There is nothing more rewarding for an academic -- at least for this academic -- than seeing a student go on to do great things. I've been fortunate to have many wonderful students over the years, but there is no one I am more proud of than Golriz Ghahraman, whom I taught at the University of Auckland long ago and...
[Mathias Holvoet works as a Legal Officer at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Belgium.] This post is a follow-up post on Kevin Jon Heller’s post ‘the OTP Lets Australia off the Hook’, in which he vehemently criticized the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor’s decision not to open a preliminary examination over the situation in Nauru and Manus Island, after denying to qualify...
This post looks at some of the issues and lessons that will impact the new prosecutor, emanating from the few situations related to Asia – a region that is often overlooked in the context of international justice. Other posts in our symposium have gone into details of the prosecutor’s position, responsibilities and qualifications. In this, I take a step back from the minutiae, and look at...
[Jennifer Trahan is a Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] On March 5, 2020, the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber issued an extremely significant ruling authorizing the opening of the Afghanistan investigation. The decision is important in that it confirms the Prosecutor’s discretion in evaluating whether or not to proceed “in the interests of justice” under Article 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute, thereby allowing the Afghanistan...
On 3 March, news reports indicated that that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (High Commissioner) filed an intervention at the Supreme Court of India, linked to petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA). This legislation – along with a population and citizenship register – has been the focus of nationwide protests across India. In brief, the CAA seeks to ease a path...
[David Eichert is a PhD Candidate at the London School of Economics.] On 23 January 2020 the International Court of Justice made history when it issued provisional measures in the case of The Gambia v. Myanmar, ordering Myanmar to halt its campaign of violence against the Rohingya. While the final outcome of the case remains very much unknown, the fact that...
[Dr. Leonie Steinl, LL.M. is a post-doctoral researcher at Hamburg University, where she works in a DFG-project on "Strategic Litigation Networks and Accountability for Gross Violations of Human Rights". Dr. Wenke Brückner currently works as a lawyer in Berlin, specializing in German and international criminal law. Both authors have previously worked on different aspects of the case of Hanan v. Germany for...
A couple of years ago, I helped GLAN and the Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic prepare a 115-page communication to the OTP regarding Australia's unconscionable treatment of refugees and asylum seekers detained on Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Here is the key paragraph from the Executive Summary: The communication finds that there is a reasonable basis...
[Rawan Arraf is an Australian lawyer and director of the Australian Centre for International Justice. This post represents the personal view of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Centre for International Justice.] This is a belated follow up to the introductory post in the matter of Taylor v Attorney General which concerned the attempted private...
[Unnati Ghia is a final year law student at National Law School of India University, Bangalore and Editor at the National Law School of India Review.] The past decade has seen significant challenges posed to international human rights law. Armed conflicts, minority persecution and nationalist xenophobia have contributed to the increase in the number of stateless populations around the world. Much like the United States and Myanmar,...
[Shannon Raj Singh is a Visiting Fellow of Practice at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics, Law & Armed Conflict, where she is researching the duty to prevent atrocity crimes with Federica D’Alessandra, the founding Executive Director of the Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security. Shannon is also an Associate Legal Officer at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague. The views expressed herein...
[Waritsara Rungthong is Project Manager of the Refugee Rights Litigation Project in Bangkok, Thailand. Caroline Stover is Asia Programme Officer at ARTICLE 19 and a legal advisor to the Refugee Rights Litigation Project.] On 24 December 2019, the Royal Thai Government approved a regulation with the aim to establish a national screening mechanism to manage “aliens” who cannot return to their country of domicile. With the regulation adopted as...