[Hanan Salah is the Senior Libya and Mauritania Researcher at Human Rights Watch. This is the latest post in our symposium with Justice in Conflict on Libya and International Justice.] The scars ran deep. His back was a maze of thick welts, thinner scars and parts that resembled small craters. His wrists and ankles were raw from where he’d been shackled and suspended from a...
[Gabor Rona is a Visiting Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School, where he directs the Law and Armed Conflict Project.] “I’m so glad we’ll never have to come back here again,” I stage whispered to my colleagues from Amnesty International, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, as we watched the inauguration of Barack Obama on the CNN feed. We were...
[Kate Vigneswaran is a Senior Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Programme, and Vito Todeschini is an Associate Legal Adviser, International Commission of Jurists, MENA Programme. This is the latest post in our symposium with Justice in Conflict on Libya and International Justice. Marieke Wierda’s contribution to the symposium has gone up at JiC and you can...
The irreplaceable Carmi Lecker called my attention yesterday to a proposal by Switzerland to deem the intentional starvation of civilians a war crime in non-international armed conflict (NIAC). At present, it is only a war crime in international armed conflict (IAC) -- Art. 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute. Here is the text of the proposal: Add to article 8, paragraph 2...
[Mary Fitzgerald is an independent researcher specializing in Libya. She has worked on Libya since February 2011 and lived there in 2014. She is a contributing author to The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath published by Hurst/OUP.] When Libyans took to the streets in early 2011 demanding change, one of their key demands was justice. Four decades of Gaddafi’s experiment in...
[Mark Kersten is a consultant for the Wayamo Foundation and a law student at McGill University. He is also author of the book, 'Justice in Conflict - The Effects of the International Criminal Court's Interventions on Ending Wars and Building Peace'.] It isn’t for a lack of attention. Violence in Libya is covered almost daily in major newspapers and media outlets....
[Demetra Loizou is a Lecturer in International Law and Legal Skills at the University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus.] Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which sets out the war crimes within the ICC’s jurisdiction, is inextricably linked to the general IHL regime. Paragraph 2(a) refers to the grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (international armed conflicts). Paragraph 2(c) is concerned with the serious violations of Common Article 3 (CA3)...
[Camila Teran is a lawyer with a LLB in Law and a LLM in International Criminal Law, both from the University of Sussex.] The ICC’s current crisis bears witness to the contentious relationship between the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC (OTP) and States. The OTP’s progress is further frustrated by the small window triggering the admissibility phase that would allow the Prosecutor to formally investigate Colombia....
[Alexander Gilder is a PhD Researcher at The City Law School, City, University of London. From September he will be a Lecturer in Law at Royal Holloway, University of London.] In recent years UN peace operations have begun to explicitly seek so-called ‘stabilization’. In 2015 the Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) suggested the Security Council give clarification to how the UN interprets ‘stabilization’....
[Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore where he heads the Transsystemic Law Cluster. He is also an Associate Fellow of NUS Law. This is the second part of a two-part post.] Recognition of Palestine’s Statehood Since 1988, 138 states (72 per cent of UN members) have recognised a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel on 4 June 1967. The...
[Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore where he heads the Transsystemic Law Cluster. He is also an Associate Fellow of NUS Law. This is the first part of a two-part post.] The post in Opinio Juris submitted by Steven Kay QC and Joshua Kern of 9 Bedford Row based on their Article 15 Communication to the Prosecutor...
A few weeks ago I presented my book on the Peruvian armed conflict at FIL, Lima’s International Book Fair. The book, “Conflicto Armado en el Perú: La Época del Terrorismo bajo el Derecho Internacional” (“Armed Conflict in Peru: The Times of Terrorism under International Law”), published by Universidad del Pacífico Press, explores how politicized misinformation on the conflict’s history has...