Organizations

[Dr Dawn Sedman is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.] How widely were defences deployed at the UN War Crimes Commission (UNWCC)? Using the 15-volume Official Reports as a preliminary indicator, around one quarter of the cases reported had defences raised and discussed. Only one of these defences was successful: the case of Weiss & Mundo [vol 13], who were accused of the...

Dr Amina Adanan initiated a conference on the 1943-1948 United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC)  involving both her own, Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology, and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy in SOAS. The online conference included presentations from scholars in a range of disciplines, including law, history, international relations and political science and was organised by Dr Adanan and SOAS’s Prof. Dan Plesch,...

Introduction  The 1988 political prisoner massacre (the massacre, the 1988 massacre) in Iran occurred almost 35 years ago. Yet its relevance remains visible in contemporary debates on Iran’s human rights record, the legitimacy of the government, and the human rights credentials of its leaders. Most importantly, it remains an unresolved issue worthy of investigative and judicial attention for the victims, survivors,...

[Katarzyna Ważyńska-Finck recently defended a PhD on sexual and reproductive rights of children and adolescent and is lecturer in human rights and comparative law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Francois Finck holds a PhD in international law and is a policy officer responsible for International and European affairs at Centre d’Action Laïque.] The authors have previously published on this topic...

[Owiso Owiso is a Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Groningen.] Introduction Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine commenced in February 2022, there have been increased calls for criminal accountability for crimes allegedly (being) committed in the context of the invasion. Following Ukraine’s declarations of February 2014 and February 2015 accepting the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and...

Announcements ABILA - Crisis in Ukraine: International Law and Accountability: The ABILA ICC Committee is pleased to co-sponsor a virtual panel on Crisis in Ukraine: International Law and Accountability on Thursday, March 31 at 12:15-1:45 pm ET. Given the tragic outbreak of war in Ukraine and Russia’s flagrant violation of the UN Charter and ongoing commission of crimes, this panel will...

In an excellent recent blog post at Just Security, Tom Dannenbaum identified four options for prosecuting Russia's unprovoked aggression against Ukraine: [T]he International Criminal Court, an ad hoc international tribunal (whether along the lines proposed at Chatham House or pursuant to a General Assembly resolution), a domestic court exercising territorial jurisdiction (in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine), or a domestic court exercising...

[Julia Emtseva is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and Paul Emtsev is an independent public communication expert.] For Russia, the current war in Ukraine rests on the assumption that NATO’s Eastern enlargement is a threat to the country. For several months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the West that deploying weapons or soldiers to Ukraine would...

[Vivek Bhatt is an Assistant Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Utrecht University’s Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM).] I. Introduction  In an article written after the NATO intervention in Kosovo, Charlesworth describes international law as a “discipline of crisis.” To Charlesworth, the discipline of international law is stifled by scholars’ fascination with moments of crisis for the law’s enforcement...

Events Society of Legal Scholars Workshop: The SLS International Law Section will host its online PhD Workshop on Responding to Complex Relationships in International Law on 13 May 2022. The programme includes perspectives on global governance, climate change, international criminal justice, and technology and is available here. Attendance is free but the organisers strongly encourage attendees to consider joining the Society of...

[Richard L. Kilpatrick, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Business Law at the College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina (USA).] A Technical Tool (Re)Emerges in the Sanctions Spotlight At a time when a violent ground war has mobilized on the European continent, it has been surprising to see a bank messaging system under such intense public debate. Even a month prior to Russia’s...

Call for Papers Call for Papers - South Asian Postgraduate Law Conference 2022: The first SAPLawC’22,  to be held virtually on 25th and 26th November 2022 aims to bring together research scholars working in the area of legal issues that are of concern within the South Asian countries. The purpose of the Conference is to encourage the young research scholars to present their research before...