In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Asylum and the Duty to Protect the Yazidis from Genocide

15 Aug

[Sareta Ashraph is a barrister specialised in international law, and is currently focused on ISIS's crimes against the Yazidis. Sister Makrina Finlay OSB (DPhil Oxon, Modern History) assists Yazidi asylum seekers in Germany and Melinda Taylor is an international criminal law and human rights attorney, who provides voluntary assistance to asylum seekers through Advocates Abroad. The authors are currently exploring the...

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08 Aug

[Maitreyi Gupta is an International Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, Based in India.] The Supreme Court of India will soon deliver its judgment in a historic case -- Navtej Singh Johar et al v. Union of India and others -- on the criminalization of consensual same sex relations in the country. Branded outlaws by the law, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)...

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30 Jul

[Briony Potts is a Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists] Sajid Javid, UK Home secretary, has undertaken an extraordinary move that suggests an unprecedented shift in the UK’s previously held position of an absolute stance against the death penalty. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were the last two men of a group known as “the Beatles”, so nicknamed because...

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23 Jul

[Carlos Lopez is a Senior Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists.] (This is Part II of the blog on the recently released zero draft of a legally binding instrument on Transnational Corporations and human rights. The first part can be found here.) Prevention The draft treaty takes a somewhat sweeping approach to the issue of preventative measures to be required by...

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23 Jul

[Carlos Lopez is a Senior Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists.] The first draft of one of the most important international human rights treaties of recent years, and instrument addressing on business and human rights has just been released in Geneva by Ecuador’s Ambassador acting as Chair of the process. The “zero draft” strongly focuses on the key issue...

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18 Jul

[Jennifer Trahan is a Clinical Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] July 17, International Justice Day, not only marked the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”), but also activation of the ICC’s fourth crime, the crime of aggression. These milestones were celebrated by an event at the UN entitled “20th anniversary of the Rome Statute:...

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17 Jul

[Ricardo Arredondo is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Buenos Aires.] [Ed. note: the final paragraph of the post has been revised from the original version.] At a time when the repercussions of the expulsions of diplomats generated by the poisoning of a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and her daughter Yulia have not yet been hushed, the Greek...

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04 Jul

On Monday, the OTP filed a motion in the Bemba Witness Tampering Case entitled "Detailed Notice of Additional Sentencing Submissions." The OTP argues that, in determining the appropriate sentence for Bemba, Kilolo, and Mangenda, Trial Chamber VII should take into account the fact that the witness tampering by Bemba and his co-defendants led the Appeals Chamber to wrongly acquit Bemba in the...

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28 Jun

This is a major development, one that I hope does not get lost in the welter of commentary on the Bemba acquittal. If you recall, in June 2012 the Libyan government detained four ICC officials who were in Zintan on official Court business: Melinda Taylor from the Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD), who had been provisionally appointed...

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