In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Themes

23 Sep

[Sanjana Hooda is a Lecturer at Jindal Global Law School, O. P. Jindal Global University, India] Revolt does not sprout only out of misery: it is also born from the love of life, from the desire to build a more beautiful existence. Creativity takes the form of a vitality that speaks of the pleasure of revolution.Julia Ramirez Blanco It was indeed the...

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23 Sep

[Cansu Bostan is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology of Law at Lund University and a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg] On February 11, 2025, the Stockholm District Court delivered a landmark ruling, convicting a member of the Islamic State (IS) for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against Yazidis in Syria....

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23 Sep

[Maame Efua Addadzi-Koom is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Research of law at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Richard Obeng Mensah is a Lecturer of law at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.] When the water cannons roll in and the tear gas clears, what remains of the constitutional right to protest? Protest policing across democracies has become...

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22 Sep

[Sithuthukile Mkhize, Head of Political and Civil Rights at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of Witwatersrand. Omhle Ntshingila is project coordinator of the Right2Protest Project housed at University of Witwatersrand.] South Africa’s democracy post-apartheid, which is popularly referred to as the period after the country’s first, fully-democratic elections in 1994, is often celebrated and praised for being one of the most advanced because of its...

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22 Sep

[Mikel Díez Sarasola is an Assistant Lecturer at the University of the Basque Country] In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, protests and demonstrations erupted worldwide, challenging an established order that had seemed unbreakable. The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia saw thousands take to the streets against a corrupt, oppressive regime, leading to the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in early 2011...

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22 Sep

[Jeff Handmaker is an Associate Professor of legal sociology at Erasmus University. Mikel Díez Sarasola is an Assistant Lecturer of constitutional law at the University of the Basque Country. Sanne Taekema is a Professor of legal theory at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University.. Michał Stambulski is an Assistant Professor of legal theory at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University.] Protests are non-formal expressions of...

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18 Jul

[Dr Sarah Katharina Stein, LL.M. (Columbia) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany. She holds a PhD focussing on public international law and PMSCs from Ludwigs-Maximilans-University Munich.] Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) have been part of the global security architecture for some while now, however, they still outpace the...

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18 Jul

[Ara Marcén Naval is a Spanish human rights advocate and policy expert with over 20 years of experience working at the intersection of conflict, human rights, corruption, and accountability. She has advised governments, UN agencies, and civil society organisations, and recently contributed to international efforts to regulate private military and security companies.] In today’s wars, power wears a suit and profit pulls...

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18 Jul

[Adrián Agenjo is a Clerk at the Constitutional Court of Spain] The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not represent any institutional affiliation. The increasing presence of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) in modern conflict- zones has prompted critical questions regarding accountability, particularly when personnel from these entities commit international crimes. Who is held responsible for their actions? This article argues...

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17 Jul

[Darío Bürky Arellano holds an MA in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute] On 6 May 2025, a new bill was presented to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine: the “Draft Law on International Activities of Private Law Legal Entities in the Military and Security Spheres” (“Draft Law on PMSCs”). The proposal was referred to the parliament’s Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, and...

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17 Jul

[Lindsay Freeman is the director of the Technology, Law & Policy program at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law. She led the drafting of the United Nations’ Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations and developed the OSINT training course for the Institute of International Criminal Investigations. She previously worked for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and served as a...

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17 Jul

[Madhumita Jayashankar is a final-year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab, specialising in international law with a major in political science] In recent decades, the landscape of global security has undergone a quiet but profound transformation. The privatization of military and security functions and services has surged since the end of the Cold War, fundamentally reshaping how states...

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