In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Melanie O'Brien

23 Jul

[Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.] [Kathleen M. Maloney is Visiting Law Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and Founding Board Member of the international human rights organization, Just Planet.] [Valerie Oosterveld is Western Research Chair in International Criminal Justice and Professor at the...

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02 Jun

[Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.] This post is about one of the most talked about trials in Australian legal history: a former soldier suing the media for defamation, for publishing allegations that he committed war crimes. During the trial a plethora of evidence against...

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02 Nov

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was created by the Cambodian government in partnership with the United Nations. Its purpose was to prosecute crimes under international and Cambodian law committed between 1975 and 1979, when Cambodia was ruled by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), better known as the ‘Khmer Rouge’. On 22 September 2022, the ECCC’s...

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30 Oct

[Dr Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia. Dr O’Brien is President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), and a volunteer with the Australian Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Committee. Her work on forced marriage has been cited by the International Criminal Court, she has appeared before the ICC as an amicus...

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30 Aug

[Dr Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). She is also a 2022 research fellow at the Sydney Jewish Museum.] Two years ago, in August 2020, thirteen blog posts were written in a Rohingya Symposium here on Opinio Juris. These posts covered, inter alia, the need for accountability, the Security Council, the problematic fact that Myanmar’s...

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03 May

[Valerie Oosterveld is Professor of International Law at Western University’s Faculty of Law (Canada) and Associate Director of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Kathleen M. Maloney is Visiting Law Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and Founding Board Member of the international human rights organization, Just Planet. Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western...

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18 Mar

[Melanie O’Brien, Associate Professor of International Law, University of Western Australia, is an award-winning IHL teacher and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.] Following the news from Ukraine, the list of violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) being reportedly committed by Russia is like a checklist through the rules of IHL, particularly the First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions (API) (which Ukraine and Russia are both...

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23 Sep

[Melanie O’Brien is senior lecturer in international law at the University of Western Australia. She is mildly obsessed with RBG, because of which she is regularly asked to talk about RBG, such as at the International Women’s Day Perth public screening of On the Basis of Sex in 2019.] After her death on 18 September 2020, the whole world is mourning...

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25 Aug

[Melanie O'Brien is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the University of Western Australia, and Second Vice-President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.] As part of the Opinio Juris symposium, “The impact and implications of International law: Myanmar and the Rohingya”, this post looks at the potential impact and implications of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal...

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19 Sep

[Melanie O’Brien, Senior Lecturer in International Law, University of Western Australia, is an award-winning IHL teacher and Vice-President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Her research focuses on genocide and human rights. This is the latest post in the co-hosted symposium with Armed Groups and International Law on Organizing Rebellion.] Tilman Rodenhäuser’s book analyses non-state armed groups in international humanitarian...

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09 Jun

[Melanie O’Brien is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the UWA Law School, University of Western Australia; and an affiliated researcher of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, University of Queensland.] Followers of Opinio Juris well know Kevin Jon Heller’s criticism of Crossing Lines and its portrayal of the ICC. I recently watched the action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, a...

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16 Feb

[Dr Melanie O’Brien, TC Beirne School of Law & Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, University of Queensland.] Since December, there have been multiple announcements of new allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by peacekeepers, and criticism of the UN for the handling of these allegations. These allegations all relate to SEA committed by peacekeepers in the Central African...

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