In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Organizations

27 Nov

[Dr. Jule Giegling is a Research Associate at the Ruhr-University Bochum as well as at Kümmerlein Rechtsanwälte mbB.] On 14 September 2020 the Co-Facilitators of the General Assembly’s Treaty Body Review 2020 issued their final report on the findings of the approximately six month co-facilitation process concerned with the strengthening of the UN human rights treaty body system (accessible here). The Treaty Body Review, which was...

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25 Nov

[Dimitri van den Meerssche is a Researcher in the Dispute Settlement and Adjudication strand at the T.M.C. Asser Institute.] On Thursday, 26 November, Prof. Andrew Murray, will deliver the Sixth T.M.C. Asser Lecture – ‘Almost Human: Law and Human Agency in the Time of Artificial Intelligence’. Asser Institute researcher Dr. Dimitri Van Den Meerssche had the opportunity to speak with professor Murray about his...

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24 Nov

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of giving an online lecture for the Iranian Center for International Criminal Law about the relationship between the US and the ICC. In the lecture, I trace the evolution of the US-ICC relationship and try to predict what that relationship will look like under President Biden. I also speculate about why Trump has...

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19 Nov

[Henning Lahmann is a Senior Researcher at the Digital Society Institute ESMT Berlin.] Back in May, the German Federal Constitutional Court (the Court) held that the law for Germany‘s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) was unconstitutional in its current form due to insufficient legal protections for journalists who are not citizens and who work outside of Germany’s borders against surveillance measures, a judgment widely lauded for its expansive...

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19 Nov

[Eian Katz is Counsel and Program Manager at Public International Law and Policy Group. Opinions expressed here are his own.] Recent allegations that Turkey has prevented humanitarian aid from reaching Nagorno-Karabakh mark the latest instance of a disturbing trend in global conflicts. In recent months, belligerent actors have engaged in similar acts of obstructionism in Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen to dire humanitarian effect. The abject politicization of aid delivery...

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17 Nov

[J. Jarpa Dawuni is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University and the Founder and Executive Director of The Institute for African Women in Law.] In a joint press release issued on November 2, 2020 by the Institute for African Women in Law and the GQUAL Campaign, called on member-states of the United Nations to take gender into...

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17 Nov

I just had the pleasure of a sharp exchange on Twitter with my dear friend Mark Kersten, one of the most insightful commentators on the ICC. The exchange was motivated by the ASP making it "officially official" (Mark's nicely turned phrase) that the process for electing the next Prosecutor will be opened up to include (at a minimum) any longlisted...

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16 Nov

[Gregory S. Gordon is Professor of Law at The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and formerly served as a prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division.] This summer I posted about the importance of the International Criminal Court’s decision in selecting its third Prosecutor. The Court has come under fire...

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06 Nov

[Vanessa Sant'Anna Bonifacio Tavares is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary International Studies (IIS) at the Vienna School of International Studies. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect any official position.] In about 90 days, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) shall enter into force, proscribing nuclear weapons use, threat of use, testing, development, production, possession,...

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02 Nov

[Marko Svicevic is a post-doctoral research fellow at the South African Research Chair in International Law, University of Johannesburg.] Introduction The growing insurgency in Mozambique continues to worry its neighboring states and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) alike. Known as Ansar al-Sunna, the insurgency first arose in 2017 in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado. By July 2019, it had pledged allegiance...

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30 Oct

[Malcolm Wu is an LL.M. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.] Introduction As highlighted by Mudukuti and Gauci and Karageorgiou, the criminalisation of NGOs and human rights defenders (HRDs), notably within the context of search and rescue operations (SAR), has been on the rise in the EU since its migration crisis in 2015. A substantial role in this controversy belongs to the broadly-drafted Facilitation Directive 2002/90/EC which renders...

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30 Oct

[Trung Nguyen is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law.] With its appellate function came to a halt on the 10th of December 2019, the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) is unlikely to be an attractive venue to settle international trade disputes at the moment or in the near future. The non-functioning of the WTO Appellate Body (‘AB’) presents the problem...

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