My colleagues and I really like the name of our blog. And so, apparently, do others! A new Italian blog has just started that also calls itself Opinio Juris. It appears to cover issues of international law and politics as well, which makes its name more than a little frustrating. You'd think the blog could have chosen a different name,...
[M. Vagias is a Senior Lecturer of Law with The Hague University of Applied Science] Introduction: Amnesties in the latest Gaddafi Admissibility proceedings The debate on the compatibility of amnesties with the duty to prosecute human rights violations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, is far from new in the realm of international criminal law. It has troubled first and foremost the Inter-American Court...
[Jennifer Trahan is a Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] On March 5, 2020, the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber issued an extremely significant ruling authorizing the opening of the Afghanistan investigation. The decision is important in that it confirms the Prosecutor’s discretion in evaluating whether or not to proceed “in the interests of justice” under Article 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute, thereby allowing the Afghanistan...
On 3 March, news reports indicated that that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (High Commissioner) filed an intervention at the Supreme Court of India, linked to petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA). This legislation – along with a population and citizenship register – has been the focus of nationwide protests across India. In brief, the CAA seeks to ease a path...
[David Eichert is a PhD Candidate at the London School of Economics.] On 23 January 2020 the International Court of Justice made history when it issued provisional measures in the case of The Gambia v. Myanmar, ordering Myanmar to halt its campaign of violence against the Rohingya. While the final outcome of the case remains very much unknown, the fact that...
[Siddharth S. Aatreya is an LLM Candidate in International Law at the University of Cambridge and a General Editor of the Cambridge International Law Journal.] The Canadian Supreme Court’s decision in Nevsun Resources v. Araya has shone new light on the debate around the horizontal application of international law, particularly international human rights norms. With a 5-4 majority, the court held that Nevsun, a Vancouver-based...
To continue with our review of the Facebook’s oversight board in this second part we focus on the composition and methods of work of the Board, its administering trust and applicable procedure. Here again, we have more questions than answers. The Board is to be composed of 40 “independent experts” appointed for three-year mandates. They are to be experts on a broad range of relevant fields:...
By launching an “independent Oversight Board” as a central element of a governance system on content moderation, Facebook attempts to address some of the most acute challenges caused by the wide spread of hate speech and misinformation circulated through the platform. To be sure, tackling misinformation and hate speech requires a combined response from tech companies such as Facebook and governments. The latter have been...
A lecture by ICJ Commissioner Justice Ajit Prakash Shah at LC Jain Memorial Kashmir The Supreme Court’s orders on Kashmir represents a missed opportunity for the Court to come out strongly in favor of fundamental rights and fulfill its role as the sentinel on the qui vive. Three sets of petitions relating to Kashmir were filed before the Court. The first is related to the communication shutdown and...
A lecture by ICJ Commissioner Justice Ajit Prakash Shah at LC Jain Memorial Lakshmi Chand Jain would have been a young man when Mahatma Gandhi passed away in 1948, but he embodied the spirit of Gandhian values in the best possible way. Indeed, he has been described as “an impassioned crusader of what Gandhi called the second freedom struggle for a just and equitable India”. Mr. Jain’s autobiography,...
[Dr. Leonie Steinl, LL.M. is a post-doctoral researcher at Hamburg University, where she works in a DFG-project on "Strategic Litigation Networks and Accountability for Gross Violations of Human Rights". Dr. Wenke Brückner currently works as a lawyer in Berlin, specializing in German and international criminal law. Both authors have previously worked on different aspects of the case of Hanan v. Germany for...
[Ciara Laverty is a PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. Dieneke de Vos received her PhD in international criminal law from the European University Institute, Florence and currently works in the humanitarian sector on the prevention of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.] On 11 February 2020, Colombia’s Constitutional Court made public its full reasoning in the precedent-setting tutela action...