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Ten years of the Argentine inquiry into Franco-era crimes: what has been achieved?

Laura Íñigo Álvarez and Aintzane Márquez Tejón - 27th October 2020

Access to Justice| Conflict and Security| Criminal Justice

On 14 April 2010, the Argentinean criminal courts began an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed during the Franco regime. The investigation was initiated under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to claim criminal jurisdiction over an accused person regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of the perpetrator […]

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Arbitrary & Disproportionate Criminalisation of Marginalised Communities: A Countermap of Pandemic Policing in India

Srujana Bej, Nikita Sonavane and Ameya Bokil - 13th October 2020

Criminal Justice| Equality and Non-Discrimination

The Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project studied 34,000 arrest records and 500 First Information Reports filed in Madhya Pradesh, India to understand the patterns of pandemic policing and locate the socio-economic profiles of the individuals policed. The consequent report Countermapping Pandemic Policing – Sanctioned Violence in Madhya Pradesh notes that the police exercised the […]

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National Security and the Right to Bail: Recent developments in Hong Kong 

- 1st October 2020

Conflict and Security| Criminal Justice

In a landmark decision, the Hong Kong High Court denied the release of the first person charged with inciting secession and terrorism under the newly enacted The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the Law). Tong Ying Kit v HKSAR has generated debate […]

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The Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic: An Update

Tetevi Davi - 6th September 2020

Access to Justice| Criminal Justice

For decades, political instability and human rights abuses have plagued the Central African Republic (CAR). The most recent conflict began in 2013, when an alliance of rebel militias known as “Séléka”, whose members are mostly Muslim, overthrew the government of François Bozizé and attacked his supporters. Subsequently, an alliance of mostly Christian armed groups named […]

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Ghoumid v France: A Problematic Seal of Approval

Louise Reyntjens - 30th June 2020

Citizenship Rights| Criminal Justice

On 25 June 2020, the Strasbourg Court delivered judgement in the case of Ghoumid and others v France. An important question in the case was whether the French administrative measure of citizenship deprivation constituted a punishment in the sense of Article 4, protocol 7 ECHR. The applicants argued that their deprivation of citizenship constituted a […]

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Police Reform in America: Examining The ‘Ending Qualified Immunity Act’

Anirudh Mandagere - 18th June 2020

Criminal Justice

America stands at the crossroads. The tragic death of George Floyd has shone a spotlight on police brutality against African-Americans. Attention has shifted to reforming the police, and punishing misconduct. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to end the prohibition on suing police officers. Entitled the ‘Ending Qualified Immunity Act’, the proposed […]

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International Criminal Investigation in Afghanistan

Pranav Agarwal - 28th May 2020

Access to Justice| Conflict and Security| Criminal Justice

On 5 March 2020, after more than a decade of preliminary examination, and the initial rejection by Pre-Trial Chamber-II (‘the Chamber’) of the International Criminal Court, the Appeals Chamber unanimously authorized Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to initiate an investigation into the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity (Articles 7 and 8, Rome Statute) committed by […]

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The Broken State of Capital Sentencing in India’s Trial Courts

Neetika Vishwanath and Preeti Pratishruti Dash - 28th May 2020

Criminal Justice

Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi analysed judgments of all capital cases (215 in total) across trial courts of three Indian states, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, decided over a 16 year period from 2000 to 2015.  The resulting report offers an insight into the nature and extent of the broken state of capital […]

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COVID-19 and the Curious Case of Continued Detention of ‘Foreigners’ in India

Vandita Khanna - 13th May 2020

Citizenship Rights| Criminal Justice| Migration Asylum and Trafficking

On 13 April 2020, the Supreme Court of India ordered that ‘foreigners’ who had been detained for at least two years in the state of Assam would be eligible for conditional release in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this post, I argue that behind the veneer of a positive outcome, the decision seems to […]

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Pre-recorded evidence in Australia in an era of COVID-19

Samantha O'Donnell - 14th April 2020

Criminal Justice

As the Australian government struggles to keep up with the rapid pace of COVID-19 (coronavirus), societal freedoms are being restricted. At the same time, certain constraints around criminal procedure are being loosened. In Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), the government has introduced the COVID-19 Legislation Amendment (Emergency Measures) Bill 2020 (Emergency Legislation) […]

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Coronavirus and the Right to Health of Prisoners

Lynn-Sophie Temp - 16th March 2020

Criminal Justice| Socio-Economic Rights

With over 500 cases of COVID-19 reported in Chinese prisons and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran, suspected of having contracted the virus, the question of what obligations States have to protect the health of prisoners in the event of outbreak of diseases could not be more relevant. The jurisprudence of the UN […]

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