Working over several semesters, students in Vanderbilt’s International Law Practice Lab have provided the baseline data for the mappingbashir.org website, which chronicles the travels of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir.
Al Bashir faces charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity related to government orchestrated attacks against civilians in Darfur, Sudan. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has presented 27 Reports to the United Nations Security Council regarding the situation, but Bashir has yet to be arrested and continues to travel widely. Students in the International Law Practice Lab have generated the most complete dataset in the world to track Bashir’s travel as well as the legal and political expressions by States in United Nations Security Council debates. Mr. Al-Bashir has taken 173 trips abroad since the issuance of the arrest warrants by ICC judges.
During oral arguments in September 2018 related to Jordan’s refusal to enforce ICC warrants of arrest, Practice Lab students worked overnight to address questions posed by the ICC Appeals Chamber. The Practice Lab also submitted an amicus brief in the case at the request of the Appeals Chamber before the hearings.
Watch Professor Mike Newton participate in the Day 1 of the oral arguments on September 10 (beginning at 1:42:30), Professor Newton’s arguments on Day 3 of the oral arguments on September 12 is here (beginning at 24:55), and Day 4 arguments on September 13 are here (beginning at 1:04:15).