In association with the International Commission of Jurists

National Security Law

09 May

[Jonathan Turner is a barrister in London and Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI)] Practising advocates know that what is not included in reply submissions is usually more interesting than what is there. One of the omissions in the ICC Prosecutor’s recent Response on the issue of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in respect of Palestine is that it does not address the argument made by...

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08 May

For fans of science fiction and for certain investors, the eventuality of space mining is a given, despite recent setbacks. The extraction of resources from the Moon and other celestial bodies —such as mining asteroids for precious metals, harvesting helium-3 from lunar regolith, or using ice on the Moon for a moonbase—is described as having the potential of a “New...

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27 Apr

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are computer programs that carry out tasks – often associated with human intelligence – that require cognition, planning, reasoning or learning. Machine learning systems are AI systems that are “trained” on and “learn” from data, which ultimately define the way they function. Both are complex software tools, or algorithms, that can be applied to many different tasks. However, AI and machine learning...

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09 Apr

[Elizabeth Evenson is an associate International Justice director at Human Rights Watch.] Widespread international crimes and the failure of governments to prosecute them make the International Criminal Court necessary. But translating the court’s mandate into action has been fraught with challenges. Significant setbacks in prosecution cases, gaps in communication between the court and affected communities, outstanding arrest warrants, and limited resources, among other factors, have constrained...

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07 Apr

[Gina Heathcote is a Reader in Gender Studies and Public International Law at SOAS University of London and author of Feminist Dialogues on International Law: successes, tensions, futures (OUP 2019) and Michelle Staggs Kelsall is a Lecturer in Public International Law at SOAS University of London and Co-Founder of ATLAS (Acting Together: Law, Advice, Support) whose mission is to empower,...

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06 Apr

[Martin Scheinin is a Professor of International Law and Human Rights at European University Institute and a former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism.] Earlier contributors have highlighted that in addition to permissible restrictions (or limitations) upon human rights, applicable in perfectly normal situations, some human rights treaties also allow for the more far-reaching option of a State to derogate from some of its obligations...

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04 Apr

[Solon Solomon is a Lecturer in the Division of Public and International Law at Brunel University London School of Law.] There is no question that Israel has an obligation to alleviate the health crisis that COVID-19 may trigger in the Gaza Strip. After all, according to the jurisprudential line taken by the Israeli Supreme Court, the State cannot allow the emergence of a humanitarian crisis in post-disengagement Gaza....

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03 Apr

[León Castellanos-Jankiewicz is Researcher in International Law at the Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague and Academic Coordinator of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research.] As nearly half the world goes under lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, migrants have been especially helpless in the face of governmental measures restricting the movement of persons. Recent...

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03 Apr

[Nina Sun is the Deputy Director and Global Health and Human Rights & Assistant Clinical Professor at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University  and Livio Zilli is a Senior Legal Adviser & UN Representative at the International Commission of Jurists.] Overview of Criminalization related to Violations of Public Health Measures Responses to the new coronavirus have escalated at a rapid rate, with States using a variety...

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01 Apr

[Barrie Sander is a Fellow at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil and Luca Belli is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at FGV Law School, where he heads the CyberBRICS project; he is also Director of CPDP LatAm and an Associated Researcher at Centre de Droit Public Comparé at Paris 2 University.] Ushering in a world of social distancing and self-isolation, the global spread of COVID-19 has intensified societal...

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10 Mar

[Jennifer Trahan is a Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] On March 5, 2020, the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber issued an extremely significant ruling authorizing the opening of the Afghanistan investigation.  The decision is important in that it confirms the Prosecutor’s discretion in evaluating whether or not to proceed “in the interests of justice” under Article 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute, thereby allowing the Afghanistan...

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