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...
[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...
Call for Papers Call for Proposals - The 2022 Multidisciplinary Forum on Law and Longtermism: The University of Hamburg and The Legal Priorities Project invites paper proposals on the topic of ‘Longtermism and the Law’, for a multidisciplinary forum that will take place on 9-11 June 2022. The guiding theme of this Forum is the role of law in sustaining and improving life hundreds...
[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...
[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...
[Zhang Kaiqiang is a third-year Master of Laws student at the School of Law, Tsinghua University.] On 12 October 2021, the ICJ delivered its judgment on the merits of the maritime delimitation in the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Kenya. For the first time ever, the ICJ stands a chance of dividing the extended continental shelf between two (adjacent) States beyond their 200 nautical mile limit...
[Santiago Vargas Niño is a Legal Officer at the Tribunal for Peace of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Colombia. He is formerly an intern, legal assistant, and assistant legal officer of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.] On 16...
[Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni is a PhD Candidate at the Ruhr-University of Bochum and a Research Associate at the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict.] Since the beginning of 2021, compulsory vaccinations against COVID-19 have started finding their way into the national law of Member-States to the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’). This trend seems to have been encouraged by the findings...
Announcements Book launch on René Provost, Rebel Courts – The Administration of Justice by Armed Insurgents (Oxford UP 2021) organised by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights on 1 December 2021 at 11h30-13h00 EST on Zoom: The new book Rebel Courts by Professor René Provost (McGill University) discusses the administration of justice by armed groups. Based on extensive fieldwork, it offers a...
[Thomas Bickl PhD researches dispute resolution issues between the EU and third countries, EU enlargement in the Western Balkans, and Law of the Sea issues. His book on the border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia and its implications for EU enlargement was published by Springer.] This post aims at shedding some light on a territorial dispute along the Danube, Europe’s most...