About the Author Erik Tristan Zouave joins us again for a guest post. This time, Erik (LLM University of York), who is a former Research Assistant at the Swedish National Defense College International Law Center, will address in two posts the very topical issue of oil wells (and/or refineries) being taken over by opposition forces …
Jennifer Easterday is a Trial Monitor and Consultant for Open Society Justice Initiative and a PhD Researcher at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. These comments are made in her personal capacity and do not reflect the opinions of her employers. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Last week, a majority of Trial Chamber II of …
Guest post by Jennifer Easterday – Katanga Trial:Will the OTP Learn from its Mistakes? Read More »
Erik Tristan Zouave (LLM, University of York) is a trainee at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) Iraq Unit and a former research-assistant at the Swedish National Defense College’s International Law Center. He recently contributed to the book Regional Organizations and Peacekeeping: Challengers to the UN? (available here). Erik thanks Hayder Al-Shakeri (National Program Officer …
On 24th April, the IRIN published an informative series of articles by Heba Aly on the intersection between Islamic law, jihadists and humanitarian norms. In a series of reports, Aly explores the tension and overlap between Islamic jurisprudence and international humanitarian law. She also reports on how jihadists are interpreting Islamic edicts , and how humanitarians are …
Islamic law, jihadists and humanitarian norms: IRIN series Read More »
The past few weeks, several ceasefire and peace agreements were concluded in a number of non-international armed conflict situations: in South-Sudan, the Philippines and Myanmar. However, as is often the case when there are peace talks or even peace agreements in a country, the fighting between the opposing sides does not (immediately) cease. In South-Sudan, the …
The end of non-international armed conflicts and the application of IHL Read More »
As the increasingly horrifying tit-for-tat of violence between Boko Haram and Nigerian security forces continues to escalate, one cannot help but wonder whether the situation in northern Nigeria has now reached the threshold of a non-international armed conflict. A recent report from the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC finds that it does but …
Yesterday, the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone dismissed most of the Defence’s and Prosecution’s grounds of appeal and confirmed Taylor’s sentence of 50 years imprisonment. With this judgement the Special Court closes its doors. In comparison with the Trial Judgement, the 306-page Appeals Judgment was available on the Court’s website surprisingly …
Nelleke van Amstel recently published In Search of Legal Grounds to Detain for Armed Groups in the latest issue of the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies. In this post, Nelleke discusses her main arguments set out in the said article. At the time of writing the article, Nelleke was a legal adviser at the Netherlands Red Cross. Naturally, the …
Guest Post by Nelleke van Amstel: Rules for Detention by Armed Groups Read More »
Interesting post today over at EJIL:Talk! by André Nollkaemper on whether the States which are considering supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition run the risk of falling into a shared responsibility trap. For those interested in the question of the legality of supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition, see also the following relevant blog posts/ …
Arming the Syrian rebels – a selection of blog posts and articles Read More »
On 28 March 2013, the United Nations Security Council approved the mandate of an “Intervention Brigade” with the mandate of “neutralizing armed groups” in the Great Lakes Region of the DRC (see Security Council Resolution 2098 – S/RES/2098 (2013). The creation of the new Intervention Brigade was widely heralded as being the first time that …