In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Asia-Pacific

19 Feb

Earlier this month, I attended the opening ceremony of an exhibit on “Women and War” at a museum in the Philippines. A survivor of war time atrocities, Lola Estelita, spoke about her experiences, moving many in the audience to tears. Many other survivors of wartime sexual slavery and atrocities – called the “Lolas” or grandmothers – are now no longer...

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13 Feb

As I was doing some research into the invasion of Cambodia by South Vietnamese and US forces in 1970, I came across two official government accounts of the invasion -- one by the US, the other by Australia, one of the six countries that sent ground troops to Vietnam. They tell a rather different story...

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07 Feb

[Bashar H. Malkawi is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. He holds S.J.D in International Trade Law from American University, Washington College of Law and LL.M in International Trade Law from the University of Arizona.] China’s rising economic preeminence has been stunning, firmly ensconcing China as the second most powerful world economy replacing previously...

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24 Jan

[Kingsley Abbott is ICJ's Senior Legal Adviser for Global Redress and Accountability] The documentation of serious human rights violations in Myanmar by civil society, UN bodies and journalists, has played a critical role in raising awareness of the situation and eliciting responses from the international community. As it became clear that violations are likely to amount to crimes under international law including...

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01 Jan

[Jenny Domino is a Harvard Law School Satter Fellow placed with ARTICLE 19. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and not the views of ARTICLE 19.] Facebook has been described as a service to democracy. This perception arguably peaked during the Arab Spring uprisings, touted as Facebook’s crowning glory in its mission to connect people. The past...

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19 Dec

[Caroline Stover is a lawyer focusing on human rights law and refugee law in Southeast Asia.]  Mr. Hakeem Al-Araibi, a Bahraini footballer, dissident, refugee, and Australian legal permanent resident, has been detained in Bangkok since late last month, as Thailand considers whether it will send Mr. Al-Araibi back to Bahrain, or allow him to return to Australia. If returned, Mr. Al-Araibi...

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18 Dec

[Lieutenant Commander Yusuke Saito is a legal advisor in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and a military professor at Stockton Center for International Law, United States Naval War College. The views expressed in this article are of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the stance of the U.S. Naval War College and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.] Introduction The U.S.–North...

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06 Dec

[Kingsley Abbott is the ICJ’s Senior International Legal Adviser for Global Accountability, and is based in Bangkok, Thailand. Twitter: @AbbottKingsley.] Later this month, the Fifth Committee of the UN General Assembly, responsible for budgetary and administrative matters, is likely to approve the budget for the “Ongoing Independent Mechanism” (OIM) for Myanmar created by resolution at the UN Human Rights Council last September....

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21 Nov

Facebook commissioned a human rights impact assessment into its presence in Myanmar by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), which has recently released its report. While news outlets reported this as a mea culpa by Facebook regarding the use of its platform in contributing to atrocities in Myanmar – perhaps partly due to the product policy manager’s note in disseminating the report...

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20 Nov

[Alina Balta is a PhD Researcher at Tilburg Law School, INTERVICT. This blogpost is a product of the Intervict Reparations Initiative, commissioned by the NWO-VIDI Project, A Waste of Time or No Time to Waste, as well as a product of research carried out for the photobook ‘Portraits of Injustice: Forced marriage and related sexual violence during the Khmer Rouge’ due to be published in...

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14 Nov

[Ajita Banerjie is a research consultant with the International Commission of Jurists, based in India.] In a historic judgment pronounced on 6th September 2018, the Supreme Court of India declared the 157-year-old law, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, unconstitutional in so far as it criminalizes consensual sexual relationships between same-sex adults. The landmark judgment in Navtej Singh Johar vs Union of India seeks to atone for...

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09 Nov

[Eugénie Mérieau is a legal consultant for the International Commission of Jurists.] In September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court invalidated, in two landmark rulings, misogynistic and homophobic laws inherited from the British Empire. On September 27, it struck down Section 497 of the Penal Code (Shine v. Union of India) criminalizing adultery, three weeks after it had annulled Art. 377 of...

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