[Shannon Raj Singh is a Visiting Fellow of Practice at Oxford University, where she is researching the duty to prevent atrocity crimes with the Institute for Ethics, Law & Armed Conflict's Programme on International Peace and Security. Shannon is also an Associate Legal Officer at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the...
[Yasmine Nahlawi is an independent researcher specialising in R2P and its applicability to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts. She holds a PhD in Public International Law from Newcastle University, LLM in International Legal Studies from Newcastle University, and BSc in Political Science from Eastern Michigan University.] Throughout the Syrian conflict, I led policy initiatives for civilian protection alongside civil society leaders, iNGOs, and public officials within the...
This week, we have the honor of hosting a symposium on Yasmine Nahlawi's recent book, The Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria: Mass Atrocities, Human Protection, and International Law. From the publisher: This book offers a novel and contemporary examination of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) doctrine from an international legal perspective and analyses how the doctrine was applied within...
[Beth Van Schaack is the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at the Law School and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Security & Cooperation at Stanford University. Please don’t miss Patryk I. Labuda’s symposium post at Justice in Conflict.] The relationship between the United States and the ICC has been characterized by change more than continuity....
[Elizabeth Evenson is an associate International Justice director at Human Rights Watch.] Widespread international crimes and the failure of governments to prosecute them make the International Criminal Court necessary. But translating the court’s mandate into action has been fraught with challenges. Significant setbacks in prosecution cases, gaps in communication between the court and affected communities, outstanding arrest warrants, and limited resources, among other factors, have constrained...
[Luis Moreno Ocampo is the Founding Chief Prosecutor of the ICC (2003-2012)]. In late 2020, the third International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor will be appointed. One thing is certain: she/he will face new challenges. Should the new Prosecutor open an investigation in Venezuela? Or against British personnel in Iraq? Burundi, Philippines or Georgia? What should be the focus of the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations? At the beginning of...
[Kevin Jon Heller is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the University of Amsterdam and Professor of Law at the Australian National University; Mark Kersten is a Senior Consultant at the Wayamo Foundation and creator of the blog Justice in Conflict; Patryk I. Labuda is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and Priya Pillai...
[Fabricio Guariglia is Director of Prosecutions, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court. The opinions in this article are solely the author’s and should not be attributed to the Office of the Prosecutor or the International Criminal Court.] As we move further into the uncertain, our offices turned virtual, our children at home, our social habits transformed, our concerns for ourselves and others guiding our daily routines,...
[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...
[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...
[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...
Most readers will be familiar with the Caroline Affair. A group of Canadian rebels seized an American vessel and used it to transport ammunitions from the US to Canada. British forces raided the ship, burned it, killed two men, and sent its wreckage over the Niagara Falls. The incident gave rise to perhaps one of the most frequently quoted maxims in the law of use...