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[Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.] This post is about one of the most talked about trials in Australian legal history: a former soldier suing the media for defamation, for publishing allegations that he committed war crimes. During the trial a plethora of evidence against...

[Sami Jaber is a Public International Law LLM student at Leiden University whose thesis explores the forgotten right to the continuous improvement of living standards and its potential as a signal of human rights violations.] Attempts to enshrine the right to development have been ongoing for over 40 years. While a lack of sufficient political will from developed nations is undoubtedly largely to...

[Nina Bries Silva is a former human rights lawyer and PhD candidate in law at the European University Institute (EUI) focusing on the Colombian transitional justice process and indigenous ontologies.] On March 8, 2023, in Bogotá, the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) held a press conference unveiling its indictment in the macro-case 05. It charged 10 former commanders of two...

[Dr. Pouria Askary is an Associate Professor of International Law at Allameh Tabataba’i University (ATU).] This post is based on a presentation delivered in a webinar organized by AALCO on 6 April 2023. Since the very beginning, the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the topic of general principles of law has surprised many States as well as commentators by introducing a second category...

[Wubeshet Tiruneh holds a Ph.D. in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland.] It has been six months since the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) – the two main parties to the armed conflict in Ethiopia – signed an agreement on permanent cessation of hostilities.The parties, among others, agreed on permanent cessation of hostilities, protection...

[Carlos Lusverti is the Latin America Legal advisor with the International Commission of Jurists] The principle of presumption of innocence in criminal cases is core to the rule of law. It is also a universally recognized general principle of law, incorporated into general international human rights treaties, the Venezuelan Constitution and domestic law as part of the Criminal Proceedings Code. However,...

[Panagiota Kotzamani is a post-doctoral researcher on corporate obligations and liability for international crimes and human rights violations at the Centre for Law, Sustainability and Justice (CLS&J), at the Department of Law, University of Southern Denmark (SDU).] The adoption of a Directive on the expected human rights due diligence (HRDD) standards for EU and EU-active corporations has been in the agenda...

[Oscar Genaro Macias Betancourt is the Former Director of Restitutions at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a Specialist in International Law on Cultural Property.] Introduction  There are multiple angles to approach the complex debate around the restitution of cultural property to their countries of origin. From the legal perspective, the branches of civil, criminal, and international law offer a diversity...

[Dr. Paul R. Williams is the Founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), the Rebecca I. Grazier Professor in Law and International Relations at American University, and a world-renowned peace negotiation lawyer who has assisted over two dozen parties in major international peace negotiations.] [Alexandra Koch is Co-Chair of the Policy Planning Initiative at the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) and...

[Dr Christine Schwöbel-Patel is Reader at Warwick Law School and Co-Director of the Centre for Critical Legal Studies; she is currently based at the Humboldt University in Berlin as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow.] Dear Asad, Filip, and Mark, I’ll begin this letter, as so many letters begin, by apologising for its tardiness. Since you Mark and Asad sent your responses, many months...

[Filip Strandberg Hassellind is a doctoral candidate in International Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.] In Marketing Global Justice: The Political Economy of International Criminal Law, Christine Schwöbel-Patel argues that “a global elite benefit from marketized global justice whilst those who tend to be the ‘faces’ of global injustice – particularly victims of conflict – are instrumentalized and ultimately commodified” [p. i]. The book directs...