In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Human Rights Law

26 May

[Katherine Lemons is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at McGill University and author of Divorcing Traditions: Islamic Marriage Law and the Making of Indian Secularism (Cornell 2019).] Kamari Maxine Clarke’s new book, Affective Justice, is an important contribution to anthropology of law. The book brings a question frequently asked of small non-state adjudication institutions to bear on two international criminal courts:...

|
25 May

[Kamari M. Clarke is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Los Angeles. Her work spans the emergence of various transnational legal domains, especially international criminal tribunals and the export and spread of international legal norms. [This is the latest post in our symposium on her book, Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback (Duke University...

|
25 May

This week, we are very happy to host a discussion on Kamari Clarke's latest publication, Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback. Kamari will start us off with an introductory post, and then we have the honor to hear from the following renowned scholars during the rest of the week: Sarah Nouwen, Katharine Lemons, Dire Tladi, Edwin...

|
25 May

2020 has been dominated by Covid-19 related doom and gloom, however there are other notable positive developments worth acknowledging including the criminalisation of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Sudan in April 2020. FGM is an internationally recognised human rights violation and is defined by UNICEF as  “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury...

|
22 May

[Andreas Schueller directs the International Crimes and Accountability program at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).] The current German coalition agreement says that the German government “categorically rejects extrajudicial killings, also by drones”. Nevertheless, the German armed forces leased drones that can be armed – yet without the respective weapons. The German government declared that it will employ these drones only in accordance to...

|
21 May

[Nathaniel Berman is the Rahel Varnhagen Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Modern Culture at Brown University. This is the second part of a two-part post.] [In Part One of this essay, I argued for the importance of the reaffirmation of the illegality of annexation of occupied territory. I outlined, and partly responded to, the criticism of this position “from the...

|
21 May

[Nathaniel Berman is the Rahel Varnhagen Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Modern Culture at Brown University. This is the first part of a two-part post.] Israel may be on the brink of formally annexing large swaths of the West Bank. Ever since Trump’s victory in 2016, the pro-settler Israeli right has sensed a historic opportunity to secure its cherished goal:...

|
20 May

[Nicola Palmer is a Senior Lecturer in criminal law at King’s and the author of Courts in Conflict: Interpreting the Layers of Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda.] On Saturday, 16 May 2020 Félicien Kabuga, a former businessman accused of being a major financial backer of Hutu extremism in the build-up to, and during, the Rwandan genocide was arrested in a flat in Asnieres-sur-Seine...

|
19 May

[Nicole De Silva is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Concordia University and Misha Plagis is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut.] The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights—the African Union’s continental human rights court—received severe blows in late April, as two states, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire, withdrew their declarations allowing individuals and NGOs to submit cases...

|
18 May

[Jennifer Trahan is Clinical Professor, NYU Center for Global Affairs and Megan Fairlie is Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law.] This past week, certain members of the US House and Senate released two letters (here and (here) that demonstrate, at best, a woeful lack of comprehension of the International Criminal Court.  The letters suggest that the ICC’s preliminary...

|
15 May

Last week, The Huffington Post published an article with the provocative title, Epidemiologist Slams U.S. Coronavirus Response: ‘Close To Genocide By Default’. The epidemiologist in question was Prof. Dr. Gregg Gonsalves, PhD (Public Health, Yale University), who, according to his online curriculum vitae, is an Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, as well as an Associate...

|