While much of the world is aghast and transfixed by the migrant detention camps in the U.S., there is another dire human rights and humanitarian crisis brewing and about to reach its zenith in the Indian state of Assam on 31 July 2019. A legal process is underway – updating the "National Register of Citizens" – that threatens to dispossess...
“From the big ship they were making calls, but said: ‘Sorry, we can’t take you, it’s not my fault, orders are that Libyans will come to take you’. Meanwhile, I could see people dying on the other boat, pieces of boat were floating and bodies too. [By the time] a small Libyan ship came to get us...
Max du Plessis is Senior Counsel in South Africa, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers and an Honorary Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Christopher Gevers is a Lecturer in the School of Law at University of KwaZulu-Natal. In our first post, we identified how the...
Max du Plessis is Senior Counsel in South Africa, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers and an Honorary Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Christopher Gevers is a Lecturer in the School of Law at University of KwaZulu-Natal. This is the first of two blog posts...
[Craig Martin is a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the International and Comparative Law Center, at Washburn University School of Law. He is a frequent visiting lecturer at Osaka University, Graduate School of Law and Politics.] In the wake of the recent attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf, there has been considerable discussion about Europe’s difficult position amidst the escalating tension between the United States...
[Steven Kay QC is Head of Chambers at 9 Bedford Row. He has appeared as leading counsel in many significant international criminal trials (Tadic, Milosevic, Musema, Gotovina, Kenyatta) – and represented heads of state and leading figures at UN tribunals and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Joshua Kern is a barrister at 9 Bedford Row. He specialises in complex criminal cases with an emphasis on international and transnational criminal...
The situation in Libya is deteriorating, with each day bringing news even more dire than the previous, regarding the state of the conflict and the plight of civilians. Caught up in this complex situation are significant numbers of individuals fleeing from their countries and seeking refuge, who have been forcibly relocated to Libya and are now languishing in multiple detention...
Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Mortiz College of Law and an Affiliated Faculty with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. I don’t want to say it, but I will anyway: I told you so! On June 4th, I posted a two part post on Opinio Juris (here and here) on the current situation in...
Call for Papers The BISA Working Group on Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding, with funding from the BISA Postgraduate Network, is organising an interdisciplinary PGR workshop entitled ‘Militarisation and the Local in Peacekeeping: Ambition, Pragmatism and Adaptability’ to be held atCity, University of London on 20 September 2019. The workshop is the first of a four part series incorporating practitioners as well as academics and will explore challenges...
[Marie Davoise is an English-qualified lawyer who specialises in business & human rights and international criminal law. Previously in private practice, she is currently working as a Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court.] When it comes to business and human rights, some sectors are considered as inherently high-risk: take for example the extractive industry, with its large mining projects impacting communities, or the...
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, released her report into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last Wednesday. The report traces with careful detail the run up to, and the eventual extrajudicial execution of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey, analyzing the available evidence and applicable international law. The release of the...
Recently, there’s been many a discussion in the Global North on the semiotics of law. What does it mean to say there was a genocide in Canada or that ICE runs concentration camps. In general, these debates follow a similar pattern: specific groups of people are outraged that scholars and experts would use the correct terminology to describe a policy they support, because it sounds...