Yesterday, I discussed the High Court’s decision in Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s unsuccessful judicial review of the Secretary of State for International Trade’s granting of arms export licences to...
Selling Arms to Saudi Arabia: Part 1
Yemen’s devastating conflict has inflicted an egregious toll on civilians, catalysing, in the words of the UN Secretary General, a tragedy of ‘almost unprecedented proportions’. Last month the ICRC took...
The United Kingdom’s Drone Programme: Secrecy and Accountability
In what circumstances can the UK Government target and kill a British citizen abroad? Can the Government withhold its legal basis for doing so by invoking a blanket claim to...
Fact-Finding and the Rohingya Community
In March of this year, the Human Rights Council (HRC) unanimously adopted a resolution concerning the Myanmar Government’s treatment of its Rohingya minority, which declared an imminent need to dispatch...
Preserving Evidence of ISIL Atrocities: The International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism
On 21 December 2016, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 71/248, establishing an ‘International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Those Responsible for the...
Could the UK Lead the Efforts to Prevent and Prosecute Acts of Genocide?
In early July, leading researchers and scholars in the field of genocide met at the University of Queensland to ‘examine the growing crisis and revisit the two core components of...
What Price Human Rights and Equality in Northern Ireland?
Northern Ireland is figuring prominently in the news again. This time it is the discussions between the Conservative Party and the DUP on the formation of a workable new British...
The DUP’s Worrying Human Rights Record
As talks between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) continue in the UK, the DUP’s positions on human rights are of general interest. Although the Conservative Party...
After Liberation From Daesh – Realising the Right to Return?
As the world focuses on the debates surrounding US President Trump’s foreign policy, especially the recently introduced travel ban, little attention has been paid to what it means in practical...
Post-Truth vs Law in Colombia: An Unstoppable Force and an Immoveable Object?
“Post-truth” politics has been a matter of political contention recently, but the discussion of the impact of post-truth politics on the rights of the voters and democracy as a whole...
After Recognition of Genocide – How to Proceed?
On 20 April 2016, the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion recognising the atrocities committed against Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities by Daesh to be genocide....
A Gap opens for South Africa to do Right on the ICC
The South African government deposited on 7 March 2017 with the UN Secretary General a document that is as embarrassing as it is telling. The document is headed: “South Africa:...