It is hard to name an area of life that the Coronavirus pandemic has not affected – from travelling to doing groceries and from grieving to global politics. Some of the effects are more transient, others are here to stay: the pandemic will have had transformative effects in a number of domains – but which? And in particular, what about law? The research cooperation Transformative effects of Globalisation in Law has invited fellow scholars for an online zoom conference on the 16th and 17th of September to discuss these issues.
The armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world, has been ongoing for a decade. Human rights violations of such a large scale can only take place with a great network of support. Rethinking SLIC* invites you to join us on June 18th 2021 at a seminar on modes of secondary liability for crimes committed within the Syrian conflict.
Money is often at the centre of international crimes and grave human rights violations. Financial gain drives criminality, while financial support enables it. Banks and financial institutions frequently find themselves at the confluence of this monetary flow and may even contribute to human rights abuses when they provide financial services or financing to wrongful actors.
Göran Sluiter participates in Amicus brief in child labour case against Nestlé at U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is currently considering ending a lawsuit that claims Nestlé facilitated the use of child slave labour on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, a case that could further limit access to U.S. courts by victims of human rights abuses abroad. Rethinking SLIC*’s Göran Sluiter, along with other international lawyers and scholars, submitted an Amicus brief to the Supreme Court in which they advocate for a broad interpretation of the Alien Tort Statue.
In reaction to the recent news coverage of the cases of Julio Poch and Ridouan T., Göran Sluiter discusses some ‘grey’ areas, especially disguised extradition, in international
cooperation in criminal matters in the law journal NJB (Nederlands Juristenblad, in Dutch).
Read the article on Navigator.
Ahmad Al Zien started last month as a researcher with his individual project 'Secondary Liability for International Crimes – Case Study of Syria'. His 18-month appointment is being funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Through this programme, project leaders of NWO-funded research projects can request additional funding to hire a refugee to work on their project. The Amsterdam Law School published a news article about Ahmad's project.
On 16 and 17 January the Expert Group of the Rethinking SLIC project gathered for the first time in Amsterdam. On the first day, all the participants came to the faculty room of the Amsterdam Law School for a plenary session. The principal investigator of the project, Göran Sluiter, first briefly introduced the project, after which he and Sergey Vasiliev elaborated on some practical aspects of the project as well as lessons learned from their previous project ‘International Criminal Procedure: Principles and Rules’ which used a similar structure to that of the current one.
Göran Sluiter and Kate Mackintosh have submitted their amicus curiae observations to the ICC concerning the Afghanistan situation. They argue that the pre-trial chamber's decision is not consistent with internationally recognized human rights and violates art. 21(3) of the statute.
The observations can be accessed on https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2019_07006.PDF
