The aim of this article is to reflect upon accountability under international law through the framework of a specific example. The Turkel Commission is a public commission of inquiry appointed by the Government of Israel. It issued its second and final report, which addresses Israel's mechanisms for investigating violations of international law according to the laws of war, in February 2013. The Report primarily focuses on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) but also attends to International Human Rights Law (IHRL). The duty to investigate under international law is an evolving process because treaty law lacks detail, particularly regarding the manner of conducting an investigation. Under IHRL that duty has been enriched by the jurisprudence of regional human rights courts and soft law. Under IHL duty (which is even sparser in detail) it has been aided by state practice and the jurisprudence of international tribunals. The Turkel Report is the first major study on the duty to investigate and it informs much of the analysis of this article. The article provides a descriptive review of the Report and a critical discussion of the way this current national development offers a meaningful contribution to the development of the obligation imposed by international law to investigate alleged violations.

On 10 and 11 January 2013, the T.M.C. Asser Institute and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism—The Hague (ICCT), in cooperation with the International Humanitarian and Criminal Law Platform, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the Municipality of The Hague and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs organised a two-day symposium entitled The Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism. During the symposium, twenty-seven top panellists and moderators from academia, civil society, governments, the military and multilateral organisations discussed the contours of various approaches states take against non-state actors with the goal of countering terrorism. Specifically, the symposium addressed issues related to uses of force and how these may affect and define the geographic and temporal scope and limitations of the laws of armed conflict in relation to counter-terrorism. Besides this main theme, which operates within the armed conflict paradigm, the symposium also discussed and assessed the law-enforcement paradigm. Specifically, this paper elaborates on a number of key questions raised during the conference; these relate to the temporal and geographical limitations of armed conflict, the interplay between international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well as the use of drones, the law enforcement approach to counter-terrorism and the possible need for a new framework for countering terrorism.

In recent years a gradual understanding has developed on the need to take a broader view of the concept of ‘protection’ during times of armed conflict. Whilst destruction and suffering caused directly by warring parties continues to be a matter of deep concern, focus has started to also turn to an examination of the indirect impact armed conflict has on civilian populations. In particular, the large number of deaths caused by disruption to medical and humanitarian assistance is gaining attention. The Harvard Burden of Disease Unit has recently called for more reliable data on the health effects of armed conflict. The Small Arms Survey of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, has stated that armed conflict is a major cause of ill health and mortality not just from obvious injuries and death on the battlefield but also due to factors such as loss of access to basic health care. They estimate that in contemporary conflicts there is a ratio of four indirect to one direct death due to armed conflict. The scale of the problem can be seen, for example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it is estimated that 38,000 excess deaths per month are caused mostly by easily treatable diseases which go untreated due to insecurity arising from armed conflict. The conflict in Iraq has had similar effects; between 2003 and 2007, 18,000 of the country's 34,000 doctors fled and many other were killed, with a catastrophic impact on the health care system.

Al-Qaeda's dispersal and the rise of regional terrorist groups such as Al-Shabaab in Somalia have raised the stakes for defining an “organized armed group” (OAG). If an entity fails the OAG test, a state may use only traditional law enforcement methods in responding to the entity's violence. Both case law and social science literature support a broadly pragmatic reading of the OAG definition. While the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has cited factors such as existence of a headquarters and imposition of discipline, ICTY decisions have found organization when evidence was at best equivocal. Moreover, terrorist organizations reveal surprisingly robust indicia of organization. Illustrating this organizational turn, a transnational network like Al-Qaeda operates in a synergistic fashion with regional groups. Moreover, recent news reports have suggested that current Al-Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri has attempted to assert operational control over the specific targeting decisions of Al-Qaeda affiliates, although that effort has not been uniformly successful. Furthermore, while Al-Qaeda does not micromanage most individual operations, it exercises strategic influence, e.g., through a focus on targeting Western interests. When such strategic influence can be shown, the definition of OAG is sufficiently flexible to permit targeting across borders. In addition, the doctrine of co-belligerency, borrowed from neutrality law, provides a basis for targeting that is not confined by state boundaries. Even when these indicia are absent, individuals within non-Al-Qaeda groups may be targetable if they engage in coordinated activity with Al-Qaeda.

On 29 October 1997, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), composed of Judges Antonio Cassese (presiding), Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, Haopei Li, Ninian Stephen and Lal Chand Vohrah, handed down its Judgement in the Blaškić case on the appeal filed by the Republic of Croatia against the ‘Subpoena Decision’ of Trial Chamber II of 18 July 1997. The legal issues raised in this case are complicated, rather new and fundamental from the perspective of international law and the inherent powers of international criminal courts established ad hoc by a Security Council resolution under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. They concern the authority and power of the Tribunal to issue compulsory orders of this kind to states, to high government officials and other individuals; the question of which remedies are available if there is a failure to comply with such subpoenae duces tecum; and other issues, as how to deal with the problem of the national security interests of sovereign states.

Milestones, particularly those as special as the twin-birth of a new century and millenium, lend themselves to rhapsody and the urge to say something positive and forward-looking. The Yearbook is not merely succumbing to this tendency, however, when it observes that, in some important respects, 2000 proved itself an auspicious opening. There was a flurry of activity among states to implement international humanitarian law (IHL), most of it a consequence of states ratifying the several humanitarian law treaties that were concluded in the late-Nineties.

Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti died at the hands of Iraqi officials at dawn on 30 December 2006 following a tumultuous fourteen month trial for crimes committed against the citizens of a relatively obscure Iraqi village known as al-Dujail. Prior to the sporadic small arms fire on 8 July 1982 that was perceived by Saddam as an attempted assassination, the Trial Judgment describes al-Dujail as a ‘safe town … rich in fruit gardens irrigated from the Tigris river through canals and water pumps’. The people of Dujail enjoyed a good standard of living, and the local party membership ‘was mixed between Shiites and Sunnites’. Iraqi citizens were imprisoned in the aftermath of that July day; many were tortured and dozens were murdered. An eyewitness testified at trial that three months after the incident, the fields and orchards of Dujail were razed and all of the fruit trees carted off and destroyed by regime tractors, bulldozers, international type cars and six-wheel drive vehicles For specialists in international humanitarian law, the conviction of these acts as the crime against humanity of inhumane acts may become the very embodiment of that catch-all crime. Destroying the sustenance and prosperity of and entire village is the epitome of acts ‘intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to the body or to the mental or physical health’. The al-Dujail trial is a metaphor for our common struggle to build the rule of law around the world.

The International Criminal Courts Round-Up reports on the most interesting judgements and decisions rendered by international(ized) criminal courts and tribunals during the reporting period. In addition, important developments within the various organs of the courts are highlighted, such as the appointment of new judges and significant amendments to the procedural rules of the courts. The Round-Up presently covers issues concerning the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

2011 will be remembered for two defining series of events of a global dimension, each of which prompted debate and disagreement among IHL experts: the Arab Spring and the killing of Osama bin Laden and other high ranking terrorist suspects.

Throughout its extensive history, the doctrine of belligerent reprisals has caused controversy and provoked debate, none more so than in the Twentieth Century, with its unprecedented developments in the codification of the laws of armed conflict. Belligerent reprisals are prima facie unlawful acts taken against a party to an armed conflict that is violating the law for the purpose of coercing that party to cease its unlawful conduct. Owing to this law enforcement function, belligerent reprisals have historically been treated as lawful acts, provided that they have been carried out in observance of a number of established principles. The rules laid down in international humanitarian law have increasingly limited the scope for taking reprisals by excluding certain categories of persons and objects from being the lawful targets of reprisal actions. While palpable disagreement exists regarding the customary status of the law pertaining to belligerent reprisals, more fundamental dispute arises in relation to the desirability of the actual institution of belligerent reprisals itself.

On 17 December 1997, US magistrate Judge Marcel Notzon ordered the release of Elizapban Ntakirutimana, who had been held in custody in Texas pending a decision on a request by the United States for his extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

As DP O'Connell noted in a seminal 1970 article (‘International Law of Contemporary Naval Operations’) and in his equally seminal 1975 book The Influence of Law on Sea Power, maritime operations law is a constantly evolving discipline in both theory and practice—with law often lagging practice by a noticeable margin. One consequence of the (then) ‘Dreadnought era’ focus of much of the law of naval warfare was that ‘[I]f international law appears to the naval officer a tangle of uncertainties in which he is likely to be ensnared, the technology of naval warfare induces in the legal theorists perplexity and dismay’. However, for all of the sometimes haphazard and ‘catch-up’ nature of the relationship between law and practice in maritime operations, there are clearly a number of fundamental, normative, defining themes which have tended to play the dominant role in shaping and informing the evolution of maritime operations law over the last several decades (or, indeed, centuries). Pinpointing which themes come within this category is of course a matter for debate, but it would seem reasonably safe to assert that an indication as to their form and colour is evident in paradigmatic themes such as resource exploitation, maritime claims, technological advance, and freedom of navigation.

From 24 March until 9 June 1999, NATO forces, or more precisely, the forces of 13 of the 19 member states of the Alliance, set at the service of the latter, attacked the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in order to force its Government to accept a solution to the dispute over Kosovo.

During the Canadian mission in Somalia pursuant to resolution 794 (1992) of the Security Council, a stunning incident occurred involving some Canadian soldiers who tortured to death a sixteen-year-old unarmed Somali civilian. The victim was captured during the night of 16 March 1993 while attempting an intrusion into the camp of Belet Huen. Shidane Arone did not offer any resistance and was entrusted to chief corporal Matchee to be kept in custody in a bunker designed for this purpose. This is where the unfortunate Somali had to endure frightful ill-treatment, mainly at Matchee's hands.

The adoption by the Italian parliament of Law No. 374 on 29 October 1997, entitled Rules for the ban of anti-personnel land-mines, formalizes the transformation of Italy from one of the major producers of such mines to one of the leaders of national and international initiatives for the ban of antipersonnel landmines.

The International Criminal Courts Round-Up reports on the most interesting judgements and decisions rendered by international(ized) criminal courts and tribunals during the reporting period. In addition, important developments within the various organs of the courts are highlighted, such as the appointment of new judges and significant amendments to the procedural rules of the courts. The Round-Up presently covers issues concerning the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

While it is clear that international treaties become part of Australian domestic law only once implemented by domestic legislation, it is less certain whether implementing legislation is required to incorporate customary international law into Australian law. This question is assuming a new importance as international law moves beyond dealing simply with relationships between sovereign nations to protecting the human rights of groups and individuals within states. Since the arrival of Europeans, indigenous Australians have witnessed enormous violations of their human rights. In Nulyarimma v. Thompson, members of the Aboriginal community alleged that certain Commonwealth Ministers and Members of Parliament had committed genocide, and sought various remedies. Since Australia has not implemented the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by legislation, the case squarely raised the issue of whether customary international law, and in particular international criminal law, could become part of Australian law without the assistance of Parliament.