What does the dean of a law faculty do? I asked myself this question throughout my academic career. Most of the time, they appear both indispensable and irrelevant in equal measure. Deans are quixotic, sometimes even hostile. They do not teach; they produce little research; and many law faculties are acrimonious places, suggesting that organisational leadership is not within their...
[Chiara Redaelli is a Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy, where she works for the Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts (RULAC) and the Disruptive Military Technologies projects.] Over the past days, the world has been closely following the US presidential election. On Saturday, November 7, after days of uncertainty, Joe Biden won the election. As it is well-known, concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic and the risk of potentially...
[J. Jarpa Dawuni is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University and the Founder and Executive Director of The Institute for African Women in Law.] In a joint press release issued on November 2, 2020 by the Institute for African Women in Law and the GQUAL Campaign, called on member-states of the United Nations to take gender into...
[Gregory S. Gordon is Professor of Law at The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and formerly served as a prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division.] This summer I posted about the importance of the International Criminal Court’s decision in selecting its third Prosecutor. The Court has come under fire...
[Simon Bekaert is an Attorney at Law at the Bekaert Law Firm. This article was written in the context of the JUSTICE project, a cooperation of International Commission of Jurists – European Institutions (ICJ-EI), NJCM, Human Rights in Practice, Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, Juezas y Jueces para la Democracia and Neue...
[Vanessa Sant'Anna Bonifacio Tavares is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary International Studies (IIS) at the Vienna School of International Studies. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect any official position.] In about 90 days, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) shall enter into force, proscribing nuclear weapons use, threat of use, testing, development, production, possession,...
[Ezequiel Heffes is a Thematic Legal Adviser, Geneva Call. PhD Candidate, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University; Marcos D. Kotlik is an Associate Legal Officer at the International Court of Justice, the Academic Coordinator, Observatory of IHL, Universtiy of Buenos Aires and a PhD Candidate, IHEID. The views expressed in this article are personal to the authors and do not necessarily reflect those...
[Justina Uriburu is a Ph.D. Candidate in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and a Researcher at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.] The question of English-centrism In his memoir titled A Life Beyond Boundaries, Benedict Anderson provides a testimony of his intellectual journey and his experience in academia. He navigates through different dimensions of scholarly life: the rise...
[Marko Svicevic is a post-doctoral research fellow at the South African Research Chair in International Law, University of Johannesburg.] Introduction The growing insurgency in Mozambique continues to worry its neighboring states and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) alike. Known as Ansar al-Sunna, the insurgency first arose in 2017 in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado. By July 2019, it had pledged allegiance...
[Malcolm Wu is an LL.M. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.] Introduction As highlighted by Mudukuti and Gauci and Karageorgiou, the criminalisation of NGOs and human rights defenders (HRDs), notably within the context of search and rescue operations (SAR), has been on the rise in the EU since its migration crisis in 2015. A substantial role in this controversy belongs to the broadly-drafted Facilitation Directive 2002/90/EC which renders...
[Riddhi Joshi is a published author and a student in the final year of her law programme from Symbiosis Law School.] The border skirmish between India and China led to escalating tensions in the region. Numerous diplomatic and military-level talks have failed to ease the stand-off as both parties are keen on strengthening their geopolitical position. India’s fresh move to ban 118 apps of Chinese origin...
[Trung Nguyen is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law.] With its appellate function came to a halt on the 10th of December 2019, the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) is unlikely to be an attractive venue to settle international trade disputes at the moment or in the near future. The non-functioning of the WTO Appellate Body (‘AB’) presents the problem...