International Law Archive

The Russian government warned that it might implement its threatened unilateral “moratorium” on observing its commitments under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty after an extraordinary conference of the treaty signatories, held this past week in Vienna, failed to address Moscow’s concerns. Russia called for the emergency meeting, the first in CFE history, after complaining for months about the stalemated status of the treaty’s implementation. Anatoly Antonov, the chief of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s security and disarmament department and head of the Russian delegation to the conference, told the session that Russia remains committed to conventional arms control in […]

Zambia’s former president, Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba, is famous for his clothes. In a raid, 349 designer shirts, 206 jackets and suits, and 72 pairs of shoes, many of them bearing Chiluba’s personalized FJT monogram, were seized as part of an investigation into corruption and graft. In May, he was found guilty of siphoning millions from state coffers while in power, and his clothes were cited as “the most telling example of corruption” by the London high court judge presiding over the case. The story of Frederick Chiluba and his monogrammed designer clothes, in a country where the majority of […]

LONDON — “He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I will vote for him.” With those words chanted in the ruined streets of impoverished, war-torn Liberia, Charles Ghankay Taylor was swept into office in 1997, capping a bloody eight-year campaign that began with the savage ouster of dictator Samuel Doe. Meanwhile, in next-door Sierra Leone, one of the most brutal wars in modern history raged, fought by drug-addled youngsters and characterized by savage rapes and the hacking off of limbs that left thousands of people without arms or legs, lips or noses. It is for the crimes he is […]