In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

30 Jun

evidence, and selects crimes, suspects, and charges. This is the first in a two-part post which considers the Court’s early stages of proceedings, first from the perspective of victims, and then from the perspective of defendants. We ask whether current approaches to the oversight of the ICC’s early stages are fit for purpose: both in terms of living up to rhetoric about victim-centred justice, and for safeguarding fundamental rights held by its defendants. Our analysis concludes that without clearer regulations, procedural safeguards, and meaningful access to justice, the Court risks...
30.06.25 | , , and |

26 May

[Sirra Ndow is Country Director of ANEKED (The Gambia). ANEKED is a victim/survivor-led organisation advancing transitional justice, reparations, and human rights advocacy through survivor-centred initiatives, and contributes to global narratives on reparative justice from a survivor perspective] Too often, reparations processes focus on compensation, prosecutions, and institutional reforms while neglecting the lived experiences, dignity, and recognition of victims. In doing so, they risk reproducing a textbook model of justice: solid on paper, but hollow in substance. As efforts to operationalise reparations for victims of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine begin to take shape,...
26.05.26 | |

23 Nov

...with the Argentine courts. Both the societal and global response to the pacto del olvido and the lack of criminal proceedings encouraged the implementation of alternative transitional justice measures and the enactment of state and regional legislation advancing the principles of truth, reparations and accountability – among them, two national Memory Acts. The first one, the Historical Memory Act 52/2007 of 2007, made relevant progress by explicitly acknowledging the unjust nature of all convictions, sanctions and violence based on political, ideological, or religious grounds during the Civil War or the...
23.11.23 | |

27 May

[Shuichi Furuya is Professor of International Law at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan; and a former member of the UN Human Rights Committee. He has delivered lectures “Changing Aspects of Reparation for Victims of Armed Conflict” at the Hague Academy of International Law, Winter Session 2026] Reparations are often treated as something that comes after war: after the fighting has ended, after responsibility has been established, and after political negotiations have run their course. For victims, however, reparations are not an afterthought. They are part of what makes justice real. They...
27.05.26 | |

18 Jul

reparations. Reparations are formal efforts to redress grave injustices—such as slavery, genocide, apartheid, colonialism, or persecution—through material and symbolic means. Over time, the understanding of who qualifies as a legitimate victim often evolves as awareness is expanded through social movements’ political advocacy on behalf of those most affected. While genocide accountability for Palestinians may be temporally limited to recent acts, such as those committed since October 2023, apartheid accountability would acknowledge a longstanding, systemic injustice—opening pathways for reparative justice that affects tens of thousands more victims. It would also inform...
18.07.25 | and |

22 Jul

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...
22.07.22 | |

23 Sep

her judgements and her dissents. In United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), Justice Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion, finding that the Virginia Military Institute’s (VMI) exclusion of women from its educational opportunities denied equal protection to women. Twenty years after VMI began admitting women, there were 63 female cadets in the 2017 intake. In one of her famous dissents, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), Justice Ginsburg pointed out the problem with the existing time limit on women’s ability to make a...
23.09.20 | |

15 Mar

...current events, especially when compared to the amount currently being spent to arm Ukraine and to put financial pressure on Russia, then something about our priorities is very wrong indeed. The principal criticism of the ad hoc proposal is that it would represent an egregious example of selective justice, which would undermine the international criminal justice project. This argument has several variations: that past crimes of aggression have gone unpunished; that in the future others will remain beyond the reach of the law; that it is unnecessary to establish a...
15.03.22 | |

27 Aug

...take Myanmar to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for breaching the Genocide Convention. The public announcement of this historic case was made by Gambia’s Justice Minister, Abubacarr Tambadou, at an event co-hosted by Bangladesh and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect on the margins of the UN General Assembly. When the case commenced at the ICJ in December 2019, The Gambia immediately submitted a request for the Court to issue provisional measures in order to protect the Rohingya people and secure evidence of the crimes that had...
27.08.20 | |

04 Nov

with broad policy discretion to approve or disapprove domestic transitional justice policies without the assistance of meaningful legal standards, then justifying the ICC becomes a more difficult proposition. My Article takes up this problem through a focused analysis of the ICC’s response to the Ugandan peace process. My three principal claims are as follows: first, the Rome Statute does not, in fact, provide meaningful guidance to the Court as it navigates the particular dilemmas of transitional justice in Uganda. Second, the development of ex ante guidelines to cabin prosecutorial discretion-a...
04.11.09 | |

31 Dec

...since “it is the firm position of the Obama Administration that suspected terrorists arrested inside the United States will—in keeping with long-standing tradition—be processed through our Article III courts, as they should be,” and that “when it comes to U.S. citizens involved in terrorist-related activity, whether they are captured overseas or at home, we will prosecute them in our criminal justice system.” As the President reiterated today, “my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with...
31.12.11 | |

14 Jan

Justice head Gene Fidell on military justice systems worldwide. Here’s a description: Developments in the field of military justice have been coming at an extraordinary pace for the last several years, both in the United States and around the world. Some of these developments have been wise, some have not. In some respects, there has been remarkable resistance to change. The purpose of this blog will be to identify and comment on developments in the reform of military justice from a national and global perspective. Welcome to the blogosphere GMJR!...
14.01.14 | |