Water is the lifeblood of human beings and society, but threats to water, such as the pollution of rivers, cyber crimes, and attacks against water infrastructure, are increasing. In green criminology, scholars have relied on domestic criminal law to develop the concept of crimes against water. This paper argues that international law could provide several frameworks for addressing these crimes. A number of international treaties and customary rules deal directly or indirectly with crimes against water, and the United Nations Security Council has also dealt with crimes against water committed by terrorist groups and parties to armed conflict. Crimes against water may represent violations not only of domestic criminal laws but also of international humanitarian law and human rights law.

Social memory studies start from the premise that people acquire their memories not only through individual means, but through social processes as well. Social groups often provide materials for memory, and prod individuals into recalling particular events. One of the distinctive differences between the practice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concerns memory-related remedies. While the IACtHR quite frequently orders respondent states to commemorate grave violations of human rights (including the construction of monuments), the ECtHR has refrained from granting such commemorative remedies. Some organizations representing victims have called upon additional tribunals to embrace the IACtHR’s remedial approach to address grave breaches of international law. Drawing on social memory scholarship, this study is aimed at empirically assessing the impact of four sites of memory in Colombia established by order of the IACtHR. The study’s findings suggest that international tribunals alone cannot shape collective memories that are inconsistent with sociocultural features characterizing the local society. On the other hand, judicially-ordered sites of memory are meaningful for the victims’ families and small-scale social units. These findings turn our attention to micro-level sociological perspectives, and particularly to the symbolic-interactionist approach to international law, highlighting the vital symbolic role of international tribunals for individuals and small social units. The valuable role of such memorial sites for the victims’ relatives and related communities suggests that international tribunals addressing grave human rights violations should consider granting commemorative remedies.

This contribution analyses Article 12 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa (the Protocol). It examines the purpose, scope and contribution of this Article to the legal protection of persons with disabilities in armed conflict and its implementation. The analysis is divided into four parts. The first part will start by identifying and analysing the background to this provision, which provides specific protection to persons with disabilities in armed conflict. The second part will examine Article 12 in the light of other similar regional instruments and of the protection challenges that persons with disabilities face during conflict. This will highlight the specific nature of the Article's provisions, together with its shortcomings and its progressive aspects. Part three will look at the interaction between Article 12 and equivalent rules of international humanitarian law, and how Article 12 contributes to the development of legal protection for persons with disabilities in armed conflict. Finally, the fourth part will examine the challenges to the implementation of Article 12. It will also propose ways of overcoming those challenges and hence of enabling Article 12 to have its intended effect.

In armed conflicts and crises, children with disabilities face serious threats to their lives and safety, including those related to their inability to flee attacks, risk of abandonment, lack of access to assistive devices, lack of access to basic services and denial of education as well as experiences of stigma, abuse, psychological harm and poverty. Children with disabilities experience multiple and intersecting forms of human rights violations based on their disability and age. Since 2015, Human Rights Watch has documented the impact of armed conflict on children with disabilities in Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Gaza Strip in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. While international human rights specifically call for the protection of children with disabilities in situations of armed conflict, the United Nations, governments, parties to the conflict and humanitarian actors have long neglected their specific rights and needs. There is an urgent need for the United Nations and governments to increase efforts to protect children with disabilities as part of their international commitments to protect all children impacted by hostilities. Their attention and investment in those most at risk of violence during armed conflicts will in turn enhance protection measures for everyone.

Human dignity plays an important role in the international legal order, and references to the principle can be found in various international human rights instruments. Its meaning, however, remains an object of avid discussion due to the impossibility of finding a precise and timeless way of defining the concept. In this article, we argue that acknowledging inherence as an element of human dignity gives extrinsic legal recognition to an intrinsic human condition and tends to expand human dignity’s influence. Vagueness — or openness — in defining the concept provides for a dynamic and evolutionary understanding of human dignity, and, coupled with the idea of inherence, these characteristics represent tools for universalization and adaptation of the concept to new circumstances. These findings are based on a review of philosophical discussions of the idea of human dignity, followed by an analysis of how it is addressed in international legal instruments and international jurisprudence and identification of its recurrent elements. We defend the view that the vagueness of its definition does not mean that its content is impossible to identify in particular circumstances. Scholars and institutions can have a concrete sense of the meaning of human dignity even though its substance may admit new elements as new social demands emerge. In our view, the essential meaning of human dignity is founded on the influence of the whole body of human rights as well as on its particular connection to the rights of social minorities, in which human dignity is emphasized because of the material precariousness of such groups under social systems that subject them to discriminatory treatment.

‘Practical’ approaches to human rights hold that analysis of legal human rights must attend to the practice(s) of international human rights law and that the nature and justification of international human rights is best determined by attending to their role(s) in international human rights law’s system of normative practices, not analogous moral rights outside it. These core tenets plausibly explain the apparent normativity of international human rights law despite controversies about the status of many ‘rights’ in the ‘International Bill of Rights’. Yet plausible practical approaches require clear and compelling accounts of which practices qualify as human rights practices. Most existing accounts view ‘responses’ to claims made in the name of the international legal community as key to the identification of human rights. Activities by domestic governments and non-governmental actors qualify as relevant practices. While understandable, these ‘responsive’ accounts of practice create more problems than they solve. This work accordingly promotes a largely unexplored account on which ‘human rights practices’ are strictly defined by international legal doctrine. This ‘doctrinal’ account of practice is most likely to maintain practical approaches to human rights’ potential benefits without generating an unduly expansive rights register or adopting strong theoretical commitments about the nature of law.

Families often have particular vulnerabilities following armed conflict. As international humanitarian law focuses primarily on regulating the conduct of hostilities, its scope for addressing the vulnerability of families and other victims of armed conflict is, at present, conceptually and practically limited. A human security approach invites consideration of the shortcomings of existing legal frameworks in addressing vulnerability, and the development of such frameworks, in a manner that helps to build resilience and address threats. For families harmed during armed conflict, this means identifying features of the existing legal regime that operate in a manner that entrenches or fails to address their vulnerabilities, as well as structural challenges that hinder access to legal opportunities such as reparations. The article identifies several structural issues and features of the legal framework that overlook or entrench the vulnerability of families. Drawing on a human security approach, it suggests that supplementing the existing legal regime with a victim assistance framework could help to address the vulnerability of families and others harmed by armed conflict.

Over the last decade, there has been a spate of incidents in Canada and the United States involving Saudi Arabian nationals who, while out on bail for predominantly sexual crimes, were able to abscond from the countries despite having surrendered their passports. Investigation has revealed evidence supporting a reasonable inference that the government of Saudi Arabia has, in fact, assisted its nationals to escape on these occasions. This article makes the case that this kind of conduct amounts not just to unfriendly acts but also to infringements upon the territorial sovereignty of both states and serious breaches of the international law of jurisdiction. It surveys the possible remedies available to both injured states and, in light of the fact that neither state has sought any such remedy, examines possible remedial routes for the victims of the Saudi nationals’ crimes. It remarks upon the utter failure of either Canada or the United States to address these acts, concluding that such wilful neglect both corrodes sovereignty and undermines the will to address sexual crimes.

Under the International Health Regulations (IHR), States must consider decision-making criteria in applying travel restrictions during a public health emergency of international concern. Interpretation on the legal parameters of such restrictions varies widely. This article considers whether and how the permissibility of travel restrictions under the IHR may have changed given recent developments, including evolving scientific evidence about their efficacy and shifting World Health Organization (WHO) advice. It is argued that such determinations must conform to the principles of necessity and proportionality as articulated by the IHR, and must also be accompanied by the correlative IHR duties of collaboration and assistance rooted substantively in global solidarity.