I have uploaded a new article on the crime of aggression to SSRN. Here is the abstract: Immediately after the historic adoption of the aggression amendments on 14 December 2017, a number of participants in the negotiations expressed their belief that activating the crime of aggression would help deter states from engaging in the illegal use of force. Unfortunately, the version...
[Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore where he heads the Transsystemic Law Cluster. He is also an Associate Fellow of NUS Law. ] Steven Kay QC and Joshua Kern’s rebuttal to my critique of their Article 15 Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) (see here and here) is an...
Tetevi Davi is future pupil barrister at 25 Bedford Row in London and a Nicolas Bratza, Tancred and Hardwicke Scholar of Lincoln’s Inn. He writes regularly on international human rights law, international criminal law and transitional justice, primarily with a focus on Africa. He is a rapporteur for Oxford International Organizations where his research focuses on African treaties. Introduction On 28 March 2019, The First Instance Division...
[Mark Chadwick is a Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.] Universal jurisdiction remains a contested area of international law. By permitting domestic legislatures and courts to exercise jurisdiction over heinous international crimes, regardless of “where the crime was committed, the nationality of the alleged or convicted perpetrator, the nationality of the victim, or any other connection to...
[Petra Molnar is a Lawyer and Research Associate at the International Human Rights Program, University of Toronto Faculty of Law. This post is based on author’s research at the University of Cambridge.] Detention of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border; wrongful deportation of 7,000 foreign students accused of cheating on a language test; racist or sexist discrimination based on social media profiles – what do these examples...
The Emerging Voices Symposium continued this week with several thought-provoking contributions. Alexander Gilder wrote about the problem of mission creep associated with the use of ill-defined terms, such as ‘stabilization’ and ‘robust,’ in resolutions authorizing UN peacekeeping operations. Brenda Kombo offered new proposals for regional integration on the African continent by reconciling the historically separate areas of international human rights law and...
Call for Papers The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) International Human Rights Section and International Law Section are pleased to announce a call for papers on "New Voices in Human Rights and International Law". The Sections are soliciting papers and works-in-progress on any aspect of human rights law or international law by faculty members who have never presented a human...
I want to call readers attention to an important case coming out of Brazil. This week, the 2nd Regional Federal Tribunal (TRF2), based in Rio de Janeiro decided a case against Antônio Waneir Pinheiro Lima, a retired army sergeant, accused of raping and torturing Inês Etienne Romeu, the sole survivor of a clandestine torture center known as the “House of Death”. The case is relevant because,...
[Sienna Merope-Synge is a Staff Attorney with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). In partnership with its Haiti-based partner, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, IJDH advocates, litigates, builds constituencies and nurtures networks to create systemic pathways to justice for marginalized Haitians and to hold international human rights violators accountable for their actions in Haiti.] In 2017, in the...
Carlos Lopez is a Senior Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists The new revised draft of an international treaty on the issue of business and human rights released on 16 July 2019, presents important changes and much needed improvement in relation to the so-called “zero draft” published in 2018. The revised version, elaborated by the chairperson of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG) which was...
[Catherine Savard is a LL.M. student at Université Laval and assistant coordinator of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice. While she collaborated to the legal analysis on genocide of Canada's National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the present post is written in a personal capacity and entirely independent of the Inquiry’s works.] Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) delivered its Final Report...
Steven Kay QC is Head of Chambers at 9 Bedford Row. Joshua Kern is a barrister at 9 Bedford Row). On 3 July 2019, we submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) (summarised here) which argued that Palestine’s objective legal status as a non-State entity, as well as Palestine’s indeterminate sovereign territorial claim, operate...