Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
31 Jul Internships in International Criminal Justice Institutions
...to is the working conditions of interns in international criminal justice institutions, which generally allow them to work without payment. Indeed, paragraph 19 of the Interim Report states that the experts “wished to have a comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing the Court and the Rome Statute system from all levels: elected officials, management, and staff, including junior staff, from both the P-levels and G-levels; from headquarters and field offices.” Absent are interns and visiting professionals, as well as environmental support staff and the people who work, presumably on contract,...
23 May Environmental Justice at the JEP and Indigenous Worldviews: A Mismatch?
regions, home of the Nasa indigenous people. This marked the first time the JEP charged for environmental harms, expressly stating that “transitional justice is also environmental justice”. Right after the press conference, the two main Nasa indigenous organisations of the Cauca (ACIN, CRIC) convened an internal emergency meeting with Nasa indigenous authorities to discuss this decision. During the meeting, Nasa representatives heavily criticized the decision for having discarded their cosmovision and own laws (derecho proprio) and reduced Uma Kiwe, their Mother Earth, to natural resources. For the Nasa people, territory...
17 Apr Strategies for Appealing the Afghanistan Decision
don’t see how the judges could in good conscience arrogate to themselves the final say over whether the OTP can investigate horrific crimes in Afghanistan involving tens of thousands of victims (and perpetrators from the most powerful state in the world). Whether the PTC took the correct approach to the interests of justice is precisely the kind of legal issue that screams out for appellate consideration — particularly in light of the fact that the PTC gave the OTP absolutely no warning that the interests of justice would determine the...15 May Guest Post: The Anders Kompass Case–A Moment of Opportunity for the UN Internal Justice System
...justice system where cases often took years to resolve. In 2009, after decades of effort, the UN comprehensively redesigned its internal justice system, creating the UNDT and the UNAT. For a discussion, see an earlier article by the author here. So, is the redesigned system working? The Kompass case is a prime example that while much more needs to be done, progress has been made. What did the UNDT decide in the Kompass case? Bearing in mind that the merits of the case have not yet been determined, on the...09 Feb Why the Piracy Police Isn’t Working
...is easier than prosecuting them. Britain prefers outsourcing the prosecution to Third World states. Yet if international justice and universal jurisdiction fails here, it will be hard to take it seriously elsewhere. Thus members of the international naval force should themselves bring the offenders they catch to justice. Some of the difficulties can be addressed by shipboard court-martials, or by bringing to Kenya the precedent of the special court created to try Libyan agents in Lockerbie air bombing: Scottish judges held court in a base in Holland designated part of...
07 Feb Overfocusing on Prosecuting Aggression Risks Impunity for Ukraine’s Swelling Dock of Alleged War Criminals
case is actively trying) only and handful of the most responsible perpetrators in their respective jurisdictional contexts. None of the over 121,000 alleged war criminals awaiting prosecution in Ukrainian prisons are accused of being such ‘most responsible’ perpetrators. Arguing in favor of a High War Crimes Court, PILPG experts posit that an extraordinary national tribunal can close the accountability gap for international crimes in Ukraine by “provid[ing] an important additional venue for prosecuting the large number of mid-level perpetrators who might otherwise escape justice.” Discourse on international justice mechanisms for...
19 Apr ICC Sanctions Symposium: The United States of America, Racism and Sanctions Meet at the International Criminal Court
...precarious line of caution and subservience and be relegated to the margins if they are racialised as non-White or are nationals of states considered non-Western. International criminal justice remains one of the most paternalistically unrepresentative ‘branches’ of international law. That these sanctions were imposed in the first place and that they remained in place for so long have changed how the ‘subaltern’ will henceforth interact with international criminal justice in general and the ICC in particular. For instance, those who desire to lend their skills, knowledge, expertise and time in...
03 Nov Symposium on the ECCC: The Fate of ECCC Archives and Documentation
...to study the construction of legal and historical memories in the transitional justice (TJ) process in Cambodia. The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-recurrence affirmed the role of memorialization and protection of archives in enabling societies to learn the truth and regain ownership of their history. The UN Secretary-General characterized archives in transitional justice as ‘tools for fostering reconciliation and memory.’ The discussion of the ECCC archives is more than a historical record; much of it is related to the...
22 Jun An Opportunity to End Years of Impunity: Enforced Disappearance as a Continuous Gender-Based Crime
...girls during most, if not all, armed conflicts and authoritarian regimes throughout history. Despite the increase in international attention to the gender dimension of conflicts, attention to the rights violations affecting women have yet to be integrated into many transitional justice processes in practice. Spain is a clear example of this reality, though not only for gender-based crimes, since there has been a complete lack of implementation by the Spanish authorities of transitional justice measures that conform to international standards of truth, justice and reparation. Moreover, from a human rights...
30 May ‘Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman’: Legal Implications of Threats Issued by U.S. Republican Senators
[Javier Eskauriatza is an Assistant Professor in criminal law at the University of Nottingham School of Law. He is also the Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Research Centre, and the Convener of the Criminal Law and Criminal Justice stream for the Society of Legal Scholars.] On 24 April 2024, twelve U.S. Senators (Republican Party) sent a letter to Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’), threatening him, other Court officials, and their families, with ‘sanctions’ and other less specific consequences if arrest warrants were to be issued...