Yemen, Syria & Afghanistan: Case Studies in International Law, Peace, Justice, and Sanctions in Armed Conflict

The event will be taking place on Tuesday June 27th from 1400 until 1800 BST. It is a jointly hosted programme of the War Crimes Comittee with King’s College War Studies War Crimes Research Group.

An important event to hear from prominent former government officials, activists, and experts from Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria, as well as lawyers engaged in peace and accountability efforts as we examine the conflicts in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan from two perspectives. The first panel will address the pending issues of alleged violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes in the conflicts, the impact on peace negotiations, and what accountability will look like in these countries. The second panel will examine the role of sanctions and terrorist designations in conflicts, both international (UN) and unilateral/regional (US/UK/EU), and the repercussions on the peace process or subsequent rebuilding and reconciliation post-conflict. (photo: freepik.com)

Read more here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greek Administrative Court rules state liable for Covid-19 vaccine side effects due to "excessive sacrifice"

Image
Greece: The Administrative Court of First Instance of Athens, in its decision no. 4202/2025, has ruled that the Greek State is liable for damages sustained by an individual due to side effects following a preventive "COVID-19" vaccination. This landmark decision was issued in a compensation lawsuit filed against the Hellenic Republic. The Case: Seeking Compensation for Vaccine-Related Harm The lawsuit was brought by a plaintiff seeking compensation for material damage and moral harm (non-pecuniary damage), alleging that they suffered severe side effects after their preventive COVID-19 vaccination with a specific vaccine. The initial claim was for €461,835.26, but this amount was subsequently restricted during the proceedings. The plaintiff based their claim on two legal grounds: Article 105 of the Introductory Law of the Civil Code (EισNAK): This article concerns the State's liability for compensation arising from illegal acts or omissions of its organs in the exe...
Read more

Ombudsman inquiry on Commission President’s text messages is a wake-up call for EU

Image
The European Ombudsman inquiry into the Commission’s handling of a request for text messages between its President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company is a wake-up call for all EU institutions about ensuring accountability in an era of instant messaging. One year after the initial request by a journalist, the Commission has still not clarified whether messages reported to concern major vaccine procurement deals exist and whether the public is entitled to see them. The Ombudsman had asked the Commission, in a finding of maladministration in January, to conduct a more thorough search for the text messages. The Commission’s recent response failed to say whether it had looked directly and correctly for the text messages and if not, why not. While the response recognised that work-related text messages can be EU documents, it reiterated that the Commission’s internal policy is, in effect, not to register text messages. The Ombudsman has closed  the inquiry  and upheld...
Read more

From Regulation to Strategy: Europe’s New Tech Agenda

Image
Written by Efi Thoma, Senior Global Legal Counsel  Europe’s approach to technology regulation is entering a more practical phase. After several years of ambitious rule-making, Brussels is increasingly focused on implementation, enforcement and simplification. For technology companies, the key question is no longer simply “What does the law require?” but “How do we make these requirements work in practice without unnecessarily slowing innovation?” The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) establishes a risk-based framework covering areas such as transparency, governance, human oversight and high-risk AI systems. As implementation progresses, the emphasis is increasingly on making the framework workable in practice, including through regulatory sandboxes and measures supporting implementation. For businesses, the practical approach is to embed AI governance into existing processes rather than create an entirely separate compliance structure. AI inventories, risk classification, procu...
Read more

The Title Deed Issue in Cyprus and the "Trapped Buyers" Phenomenon

Image
Article By Giorgos Kazoleas, Lawyer LL.M.  The issue of title deeds in Cyprus and the phenomenon of "trapped buyers" constitutes one of the greatest legal, financial, and social peculiarities of Cypriot real estate law. The Cypriot Peculiarity: Sale Without a Title Deed Under Cypriot law (pursuant to the Immovable Property (Tenure, Registration and Valuation) Law, Cap. 224), legal ownership of a property is transferred and acquired solely upon its registration with the Department of Lands and Surveys and the issuance of the relevant Certificate of Registration (Title Deed). However, a major peculiarity exists: it is entirely legal to sell a property that does not (yet) possess a separate title deed. This typically occurs in new developments (apartment buildings or residential complexes), where the title deed for the plot of land belongs to the developer, but the separate title deeds for each apartment or house can take years to be issued due to bureaucracy, pending ap...
Read more

Coronavirus as force majeure event - The impact on contracts

Image
by George Kazoleas, Lawyer LL.M The rapid spread of coronavirus worldwide has crucial effects in social and economic life. The regularity of transactions has been disrupted and the normal evolution of many aspects of economic and commercial activity has been reversed. According to the World Health Organization, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause disease in animals or humans. In humans, several coronaviruses cause respiratory infections, influenza and more serious illnesses such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The most recently discovered coronavirus causes COVID-19. Coronavirus as force majeure It depends on the circumstances if the spread of the virus can be regarded as a cause of force majeure that prevents or inhibits the fulfillment of contractual obligations. The European Commission states that there is force majeure if the incident or its non-fulfillment "is due to circumstanc...
Read more

Refusal to issue a passport on account of an unpaid bank debt (ECHR)

Image
In Chamber judgment (8.12.2020) in the case of Victor Rotaru v. the Republic of Moldova (application no. 26764/12) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement) to the European Convention on Human Rights.  The case concerned the domestic authorities’ refusal over several years to issue the applicant with a passport, on the grounds that he had failed to repay a debt owed to a bank. The Court noted that the civil-registration authority had refused to issue the applicant with a passport after finding that the sole condition imposed by law had been met, namely the nonrepayment of a debt. The duration of the ban on obtaining a passport had not been specified and it did not appear that the proportionality of the measure had been reviewed at any stage. The domestic legislation, as applied in the present case, had not provided the applicant with sufficient procedural guarantees to prevent the risk ...
Read more

Continued preventive detention of convicted paedophile in view of risk of reoffending did not breach Convention but Administrative Court ought to have held hearing in his case (ECtHR)

Image
The case of B.M. v. Switzerland (application no. 50227/21) concerned the rejection of the application for release on licence made by the applicant, a paedophile who had been in preventive detention since 2005 following his conviction for sexual assault of minors, and the Administrative Court’s failure to hold a hearing in his case. In Chamber's judgment dated 12.5.2026, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court found, in particular, that the Federal Supreme Court had adopted an approach consistent with the principles set out in its case-law on the justification for deprivation of liberty under paragraph 1 (a) of Article 5 of the Convention when it had held that the legal interests at stake were of high importance because they involved the physical and mental well-being of children, who were vulnerable individuals. The continuation of th...
Read more