In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Use of Force

24 Mar

[Katayoun Hosseinnejad is a visiting lecturer of international law at Allameh Tabataba’i University and senior researcher at Bulan Institute for Peace Innovations (@katayoonhnejad).] [Pouria Askary is an associate professor of international law at Allameh Tabataba’i University (@askarypouria).] On 3 February 2021, the ICJ for the third and the last time reviewed the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Rights between...

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22 Mar

Srinivas Burra is an Assistant Professor at South Asian University. Photo credit: Irish Times This post deals with India’s recent statement on the right of self-defence against the acts of non-state actors. India’s statement at the Arria Formula meeting on 24 February 2021, organised by Mexico on the topic of ‘Upholding the Collective Security System of the UN Charter: the...

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11 Feb

[Shashiskala Gurpur is the Director of Symbiosis Law School and Dean, Faculty of Law, Symbiosis International (Deemed) University. Aakarsh Banyal is a student of law at Symbiosis Law School, Pune, India.] Introduction Facebook CEO’s apology over the company’s failure to remove posts which incited widespread violence in Myanmar stands testament to the possibility of mass violence being perpetuated through the use of technology. Such instances...

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11 Feb

[Quazi Omar Foysal is a Lecturer in Law at American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB).] Introduction The atrocity crimes allegedly committed against Rohingyas in Myanmar have attracted unprecedented efforts to ensure justice and accountability at international and domestic levels. These efforts include but not limited to International Criminal Court (ICC), International Court of Justice (ICJ), two UN Human Rights Council bodies, an Argentine universal jurisdiction case, and several so-called military trials in Myanmar. Very...

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26 Jan

[Enrico Benedetto Cossidente is an Italian Army officer and legal advisor specialized in international law and security issues. He is a PhD candidate at Ghent University. He writes in his personal capacity. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the Italian Army, the Ministry of Defense or the Italian Government. Twitter: @falleninlaw.] The...

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20 Jan

[Craig Martin is a Professor at Washburn University School of Law, specializing in legal constraints on the use of force and armed conflict, in both international law and comparative constitutional law. He can be found on Twitter: @craigxmartin.] It is now widely accepted that the climate change crisis is going to contribute to increasing levels of armed conflict among and within states in the coming decades....

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18 Jan

Featured Announcement BIICL Training Courses Spring 2021 The British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) now offers training courses in a virtual format. BIICL virtual courses are led by the Institute's leading researchers, together with external experts and distinguished practitioners. The course format consists of a series of sessions in which live teaching is offered via Zoom. Participants are able to...

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23 Dec

[Sheila Paylan is an international human rights lawyer and former legal advisor for the United Nations.] On 3 December 2020, the French National Assembly joined the French Senate in passing resolutions nearly unanimously calling on the French government to recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and use such recognition as an instrument of negotiations for the establishment of a sustainable peace. The French Parliament thus became the first...

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22 Dec

[Audrey Wabwire is A Nairobi-based media manager at Human Rights Watch.] What’s the path to justice after years of conflict, during which widespread atrocities were committed? This is a question that South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, confronts. After nearly seven years of conflict ended with the signing of a peace deal in September 2018, South Sudan finally established a transitional national unity government earlier this...

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18 Dec

[Clive Baldwin is a Senior Legal Advisor for the legal and policy office at Human Rights Watch.] UK nationals committed abuses in Iraq after 2003 on a significant scale. The International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) Final Report on the UK and Iraq on December 9 is the latest official report to find that members of UK armed forces subjected Iraqi detainees to abuse,...

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18 Dec

[Marta Bo is a Researcher at the Graduate Institute (LAWS and War Crimes Project) and at the T.M.C. Asser Institute.] Meaningful Human Control is at the core of regulatory and ethical debates on autonomous weapon systems. In international discussions and writings, the problem of meaningful human control has been addressed from different angles: from philosophical, ethical and legal (here and here), to operational, cognitive and...

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01 Dec

A number of us -- me, Aurel Sari, Eliav Lieblich, Andrew Bell, Sasha Greenawalt, Craig Martin, Ed Swaine -- have been having an interesting discussion on Twitter about two important issues concerning the use of force. The first is when IHL begins to apply in an IAC. The traditional position is that any use of interstate force triggers IHL and...

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