In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

13 Aug

[Isabelle Bienfait is a programme co-ordinator at eyeWitness to Atrocities] Two recent convictions of Syrian nationals for crimes committed during the civil war merit attention. On 16 June 2025, Syrian-born Alaa M. was convicted by a Frankfurt court for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed at several medical and military facilities. A few weeks earlier, on 28 May 2025, a...

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12 Aug

[Frédéric Mégret is the Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law at the Faculty of Law, McGill University and the James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School] In times of great pain, remembrance, especially when memory is both complex and selective, is an indispensable resource of contextualization. Between 1967 and 1970, as many as 2 million members of the...

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12 Aug

[Vieviene Antifon is a UK-based legal academic and socio-legal researcher specialising in climate finance, energy law, and international environmental law with a focus on Africa] As the dust settles on COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Africa's urgent need for climate finance remains a critical issue in international environmental law. The conference, which concluded in November 2024, saw some progress but fell short...

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11 Aug

This post is the conclusion of a three-part series: What Will Gaza Become After Genocide? Using the Counterfactual Method to Evaluate Three Post-Genocidal Futures. You may access Part 1 here, where I argued that the genocide Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians is central to the zionist ethos which, like other settler-colonial movements, seeks to remove the native from coveted...

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11 Aug

[Matin Amiri holds a Masters in international law from Allameh Tabataba'i University of Tehran] I am writing this post to provide a comprehensive discussion of the newly published Guiding Principles on Sanctions, Business and Human Rights, hereinafter referred to as the Guiding Principles, authored by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Unilateral Coercive Measures and Human Rights, Professor Alena Douhan. These...

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11 Aug

[Temelso Gashaw is a human rights lawyer who has previously served as a senior human rights officer at the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC)] Ethiopia, an East African nation marked by tumultuous history of violent conflict, is currently at a critical juncture in its attempt to embark on a journey of confronting its violent past, ending ongoing injustices, and fostering reconciliation...

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08 Aug

[Alexander Heinze is an Acting Professor at the University of Bremen and lecturer at the University of Göttingen] Part 1 of this post examined the Trial Chamber V’s remarkably efficient case management approach in Yekatom and Ngaïssona, highlighting how flexibility became the key to handling an exceptionally complex trial with nearly 20,000 exhibits and 174 witnesses. I explored the Chamber’s innovative...

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08 Aug

[Alexander Heinze is an Acting Professor at the University of Bremen and lecturer at the University of Göttingen] On 24 July 2025, Trial Chamber V (TC V) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its 1,600-page Judgment in the Yekatom and Ngaïssona case, convicting both former Anti-Balaka leaders of a catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity—including murder, persecution, forcible...

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08 Aug

[Ananya Bhargava (she/her) is a law student at Jindal Global Law School] Introduction Historically in situations of war, international law has maintained fidelity to a strictly parochial understanding of what constitutes “use of force.”  This understanding adheres to the normative belief that “use of force” solely includes armed force. Any deviation from this belief would invariably lead to the unsettling of definite...

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08 Aug

[Donna Cline is a US-licensed criminal practitioner and lead for the Environment Mobile Justice Team at Global Rights Compliance, where she works closely with Ukrainian prosecutors to ensure accountability for war crimes. Julia Tétrault-Provencher is a Canadian lawyer (Quebec Bar) and international lawyer with the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Mobile Justice Team at Global Rights Compliance in Ukraine.] Legal practitioners and scholars...

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08 Aug

[Dr. Emma Irving, M.A., LL.M. and Sabrina Rewald, J.D., LL.M. are co-founders of the Fénix Foundation, a non-profit leveraging technology to advance peace, justice, and accountability, and consultants in international criminal law, human rights and technology] The authors led the research and development of the Leiden Guidelines and the Hala Protocol. On 24 July 2025, ICC Trial Chamber V found Alfred Yekatom and Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona guilty of a...

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