Search: unwilling or unable
09 Aug “All Our Hope Is in the Famine”: Why an Investigation into Starvation Crimes in Ukraine Is Urgently Needed
...civilians can take various forms, e.g. attacking, destroying, removing objects or rendering them useless. In Ukraine, facts on the ground demonstrate several patterns of such deprivation. A. Siege Tactics and Obstruction of Humanitarian Access Siege tactics employed by Russia in the early weeks of the war left thousands of civilians trapped in the besieged cities, such as Mariupol, Chernihiv, Sumy, Izium and other areas where the UN and its partners were unable to reach and where “people [were] in desperate need of support”. Specifically, the residents of Mariupol could not...
20 Nov The Tigrayan Conflict and the Laws of Humanitarian Assistance
...armed groups in areas where they exercise effective territorial control. In the throes of conflict, however, warring parties may be unable to fulfill this obligation. Accordingly, where there is a gap between the population’s needs and what the belligerent parties can provide, parties to a conflict have a parallel obligation to allow and facilitate the passage of humanitarian relief. This obligation is detailed in Rules 55 and 56 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s Customary International Humanitarian Law database, as well as Article 18(2) of the Additional...
28 Feb Aggression and the Veto
[Jennifer Trahan is Convenor of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression, and Clinical Professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.] Let us be clear why the United Nations is largely paralyzed in the face of one of the clearest cases of aggression since 1939: it is because of the veto power of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, used without any regard for other aspects of international law. Friday’s veto has shown the Security Council unable even to condemn unprovoked aggression by the Russian Federation into...05 Nov Kenya’s Post-Election Violence: Case Headed to the Hague
...Para. 5 of the Waki Report.) When that period expired and Parliament was unable to pass the Special Tribunal Statute, an envelope with the aforesaid information was forwarded to the ICC Prosecutor in July of 2009 by the Panel of Eminent African Personalities. See here. The coalition government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been unable to convince Parliament to pass the Special Tribunal Statute. When the government brought the Statute to Parliament, it was rejected. Raila Odinga’s party, the ODM, and Mwai Kibaki’s Party, the...
22 Jul Evacuated or Expelled? The Legal and Political Realities of Forced Displacement and Return in South Lebanon
...Carling and de Haas have theorized, forced displacement and return cannot be fully understood without examining involuntary immobility. While displacement is often defined as movement, many displaced populations are also immobilized—trapped in limbo due to factors beyond their control, including border restrictions, economic constraints, and security concerns. The case of South Lebanon exemplifies this condition of “displacement in place,” where civilians remain stranded, unable to return and unable to integrate elsewhere. The Politics of Return and the Erosion of Rights For those displaced from South Lebanon, return is not just...
29 Sep On the Anvil: The Netherlands v. Syrian Arab Republic at the International Court of Justice?
...human rights violations under international law, specifically holding Syria responsible for torture under the UN Convention against Torture. In the diplomatic note, the Netherlands reminded Syria of its international obligations to cease the violations and offer victims full reparation. The diplomatic note asked Syria to enter into negotiations, which is a necessary first step in dispute settlement. Should the two states be unable to resolve the dispute, the Netherlands can propose to submit the case to arbitration. If no agreement can be reached on this issue, the Netherlands will submit...
02 Apr A Powerful Tool for Human Rights, Wrongly Used Against the ICC: The Actual Impact of Sanctions
...them unable to enter into business transactions, move currency between banks, travel freely, or purchase basic goods and services. Despite the global focus on targeting human rights violators, in 2020 the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), based on an Executive Order of former U.S. President Trump, imposed sanctions on personnel from the International Criminal Court. Madame Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda became a specially designated national, or “SDN,” along with Phakiso Mocochoko, head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division at the ICC. These economic sanctions were in...
18 May Pandemic of Hunger Symposium: The Ethio-Eritrean Hunger Plan for Tigray and the Failure of Resolution 2417
...certainly worse. The situation is deteriorating week-by-week as food stocks run out. Longer term prospects are even more dire: the planting season has arrived and most farmers are unable to plough their fields and plant and tend this year’s crops. Recent reports speak of Eritrean soldiers arriving in villages where farmers have been able to prepare their land, destroying the seedlings and telling villagers, you will not plant, you will not harvest, and if you try you will be punished. Recently, aid was reaching about 1 million of those in...
21 Jun Human Rights in Digital Health: AI for Good?
...critically needed in public health emergencies. Inequalities and discrimination in the digital transformation could contribute to this fracturing also. Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Intersectionality Of the diverse issues addressed by Dr. Tlaleng in the report, one of the most important and urgent relates to non-discrimination and availability, accessibility and acceptability of digital technologies. As she notes, every society faces diverse digital divides, with some individuals unable to access health information or services through digital platforms and tools due to lack of education, lower economic status, lack of access to internet,...
09 May A Special Justice Mechanism for the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine – For Who, By Who, Against Who?
...international law to (absolute) personal immunity from foreign jurisdiction. There are moreover doubts whether functional immunity, which covers the acts of any State officials, is inapplicable to the crime of aggression (See Draft Article 7 on Immunities of State Officials from Foreign Jurisdiction and its Annex, provisionally adopted by the International Law Commission). Accordingly, the creation of a hybrid tribunal – in the form of a Special Chamber within Ukraine’s judicial system – would be unable to exercise jurisdiction over these individuals, unless Russia consents to such proceedings. Akande has...