Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the international community fresh confirmation of his malevolent intentions earlier this month. This time, it came in the form of a dubious disavowal of Soviet imperialism. Attending the Eastern Economic Forum, an international gathering hosted by Russia to curry global investment, Putin was asked whether Russia had acted as a [...]
Editor’s note on historical context: On Sept. 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement with Germany, France and Italy, which allowed Berlin to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Upon his return, Chamberlain said of the agreement: “…for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from [...]
In June 2023, Kenyan High Court Judge Mugure Thande issued conservatory orders temporarily halting the implementation of the controversial 2023 2023 Finance Act. These orders were later upheld by Justice Thande in July, and the case was referred to Chief Justice, Martha Koome, to empanel a bench for further proceedings. Subsequently, a 3-judge bench, led [...]
“Each state is expected, perpetually, to aid and enforce the law of nations, as part of the common law, by inflicting an adequate punishment upon the offenses against that universal law.” William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England (Book 4) After January 6, 2021, it was disclosed by the special investigating committee of the [...]
Nearly two decades ago, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment in Suchita Srivastava & Anr vs Chandigarh Administration. The judgment stayed the orders of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, which had ruled that a ‘mentally retarded woman‘ who was raped while residing in a government-run welfare institution in Chandigarh should undergo a [...]
Six years after the Indian Supreme Court recognised a fundamental right to privacy, the country finally has comprehensive data protection legislation in the form of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, of 2023 (DPDP Act). The draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 (DPDP Bill 2023) was introduced in the lower house of the Indian [...]
Earlier this month, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, released a legal opinion claiming that genocide is under way against ethnic Armenians in the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Such serious allegations should not be made lightly and require careful scrutiny. In light of this opinion, the Government of Azerbaijan [...]
In the summer of 1983, ethnic violence swept the island nation of Sri Lanka. Known as Black July, the outbreak of communal violence between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority communities left thousands dead and hundreds missing. Four decades later, the legacy of the violence lives on, searing Sri Lanka‘s social and political landscape. This [...]
“The existence of `system’ in the world is obvious to every observer of nature, no matter whom.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (1959) Whether conspicuous or obscure, terrorism generally presents itself as a systemic challenge. This means, inter alia, that seemingly singular strategic and legal matters may actually be many-sided and interrelated. Regarding legal issues, though [...]
In the summer of 1983, ethnic violence swept the island nation of Sri Lanka. Known as Black July, the outbreak of communal violence between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority communities left thousands dead and hundreds missing. Four decades later, the legacy of the violence lives on, searing Sri Lanka‘s social and political landscape. This [...]
