Themes

[Mandipa Machacha is a Feminist Human Rights Practitioner, and a LL.D. student in Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights.] Despite extensive protection of the right to education in international and regional human rights instruments, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, both globally and in Africa, mere access to education was still not guaranteed in practice to all...

[Justice Moses Hungwe Chinhengo is judge of the Lesotho High Court and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists.] COVID-19 has altered every aspect of our lives in a very short space of time. As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has observed, “the world we live in will never be the same”. As we adapt to the “new normal”, it is...

[Justice Jamesina E. L. King is a Commissioner of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. She is also a Justice of the Court of Appeal of Sierra Leone.] The Constitutive Act of the African Union records in its preamble the determination of Member States to “take up the multifaceted challenges that confront our continent...

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists and Tanveer Jeewa is a Communications Consultant for the International Commission of Jurists.] This week Opinio Juris is hosting an online symposium on the impact of COVID-19 on human rights in Africa. Coordinated by the International Commission of Jurists’ Africa Team, the symposium hones in some key issues arising out of...

[Anne Schintgen is currently the Head of the Europe Liaison Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. She previously worked in New York as a Political Affairs Officer with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.  Photo © Anne Schintgen – OSRSG-CAAC Field Mission to Wau Shilluk South Sudan in August 2017 - Military use of a school ]  The...

[Annyssa Bellal is a Senior Research Fellow and Strategic Adviser on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) at the Geneva Academy of IHL and Human Rights and a Senior Lecturer in international law at Sciences Po, Paris, the University of Bern and the Geneva Academy. Pascal Bongard is the Head of the Policy and Legal Unit at Geneva Call.] In August 2015, Amnesty International...

[Ibrahim Salama is Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), where he also leads the “Faith for Rights” programme. Previously he headed the UN secretariat for the preparatory process of the 2009 United Nations World Conference Against Racism (Durban Review Conference), was independent expert of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human...

[Ahmed Al-Dawoody is the legal adviser for Islamic law and jurisprudence at the ICRC. He also teaches at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, a course on the Islamic law of armed conflict. Fiona Terry heads the ICRC’s Centre for Operational Research and Experience, which was created in the wake of the Roots...

[Katharine Fortin is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University where she teaches international humanitarian law and international human rights. Katharine has written widely about the legal framework in non-international armed conflicts and she is the author of The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2017)] Most of the literature studying what makes actors comply with international humanitarian law (IHL) has had...

Over the coming week, along with Armed Groups and International Law, we are thrilled to co-host a symposium on Compliance in Armed Conflict: New Avenues to Generate Respect for Humanitarian Norms. Scholars and practitioners who will be weighing in include: Ezequiel Heffes and Ioana Cismas (co-organizers of the symposium), Emiliano Buis, Katharine Fortin, Hyeran Jo, Fiona Terry, Ahmed Al-Dawoody, Jonathan Zaragoza, Yolvi...

[Tarini Mehta is Assistant Professor of Environmental Law, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and Director of the Environmental Law and Science Advocacy Forum at Jindal School of Environment & Sustainability, O.P. Jindal Global University, India.] [This symposium was convened by Shirleen Chin, founder of Green Transparency.  Shirleen was inspired by attending an Expert Working Group on international criminal law and the protection of...