Africa

Onen Cylus is an LLB finalist at Makerere University. He is also currently working as an intern with the International Commission of Jurists, with a passion for research and human rights activism.Timothy Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists. In late June 2021, Ms Angel Nakasango, a resident of Kampala, Uganda  was critically ill with COVID-19 and required emergency medical attention....

In 2019, as a result of mass mobilization and popular protest against Omar Al Bashir and his administration, Sudan embarked on a process of transition. Currently, there is a transitional administration in place – a civilian and military administration – with a new cabinet announced early this year, as a result of the Juba Peace Agreement of 3 October 2020, relating to Darfur and...

[Alessandro Pizzuti is co-founder of UpRights. He also worked as legal officer at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as well as International Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and International Tribunal for Rwanda. Clare Frances Moran is a lecturer in law at Edinburgh Napier University, teaching and researching public international law, focusing on issues of responsibility in international criminal law,...

Dan Mafora is a Research Officer at the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC). This symposium consists of a series of blogs authored by the different panelists of a webinar hosted by the International Commission of Jurists titled “COVID-19 and Courts: A Global Trend of Judicial Deference?" In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and following the lead of...

Young Park is a JD Candidate and International Law and Human Rights Fellow at New York University School of Law. Currently she is an intern at the International Commission of Jurists, Africa Regional Programme.Onen Cylus is an LLB finalist at Makerere University. He is also currently working as an intern with the International Commission of Jurists, with a passion for...

[Cecilia Pechmeze is a public international law practitioner, and the founder of Pechmeze Law. She tweets @ceciliapechmeze.] 27 years after the genocide that targeted the Tutsi population in Rwanda, and in the line of several others, two reports, ordered by France and Rwanda respectively, were published to decipher the role of France in the events. During years preceding President Habyarimana’s death, on 6...

[The author is a Lecturer in International Humanitarian Law at Egerton University.] Introduction Contemporary armed conflicts in Africa and elsewhere continue to pose significant challenges for the legal protection of life, limb, livelihood and property of the individuals and communities caught up in those situations. Most of the unlawful conduct that typifies recent armed conflicts in Africa – including intentionally directing attacks...

[Valentina Cadelo is a Legal Adviser at International Commission of Jurists' Middle East and North Africa Programme.] Today, Tunisia marked the third anniversary of the opening of trials before the Specialized Criminal Chambers (SCC), the very first example of domestic criminal trials related to past gross human rights violations in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.  Three years ago, when...

[Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is Senior Manager for Africa with the Open Society Justice Initiative. He received his Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics & Political Science and is a former Chair of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission.] The invocation of sanctions against senior officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the Trump administration in 2020, has been the subject of considerable examination and...

  [Cuno Jakob Tarfusser served as Judge of the International Criminal Court from 2009 to 2020. During his tenure, he was also its Vice-President and President of the Pre-Trial Division. As Pre-Trial Judge, sitting in both PT Chambers, he was in charge of all situations and cases the Court dealt with.] [Giovanni Chiarini is a PhD candidate at University of Insubria (Como...

Photo credit: Gaël Grilhot/RFICaption:  The President of the Special Criminal Court, Michel Landry Louanga, opens the Court's inaugural session on 22 October 2018. [Julian Elderfield is an international lawyer and worked in Bangui, Central African Republic for  the Special Prosecutor of the Special Criminal Court from 2019-2021. Previously, he worked in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court....

Photo credit: Gaël Grilhot/RFICaption:  The President of the Special Criminal Court, Michel Landry Louanga, opens the Court's inaugural session on 22 October 2018. [Julian Elderfield is an international lawyer and worked in Bangui, Central African Republic for  the Special Prosecutor of the Special Criminal Court from 2019-2021. Previously, he worked in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court....