Explainer Part II: The Israel-Hamas War and the International Court of Justice
The ongoing conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine continues to raise significant issues of international law and policy. My earlier contribution focused on the jurisdiction and substantive law of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Here I address the ongoing litigation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court). Because the crime of genocide can be [...]
This Day in History: The Law of Gobblers and Other Tasty Sides
It is Thanksgiving Day. The aroma of turkey; of dressing; candied sweet potatoes; green bean casserole; cranberry sauce; freshly baked yeast rolls; giblet gravy, and of pies emanating from the kitchen fills our nostrils. Home is the place to be today. But have you ever given thought to the law of the gobbler? This Day in [...]
Peruvian law students from the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas, Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco are reporting for JURIST on law-related events in and affecting Perú. All of them are from CIED (Centro de Investigación de los Estudiantes de Derecho), a student research centre in UNSAAC’s faculty of law dedicated to [...]
Europe rights court orders Russia to legalize same-sex unions
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Tuesday ordered Russia to recognize same-sex unions. The ruling came in response to an appeal by three gay couples who were denied the ability to marry by Russian authorities. It remains to be seen whether Russia will implement the court’s ruling. A bench of 17 judges presided over [...]
Explainer: Obstacles and Opportunities for NGOs Providing Humanitarian Relief in a Changing World
JURIST Deputy Features Editor Jaimee Francis talked with Shai Dromi, author of Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Construction of the Humanitarian Relief Sector (University of Chicago Press, 2022) and co-author of Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), about his research on the impact of non-governmental organizations [...]
In the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning a half-century of abortion jurisprudence, Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly argued that this difficult issue should be decided by the people through their elected representatives. Such calls for democracy to work, however, should be looked at with great skepticism by the American people, given how often and how [...]
After the Second World War, the International Committee of the Red Cross created new treaties to constrain the methods and means of warfare—a stark acknowledgment that armed conflict would continue to exist and that the world needed updated legal limits on the waging of war. The Geneva Conventions (1949), Additional Protocols (1977) and customary international [...]
Law students from the University of Ottawa are filing dispatches for JURIST on the “Freedom Convoy” protest in Canada’s capital that has paralyzed the city for over a week. Here, 1L Mélanie Cantin reports. After a second straight weekend of “Freedom Convoy” protests in Ottawa, there seems to be no true end in sight. Ottawa [...]
Can Litigation Help Save the North Atlantic Right Whale From Extinction?
As conservation organizations and governments around the globe grapple with the devastating effects of climate change and overexploitation, the legal battle fought over the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, may provide insights into how litigation can help—or hinder—efforts to save species from extinction. [...]
Sweden brings war crime charges against mom who took 12-year-old to fight in Syria
A Swedish woman has been charged with war crimes for bringing her young son to Syria, where he was enlisted as a child soldier, and ultimately killed in the country’s long-simmering conflict, prosecutors announced Tuesday. The Swedish Prosecution Authority alleges the unidentified woman brought her son to Syria in August 2013, when he was 12 [...]
