Building resilience in post-conflict disaster contexts: children and transitional justice

This chapter is concerned with the promotion and protection of children’s rights in post-conflict disaster contexts, with a particular focus on the contribution of transitional justice mechanisms to delivering improvements in respect for and realisation of children’s rights. The chapter conceptualizes transitional justice as one means of building sustainable peace in post-conflict states, making it an important element of durable solution promotion in conflict-related disaster contexts. Within this, children play a vital role as they will ultimately become responsible for the implementation of policies and practices that will ensure, or indeed risk, long term peace and stability. It is therefore essential that they are a principal focus of post-conflict transitional justice mechanisms

Implementation of water pollution control measures: theory and practice

This thesis examines the operation of water pollution control measures within England and Wales, especially over the last 20 years. The Northumbrian Water Authority was chosen to illustrate these various measures at a regional level. A contrast is made between theoretical, historical, legal and practical aspects of this topic. An attempt is made to show how various constraints limit the extent to which an ideal effective pollution policy can be implemented

And then two came along at once: inter-state cooperation on core crimes, the ILC and the group of core states

Despite their fundamental importance in the effective prosecution of international crimes, inter-state judicial cooperation regimes have long been overlooked. However, two new initiatives have recently emerged. The first is the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on Crimes Against Humanity (Draft Articles), which aims to create a global convention on prevention, punishment and inter-State cooperation with respect to crimes against humanity. The second initiative, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty for core crimes (MLA Treaty), is wider in scope. It encompasses genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and seeks the conclusion of a multilateral cooperation treaty to enable the effective provision of mutual legal assistance and extradition of suspects in relation to these crimes. The aim of this article is to critically assess the merits and shortcomings of these two initiatives in the effort to enhance inter-state cooperation in the prosecution of international crimes and their abilities to remedy current problems

The privilege against self-incrimination in truth commission administered accountability initiatives

In recent times, transitional justice practice has increasingly seen truth commissions tasked with administering accountability programmes, distinct from and in addition to their traditional truth-seeking role. Such accountability schemes typically take the form of granting or recommending amnesty for those who disclose involvement in past crimes or facilitating reintegration on the basis of similar disclosures. Self-incriminating disclosures made in the course of traditional truth commission proceedings generally attract a robust set of legal safeguards. However, the protections within transitional accountability schemes administered by truth commissions tend to be less stringent. This article explores this anomaly, focusing particularly on the extent to which the privilege against self-incrimination is protected within truth commission administered accountability programmes. It considers the programmes operated to date, and the levels of protection afforded, and demonstrates a lack of consistent practice in the safeguarding of individual rights within these programmes. It examines international legal standards on the privilege against self-incrimination and questions whether the procedures operated by accountability programmes can be reconciled with international norms in order to protect those who make self-incriminating disclosures within accountability initiatives. The article argues that a failure to ensure individual rights against self-incrimination risks compromising the efficacy of the programmes themselves and the contribution that they can make to long term peace and reconciliation in transitional states

Principle 8: definition of a commission’s terms of reference

The collection provides a principle by principle analysis of the UN Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity. It is part of the Oxford Commentaries on International Law series and includes work by leading scholars in this area. This contribution examines the background, interpretation and application in practice of procedural guarantees for those who appear before truth commissions

The UN committee on the rights of the child and Russia's deportation of children from Ukraine

Since the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes in March 2023, the deportation and unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation has been the subject of international legal, media and institutional attention. Exact numbers are difficult to come by. At the time of writing Children of War reports that 19,546 children have been deported. Reports suggest that many deported children may have been given Russian citizenship and illegally adopted. Others have been placed in re-education camps. In January 2024, concerns were again raised about the fate of deported children when President Putin signed a decree which further expedites the process for the granting of Russian citizenship. Under the decree orphans and children without parental care who are citizens of Ukraine can acquire Russian citizenship by personal decision of the President of the Russian Federation. Russia has consistently denied deportation of Ukrainian children and has dismissed ICC arrest warrants on the grounds that, as a non-States Party, it does not recognise the Court. To date, there have been few opportunities to hold Russia to account. However, on 22 and 23 January, a delegation from the Russian Federation appeared before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child as part of the periodic reporting process required under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Ahead of the sessions, there was considerable interest in how Russia might respond to questions from the Committee on the deportation of children from Ukraine. This post considers the proceedings before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and Russia’s justifications for the transfer of children from Ukraine. It will show that Russia’s explanations do little to assuage concerns about the transfer and treatment of children from Ukraine. Indeed, there should be grave concern that Russia continues to fall foul of international humanitarian law (IHL) and CRC standards