Recent Posts

[Haniya Hasan is a Pakistani legal researcher, based in Islamabad, conducting research on issues of international human rights and humanitarian law.] The State response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been varied procedurally, operationally, and in terms of overall success. Nevertheless, key procedural and operational factors contributing to an effective State response (e.g. New Zealand’s) has shared certain characteristics: speedy precautionary measures, consistent and up-to-date information, and well-maintained...

[Andreina De Leo is a Legal Researcher at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC).] On June 11, 2020, the European Court of Human Rights (ECt.HR) delivered the much-awaited judgement Baldassi and Others v. France (application no. 15271/16). The Court found by a majority that there was no violation of Article 7 (no punishment without law) and unanimously that there was a...

[Prabhash Ranjan is a senior assistant professor of law at the faculty of legal studies, South Asian University.] The tenacious critics of the international investment law (IIL) regime have seized the current moment of crisis created by the Covid-19 pandemic to sharpen their attacks against the regime. The critics tend to present the IIL regime as an immoral arrangement that prioritises corporate interests over the well being of local populations....

[Julie Fraser is a human rights lawyer and assistant professor with the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights and the Montaigne Centre at Utrecht University. Her monograph further exploring this topic is out this year with Cambridge University Press.] The ongoing protests in the US against racial inequality in response to the killing of George Floyd have triggered both solidarity protests around the world as well...

[Jennifer Trahan is Clinical Professor, NYU Center for Global Affairs and Megan Fairlie is Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law.] On June 11, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that exponentially intensifies the United States’ ongoing attack on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its staff.  Disturbingly, the Order also targets foreign nationals and, seemingly, US nationals.  Regrettably (although predictably), the US is again using...

[Kaitlin Ball has a J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law, and a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. She lives and works in The Netherlands.] On 8 June 2020, following over a week of global demonstrations, the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and Philando Castile—all black Americans who lost their lives to police violence—put...

[Sarah Zarmsky is a researcher in international law with an interest in the impact of digital technologies on human rights. She received her LLM in Public International Law from Leiden University and her BA in Psychology from Brandeis University.] Though the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been around for years, it has recently reached an unprecedented level of visibility worldwide. While the accomplishments of...

[Radhika Kapoor is a Harvard Kaufman Fellow at the Public International Law and Policy Group, Washington, D.C.]. The notion of belligerent occupation is of fundamental importance to international humanitarian law in its role as a threshold requirement for relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which contain the standards for humanitarian treatment during conflict. Traditionally, a territory was considered ‘occupied’ when a foreign power...

[Tamsin Phillipa Paige is a Lecturer with Deakin Law School and consults for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in relation to Maritime Crime.]  In 2018 I had the privilege of interviewing Seanan McGuire (in her Mira Grant persona) as part of my research project on understanding social perceptions and impacts of issues of law and justice through popular literature. We discussed her bestselling Newsflesh...

Sarah Suhail and Michelle Yesudas are Legal Advisers at the International Commission of Jurists, Asia & the Pacific Programme LGBTQ Movements, resistance and digital spaces Access to Pride Month celebrations during the COVID-19 global health crisis will be digital, direct and downloadable, perhaps more than ever before this year. Pride Month marks decades of LGBTQ collective action and struggle. The living out of LGBTQ...

[Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer specializing in counter-terrorism and national security.]  After seeing calls for the application of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in the current context of mass protests in the United States, it is time to return human rights law to where it belongs – that is, in situations of grave wartime injustice and disproportionate use of force. The GCs...