Universal Jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows a foreign state to prosecute an individual in their national courts for a limited number of international crimes regardless of who committed them, where they were committed and against whom (Cali, 2010). The increase in universal jurisdiction proceedings in recent years is promising but there are still fundamental challenges that must be …

Once a prosperous country and the largest democracy of the Arab World,  Egypt is currently under one of the harshest military regimes in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Even though Egypt was one of the first and most prominent places where the Arab Spring flourished, the General Abdel Fattah al Sisi, who took power in 2014, has …

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded in 1998 and was established through the Rome Statute with the purpose of prosecuting egregious international crimes, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, when national jurisdictions are unable or unwilling to do so. It contributes directly to the fight against impunity and the strengthening of the rule of law. It …

Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) BACKGROUND The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that has an annual production capacity of 6,000 megawatts was launched in 2011 to be built on the Blue Nile. The GERD, 145-metre (475-foot) mega-dam, is considered to be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa. This construction of the dam brought disturbance in Northeastern Africa considering that …

A victim-centred approach that reflects the self-identified needs of victims is integral to the success of Nepal’s transitional justice process. Successes have been seen in elements of the Truth Commission (TRC), Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) and Interim Relief Program (IRP). Yet, these processes have either made little progress in fulfilling their mandates, lacked transparency and victim …

Haiti seems to exist in the media only under the conditions of a news item, generally dramatic: natural disasters (the 2010 earthquake, the cyclones that hit the country repeatedly), political crises, violence, etc. The historical silence and the media treatment are part of the same view, which sees Haiti through the prism of a curse and chaos. The historical silence …

This month the Chinese Communist Party is celebrating its 100th anniversary. What can be expected are self-gratulatory propaganda efforts to paint the authoritarian rule of continental China by the Communists as the greatest success in the long history of China. western attitudes towards Beijing, though, have been changing and turning more critical. A sore point of the relations between China …

29 June 2021 On June 12, the parliamentary elections were held in Algeria, with the aim of definitively turning the page on Bouteflika. In 2019, the president, who has been in office since 1999, proposed his candidacy once again for the presidential elections, provoking a strong wave of protests that led him to resign that same year. These protests, referred …

29 June 2021 The recent arrest of the journalist Fung Wai-kong, on the 28th of June, has been the latest case of Hong Kong’s government crackdown against freedom of speech and more particular against anti-Chinese and pro-independence views inside the area (Davidson, 2021).  However, the police actions against the journalist, who was arrested alongside with the whole executive team of …

22 June 2021 On June 20, 2021 Armenians voted in snap parliamentary elections that was held as a result of political crisis erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a six-week war against Azerbaijan in November 2020 and ceded territory in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh (BBC 2021, Armenia Election). Following the preliminary results, Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol …