[Dr Ebba Lekvall is a Lecturer at the University of Essex School of Law and Human Rights Centre. Dr Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Dr Tara Van Ho is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex School of Law and Human...
In December 2021, I was asked to review evidence gathered by the Washington Post for a report on atrocities in Chin State, Myanmar – “Burn it all down” – and provided my analysis for the piece. This blogpost provides additional detail and a legal assessment of what has been occurring in Chin state, Myanmar. Much of the evidence on which...
When Telford Taylor was planning the trial programme for the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMTs), he was faced with a dilemma concerning the Nazis' pre-war mistreatment -- legal and physical -- of Jews and members of other despised groups. Unlike the London Charter, Control Council Law No. 10, the NMTs' enabling statute, did not require crimes against humanity to be committed...
[Dr Julie Fraser is an Australian lawyer and Assistant Professor with the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and Montaigne Centre at Utrecht University.] The cultural frameworks into which we are socialised generally shape our worldview, including our taste in music or cuisine, definition of family, and conceptions of illness and wellbeing, their causes and remedies. Recognising this, the UN Committee...
[Álvaro Rueda Rodríguez-Vila is a graduate in law (Bachelor, UNED) and in human rights (LL.M., Maastricht University).] On 15 September, the Spanish Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional, or TC) barred a case from investigating and prosecuting crimes committed during the Franco dictatorship (a period of time known as franquismo, or Francoism). This decision, Auto 80/2021, refers to a complaint alleging tortures committed...
[Dr Noemi Magugliani is Research Fellow in Anti-Trafficking Law and Policy at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Dr Jean-Pierre Gauci is the Arthur Watts Senior Research Fellow in Public International Law and Director of Teaching and Training at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.] On Wednesday, 24 October 2021, 27 people lost their lives in the maritime area...
[Christian Durisch Acosta holds a MAS in International Law of Armed Conflict (Geneva Academy) and has worked with several UN organisations (OHCHR in Honduras, UNAIDS in Mozambique, OCHA in Burkina Faso).] On 6 December 2019, the Rome Statute was amended as to include the intentional starvation of civilians as a war crime in non-international armed conflict. Up to then, it only...
[Kingsley Abbott is Director of Global Accountability & International Justice at the International Commission of Jurists.] All over the world, States continue to commit or fail to prevent unlawful killings, from the killing of peaceful protestors, those associated with 'wars on drugs' and journalists, to deaths in custody. Whenever a State knows or should have known of any potentially unlawful death,...
[Carola Lingaas is an associate professor of law at VID Specialized University in Oslo (Norway).] Introduction Around the same time in October 2021, 10,000 kilometers apart, two cases were litigated before domestic courts that dealt with indigenous rights to use of land: one before the Kenyan Environment and Land Court in Meru, the other one before the Supreme Court of Norway. Both...
[Dr. Natalie Alkiviadou is a Senior Research Fellow at Justitia, a Danish judicial think tank focusing on human rights. She works on the Future of Free Speech project.] Introduction This short piece has been inspired by the case of Sanchez v France which was decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) this year and which I argue, hereinafter, is yet...
[Luke Glanville is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University and author of books including Sharing Responsibility: The History and Future of Protection from Atrocities (Princeton University Press, 2021).] Extraterritorial obligations for the prevention of genocide and other atrocity crimes have become more firmly established in international law in recent years than is commonly recognized. But such legal developments, while...
[Marion Carrin is an Attorney from the Paris Bar and Legal Consultant before international courts and tribunals.] When it first aired on Spanish television in 2017, “La Casa de Papel” instantly became an outstanding success. When Netflix decided to broadcast it, under the English title “Money Heist,” the triumph grew worldwide to a point where it became the most popular non-English...