In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

04 Mar

To continue with our review of the Facebook’s oversight board in this second part we focus on the composition and methods of work of the Board, its administering trust and applicable procedure. Here again, we have more questions than answers. The Board is to be composed of 40 “independent experts” appointed for three-year mandates. They are to be experts on a broad range of relevant fields:...

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03 Mar

By launching an “independent Oversight Board” as a central element of a governance system on content moderation, Facebook attempts to address some of the most acute challenges caused by the wide spread of hate speech and misinformation circulated through the platform. To be sure, tackling misinformation and hate speech requires a combined response from tech companies such as Facebook and governments. The latter have been...

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02 Mar

A lecture by ICJ Commissioner Justice Ajit Prakash Shah at LC Jain Memorial Kashmir The Supreme Court’s orders on Kashmir represents a missed opportunity for the Court to come out strongly in favor of fundamental rights and fulfill its role as the sentinel on the qui vive. Three sets of petitions relating to Kashmir were filed before the Court. The first is related to the communication shutdown and...

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02 Mar

A lecture by ICJ Commissioner Justice Ajit Prakash Shah at LC Jain Memorial Lakshmi Chand Jain would have been a young man when Mahatma Gandhi passed away in 1948, but he embodied the spirit of Gandhian values in the best possible way. Indeed, he has been described as “an impassioned crusader of what Gandhi called the second freedom struggle for a just and equitable India”. Mr. Jain’s autobiography,...

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01 Mar

Announcements Rosalyn Higgins Prize: The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals (LPICT) now invites submissions for the 2020 Rosalyn Higgins Prize. The deadline for the prize is 30 June 2020. The Rosalyn Higgins Prizeis an annual prize which awards EUR 1.000 of Brill book vouchers and a one-year LPICT subscription to the author of the best article on the law and...

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29 Feb

[Dr. Leonie Steinl, LL.M. is a post-doctoral researcher at Hamburg University, where she works in a DFG-project on "Strategic Litigation Networks and Accountability for Gross Violations of Human Rights". Dr. Wenke Brückner currently works as a lawyer in Berlin, specializing in German and international criminal law. Both authors have previously worked on different aspects of the case of Hanan v. Germany for...

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25 Feb

[Ciara Laverty is a PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. Dieneke de Vos received her PhD in international criminal law from the European University Institute, Florence and currently works in the humanitarian sector on the prevention of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.]   On 11 February 2020, Colombia’s Constitutional Court made public its full reasoning in the precedent-setting tutela action...

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24 Feb

Events Call for Proposals - BIICL Conference on Teaching International Law: The British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) is delighted to be convening a conference entitled 'Teaching International Law'. The conference will take place at BIICL on 7-8 September 2020. The Organising Committee invites all those engaging with the teaching of international law from around the world to share their...

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22 Feb

Last Thursday, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued its decision concerning which states, individuals ,and organizations will be permitted to submit observations on the OTP's request for a jurisdictional ruling in the Palestine situation. The PTC granted leave to 43 of the 45 potential amicus curiae. It denied one request (para. 52) because the individual who submitted it did so on behalf...

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17 Feb

Most readers will be familiar with the Caroline Affair. A group of Canadian rebels seized an American vessel and used it to transport ammunitions from the US to Canada. British forces raided the ship, burned it, killed two men, and sent its wreckage over the Niagara Falls. The incident gave rise to perhaps one of the most frequently quoted maxims in the law of use...

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17 Feb

A couple of years ago, I helped GLAN and the Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic prepare a 115-page communication to the OTP regarding Australia's unconscionable treatment of refugees and asylum seekers detained on Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Here is the key paragraph from the Executive Summary: The communication finds that there is a reasonable basis...

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