Courts & Tribunals

[Camila Teran is a lawyer with a LLB in Law and a LLM in International Criminal Law, both from the University of Sussex.] The ICC’s current crisis bears witness to the contentious relationship between the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC (OTP) and States. The OTP’s progress is further frustrated by the small window triggering the admissibility phase that would allow the Prosecutor to formally investigate Colombia....

I have uploaded a new article on the crime of aggression to SSRN. Here is the abstract: Immediately after the historic adoption of the aggression amendments on 14 December 2017, a number of participants in the negotiations expressed their belief that activating the crime of aggression would help deter states from engaging in the illegal use of force. Unfortunately, the version...

Tetevi Davi is future pupil barrister at 25 Bedford Row in London and a Nicolas Bratza, Tancred and Hardwicke Scholar of Lincoln’s Inn. He writes regularly on international human rights law, international criminal law and transitional justice, primarily with a focus on Africa. He is a rapporteur for Oxford International Organizations where his research focuses on African treaties. Introduction On 28 March 2019, The First Instance Division...

[Mark Chadwick is a Lecturer in Law at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.] Universal jurisdiction remains a contested area of international law.  By permitting domestic legislatures and courts to exercise jurisdiction over heinous international crimes, regardless of “where the crime was committed, the nationality of the alleged or convicted perpetrator, the nationality of the victim, or any other connection to...

I want to call readers attention to an important case coming out of Brazil. This week, the 2nd Regional Federal Tribunal (TRF2), based in Rio de Janeiro decided a case against Antônio Waneir Pinheiro Lima, a retired army sergeant, accused of raping and torturing Inês Etienne Romeu, the sole survivor of a clandestine torture center known as the “House of Death”. The case is relevant because,...

[Catherine Savard is a LL.M. student at Université Laval and assistant coordinator of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice. While she collaborated to the legal analysis on genocide of Canada's National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the present post is written in a personal capacity and entirely independent of the Inquiry’s works.] Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) delivered its Final Report...

[Anji Manivannan is the Legal Director at People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL) and a Senior Programs Officer at the World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy (WFM-IGP).]  Introduction May 18th marked the tenth anniversary of the end of the 26-year-long armed conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The GoSL’s victory came with the deaths of 70,000–140,000...

[Owiso Owiso is a Doctoral Researcher in Public International Law at the University of Luxembourg and a member of the PhD Academy of the Cross Cultural Human Rights Centre, VU Amsterdam.] Introduction With the celebratory dust finally settled, stakeholders are beginning to take stock of the performance of the greatest achievement of the international criminal justice movement, the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). Tough questions are now...

[Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore where he heads the Transsystemic Law Cluster. He is also an Associate Fellow of NUS Law. This is the second part of a two-part post.] Recognition of Palestine’s Statehood Since 1988, 138 states (72 per cent of UN members) have recognised a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel on 4 June 1967. The...

[Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore where he heads the Transsystemic Law Cluster. He is also an Associate Fellow of NUS Law. This is the first part of a two-part post.]  The post in Opinio Juris submitted by Steven Kay QC and Joshua Kern of 9 Bedford Row based on their Article 15 Communication to the Prosecutor...

[Sabina Garahan is a doctoral candidate at the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex.] The law is replete with references to reasonableness. Although the concept is a familiar one, however, its significance in the field of pre-trial detention is yet to be understood. My doctoral project seeks to address this gap by analysing the theory and use of the reasonableness concept at the pre-trial stage by domestic...

[Tasnim Motala is a fellow at Howard University School of Law, where she supervises the Civil & Human Rights Clinic.] The ICC, which left the United States reeling at the possibility of an investigation into abuses in Afghanistan, might have yet another avenue to hold the United States accountable for human rights abuses, but this time closer to home—on the US- Mexico border. Last year, the...