Retrospective Punishment: A Reasonable Limit on Charter Rights (R v. KRJ)
In KRJ, the Supreme Court of Canada tackled the retrospective application of criminal sanctions on certain sexual offenders. In particular, whether or not sentencing legislation could be applied to an...
Canada to Hold National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
On August 3, 2016, the government of Canada announced a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (the “Inquiry”). The Commission’s mandate is “to examine and report...
Guilty of Rape, But Not Punished
On 3 February 2016, the Criminal Division of the Court of First Instance of Ghent in Belgium found a 33-year old man guilty of rape, but decided to suspend the...
Velásquez Paiz et al v Guatemala: Gender Stereotypes and Lack of Justice – Part I
In November 2015, a decade after the sexual assault and murder of a young Guatemalan woman, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) released a ground-breaking judgment further clarifying...
The Intersection of Age, Gender and Disability in the Prosecution of Sexual Violence in India
This post examines a petition made to the Indian Supreme Court by a rape victim’s mother. The petitioner avers that her daughter’s case should be tried in a court set...
Killing Time: A Comment on the Case of Brandon Astor
On 3 February 2016, the State of Georgia executed a 72 year old man – Brandon Astor – by lethal injection. Astor was convicted of killing a convenience store manager...
Linguistic Cracks In The Femicide Campaigns: Why Femicide Must Be Repatriated
The recently published 2015 Global Burden of Armed Violence (GBAV) report by the Small Arms Survey has continued in the same vein as the two previous publications in 2008 and...
The UK and Saudi Arabia: Human Rights and the Perils of Petrodollar Morality – Part I
The Human Rights and Democracy Report (2015) recently released by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office carries a curiously worded statement by Prime Minister David Cameron: “We condemn and do...
Local Politics of International Justice in Kenya: How the ICC let the case slip away (Part I)
In the wake of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to drop charges against the Deputy President of Kenya, William Ruto, and a radio host, Joshua arap Sang, we must...
The Mandatory Costs of Mandatory Minimum Sentences in Canada
Another day another mandatory minimum struck down. In Lloyd, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a one-year mandatory minimum sentence that applied to drug trafficking offenders with a prior...
Telling the Whole Truth: Post-Assault Contact in Sexual Violence Cases
For the last 16 months, Canadians have been engaged in extraordinary conversations connected to the sexual assault allegations leveled against one of Canada’s most charming and charismatic talk show hosts,...
Justice Antonin Scalia’s Rebuke of Innocence
Throughout his thirty-year service on the United States Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia questioned whether criminal defendants who maintained their innocence should be entitled to a second chance. Indeed, in...
