Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response
21 Apr Is Russia Committing Genocide in Ukraine?
...in a peace settlement that will ultimately save lives requires ceding painful concessions to that villain’s power, especially when the concession is justice. And, yet, we know that true peace is never really achieved without justice. It is possible that meaningful justice is not found in the actual legal judgements of tribunals, anyway, but the many social processes and political institutions that courts create a space for in the aftermaths of atrocities. And, for that matter, any sense of justice that victims and survivors gain from tribunals usually does not have much to do...
08 Apr ICC Prosecutor Symposium: The Chief Prosecutor: Diplomat, Politician, Leader, Manager, and Lawyer
...the byzantine administrative and personnel rules that is so much of the UN management system did not apply to us. The UN is simply incapable of administering international justice in an effective and efficient manner. Because the Special Court was not tied to these archaic management principles we were able to move fast, with less cost, with a lean dedicated team of people not focused on a UN career (where initiative can be frowned on) but on seeking justice for victims of international crimes. Alas, the International Criminal Court has...25 Aug The Al-Mahdi Reparations Order at the ICC: A Step towards Justice for Victims of Crimes against Cultural Heritage
...undertaken emergency action in Mali by providing cultural heritage protection trainings to UN personnel but also to the Malian armed forces. An increase and strategic implementation of similar measures can contribute to the goals of instilling a sense of safety to the already traumatized victims and achieving sustainable justice. At the same time, the Court returned to concept of “deterrence” that it had employed in the Lubanga order, even though it had chosen to depart from this language entirely in the Katanga decision. More specifically, the Court in Lubanga had...
24 Jul Does the Law have a Place in a World of Buried Bodies?
...to avert from the law. Post Gaza, the law’s impartiality and its blindness in the pursuit of justice remain on paper only. In Amarata Sen’s understanding of justice, he argues that professing for ideal justice is limited and exclusionary as it fails to address the everyday injustices faced by people, which hinder the application of the law universally. When discussing the application of international rules and laws the Global South has learnt, through experience, that the social, political and systematic realities of people is the context in which the law...
29 Sep Symposium on the Current Crisis in Myanmar: Innovating Avenues for Justice and Accountability
[Jennifer Keene-McCann is Fellow, Research and Policy at the Asia Justice Coalition and is based in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia.] As international lawyers we have many tools at our disposal to assist survivors of international crimes in a way that is meaningful and reflective of their experience. Consider the atrocities against the Rohingya. Four years on from the latest iteration of violence, there has been tremendous movement in the international community using the legal avenues available. In these four years, there has been: an international fact-finding mission (‘IFFM’) (actually established in March...
03 Feb International Economic Law Symposium: Andreas Buser’s “Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law”
[Anna Hankings-Evans is a German-Ghanaian attorney with focus on foreign investments into Sub-Saharan Africa.] It was a pleasure reading Andreas Buser’s book on the development and potential transformation of International Economic Law through the engagement of Emerging Powers. The book carefully weighs the perspectives of powerful and less powerful States to dissect and challenge what has been conventionally understood as the truth. Power is indeed a factor significantly shaping International Law. Yet, it has rarely gained prominence in academic literature beyond its alleged dichotomy and the disruptive and revolutionary conceptualization...
07 Feb Symposium on Fairness, Equality, and Diversity in Open Source Investigations: The Case To (Re)new Community of Practice for the Open Source Investigative Field
perpetrators across the globe, a wealth of previously elusive information has opened up to bolster justice and truth-telling efforts, in turn spurring the growth of the open source investigative field over the last decade. However, the existing community of practice in this field is non-functioning. The status quo is for outsider researchers to form an echo chamber, mirroring, contributing to, and entrenching harms already thriving in the documentation-to-justice pipeline. Instead, how do we take good intention and turn it into truly good practice? The issues discussed below demonstrate flawed approaches...
22 Jul The Gambia v. Myanmar – International Court of Justice Judgment on Preliminary Objections
The International Court of Justice has just read its judgment on preliminary objections in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). This is a brief note based on the reading of the judgment, based on my twitter thread ‘live tweeting’ the judgment and does not delve into the details of the legal argumentation – it is meant to give a quick overview of the judgment of the court. The case was initiated by The Gambia in November 2019...08 Feb Why I Disagree with Marty Lederman About Prosecuting Waterboarders
...for me to tell anybody who relied, justifiably, on a Justice Department opinion that not only may they no longer rely on that Justice Department opinion, but that they will now be subject to criminal investigation for having done so. That would put in question not only that opinion, but also any other opinion from the Justice Department. Essentially, it would tell people: “You rely on a Justice Department opinion as part of a program, then you will be subject to criminal investigation when, as and if the tenure of...17 Jul MH17 Downing Suspects to be Prosecuted Before Dutch Domestic Courts – An Obstacle or an Advantage for International Justice?
[Dr. Aaron Matta is an expert in international law with working experience at International Courts. He also recently co-founded The Hague Council on Advancing International Justice , a network for and with practitioners, academics, and policymakers in the area of international justice. I would like to thank Dr. Philip Ambach and Anda Scarlat for their feedback on earlier drafts of this commentary.The views expressed here are of the authors alone] After nearly three years since the downing of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight, the countries comprising the Joint Investigation Team...