In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Do Alleged “Terrorists” and Spies Have the Right to Consular Access Under the VCCR?

19 Feb

Earlier this month, I attended the opening ceremony of an exhibit on “Women and War” at a museum in the Philippines. A survivor of war time atrocities, Lola Estelita, spoke about her experiences, moving many in the audience to tears. Many other survivors of wartime sexual slavery and atrocities – called the “Lolas” or grandmothers – are now no longer...

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19 Feb

I tweeted a link to the presentation, but I thought I might post it here along with the accompanying slides. Here is the abstract: This presentation will argue that the ICC’s newly-adopted crime of aggression is useless, anachronistic, and yet beautiful. The crime is useless because the jurisdictional regime adopted by the Assembly of States Parties ensures that the Court will...

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18 Feb

[Marcos Zunino is a Research Fellow at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the author of Justice Framed: A Genealogy of Transitional Justice (CUP 2019). Twitter: @MarcosZunino.] Argentina is a well-known case of transitional justice. From the pioneering 1984 truth commission and the prosecutions that had to be rolled back due...

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13 Feb

Though most of the outrage was manufactured and hypocritical, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) deserved criticism for her ill-expressed tweet about AIPAC. But she has more than redeemed herself with this exchange with Elliott Abrams, Trump's Special Envoy to Venezuela, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting yesterday. It is a delight to watch Elliott Abrams' face as he is asked --...

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13 Feb

As I was doing some research into the invasion of Cambodia by South Vietnamese and US forces in 1970, I came across two official government accounts of the invasion -- one by the US, the other by Australia, one of the six countries that sent ground troops to Vietnam. They tell a rather different story...

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12 Feb

[Alonso Illueca is a lawyer and adjunct Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Universidad del Istmo.] It is highly unlikely that someone would argue that, currently, Venezuela is not affected by a disaster, i.e. a series of events resulting in widespread loss of life, great human suffering and distress, mass displacement and large-scale material damage, which are thereby disrupting...

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11 Feb

Amidst all the faux outrage over a Muslim Congresswoman's (admittedly problematic) tweet -- much of it coming from evangelicals who think all Jews will burn in Hell after the rapture and right-wingers who say nothing about blatantly anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros or Israel's support for the deeply anti-Semitic Prime Minister of Hungary -- here is your daily reminder of the...

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11 Feb

[Ralph Janik teaches international law at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Law and Webster Private University Vienna. He specializes in the interplay of international law and international relations. Twitter: @RalphJanik] The crisis in Venezuela could enter a new phase. Juan Guaidó recently flirted with the idea of a US intervention on his behalf when he refrained from ruling out to...

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11 Feb

[Carlos Arturo Villagrán Sandoval is a PhD Candidate at Melbourne Law School. His doctoral thesis considers Comparative Regional Integration with particular emphasis on Central-America. He is currently representing civil society actors in a constitutional injunction against the Presidential decision to denounce the CICIG treaty.] The CICIG is a pioneering international body, created between Guatemala and the UN, with broad reaching effects...

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10 Feb

Call for Papers The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) is organizing a one-day conference on "Protecting Community Interests under International Law: Challenges and Prospects for the 21st Century," which will take place on Monday, 3 June 2019, in Oslo, Norway. This conference aims at providing insights on the role and function of international law in a framework of increased global governance by...

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09 Feb

This week has seen news of potential use of amnesty laws in three countries – the Central African Republic, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Here, nuances are important to highlight. In CAR, with the peace agreement under wraps initially, early news reports indicated the push for a ‘blanket’ amnesty, i.e. exemption from international crimes, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. Other reports...

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