In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Middle East

30 Jun

[John B. Quigley is Emeritus Professor of Law at Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University.] The annexation, now under consideration by Israel, of land in occupied Palestine is aimed, in part, at bringing many of Israel’s settlements into the territory of Israel. Annexation, however, may bring the unintended consequence of the loss of those very settlements. Much of the land on which the...

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26 Jun

Luca Ferro is a post-doctoral researcher at the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI). He wrote his doctoral dissertation on International ‘Intervention’ in Theory and in Practice, assessing the legality of third-State involvement in the internal and external affairs of other States. Prematurely calling time of death on ‘negative equality’? On 5 and 6 December 2019, the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (JUFIL) and the...

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19 Jun

[Dr. Michael Kearney is a legal researcher with Al-Haq.] A March 2020 Amicus Brief submitted by Palestinian human rights organisations, including Al-Haq, to the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court suggested that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction extends to Palestine’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a jurisdictional space derived from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, was proclaimed by Palestine in September 2019....

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10 Jun

[Yassir Al-Khudayri is an Aryeh Neier Fellow with the Open Society Justice Initiative working on international criminal justice and anti-corruption. He also specializes in indigenous peoples’ rights and children’s rights with a focus on the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia.] On May 19, 2020, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared the end of all security coordination with Israel and the United States, including the landmark Oslo Accords...

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21 May

[Nathaniel Berman is the Rahel Varnhagen Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Modern Culture at Brown University. This is the second part of a two-part post.] [In Part One of this essay, I argued for the importance of the reaffirmation of the illegality of annexation of occupied territory. I outlined, and partly responded to, the criticism of this position “from the...

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21 May

[Nathaniel Berman is the Rahel Varnhagen Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Modern Culture at Brown University. This is the first part of a two-part post.] Israel may be on the brink of formally annexing large swaths of the West Bank. Ever since Trump’s victory in 2016, the pro-settler Israeli right has sensed a historic opportunity to secure its cherished goal:...

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19 May

Maha Abdallah is an International Advocacy Officer at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies; Vito Todeschini is an Associate Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists] States must respect, protect and fulfil the right to health at all times, without discrimination based on race, colour, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, disability, age, nationality, marital and family status, language, religion, political...

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11 May

[Paolo Busco is a member of Twenty Essex Chambers, where he practices in the field of public international law. All opinions are expressed in a personal capacity only.] Rescuing people in distress at sea is a duty. However, does international law require a coastal State to open its ports or territorial sea to foreign ships involved in the rescue? The question is not new, especially in...

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09 May

[Jonathan Turner is a barrister in London and Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI)] Practising advocates know that what is not included in reply submissions is usually more interesting than what is there. One of the omissions in the ICC Prosecutor’s recent Response on the issue of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in respect of Palestine is that it does not address the argument made by...

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05 May

[Kate Vigneswaran is a Senior Legal Advisor with the International Commission of Jurists.] As other countries across North Africa entered lockdown in March 2020 to prevent and contain the spread of COVID-19, warring parties in Libya ramped up their hostilities. On 24 March 2020, the day after the UN Secretary-General called for a global ceasefire to combat the pandemic, the first diagnosed case of COVID 19 was...

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24 Apr

[Yasmine Nahlawi is an independent researcher specialising in R2P and its applicability to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts. She holds a PhD in Public International Law from Newcastle University, LLM in International Legal Studies from Newcastle University, and BSc in Political Science from Eastern Michigan University.] I would like to begin my response post by expressing my deepest gratitude to the distinguished reviewers of my book,...

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