[Nicola Palmer is a Senior Lecturer in criminal law at King’s and the author of Courts in Conflict: Interpreting the Layers of Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda.] On Saturday, 16 May 2020 Félicien Kabuga, a former businessman accused of being a major financial backer of Hutu extremism in the build-up to, and during, the Rwandan genocide was arrested in a flat in Asnieres-sur-Seine...
[Martin Jarrett is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.] In a recently published arbitral award coming from an investor-state arbitration, the arbitral tribunal made a rare confession: it was uncomfortable with its decision finding that the state was not internationally responsible for its conduct. The case was Krederi v. Ukraine. Although the statement...
[Nicole De Silva is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Concordia University and Misha Plagis is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut.] The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights—the African Union’s continental human rights court—received severe blows in late April, as two states, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire, withdrew their declarations allowing individuals and NGOs to submit cases...
[Jennifer Trahan is Clinical Professor, NYU Center for Global Affairs and Megan Fairlie is Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law.] This past week, certain members of the US House and Senate released two letters (here and (here) that demonstrate, at best, a woeful lack of comprehension of the International Criminal Court. The letters suggest that the ICC’s preliminary...
Last week, The Huffington Post published an article with the provocative title, Epidemiologist Slams U.S. Coronavirus Response: ‘Close To Genocide By Default’. The epidemiologist in question was Prof. Dr. Gregg Gonsalves, PhD (Public Health, Yale University), who, according to his online curriculum vitae, is an Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, as well as an Associate...
[Jan Lhotský is the head of the Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. He also works as a lawyer at the Office of the Public Defender of Rights (Ombudsperson) and as a senior researcher at the Centre for International Law of the Institute of International Relations in Prague.] The universal system of monitoring human rights obligations – the UN treaty bodies based in Geneva – has...
[Nora Salem is Assistant Professor and Head of the Public International Law Department at the German University in Cairo. She has recently published an entry for the MPEPIL on Sharia Reservations to Human Rights Treaties, as well as a book on The Impact of the UN Women’s Rights Convention on Egypt’s Domestic Legislation (Brill).] Most States have been taking far-reaching emergency health measures to control the...
[Paolo Busco is a member of Twenty Essex Chambers, where he practices in the field of public international law. All opinions are expressed in a personal capacity only.] Rescuing people in distress at sea is a duty. However, does international law require a coastal State to open its ports or territorial sea to foreign ships involved in the rescue? The question is not new, especially in...
[Jonathan Turner is a barrister in London and Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI)] Practising advocates know that what is not included in reply submissions is usually more interesting than what is there. One of the omissions in the ICC Prosecutor’s recent Response on the issue of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in respect of Palestine is that it does not address the argument made by...
For fans of science fiction and for certain investors, the eventuality of space mining is a given, despite recent setbacks. The extraction of resources from the Moon and other celestial bodies —such as mining asteroids for precious metals, harvesting helium-3 from lunar regolith, or using ice on the Moon for a moonbase—is described as having the potential of a “New...
On 4 February 2020, Foreign Policy published an article, “U.N. Chief Faces Internal Criticism over Human Rights”. While the article categorizes failures on the part of the UN relating to the human rights mandate of the organization, I was struck by the allegations relating to the role of the UN’s lawyers, in particular regarding Haiti. On 30 April 2020, the UN...
[Somesh Dutta specializes in international dispute resolution. He is currently working with the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European & Regulatory Procedural Law as a Research Fellow and is a member of the International Max Planck Research School for Successful Dispute Resolution (IMPRS-SDR).] In particular, developing economies with a large consumer base may have a crucial role in shaping the future of international investment adjudication, and...