In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

11 Dec

[Vinai Kumar Singh is the Deputy Director of the Indian Society of International Law.] Thirty-four years have elapsed since the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (UNDRD) was first adopted in 1986. The international law instrument to effectively operationalise the right to development is yet to come into existence. The draft Convention on the Right to Development (A/HRC/WG.2/21/2) (hereinafter “draft Convention”) along with commentaries (A/HRC/WG.2/21/2/Add.1, 20...

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10 Dec

[Keaton Kidist Allen-Gessesse is a Johannesburg-based human rights lawyer with a focus on gender and sexual rights in Africa.]   As with all crises, it is the most marginalized amongst us who have disproportionately suffered the dire consequences of this global pandemic.   The world has watched in horror as internal migrants walked thousands of kilometers across India, African-Americans died of COVID-19 at frighteningly higher death rates,...

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10 Dec

[Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane is an activist advocating for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) rights. They are also a founding member of the Cheeky Natives Podcast.] The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global challenge that has exacerbated inequalities already prevalent in all regions of the world. In March 2020, the United Nations Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and...

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09 Dec

[Justice Alfred Mavedzenge is a constitutional law academic and a legal adviser at the International Commission of Jurists, Africa Regional Programme.] Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, Zimbabwe and Eswatini had a well-established record of cracking down on freedom of expression. In both countries, criticising State authorities has in the past frequently earned human rights defenders a lengthy jail term, and at times even brutal...

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08 Dec

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists.] Part 1 of this blog, details how the Malawian High Court struck down lockdown Rules issued by the Minister of Health as ultra vires, contrary to the rule of law and in violation of the separation of powers. This strong stand taken by the Court to protect the rule of law...

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08 Dec

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists.] In August this year, Timothy Mtambo, now Minister of Civic Education and National Unity in Malawi, wrote that “we now have a judiciary that is more independent than at any other time in the history of Malawi”, noting that former President Mutharika, who was in office until late June 2020 attempted...

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08 Dec

[Khanyo Farisè is a Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists, Africa Regional Programme.] Healthcare workers have been at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic playing a key role in saving lives. Sadly, being at the forefront of responding to COVID-19 has placed healthcare workers, the significant majority of whom are women, at increased risk of...

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08 Dec

By Carolina Villadiego Burbano, ICJ Latin America Legal and Policy Adviser, and Carlos Lusverti, ICJ consultant Around the world, women’s human rights have been severely and adversely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Venezuela is no exception to this trend. The more general ongoing human rights crisis that Venezuela has faced since 2014, which has had a disproportionate impact on women and girls, and...

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08 Dec

[Vimbai Mutandwa is a Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists.] In NEF v President of the Republic of Namibia the applicants, the Namibian Employers Federation, challenged the legality of aspects of lockdown measures taken by the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Court’s decision is of interest and importance because it upholds the principle of legality and the rule of law by requiring...

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07 Dec

[Mandipa Machacha is a Feminist Human Rights Practitioner, and a LL.D. student in Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights.] Despite extensive protection of the right to education in international and regional human rights instruments, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, both globally and in Africa, mere access to education was still not guaranteed in practice to all...

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07 Dec

[Justice Moses Hungwe Chinhengo is judge of the Lesotho High Court and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists.] COVID-19 has altered every aspect of our lives in a very short space of time. As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has observed, “the world we live in will never be the same”. As we adapt to the “new normal”, it is...

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07 Dec

[Justice Jamesina E. L. King is a Commissioner of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists. She is also a Justice of the Court of Appeal of Sierra Leone.] The Constitutive Act of the African Union records in its preamble the determination of Member States to “take up the multifaceted challenges that confront our continent...

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