[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law, an Executive Board Member of Airwars, and the Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.] In a New York Times essay published last week, Jeh Johnson, General Counsel of the Department of Defense in President Barack Obama’s first term and Director of Homeland Security in his second, seeks...
[Dr Sabina Garahan is a lecturer in criminal law and human rights at the University of Essex Law School and Director of the Essex Human Rights Centre Clinic. Dr Sarah Zarmsky is a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast School of Law with a research focus on international criminal law, human rights, and new and emerging technologies.] Introduction Detention is often associated with the perpetration...
[Dr. Giuliana Rotola is a space law and policy specialist whose work spans sustainability, governance, Indigenous methodologies, and post-colonial approaches to space norms. She is fellowship coordinator at the Palestine Space Institute.] Earth Observation as Witness to Systematic Destruction International law defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy a protected group. Amnesty International's December 2024 report argues that Israel’s offensive on Gaza includes such prohibited...
[Leslie Johns is a Professor of Political Science and Law at UCLA. Máximo Langer is David G. Price and Dallas P. Price Professor of Law at UCLA. Margaret E. Peters is a Professor and Vice Chair of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at UCLA.] For decades, human rights advocates have used US courts to seek compensation for human rights abuses committed in...
[Rossella Pulvirenti is a Senior Lecturer in Manchester Law School (UK), specialising in international criminal law and human rights, with a specific focus on evidence and witnesses’ rights] The evidentiary landscape of international criminal justice is undergoing a profound transformation through the use of open-source intelligence (OSINT). OSINT marks the third major revolution in evidentiary approaches to prosecuting mass atrocity crimes....
[Kurt Mundorff is the author of A Cultural Interpretation of the Genocide Convention (Routledge, 2020)] Russia’s longstanding practice of removing Ukrainian children from occupied territories and transferring them to special camps or for adoption by Russian families expanded exponentially with its 2022 invasion. Scholars with the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (YHRL) found that “[m]ore than 19,000 children from Ukraine have been deported to...
[Kurt Mundorff is the author of A Cultural Interpretation of the Genocide Convention (Routledge, 2020)] Part 1 outlined the cultural genocide exclusion doctrine and conducted a textual interpretation of the Genocide Convention. As I discussed, most exclusionists bypass the convention’s text, and for good reason. Not only does the text omit any exclusionist language it also appears to support a more culture-centric idea...
[Kurt Mundorff is the author of A Cultural Interpretation of the Genocide Convention (Routledge, 2020)] On 12 April 2022, former U.S. President Biden doubled down on an offhanded remark accusing President Putin of genocide in Ukraine, declaring “[y]es, I called it genocide. It has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being...
[Martina Coxová is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague] On 10 July 2025, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR/ Court) ruled in Semenya v. Switzerland that Switzerland had violated Caster Semenya’s right to a fair trial under Article 6(1) ECHR, following a Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) award...
[Axana Soltan is a U.S. Eisenhower Scholar at the University of Oxford and a Global Affiliate of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. She is an international lawyer and legal scholar.] In July 2025, the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II issued arrest warrants for Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani on charges...
[Coline Minguet is an FNRS-funded PhD candidate at UCLouvain researching reparations for victims of sexual violence in armed conflicts under international law, with prior experience as a Brussels-based lawyer and academic background in international and European law] During its 80th Ordinary Session in 2024, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the “ACHPR”) adopted its Communication No. 700/18—IHRDA & Ors...
[Mohammad Mehdi Seyed Nasseri is a researcher at the Center for Ethics and Law Studies, and lecturer at the Shahid Beheshti University (Tehran). He holds a PhD in Public International Law from Islamic Azad University, UAE Branch (Dubai)] In July 2025, reports emerged across Europe about increasing requests by parents to delete images of their children from search engines. While the...