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15 May

Last week, The Huffington Post published an article with the provocative title, Epidemiologist Slams U.S. Coronavirus Response: ‘Close To Genocide By Default’. The epidemiologist in question was Prof. Dr. Gregg Gonsalves, PhD (Public Health, Yale University), who, according to his online curriculum vitae, is an Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, as well as an Associate...

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15 May

[Jan Lhotský is the head of the Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. He also works as a lawyer at the Office of the Public Defender of Rights (Ombudsperson) and as a senior researcher at the Centre for International Law of the Institute of International Relations in Prague.] The universal system of monitoring human rights obligations – the UN treaty bodies based in Geneva – has...

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13 May

[Nora Salem is Assistant Professor and Head of the Public International Law Department at the German University in Cairo. She has recently published an entry for the MPEPIL on Sharia Reservations to Human Rights Treaties, as well as a book on The Impact of the UN Women’s Rights Convention on Egypt’s Domestic Legislation (Brill).] Most States have been taking far-reaching emergency health measures to control the...

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11 May

[Paolo Busco is a member of Twenty Essex Chambers, where he practices in the field of public international law. All opinions are expressed in a personal capacity only.] Rescuing people in distress at sea is a duty. However, does international law require a coastal State to open its ports or territorial sea to foreign ships involved in the rescue? The question is not new, especially in...

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09 May

[Jonathan Turner is a barrister in London and Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI)] Practising advocates know that what is not included in reply submissions is usually more interesting than what is there. One of the omissions in the ICC Prosecutor’s recent Response on the issue of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in respect of Palestine is that it does not address the argument made by...

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08 May

For fans of science fiction and for certain investors, the eventuality of space mining is a given, despite recent setbacks. The extraction of resources from the Moon and other celestial bodies —such as mining asteroids for precious metals, harvesting helium-3 from lunar regolith, or using ice on the Moon for a moonbase—is described as having the potential of a “New...

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07 May

[Somesh Dutta specializes in international dispute resolution. He is currently working with the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European & Regulatory Procedural Law as a Research Fellow and is a member of the International Max Planck Research School for Successful Dispute Resolution (IMPRS-SDR).] In particular, developing economies with a large consumer base may have a crucial role in shaping the future of international investment adjudication, and...

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07 May

[Oliver Windridge is a lawyer specialising in international human rights law and international criminal law. He is founder of The ACtHPR Monitor, a website and blog dedicated to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Oliver is one of five lawyers on the African Court’s List of Counsel (pro bono) and currently acts as counsel in cases before the African Court as well as...

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06 May

[Mathias Holvoet works as a Legal Officer at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Belgium.] This post is a follow-up post on Kevin Jon Heller’s post ‘the OTP Lets Australia off the Hook’, in which he vehemently criticized the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor’s decision not to open a preliminary examination over the situation in Nauru and Manus Island, after denying to qualify...

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06 May

[Nasia Hadjigeorgiou is an Assistant Professor of Transitional Justice and Human Rights at the Cyprus campus of the University of Central Lancashire.] On 29 October 2019 the ECtHR delivered its judgment in Baralija v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), yet another Bosnian voting case. This is the fourth case, following Sejdić and Finci v. BiH (2009), Zornić v. BiH (2014) and Pilav v....

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05 May

[Uzay Yasar Aysev is a legal consultant for Global Rights Compliance, specialising in international humanitarian law, criminal and refugee law.]  On 22 January 2020, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) submitted a request to Pre-Trial Chamber I (PTC I) for a ruling on the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in Palestine under article 19(3) of the Rome Statute....

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05 May

[Kate Vigneswaran is a Senior Legal Advisor with the International Commission of Jurists.] As other countries across North Africa entered lockdown in March 2020 to prevent and contain the spread of COVID-19, warring parties in Libya ramped up their hostilities. On 24 March 2020, the day after the UN Secretary-General called for a global ceasefire to combat the pandemic, the first diagnosed case of COVID 19 was...

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