Shamima Begum, a young woman who left the UK as a schoolgirl to join ISIS in Syria, has recently lost an appeal to regain her British citizenship. This decision, leaving her effectively stateless and in a Syrian detention camp, has sparked renewed debate. In this interview, JURIST speaks with Professor Ben Saul, a UN expert [...]
Search Results for: civil war
Somalia expels Ethiopia ambassador over recognition of Somaliland independence
Somalia announced on Thursday the expulsion of the Ethiopian ambassador Muktar Mohamed Ware. The announcement comes amid worsening relations between Ethiopia and Somalia regarding the recognition of Somaliland’s independence. In a press statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation ordered Muktar to depart from Somalia within 72 hours. The Ethiopian Consulates General in [...]
Complaints of anti-Muslim bias in the US reached a record high in 2023, according to a report released Tuesday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The civil rights group received 8,061 complaints of anti-Muslim incidents last year, marking the highest number of complaints reported in the group’s 30-year history. The report found that complaints [...]
Explainer: US Mass Incarceration and Its Disparate Racial Impacts
The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]
Thailand activist expresses concerns about stateless children's deportation to Myanmar
Nutchanart Boonkhong, a civil rights activist and founder of Baan Kru Naam Foundation, told Reuters in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that she was concerned for the safety of 19 stateless children from Myanmar, and worried that the government would deport them back to their home country despite the current civil war. The 19 children [...]
Recently, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC or Red Cross) has been accused of facilitating payments to accused terrorists captured and held by Israel in the ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict. The ICRC denies this claim. The ICRC has a blemished record, disturbingly far from its professed humanitarian mandate. A journalistic investigation conducted by ProPublica [...]
The Cost of Revenge: A Cantor's Critique of Israel's Response to Hamas
In the wake of the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, many of Israel’s supporters, myself included, have succumbed to the understandable impulse for violent retribution. Israel is a land that I love, both culturally as a Jew — and third-generation Holocaust survivor — and spiritually as an ordained cantor. It follows that [...]
Donald Trump's Immunity Argument From the Standpoint of International Law
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal (1950) (Principle [...]
Youth Caught in the Crossfire: The Devastating Impact of Myanmar's Conscription Law
For many of the world’s nations, domestic warfare is thought of as a thing of the past. Battlefields, mass killings, hostilities, guerrilla warfare, and wartime brutalities are little more than words in a textbook for much of the global population — a theoretical possibility that only currently affects distant populations. Sadly, this is not the [...]
Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]