In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Middle East

21 Jun

[Ahmed Abofoul is a Research Assistant at Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law and a Guest lecturer of Public International Law at Al-Azhar University – Gaza. He worked as a Research Assistant to Dr. Robert Heinsch and Dr. Giulia Pinzauti in submitting their amicus curiae observations in the Situation in the State of Palestine to the Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court] Introduction: The Palestinian people...

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18 Jun

[Michael Lynk is an Associate Professor of Law at Western University, London, Ontario. In May 2016, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Professor Lynk as the Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.] In late June 1980, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 476, amidst diplomatic reports that the Israeli Knesset was seriously debating a...

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04 Jun

[John Quigley is Professor Emeritus at the Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University.] Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons   The adoption by the United Nations Human Rights Council on 27 May 2021 of Resolution S-30/1 titled Ensuring respect for international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel opens an important avenue...

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31 May

The Power of Depositary, ICC and Palestine’s Quest for Statehood [Saba Pipia is an Associate Professor at the Georgian-American University (Tbilisi, Georgia) and visiting Fulbright researcher at Michigan State University. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Tbilisi State University.] Photo credit: Saba Pipia On February 5, Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced its ruling confirming the Court’s jurisdiction to...

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29 May

[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...

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28 May

[Frédéric Mégret is a Full Professor and Dawson Scholar and co-Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill University.] Photo credit: AP Photo/Adel Hana Concerned member of the public (CMP): Gaza! Civilians killed! Lots of them! WAR CRIME!!! LOAC expert: Well, not really. Actually it’s much more complicated than that. Let me explain how this works...

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26 May

[Jeff Deutch, PhD, is Research Director at Mnemonic and co-founder of Syrian Archive. Libby McAvoy, Esq., is a legal fellow with Mnemonic and the Video as Evidence program at WITNESS.] Photo credit: Syrian Archive. Whether in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Hong Kong, Myanmar, the United States, Nigeria, Brasil, or elsewhere, over the last ten years civil society actors have produced and shared more content...

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20 May

[Dimitrios A. Kourtis, is a PhD candidate Aristotle University, Research Associate, Adjunct Lecturer, University of Nicosia.] Photo credits: Flickr, z@doune, CC Attribution 2.0 Generic. The Armenian Remembrance Day (24 April) marks the commemoration of the tragic events that took place against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. The persecutions, massacres, forceful deportations, and attempts to terrorize the Ottoman Armenian communities have...

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19 May

The past few days have been dominated by the horrible images of destruction coming out of Palestine. As is painfully visible to anyone with an internet connection, Israel has been targeting residential and commercial buildings in Gaza under the argument that they are used by Hamas militants. As one tweet by the Israeli Defence Forces put it, according to Israel,...

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17 May

[John Quigley is Professor Emeritus at the Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University.] Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons The recent violence in Israel/Palestine highlights the need to resolve the underlying issues that have kept generated turmoil for a century. The unresolved issue of Arabs displaced in 1948 is at the top of the list of such issues. The urgency of...

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28 Apr

By Said Benarbia, Director of the ICJ's Middle East and North Africa Programme Since the start of Syria’s uprising in March 2011, Russia and China have vetoed 16 Draft United Nations Security Council (SC) Resolutions aimed at addressing the plight of the Syrian population and ending the scourge of armed conflict. As a result, the SC has failed to:  Establish the UN Independent Mechanism of Investigation to...

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19 Apr

[Ahmad Helmi is a survivor of torture and three years detention in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, and is the co-founder and manager of Ta’afi, a survivor-led and centered initiative supporting survivors of detention.] [Brigitte Herremans is a researcher at Justice Visions, an ERC project on Victim Participation in Transitional Justice, which is hosted at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University.] [Veronica Bellintani...

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