On September 17, 2019, the Pre-Trial Chamber II (PTC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) partially granted the Prosecutor’s request for leave to appeal the PTC’s refusal to authorize the Afghanistan investigation.[1] To recall, on April 12, 2019, Pre-Trial Chamber II unanimously rejected the request of the Prosecutor[2] to proceed with an investigation for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.[3] Hence, it remains somewhat mysterious why it took the judges five months to certify the appeal – especially given that the PTC’s certification contains merely eight pages of substantive analysis. The fact of the matter is that the Prosecutor submitted her leave to appeal on June 7. But Judge Mindua caused from releasing his separate opinion on May 31 – six weeks after the decision.

On Monday, September 16, Spain’s National Court rejected the United States’ extradition request of Venezuela’s previous head of military intelligence, General Hugo Armando Carvajal, instead ordering for his release by the end of the day.[1] Carvajal, also known as “El Pollo” (the Chicken), had been held in provisional detention since he was arrested in mid-April in Madrid. The U.S. requested extradition of Carvajal on the grounds of drug trafficking charges. In its response rejecting the request, Spain cited his previous denials to drug trafficking and claimed it found the U.S. prosecutors’ to be politically motivated.[2] Another problem, Spanish officials explained, was that the extradition request failed to name any ‘concrete and precise’ crimes he may have committed that would justify his extradition.

The United States Department of Education recently initiated investigations of Georgetown, Texas A&M, Cornell, and Rutgers.  The Education Department bulletin has requested information on the schools’ reporting of foreign contributions, on the basis of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act.  This move, unprecedented for the Education Department, accompanies a number of measures taken by government agencies in recent years to curb foreign influence on American universities.  Foremost amongst these are recent efforts from Congress and the Department of Defense to rid American campuses of Confucius Institutes—Chinese language and cultural institutions funded by the Chinese government.

On September 10, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. law enforcement announced that a significant coordinated effort to disrupt business email compromise (BEC) schemes designed to intercept and hijack wire transfers from businesses and individuals, including many senior citizens, resulted in the arrest of 281 persons, including 74 in the United States.[1]

On September 12, 2019, the Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (FL-20) and Ranking Member Rep. Joe Wilson (SC-02) introduced the Transnational Repression Accountability and Prevention (TRAP) Act in the House of Representatives.[1] On September 16, Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (MS) and Ranking Member Sen. Ben Cardin (MD) introduced the TRAP Act in the Senate on Monday. On September 12, 2019, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the Helsinki Commission,[2] convened a hearing on the Tools of Transnational Repression: How Autocrats Punish Dissent Overseas, focusing on the role of International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).[3]

On September 3, 2019, a Nicaraguan court held a hearing for the first time for Orlando Tercero in Managua, Nicaragua, where he will be tried for the murder of his former girlfriend Haley Anderson in Binghamton, New York.[1] The Nicaraguan government has denied requests from the United States government to extradite Tercero, a 23-year-old former Binghamton University student.  Tercero is suspected of strangling Anderson, a nursing student, in his Oak Street student residence.  On March 9, 2018, police discovered her body after responding to a welfare check.  Soon after the murder, U.S. authorities believe Tercero, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Nicaragua, caught a flight from New York to Nicaragua.[2]

On September 10, 2019, President Donald Trump issued a revised Executive Order 13224,[1] furnishing the Treasury and State Departments new mechanisms permitting the U.S. Government to better identify and designate perpetrators of terrorism worldwide, especially ones involved in terrorism financing.  Also on September 10, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) used the new authorities in E.O. 13324 to designate a series of terrorist leaders, facilitators, and entities.[2]Treasury designated 15 leaders, individuals, and entities affiliated with terrorist groups.[3]  The action targets entities affiliated with HAMAS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), al-Qa’ida, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods-Force (IRGC-QF), and combined with actions taken by the State Department, amounts to some of the furthest reaching designations of terrorists and their supporters in the past 15 years.

On August 21, United States Department of Treasury imposed financial sanctions on three Chinese nationals and two companies accused of producing and shipping fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, to the U.S.[1] The sanctioned nationals include Guanhua Zheng, 63, and Fuijing Zheng, 36, a father and son indicted in Ohio last year on charges of producing and smuggling fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances.[2] The third man, Xiaobing Yan, 42, was linked to similar charges in Mississippi in 2017. The two companies were identified as Qinsheng Pharmaceutical Technology and the Zheng Drug Trafficking Organization, both of which are based in Shanghai.

On September 4, 2019, the United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry on Burundi (COIB) released its latest report on the situation in Burundi.[1] The report concludes that serious human rights violations have continued to be committed in Burundi since May 2018, in a “general climate of impunity.” Some of these violations constitute international crimes. Members of the youth league of the ruling party, the Imbonerakure, are the main perpetrators. Officers of the National Intelligence Service and the police, along with local administrative officials, are also frequently identified as perpetrators of such violations. The report confirms the existence of a climate of fear and intimidation of all persons who do not show their support to the ruling party, CNDD-FDD.

The book gives a general and practical overview of how criminal justice in the United States operates.  The book targets readers who have not studied the subject and who may not have a background in the American legal system generally.  It explains some of the distinctive features of United States criminal procedures. The author is a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, who then was a former U.S. federal prosecutor.  He practiced cross-border white collar crime law in Paris, and has taught at the University of Amsterdam and Columbia University  Law School.