In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

12 Dec

[Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law & Faculty Affiliate, Mershon Center for International Security Studies – The Ohio State University.] Introduction Dr. John Heieck’s A Duty to Prevent Genocide: Due Diligence Obligations Among the P5 is a lucid, well-argued, and extensively researched book. It is essential reading for academics and practitioners who have an interest...

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11 Dec

[Jennifer Trahan is a Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] John Heieck is asking the right questions in his new book, A Duty to Prevent Genocide: Due Diligence Obligations Among the P5. Namely, how does one reconcile hard law legal obligations regarding the duty to “prevent” genocide with the inaction seen out of the UN Security Council as well as...

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06 Dec

[Kingsley Abbott is the ICJ’s Senior International Legal Adviser for Global Accountability, and is based in Bangkok, Thailand. Twitter: @AbbottKingsley.] Later this month, the Fifth Committee of the UN General Assembly, responsible for budgetary and administrative matters, is likely to approve the budget for the “Ongoing Independent Mechanism” (OIM) for Myanmar created by resolution at the UN Human Rights Council last September....

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03 Dec

The recent nominations for judicial posts at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) have caused outrage. However, the frustration expressed regarding the lack of adequate representation of women on the international stage is not new. The issue is not just one of gender representation but also crucially of access to justice. This is therefore an opportune time...

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02 Dec

I'd normally leave this for the announcements post, but the Harvard International Law Journal has been extremely kind to me -- not only publishing two of my articles, but also organizing online symposiums for each of them. So the least I could do is put in a kind word for the Journal's ambitious new plans for its online component: The Harvard...

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28 Nov

I wasn't feeling particularly well on my recent long flight from Buenos Aires to Amsterdam, so I took advantage of my sickness to binge watch all eight episodes of BBC2's international criminal justice drama, Black Earth Rising, which focuses on the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I wasn't expecting much, because BER was billed as a drama about the ICC. But I was...

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27 Nov

Cocaine is a big problem in Latin America. According to the UN, 99.5% of worldwide coca cultivation is concentrated in just three countries: Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Under pressure from the Global North, Latin American nations have reduced the problem to a plan to contain cocaine flows through mostly violent means, to disastrous humanitarian consequences. In several states, violence has...

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22 Nov

On Wednesday, a court in the UAE sentenced a PhD student at Durham University, Matthew Hedges, to life imprisonment for supposedly "spying" for the British government. There is no evidence to support the spying allegation, and both Hedges and the British government vociferously deny it. By all accounts, Hedges was simply in the UAE to research the country's foreign and...

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