In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

08 Aug

The Gambia initiated legal proceedings in the United States a few months ago against Facebook, in order to compel the company to hand over information related to its ongoing case against Myanmar, relating to the Rohingya, before the International Court of Justice.  This legal strategy is in accordance with a provision of U.S. law - §1782 of the U.S. Code, a federal statute which permits the compelling of testimony,...

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08 Aug

Workshops International Meeting on Justice for Peace: Current Challenges Facing International Criminal Law: The "José Luis Bustamante y Rivero" International Studies Workshop (TADEI)”, with sponsorship of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, has the pleasure to extend a general invitation to the "International Meeting on Justice for Peace: Current Challenges Facing International Criminal Law," which has as its main objective...

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07 Aug

[Alonso Gurmendi is an OJ contributor and Paula Baldini Miranda da Cruz is a lawyer, holds an LLM Adv., and is a Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University.] Today, lack of regional representation in international law practice and academia is a well-known problem. International law is still Western, old, male, and white. Despite efforts to reduce these disparities, they prevail in pretty...

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07 Aug

[Christian De Vos is a Senior Advocacy Officer with the Open Society Justice Initiative. He engages in advocacy across the Justice Initiative’s areas of work, with a particular focus on international justice and accountability for grave crimes.] It has been a pleasure to read the six reflections shared over the course of this symposium. I am grateful to Opinio Juris for hosting the discussion and to the...

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06 Aug

[Rod Rastan serves as Legal Advisor in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, where he deals with international law issues, in particular in relation to jurisdiction, admissibility and judicial assistance. The views expressed herein are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the OTP or the ICC. ] It is fair to say that the...

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06 Aug

[Alexandra Huneeus is Professor of Law at University of Wisconsin Law School, where she directs the Global Legal Studies Center and Chairs the Human Rights Program.] Of the many innovations being advanced by Colombia’s peace mechanism (the Special Jurisdiction for the Peace, or SJP), one is the way it delineates its investigations. While some of its cases are organized by type of criminal activity – such as recruitment...

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05 Aug

[Judy Gitau is the Africa Region Coordinator for the global Women's Rights organization Equality Now, a lawyer, a published author in the fields of transitional justice and international criminal law and a member of Kenya's civil society.] In his book Complementarity, Catalysts, Compliance: The International Criminal Court in Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Christian De Vos illustrates what was intended by the legal rules under the...

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05 Aug

[Jacques B. Mbokani is a Professor of Law at the Université de Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a Consultant to Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. A French version, provided by the author, appears below the English version of this post.] Introduction Christian De Vos's book on Complementarity, Catalysts, Compliance takes a fresh look at the relationship between the...

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04 Aug

In 2018, Latin American states adopted the “Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean”, also known as the Escazú Agreement, for the city in Costa Rica were it was signed. The treaty sets out an obligation for Member States to legislate on these three matters under specific conditions, within the broader context of...

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04 Aug

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has adopted General comment No. 37 on the right of peaceful assembly emanating from Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The final document was made available last week, and can be found here.    The adoption of this general comment – which is in effect an explanation or translation of Article 21...

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04 Aug

[Pascal Kambale and Sharon Nakandha are human rights lawyers with the Open Society Africa Regional Office (OSF-AfRO) where they serve as Senior Advisor and Program Officer respectively. They lead AfRO’s work on justice and accountability.] The request to provide some thoughts on Christian De Vos’ book is timely as the ASP appointed group of independent experts continues it task of making “concrete, achievable, actionable recommendations aimed at...

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