In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Regions

09 Dec

[Justice Alfred Mavedzenge is a constitutional law academic and a legal adviser at the International Commission of Jurists, Africa Regional Programme.] Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, Zimbabwe and Eswatini had a well-established record of cracking down on freedom of expression. In both countries, criticising State authorities has in the past frequently earned human rights defenders a lengthy jail term, and at times even brutal...

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08 Dec

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists.] Part 1 of this blog, details how the Malawian High Court struck down lockdown Rules issued by the Minister of Health as ultra vires, contrary to the rule of law and in violation of the separation of powers. This strong stand taken by the Court to protect the rule of law...

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08 Dec

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists.] In August this year, Timothy Mtambo, now Minister of Civic Education and National Unity in Malawi, wrote that “we now have a judiciary that is more independent than at any other time in the history of Malawi”, noting that former President Mutharika, who was in office until late June 2020 attempted...

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08 Dec

[Khanyo Farisè is a Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists, Africa Regional Programme.] Healthcare workers have been at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic playing a key role in saving lives. Sadly, being at the forefront of responding to COVID-19 has placed healthcare workers, the significant majority of whom are women, at increased risk of...

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08 Dec

[Vimbai Mutandwa is a Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists.] In NEF v President of the Republic of Namibia the applicants, the Namibian Employers Federation, challenged the legality of aspects of lockdown measures taken by the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Court’s decision is of interest and importance because it upholds the principle of legality and the rule of law by requiring...

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07 Dec

[Mandipa Machacha is a Feminist Human Rights Practitioner, and a LL.D. student in Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights.] Despite extensive protection of the right to education in international and regional human rights instruments, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, both globally and in Africa, mere access to education was still not guaranteed in practice to all...

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07 Dec

[Justice Moses Hungwe Chinhengo is judge of the Lesotho High Court and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists.] COVID-19 has altered every aspect of our lives in a very short space of time. As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has observed, “the world we live in will never be the same”. As we adapt to the “new normal”, it is...

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07 Dec

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists and Tanveer Jeewa is a Communications Consultant for the International Commission of Jurists.] This week Opinio Juris is hosting an online symposium on the impact of COVID-19 on human rights in Africa. Coordinated by the International Commission of Jurists’ Africa Team, the symposium hones in some key issues arising out of...

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01 Dec

A number of us -- me, Aurel Sari, Eliav Lieblich, Andrew Bell, Sasha Greenawalt, Craig Martin, Ed Swaine -- have been having an interesting discussion on Twitter about two important issues concerning the use of force. The first is when IHL begins to apply in an IAC. The traditional position is that any use of interstate force triggers IHL and...

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24 Nov

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of giving an online lecture for the Iranian Center for International Criminal Law about the relationship between the US and the ICC. In the lecture, I trace the evolution of the US-ICC relationship and try to predict what that relationship will look like under President Biden. I also speculate about why Trump has...

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24 Nov

[Assistant Professor at the Poznań Human Rights Centre, Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.] The Trump administration’s ‘family separation policy’ has been widely reported and criticized (see for example here and here). Recently, the public learned of the policy’s horrible long-term effects: in October 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed that parents of 545 children...

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