its Southern Ocean scientific whaling quota. "If we don't...

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, angry because the United States is rethinking an aid program, pressed Washington on Monday for billions of dollars in war reparations dating back to a 1980s civil war. The International Court of Justice, based in the Hague, ordered the United States in 1986 to pay reparations to Nicaragua for training, arming and financing Contra rebels and mining Nicaraguan ports during a conflict that killed tens of thousands of people. "The United States has not honored the judge's order," Ortega said on national television. The World Court never set a figure for compensation but...

Long after the guns fall silent in the Georgia-Russia conflict, the two countries' legal artillery is still likely still be firing away in an attempt to have the each other publicly judged guilty of war crimes, even genocide. On September 8th, the International Court of Justice begins hearings in a case filed by Georgia.The case seeks to halt Russian military action in Georgia, and accuses the Kremlin of conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing there.Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, has called the Russian forces in his country "21st century barbarians."Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, has had even harsher words...

PARIS — Georgia has filed a lawsuit against Russia at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for its actions in and around the territory of Georgia from 1991 to 2008, the court said in a statement.

The execution of José Ernesto Medellín Rojas by the state of Texas is a violation of international law, said Amnesty International today. "It undermines the authority of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which had ruled in favour of a stay of execution."

HOUSTON — In a case that has drawn international attention, Texas executed José E. Medellín on Tuesday night in defiance of an international court ruling and despite pleas from the Bush administration for a new hearing. The execution came just before 10 p.m. Central time, shortly after the United States Supreme Court denied a last request for a reprieve. Protesters for and against the death penalty clamored in the rain outside the Huntsville Unit, about 70 miles north of Houston, where Mr. Medellín was executed by lethal injection. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain,” he said to the witnesses...

Medellin Execute For Rape, Murder of Houston Teens Link Only

WASHINGTON (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a last-minute appeal to the United States Tuesday to halt the scheduled execution of a Mexican national sentenced to death for murder in defiance of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order. Jose Ernesto Medellin, 33, was due to be executed by lethal injection at 2300 GMT in the state of Texas. He was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of two teenagers and is one 51 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States. Less than 12 hours before Medellin's planned execution, Ban called on the US government...

The United States is fast approaching a showdown over its commitment to the rule of international law as Texas prepares to carry out the scheduled Aug. 5 execution of convicted killer and rapist Jose Medellin. On July 14, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered the US government to "take all measures necessary" to prevent the execution of Mr. Medellin and four other Mexican nationals awaiting execution dates on death row in Texas. . . Medellin admitted involvement in the gang rape and murder of two girls. The girls, ages 14 and 16, took a shortcut home through...