[Kai Ambos is the Chair for Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Comparative Law, International Criminal Law and Public International Law, at the Faculty of Law of Georg August Universität Göttingen and a Judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. The author thanks...
[Yasmine Nahlawi is an independent researcher specialising in R2P and its applicability to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts. Sana Sekkarie is a Security Studies master's candidate at Georgetown University and a researcher of the Syrian conflict.] On 18 September, The Netherlands announced its decision to ‘hold Syria responsible under international law for gross human rights violations and torture in particular’. It appears prepared...
[Milena Sterio is The Charles R. Emrick Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Professor of Law at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and Co-Coordinator for Global Justice Partnerships at the Public International Law and Policy Group.] The “frozen” conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia has intensified over the past weeks, with renewed fighting which has resulted in the death of over a hundred individuals. Although...
[Aakash Chandran (@ChandranAakash) and Varun Nambiar are Delhi based lawyers and researchers. They each hold an LL.M. in International Law from the Faculty of Legal Studies, South Asian University, New Delhi, India.] In June earlier this year, the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the disputed border between India and China caught the attention of the world amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The...
[Lena Holzer is a PhD Candidate in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva and affiliated with the IHEID Gender Centre.] On 8 September 2020, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (SFC) published its highly anticipated decision in the Caster Semenya case. Unfortunately, but not entirely surprisingly, it rejected Mokgadi Caster Semenya’s appeal against the Award by the Court of Arbitration...
[Bede Sheppard (@BedeOnKidRights) is the children’s rights deputy director at Human Rights Watch, where he specializes in the issue of attacks on students, teachers, and schools. He has conducted investigations in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Japan, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Thailand, South Africa, Ukraine, and Yemen.] The European Court of Human Rights found on 19 September that Finland violated its positive...
[Jing Min Tan is a Research Assistant at the Centre of International Law, National University of Singapore.] Things have been moving relatively quickly in the case(s) against Myanmar, and it finally is beginning to look like international law might have a holistic solution to the Rohingya Crisis. The ICJ issued a Provisional Measures order against Myanmar in January 2020 to comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, while the...
On 18 September, the Netherlands announced that it was initiating legal proceedings against Syria, based on the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). This move by the Netherlands brings many issues to the fore: the first is the scale and magnitude of torturebeing committed in Syria, documented in many reports and most recently in a court cases in Germany (under the aegis of...
[Marissa Kardon Weber is a prosecutor in New York City and serves as a Legal Consultant for the Seychelles Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission on matters regarding grants of amnesty under international human rights law. The views expressed herein are entirely her own. Part I can be found here.] C. Step 3: Dialogue Now, the citizenry is better equipped to generate...
[Marissa Kardon Weber is a prosecutor in New York City and serves as a Legal Consultant for the Seychelles Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission on matters regarding grants of amnesty under international human rights law. The views expressed herein are entirely her own.] Introduction “This is not a tidy world of tyrannical men and victimized women, but a messier realm of oppressive social...
[Sara De Vido is Associate Professor of International Law at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy; affiliate to the Manchester International Law Centre, UK.] There is an emergency spreading around the world and its name is not COVID-19. It is rather what can be called “gender crisis”, which has been determined, on the one hand, by the increasing opposition to the adoption of norms aimed at the...
[Agata Kleczkowska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland.] Introduction On 9 August 2020, presidential elections were held in Belarus, governed since 1994 by Alexander Lukashenko. This time, however, Belarusians did not believe in the overwhelming victory of the authoritarian president, and, certain of the victory of the opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, began mass...