[Richard Dicker is Senior Legal Adviser for Advocacy at Human Rights Watch and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School] It has taken two years of consideration, discussion and debate, but the agreement necessary to draft an international treaty to prevent and punish Crimes Against Humanity has finally been reached. The UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee, which is mandated to encourage...
Every juristic tradition has at least one point in common: they seek to distinguish between lawful and unlawful behaviours, usually extrapolating a normative parallel between right and wrong or, with ecclesiastical fervour, between good and bad. Tied up with this narrative are notions of accountability (for wrongdoers) and restoration (for those wronged). Of course, morality almost always morphs into moralisation,...
To have your event or announcement featured in next week’s post, please send a link and a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com. Call for Applications Doctoral Workshop on Sustainability and Public Law: The 'Sustainability and Public Law' PhD project, part of the Radboud Research Centre for State and Law (SteR), would like to invite you to a doctoral workshop exploring questions...
To have your event or announcement featured in next week's post, please send a link and a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com. Calls for Papers ASIL International Criminal Law Interest Group Works-in-Progress Conference: The ASIL International Criminal Law Interest Group will be holding its annual Works-in-Progress Conference in person on May 30, 2025, at Boston University School of Law. Submissions...
[Marta Bo is a Senior Researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Institute and an Associate Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)] In recent years, accountability for uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in warfare, especially under international criminal law, has progressively emerged as a critical issue in governance initiatives (SIPRI, GGE’s Guiding Principles, REAIM Blue Print for Action) and...
[Elina Hammarström is Associate Legal Adviser in the International Commission of Jurists’ Europe and Central Asia Programme] In May 2024, the European Union adopted the final text of the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum (EU Pact), consisting of ten legislative texts reforming the EU migration and asylum system. As a whole, the EU Pact, which will enter into force in...
[Ezequiel Jimenez is an independent researcher with a PhD in International Law (Middlesex University, United Kingdom) focusing on the history and practice of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute. All comments and feedback welcome (email, X: @ezejim7 and Bluesky: @ezejim.bsky.social)] The Hague’s World Forum will be the site of contestation among the 124 States Parties to the Rome...
[Libby McAvoy is a Legal Advisor at Mnemonic, where she specialises in digital evidence archives, litigation support, and open source investigations into international crimes and human rights violations. Syrian Archive is Mnemonic's founding programme. Daragh Murray is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, and his research focuses on the intersection of technology and international law.] The authors were members of...
[Juliette Rémond Tiedrez is a Legal Researcher at the International Commission of Jurists’ Middle East and North Africa programme.] The views expressed in this post are the author’s alone and do not represent any institutional position on the part of the International Commission of Jurists. On 4 October 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) granted the Office of...
[Dr Anna Nadibaidze is a researcher for the European Research Council funded AutoNorms and AutoPractices projects based at the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark] The United Nations Summit of the Future, held in New York in September 2024, resulted in the adoption of the Pact for the Future. Among many other issues, this pact lists as an action...
[Jimena Sofía Viveros Álvarez is a Mexican international lawyer, expert on Artificial Intelligence, a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Advisory Body on AI, a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain, and an expert on AI for the OECD.] The origins of artificial intelligence (AI) date back to 1956. However, within the last decade it has evolved exponentially and...
As pretty much everyone in the world knows by now, the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Palestine situation. (It issued one for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri -- Deif -- as well.) Like the Office of the Prosecutor's applications, the PTC's decision...