*The views expressed in this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ICRC* In 2020, armed groups in Colombia began imposing COVID-19 containment measures ranging from bans on traveling in boats and vehicles to shop closures, night-time curfews and lockdowns of entire communities. This is only one example …
COVID-19 measures by armed groups: what legal framework applies? Read More »
Individuals living in conflict-affected zones have been particularly vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19 during the last few years. This has been mainly due to their lack of access to appropriate facilities, testing kits and vaccines, often combined with unstable and violent scenarios. Understandably, as a result of the predominant State-centric architecture of the international …
Blog symposium: The Role of Non-State Armed Groups in Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic Read More »
I want to start by saying that I have always maintained that international law should be a tool rather than an obstacle to peace negotiations; particularly in a world where there are still more that 74 non-international armed conflicts across 25 countries. But if we look at international law today, this is not exactly the …
Peace Treaty Symposium: A Reaction to Mark Freeman’s Post Read More »
The Peace Treaty Initiative aims to fill a “critical gap in international law” by “developing an international law of peace negotiation”, as Mark Freeman explains in the introductory post of this symposium. This ‘gap’, i.e., the absence of an overarching international legal regime that governs peacemaking, has attracted significant attention in the last decade or …
When it comes to conflict prevention and resolution, a critical gap in international law is holding us back as a global community. While there is international law to regulate armed conflict and war, no clear counterpart exists to encourage and support peace negotiations. The Peace Treaty Initiative seeks to fill this gap by developing an …
Do we know Dominic Ongwen? His life has been explored forensically by scores of international lawyers, investigators, and analysts, and 179 witnesses have testified in his trial over the course of 234 hearings (see here). Yet, we have very rarely heard Ongwen speak. He gave a radio interview with a community radio station in the …
But the bottom line is, look, whom do you believe? (…) So this is really – that’s really a question at the end of the day. (Defence closing statements) Early on in the Ongwen trial the presiding judge Schmitt acknowledged that “things do not occur without any setting, any cultural, political, social setting and it’s …
On 4 February 2021, Trial Chamber IX (TC IX) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Dominic Ongwen for 61 of the 70 crimes he was charged with, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. The case has captivated the attention of Court watchers and bloggers in large part because of Ongwen’s traumatic past (see …
On Feb. 4, 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Dominic Ongwen of 61 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Ongwen was a Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) member whose culpability appears doubtless – he had been accused of numerous atrocities, including brutal acts of sexual violence, and I have seen no commentary questioning …
This blog symposium considers several socio-legal aspects arising from the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) judgment on 4 February 2021 in the case of the Prosecutor v Dominic Ongwen. At around nine years old, Mr Ongwen was abducted and used as a child soldier in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an armed group that has operated …