Women are said to be more vulnerable and therefore are more likely to suffer sexual violence. For that reason, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols specifically safeguards the rights and safety of them and this measure constitutes a positive way to protect those rights and avoid the perpetration of sexual crimes. However, and despite the legislation is clear on prohibiting sexual violence, a big problem related is the misconception on gender roles as well as the male protection within the law. Continue reading
Author Archives: acontrarioadmin
Female Victims Only? Casting Doubt on the Prosecution of Forced Marriage in Ongwen’s Case
Author: Laura Nacyte*
In December 2016, the trial against Dominic Ongwen, a former commander of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), commenced before the Trial Chamber IX of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Remarkably, the defendant is the first person at the ICC to face the charge of forced marriage. The latter was brought in addition to other charges of sexual and gender-based crimes, including rape, sexual slavery, enslavement, and forced pregnancy. Although not a separate offence under the Rome Statute, forced marriage is prosecuted as an ‘other inhumane act’, a crime against humanity, pursuant to Article 7(1)(k). Continue reading
UK EU Referendum and the UK’s role on the world stage
Author: Richard Mark Hampson
The UK EU referendum will have significant important consequences for the UK’s international role. If the UK were to leave the EU, it would remain an important global player. This would be, not least, because of its permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Continue reading
Is Extradition under risk under the EU?
Author: Richard Mark Hampson
On 5 April 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the execution of a European Arrest Warrant (‘EAW’) must be deferred if there is a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment because of the conditions of detention for the person concerned in the requesting state. If the existence of that risk cannot be discounted within a reasonable period, the authority responsible for the execution of the warrant must decide whether the surrender procedure should be deferred or brought to an end. Continue reading
Genocide in Nigeria: Time to Speak Daggers to a Murderous State
Arthur Anyaduba [1]
Just within a few months into 2016, several communities in Nigeria continue to witness scores of herdsmen attacks. In each instance of these barbarous attacks, hundreds of people get murdered or maimed for life. A typical scene after these massacres usually assaults the conscience with dismembered bodies, decapitated heads, raped corpses of women, looted and burnt buildings, bullet and machete wounds, and disembowelments. But what really baffles one about these unimaginable atrocities is not just their level of organization and cruelty. Or in the sophistication of the weaponry used to carry out these murders. But rather, it is in the fact that the kind of national moral outrage one expects from such a state as Nigeria is nowhere to be found. Continue reading
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