Search: crossing lines
10 Jun Pride 2020: a time for vigilance, collective action and digital spaces in the COVID-19 pandemic
...inequalities and fault-lines within society. As the world slowly returns to a not-so-normal new normal, social, financial assistance and access to safe, secure homes and the right to housing for LGBTQ persons will remain illusive. Without protection from discriminatory application of laws, lockdown and COVID-19 related measures, LGBTQ persons will continue to be disproportionately targeted by police in the application of new emergency criminal law. The increase in executive control shifts state power towards authoritarianism in many places and this does not auger well for human rights protections that we...29 Jul Emerging Voices: Distinction without a Difference – The UN’s Attempt to Fight A War Without Fighting A War
...commanders for leading an attack on African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.) However, a successful prosecution requires the prosecutor to prove that the peacekeepers were “entitled to the protection given to civilians . . . under the international law of armed conflict” and that “the perpetrator was aware of the factual circumstances that established the protection.” To prove these elements, prosecutors often point to the peacekeepers’ distinctive uniforms, colors, and emblems to argue that the attackers knew that they were attacking protected peacekeepers, not an enemy force. Blurring the lines between...
28 May Futureproofing Human Rights Symposium: Human Rights in the Era of Blockchain – A Polycentric Accountability Framework
...acknowledges that decentralized digital systems cannot be effectively governed through top-down state intervention or private self-regulation alone. Embedding Human Rights in Decentralized Governance If blockchain governance requires new institutional models to ensure accountability, the same holds true for human rights. Historically, human rights law was designed to hold centralized entities—primarily states—accountable for violations against individuals. But blockchain challenges this premise: it disperses authority, embeds decisions in code, and blurs the lines of legal responsibility. In this context, human rights protection must also evolve to operate within polycentric systems. Just as...03 May How Should the OBL Operation be Characterized?
...and Kooijmans recognized that in a post-9/11 world containing failed states, state practice strongly supports the view that an expansive reading of Article 51 to include non-state actors is appropriate. Sunday’s operation was another example of state practice undertaken with the belief that the boundaries of the battlefield are not determined by geopolitical lines but rather by the location of participants in an armed conflict, whether the participants are states or non-state actors. This continues to be the standard for determining where the law of armed conflict is properly applied....
12 Dec Challenges to Security in the Black Sea: Analyzing the Tripartite Initiative Operation in the Black Sea
...is obliged to notify the neutral states of risks to innocent shipping. As long as military circumstances allow, the requirement to provide notification must be fulfilled promptly. Delayed notification does not automatically result in a breach of international law. The Tripartite Mine Clearing Operation As seen above, the three states being Bulgaria, Romania and Türkiye (“the Tripartite”) have adequately reported the locations and the dangerous presence of sea-mines in the Black Sea near their coastal lines. The fact that all of them informed the international community about the presence of...16 Sep Legal Accountability of International Organizations and Their Agents
...such as telephone lines, etc.? This is, after all, an investigation by a state DA, and not even a federal prosecutor. Although somewhat weirdly, given the politics at that moment, a local level investigation by a state DA of unimpeachable integrity and also a stalwart of the Democratic establishment – rather than a DOJ investigation by the then-Bush administration, turned out to be far more politically palatable. In any case, the weakened Annan did not do what might otherwise have been an inflexible and categorical response of the UN –...04 Jun Guest Post: Stepping Back from the Precipice in Bond
...of the nation’s population). In his opinion, however, Justice Thomas suggests that the judiciary should begin to draw such lines and should, in particular, recognize that “treaties by their nature relate to intercourse with other nations (including their people and property), rather than to purely domestic affairs.” Justice Thomas acknowledges that “the distinction between matters of international intercourse and matters of purely domestic regulation may not be obvious in all cases.” Even so, he concludes that “hypothetical difficulties in line-drawing are no reason to ignore a constitutional limit on federal...02 Apr Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Crimea: the Legal Rhetoric of Intervention, Recognition, and Annexation
...call on everyone to respect that voluntary choice,” he said, adding that his Government could not refuse Crimeans their right to self-determination. Historical justice had been vindicated, he noted, recalling that for many years, Crimea had been part of the Russian Federation, sharing a common history, culture and people. An arbitrary decision in 1954 had transferred the region to the Ukrainian Republic, upsetting the natural state of affairs and cutting Crimea off from Russia. Gone were the bright lines that Russia had said existed regarding Kosovo: that inasmuch as Serbia...
07 Feb Overfocusing on Prosecuting Aggression Risks Impunity for Ukraine’s Swelling Dock of Alleged War Criminals
...any tribunal—international, hybrid, or otherwise—any time in the near future. Rather, the international community must turn its attention to the serious issue of the ever-expanding dock of Russian prisoners of war in Ukrainian custody accused of war crimes. While the ICC has made headlines for the Prosecutor’s bold issuance of an arrest warrant against President Putin, which has already made the Russian despot’s world significantly smaller, the Court’s limited resources and system of complementary jurisdiction make it suited to try only individuals most responsible for widespread atrocity crimes in Ukraine....
24 Mar The Potential of Gender Persecution in ICC Case Abd-Al-Rahman: A Twofold Opportunity to Interpret its Customary Status and Intersectional Discrimination
...para 54). Intersectionality fulfils this role enhancing ICL interpretations as it involves the application of customary IHRL standards such as the prohibitions of gender-based violence and discrimination. Intersectionality is not a substantive standard to be implanted in ICL, but a tool to interpret complex discrimination processes underpinning violence through contextualization, capturing the dynamics and lines of force of discrimination (MacKinnon 1023-4). Intersectionality does not involve any concept foreign to ICL but is inherentto it. It addresses concepts such as the prohibition of discrimination and gender-based violence that (as above-mentioned) have...