In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Author: Priya Pillai

11 Mar

When the news broke that the former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had been arrested and detained upon arrival at Manila’s airport from an overseas trip, by Philippine police executing an international arrest warrant, it was the culmination of months of speculation. The political feud and infighting in the Philippines halls of power certainly facilitated this moment. But let us not forget, it’s been the relentless work...

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07 Feb

The adoption of General Recommendation 40 by the CEDAW Committee in October 2024 represents a significant milestone in the push for greater representation of women in international decision-making spaces.   This post will focus on an area that General Recommendation 40 will have an impact: the leadership of women from the Asian region in international justice and accountability. This long-overdue discussion is...

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04 Aug

[Priya Pillai is an international lawyer, heads the Asia Justice Coalition secretariat and is a contributing editor at Opinio Juris.] She participated in the MLAT negotiations in Ljubljana, Slovenia on behalf of the Asia Justice Coalition. All views are personal. The negotiations over two weeks in Ljubljana, Slovenia in May this year for the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) were eye-opening in...

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24 Jul

[Priya Pillai is an international lawyer, heads the Asia Justice Coalition secretariat and is a contributing editor at Opinio Juris.] She participated in the MLAT negotiations in Ljubljana, Slovenia on behalf of the Asia Justice Coalition. All views are personal. On 26 May 2023, the Ljubljana – The Hague Convention on International Cooperation in the Investigation and Prosecution of the Crime of Genocide,...

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31 Jan

1 February marks the second anniversary of the coup d’état in Myanmar. In the past year, the situation for the population has only become more fraught and difficult. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that 2,890 individuals have been killed, likely an underestimation, 16,000 have been detained on spurious charges, scores have been tortured, many have been sentenced to death,...

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22 Nov

The Sixth Committee of the United Nations adopted resolution A/C.6/77/L.4 on the Draft Convention on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity on 18 November 2022. This draft convention was elaborated upon and adopted by the International Law Commission, and submitted by the ILC to the General Assembly for further consideration and action in 2019.  The resolution at the Sixth Committee was co-sponsored...

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24 Aug

There are a few anniversaries of note in 2022, which should prompt us to deeper conversations and more concerted action. It is the 10th anniversary of the forced Rohingya exodus from Myanmar, with 25 August marking the 5th Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. This year,...

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22 Jul

The International Court of Justice has just read its judgment on preliminary objections in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). This is a brief note based on the reading of the judgment, based on my twitter thread ‘live tweeting’ the judgment and does not delve into the details of the legal argumentation...

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14 Jul

It has been a busy time at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the past few months, particularly in relation to cases based on the Genocide Convention. At the moment, there are two ongoing cases relating to this convention – Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar) and Allegations of Genocide...

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06 May

Dear Reader,  As you might have seen on twitter, on a very rainy Friday afternoon, having come to the end of my workday, I spied the ICJ press release for a new hearing on provisional measures – this time, on the Questions of jurisdictional immunities of the State and measures of constraint against State-owned property (Germany v. Italy). Germany instituted proceedings on 29 April 2022...

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