[Dr Koldo Casla (Twitter: @koldo_casla) is a Lecturer in International Human Rights Law at Essex Law School and Director of Essex Human Rights Centre Clinic, UK.] In the context of the current food and energy crisis, and the rising cost of living, it is essential to tackle the right to property directly, defining its content and shape in line with the...
Ambassador Rein Tammsaar, Estonia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has a new post at Just Security arguing in favour of a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression. He says many things I agree with, others that I don't. In this post, I want to address what the Ambassador says about the prospect of the General Assembly endorsing a...
[Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul is a journalist and executive director of Defensores de la Democracia, a Mexican nonprofit focused on preventing violence against journalists via memory-building and new narratives for social change.] With 14 journalists killed in Mexico in 2022, the country sustained its place as the world’s deadliest for media workers, even surpassing countries at war, like Ukraine or Yemen, according...
A few days ago, the European Law Institute published its final report on ecocide. The report not only provides a definition of ecocide, it also contains Model Rules for an EU Directive and a Council Decision that ELI hopes will both "contribute to the inter-institutional negotiations in the EU on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and...
[Nurlan Mustafayev is a counsel on international legal affairs at the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan, an instructor on public international law, and a pro bono advisor to Azerbaijani refugees on claims before the European Court of Human Rights.] Azerbaijan’s liberation of its territories from Armenia’s three-decade-long occupation in late 2020 created a new legal situation on the ground....
[Natasa Mavronicola is Professor of Human Rights Law at Birmingham Law School.] ‘it is the position of the State Party that, the acts complained of have neither the required level of intensity or cruelty nor the impermissible purpose to permit them to be defined as torture. Further, the acts complained of do not meet the standard so as to fall within...
[Máiréad Enright is Professor of Feminist Legal Studies at Birmingham Law School.] On October 31 2022, the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) published its decision in Elizabeth Coppin v. Ireland. Mrs. Coppin is 73 years old and spent her early life in State-funded, religious-run carceral institutions. She was born in a county home to a teenage single mother. Aged two, she...
1 February marks the second anniversary of the coup d’état in Myanmar. In the past year, the situation for the population has only become more fraught and difficult. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that 2,890 individuals have been killed, likely an underestimation, 16,000 have been detained on spurious charges, scores have been tortured, many have been sentenced to death,...
An interview with Kathryn McNeilly and Ben Warwick, editors of The Times and Temporalities of International Human Rights Law (Hart 2022). Questions by Natasa Mavronicola. [Kathryn McNeilly is Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast School of Law. Natasa Mavronicola is Professor of Human Rights Law at Birmingham Law School. Dr Ben Warwick is a Reader in Human Rights Law at...
On December 7th, then-President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, announced the start of a “government of exception”, the “dissolution of Congress” and the drafting of a new constitution. Less than two hours later, Congress declared the Presidency vacant, the Attorney General’s Office indicted Castillo for violating the Constitution and Castillo was detained by his own personal guard. In Peru, most sources...
[Daniel Ó Cluanaigh is a researcher and consultant in international human rights law, non‑profit strategy, and protection of human rights defenders.] Notwithstanding the ubiquity of criminalisation and violence against sexual and gender minorities (SGM) across the world, international human rights law has been notoriously tardy in getting to grips with it. Indeed, to this day, international human rights fora are the site of bellicose resistance to the...
The Sixth Committee of the United Nations adopted resolution A/C.6/77/L.4 on the Draft Convention on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity on 18 November 2022. This draft convention was elaborated upon and adopted by the International Law Commission, and submitted by the ILC to the General Assembly for further consideration and action in 2019. The resolution at the Sixth Committee was co-sponsored...