In association with the International Commission of Jurists

I, Daniel Blake: Joining Social Cleansing to International Legal Research

14 Apr

Dr Mohsen al Attar & Dr Henrique Weil Afonso Crises are common to contemporary global society. The reasons are plentiful including the perilousness of denationalised production, the over-exploitation of resources, and, perhaps foremost, the intensification of social inequalities precipitated by both of the former. Each of these exacerbates individual precarity and collective vulnerability. As precarity and vulnerability swell, constituencies lose faith...

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01 Apr

International law has famously “turned to history”. Since then, what I like to call the “foundational myth” of international law has been poked, prodded, re-evaluated and re-told in powerful, unsettling and insightful ways. The publicist’s relation with their own discipline is no longer the same, and the colonial, often violent, roots of the rules we rely on every day, are increasingly more exposed and open...

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22 Mar

Few international economic lawyers doubt the value of foreign direct investment (FDI). There is even some consensus that FDI plays a vital role in fostering development in host states. It triggers technology expansion, assists human capital formation, and nurtures a dynamic business environment. States—especially across the Third World—appeal to investors in the hopes of attracting a share of the green gold. Although there is truth to...

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21 Mar

Events European Court of Human Rights’ Webinar on ‘Human Punishment: Life Imprisonment and the Right to Hope’: The Criminal Law Group of the European Court of Human Rights, in cooperation with the University of Bologna, Liverpool John Moores University and ‘Beyond Detention’ Interest Group is convening a series of webinars on the broader theme of ‘Punishment, Detention, Crisis: Academic Judicial Dialogues’. The...

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15 Mar

Asser Khattab is a Research and Communications Officer and Vito Todeschini a Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists, Middle East and North Africa Programme. On 15 March 2011, dozens of Syrians took to the street in the busy center of the country’s capital, Damascus, to protest against decades of repression, human rights violations and authoritarian rule by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Syria’s...

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12 Mar

Tanveer Jeewa is the Legal and Communications Officer at the International Commission of Jurists, Africa Regional Programme After spending 72 days in remand detention, Zimbabwean student activist Alan Moyo was released on bail on 19 February 2021. Moyo’s lengthy pre-trial detention is sadly not unusual – it is one of numerous cases witnessed in recent months in Zimbabwe, targeting those perceived to be critical of...

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04 Mar

As readers no doubt know, Fatou Bensouda announced yesterday that the OTP is opening a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine. Doing so was a foregone conclusion, given the Pre-Trial Chamber's recent decision that the ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Regardless, even if the bulk of the work will fall...

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26 Feb

Andras Vamos-Goldman has a long post today at Just Security criticising the UK's recent adoption of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which will make it considerably more difficult for British courts to prosecute soldiers who commit international crimes overseas or to hear civil actions brought by the victims of such crimes. He also decries in general the lack of...

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10 Feb

Few things bother me more than journalists who seemingly cannot be bothered to accurately describe what the ICC does. Here is what Isabel Kershner, a Jerusalem correspondent for the New York Times, wrote about the Pre-Trial Chamber's recent decision that the Court has jurisdiction over the situation in Palestine (my emphasis): Dealing a severe diplomatic blow to Israel, the court ruled...

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01 Feb

I recently read Steven Wheatley’s latest paper, “Revisiting the Doctrine of Intertemporal Law” and found it incredibly interesting. As someone who shares Prof. Wheatley's interest in the intersection between law and history, I found his effort to systematise the concept into a practical method extremely welcomed and insightful. At the same time, his equation-like approach to “the law in the...

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24 Jan

Call for Papers Call for inputs: UN OHCHR Working Group on the use of mercenaries: Twice a year, the United Nations (UN) Office of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Working Group (WG) on the use of mercenaries issues calls for inputs to inform its thematic studies to be presented at the Human Rights Council in its...

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08 Jan

Six important African NGOs have sent a letter to the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties offering their enthusiastic endorsement of Karim Khan's candidacy for ICC Prosecutor. The signatories are Club des Amis du droit du Congo (DRC); Ligue pour la paix, les droits de l’homme et la justice (DRC), Bureau d’études et de réflexions pour le bien être...

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