Search: crossing lines

...prescriptions of the law; the focus being on maximizing the numbers by whatever means, without complying with the law.” In my view, the Supreme Court of Malawi’s departure from the quantitative approach is a welcome development because, it places the need to comply with electoral rules at the center of election management and litigation. In 2015, SADC Member States adopted a set of electoral principles and guidelines known as SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. These principles enjoin SADC Member states to ensure that they conduct regular, free and...

...(often decades), subject to judicial and political challenge, and prioritising resources to those most affected. The UN guidance on reparations remains declaratory on the norms for violations in war, and more recently we have outlined more specific best practices on how to implement such norms under the Belfast Guidelines. The efforts towards establishing a compensation claims commission for the war in Ukraine need to keep in mind that compensation by itself will not effectively remedy the harm caused and needs a nuanced approach to eligibility. Many reparations programmes developed at...

...(2) preventing civilians from crossing the border into their state of nationality is an act that takes place on the territory of the state they are trying to leave. Here, Donald Trump’s policies are unlawfully preventing Mexican-American civilians from returning to their state of nationality, the US, from the territory of Mexico, a state party. There is little question that enough Mexican-Americans are being prevented from returning to the US to satisfy the “widespread or systematic” contextual element of crimes against humanity. The ICC thus has jurisdiction to prosecute Donald...

...these elements, and for which the citizenry can help to hold its government accountable, is the United States’ 2018 “zero-tolerance policy” concerning the separation of immigrant families upon entering the country. In writing, the policy intended to criminally prosecute 100% of immigrants crossing the United States-Mexico border with their children and without prior authorization. In practice, the policy not only deterred immigration, but punished children for action taken by their parents. This punishment included separating children from their parents and siblings for an indefinite period – sometimes for months at...

...for fear that it might also shed light on the fate and whereabouts of the missing Swapo detainees. The NSHR also wants Nujoma to be tried for gross violations in the Kavango region, which borders Angola, between 1994 and 1996. At the height of Unita’s attacks on northern Namibia, Nujoma imposed a state of emergency and ordered security forces to shoot on sight anyone crossing or found near the border. The article betrays a complete failure to understand how the ICC operates. The fact that the Prosecutor is “weighing the...

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa At least 64 people have been killed in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in an attack carried out by suspected rebels. Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has published a video apparently showing recent footage of dozens of school girls kidnapped two years ago, and saying some of them have been killed in air strikes. South Sudan said on Sunday it would consider the U.N.’s decision to authorize sending extra troops to the country...

...other military equipment. Over the course of six months, the Turks tipped the scales squarely in favour of the GNA – with a battle currently looming over the strategic coastal city of Sirte. Haftar’s foreign backers – including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France – were left scrambling to formulate a firm response. That response came on Saturday 20 June, when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi boldly declared Sirte and the inland al Jufra air base a red line, the crossing of which would trigger a direct...

...state from direct ownership of its technological foundations means its digital sovereignty is contingent and reversible. It exists only so long as those that host its data permit it. In physical terms, data centres are fixed installations subject to territorial law. In functional terms, however, they form a transnational terrain of power that no single state controls. A classified dataset may reside on servers located in multiple jurisdictions, connected by fibre networks crossing oceans. Encryption and access protocols create enclaves of virtual territory that can be expanded, contracted, or deleted...

...— or any non-self-interested scholar who still has to pay for daycare — will want to be a reviewer for the Haute Bourgeois Track. And what do you think will happen to a reviewer lucky enough to wrangle an invite if she suggests rejecting the Haute Bourgeois Track article, thereby not only depriving T&F of its $7000/€6200/£5500 payday but actually costing them money, because they will still have to pay the reviewer for her rejection? Do you think T&F will keep sending her articles, each time crossing their fingers in...

...the law clearly proscribes. Indeed, prior to the AIPAC case five years ago, the government had never invoked the Espionage Act against any third-party recipient of the leaked/stolen information, focusing prosecutions entirely on the direct culprit. Of course, going after Assange is not the same thing as going after the press politically. And that’s not an insignificant point. But it is basically the same thing legally — crossing a proverbial Rubicon that even the most secrecy-obsessed, First Amendment-indifferent administrations have consistently refused to attempt to bridge. I leave it for...

[Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott is the author of State Responsibility for Non-State Actors: Past, Present and Prospects for the Future (Oxford: Hart | Bloomsbury, 2022, re-issued in paperback 2024)] This is the first part of a two-part post; see Part II here. Information operations can impact societies in many ways. Whether by undermining specific human rights, for example, as a result of crossing the line between ‘lawful influence and unlawful manipulation’ of thought, or by eroding trust in democratic institutions, these operations pose multifaceted risks to domestic, regional, and international stability....

...ability of our consular officers to see him, provide assistance, and monitor his condition. Similarly, the United States invoked the VCCR to seek access to the three American hikers detained in Iran after accidently crossing an unmarked boarder in 2009. In 2001, when a U.S. Navy surveillance plane made an emergency landing in Chinese territory, the State Department cited the VCCR in demanding immediate access to the plane’s crew. . . . This bill has the support of the Obama administration, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense,...