Themes

[Megan Donaldson is a Lecturer in Public International Law at University College London.] [This post draws on a draft entry for the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (Donaldson 2022), available on request.] Although Ethiopia had been deliberately excluded from membership of the UN War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), Ethiopia sought to submit cases against figures responsible for atrocities during the Italian invasion and occupation (1935–41). The...

[Dr Dawn Sedman is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.] How widely were defences deployed at the UN War Crimes Commission (UNWCC)? Using the 15-volume Official Reports as a preliminary indicator, around one quarter of the cases reported had defences raised and discussed. Only one of these defences was successful: the case of Weiss & Mundo [vol 13], who were accused of the...

Dr Amina Adanan initiated a conference on the 1943-1948 United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC)  involving both her own, Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology, and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy in SOAS. The online conference included presentations from scholars in a range of disciplines, including law, history, international relations and political science and was organised by Dr Adanan and SOAS’s Prof. Dan Plesch,...

[Danya Chaikel is currently consulting with FIDH's International Justice Desk and is the Co-Vice Chair of the IBA’s War Crimes Committee.] This amicus curiae brief was submitted by: Louise Arimatsu, Adejoké Babington-Ashaye, Danya Chaikel, Christine Chinkin, Carolyn Edgerton, Angela Mudukuti, and Cynthia T. Tai.* Following the Ongwen Appeals Chamber’s (AC) invitation to scholars and legal practitioners we submitted an amicus brief contending that duress and sexual violence...

[Matt Cannock is the Head of Amnesty International’s Centre for International Justice. Dr. Rosemary Grey is a Lecturer at Sydney Law School and a Sydney Southeast Asia Centre DECRA Fellow. Akila Radhakrishnan is the President of the Global Justice Center, where she directs GJC’s work to establish legal precedents protecting human rights and ensuring gender equality. Alix Vuillem is the Senior Advocacy Adviser / Program Manager...

[Valerie Oosterveld is Professor of International Law at Western University’s Faculty of Law (Canada) and Associate Director of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Kathleen M. Maloney is Visiting Law Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and Founding Board Member of the international human rights organization, Just Planet. Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western...

[Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum is Associate Professor of Clinical Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where she directs the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic and the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR). Magali Maystre is an international criminal and human rights lawyer and adviser with a background of more than 15 years...

[Alexandra Lily Kather (she/they) is a lawyer, international justice practitioner & co-founder of the Emergent Justice Collective (EJC). Their work focuses, inter alia, on strategically addressing the intersectional dimensions of core international crimes. Angela Mudukuti is a member of Opinio Juris and a human rights lawyer specialised in international criminal law. She has worked with a variety of international organsisations including the International Criminal Court and Human Rights...

[Raghavi Viswanath is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence and a Senior Research Associate at Public International Law and Policy Group. Tejas Rao is Researcher, Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, University of Cambridge and Associate Fellow with the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law.] Academia boasts of 17,000,000 members, of which 178,000 follow @academicchatter. This (admittedly poor) proportion split...

[Yvonne McDermott is a Professor of Law at Swansea University, UK. From 2018-2021, she was PI on OSR4Rights, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. From July 2022-June 2027, she will lead TRUE, a European Research Council Starting Grant project that examines the impact of the rise in deepfakes on trust in user-generated evidence.] Research funding has increasingly become a...

[Lucas Lixinski (@IntHeritageLaw) is Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney.] One of the key reasons people in law do PhDs is because we are at least contemplating a life in academia. Otherwise, we would just go into legal practice, where a PhD gives no discernible advantage. While research is what we are taught to do during a PhD, there is...

[Barrie Sander (@Barrie_Sander) is Assistant Professor of International Justice at Leiden University – Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. Rebecca Sutton (@RebeccaAnneLaw) is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law. She is the author of The Humanitarian Civilian (OUP, 2021).] In international law academia, there are many processes that remain somewhat shrouded in secrecy. Writing a book...