In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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24 Jun

Recently, there’s been many a discussion in the Global North on the semiotics of law. What does it mean to say there was a genocide in Canada or that ICE runs concentration camps. In general, these debates follow a similar pattern: specific groups of people are outraged that scholars and experts would use the correct terminology to describe a policy they support, because it sounds...

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20 Jun

[Nicolás Zambrana-Tévar works for KIMEP University in Kazakhstan.] The “1-O” trial Several Catalan separatist leaders are being tried before the Spanish Supreme Court on charges of embezzlement, rebellion and contempt of court in relation to a failed referendum for independence in Catalonia, on October 1, 2017. In the course of four months, the Spanish Supreme Court has listened to 422 witnesses and has watched almost 200 videos...

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20 Jun

[This post appeared in The Interpreter published by the Lowy Institute in Sydney earlier today] On 17 July 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, and 298 people were killed. The majority of the fatalities were Dutch citizens, followed by those of Malaysian and Australian nationality. A Joint Investigative Team (“JIT”) was established with members of five countries to conduct a...

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13 Jun

As I have discussed before, in March 2018 the Presidency curiously dissolved the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC III) that had been dealing with the Afghanistan situation for six months and assigned that situation to a new PTC. Judge Mindua remained part of the new PTC (PTC II), while Judges Chung and Pangalangan were replaced by two newly-elected judges, Akane and Aitala....

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11 Jun

Six United Nations Special Rapporteurs released a statement last week, urging the dropping of charges against an American aid worker for aiding migrants in the Arizona desert. A day later, I read an op-ed on the increased criminalization of humanitarian aid in the European context. While this issue seems to be the subject of increased scrutiny lately, there have been multiple...

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10 Jun

[Rawan Arraf is an Australian lawyer and founder and director of the Australian Centre for International Justice. This post represents the personal view of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Centre for International Justice. ACIJ is not associated with the litigation mentioned in this post but volunteered to provide research assistance to the plaintiff’s...

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09 Jun

Mohamed Helal kicked off the week with a two-part jus ad bellum analysis (here and here) of the United States' possible legal justifications for going to war with Iran, in light of the Trump administration's recent saber-rattling towards the regime. In particular, Mohamed addressed three possibilities: (1) preempting a nuclear Iran, (2) resisting Iranian regional policies and responding to "indirect"...

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08 Jun

As expected, the OTP has asked the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) to grant leave to appeal its refusal to authorise the Afghanistan investigation. I'm in Kiev and don't have as much time to write as I'd like, so I just want to offer a few quick thoughts on the OTP's motion, which seeks appeal on three interrelated issues. First, I think it's...

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07 Jun

[Benjamin K. Nussberger is the Head Coach of the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and a research fellow at the Institute for International Peace and Security Law in Cologne. You can find him on Twitter @bknussberger] In times of growing tension between Iran, and the US and Saudi-Arabia, it is as...

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04 Jun

[Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Mortiz College of Law and an Affiliated Faculty with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. This is the second part of a two-part post; the first can be found here.] Second: Resisting Iranian Regional Policies and Responding to Indirect Iranian Aggression The U.S. National Defense Strategy states that “Iran is competing with its...

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04 Jun

[Mohamed S. Helal is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Mortiz College of Law and an Affiliated Faculty with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. This is the first part of a two-part post.] Over the past weeks, tensions have escalated in the Persian Gulf. On May 5, 2019, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that “in response to a number of troubling and...

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