In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

30 Apr

[Suraj Girijashanker is a Residential Fellow at the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School. His research focuses on the nexus between race, empire and international law, particularly in the context of migration] Over the past year, racist violence and abuse targeting Indians across the First World have surged. From attacks on Indian migrants in Ireland to a...

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30 Apr

The 1990s marked a critical decade in the global recognition of climate change and its impacts. The 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil stands out as a decisive turning point, with states from across the world adopting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In doing so, they acknowledged that high-income countries bear greater responsibility for climate change due...

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29 Apr

[Yang Han, PhD, is a Research Associate at China Centre, University of Oxford] Racism has been integral to international relations: e.g., scientific racism, social Darwinism, and the “yellow peril” discourses, just to name a few. Racist beliefs were often used to justify colonialism and imperialism, and invoked to instigate violence, hatred, and discrimination. Likewise, the principle of sovereign equality helps states...

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29 Apr

[Paulina Jimenez Fregoso is an advocacy advisor at the Centre for Reproductive Rights] Intersectionality remains contested. While it includes multiple social categories and personal identities, there is far reaching debate about its contours. While race, class and gender were widely accepted for a time, these were later seen to fall short of the complex dynamics of multiple forms of oppression. Helma...

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28 Apr

[Dr Shahab Saqib is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Birmingham Law School] Illumination rests on comparison. Comparing those who are situated in similar circumstances but are treated differently generates a desire to demystify the logic and circumstances that enable such discrepancies to emerge and to persist.  In my chapter, I use illumination to unpack the racial logic of...

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28 Apr

[Jinan Bastaki is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies at New York University, Abu Dhabi] During the UN General Assembly high-level week (September 2025), the US Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, delivered a presentation entitled “The Global Refugee and Asylum System: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It.” He made five points: a) every nation has the right to...

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27 Apr

[Karla Schröter is a doctoral researcher at Åbo Akademi University, where she is part of the Institute for Human Rights and the Minority Research profile] Veils worn by Muslim women, whether a hijab worn in public institutions or face-veils in public spaces, are being gradually banned in Europe. Sadly, the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) has repeatedly opined that...

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27 Apr

[Mohsen al Attar is an Associate Dean (Education) and Reader in International Law at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University] International law is often on the ropes. Each time a state invades another, a security agent tortures a suspect, or a wanted war criminal hobnobs with other state leaders, we are reminded that what international law could be is always tempered by what it...

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24 Apr

[Sayed Hussein Anosh is the Executive Director of Human Rights Defenders Plus (HRD+). Kate McInnes practices international human rights law and international criminal law at Arendt Chambers.] Gender persecution has been the defining feature of Taliban rule since its return to power in 2021. Afghan women and girls continue to be subjected to what commentators have described as one of the worst reversals of rights...

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23 Apr

[Dr Sergey Sayapin is Professor of Law at KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and Distinguished Visiting Global Scholar at the NUS Centre for International Law (2025)] If climate change exposes the limits of consent-based governance in ecological systems, technological disruption reveals a parallel fragility in the architecture of international law. Artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and cyber-autonomous systems do not simply pose new regulatory challenges – they transform the...

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23 Apr

[Chuka Arinze-Onyia is a doctoral student researching universal jurisdiction at Griffith University Law School] Only weeks after the Nigerian government entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the ICC to prosecute crimes committed by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military, the Nigerian Airforce on 11 April 2026, launched airstrikes that killed over 100 people and injured several others. There will be...

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22 Apr

[Girmay Tesfakiros Meressa holds an LL.M. in International Operational Law and is a legal practitioner. His research interests include the law on the use of force, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law, with a particular interest in the legal regulation of contemporary armed conflicts] Introduction A recent investigation by Reuters alleges that Ethiopia constructed a secret facility used to train fighters...

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