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Rainbow Families: Pioneering Ruling on Legal Recognition to Same-Sex Parentage Across all EU Member States

Kosha Doshi & Naga Sumalika Rangisetti

Introduction Europe has seen a remarkable surge in the prevalence of countries that provide legal recognition to informally cohabiting (same-sex) partners, as well as the number of countries that allow same-sex couples to marry or at least enter into a form of registered partnership. However, even in countries where same-sex marriage is accepted, same-sex parentage…

Jan 2023

The Legal Significance of the US Recognition of the Atrocities on the Rohingya as Genocide

Dr. Md. Rizwanul Islam

On March 21, 2022, US Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken stated that the US concluded that the crimes perpetrated on the Rohingyas in the Rakhine Province of Myanmar amount to crimes against humanity and genocide. The US has also committed to resettle some (though no number was specified) Rohingya to its own territories. Arguably,…

Jan 2023

Prosecute or Protect? International Criminal Responsibility and the Recruitment of Isis Brides

Nathalie M. Greenfield

Isis brides played an integral role in the Isis regime. As such, some domestic courts have begun prosecuting girls, like Linda Wenzel, who travelled to Syria to join Isis. These prosecutions raise the questions: Did girls like Linda travel to Syria of their own volition? Are the girls perpetrators or victims of violence? And who…

Mar 2022

The COVID-19 Pandemic and International Law

Oona A. Hathaway, Preston J. Lim, Alasdair Phillips-Robins & Mark Stevens

How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect States’ obligations under international law?  This is a question of not just academic interest but real importance for people’s lives. After all, whether States abide by international law—and whether international law is fit for purpose—is vitally important for everyone from refugees exposed to the virus in unsanitary detention centers…

Mar 2022

Human Mobility and Human Rights in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Revisiting the 14 Principles of Protection for Migrants, Refugees, and Other Displaced Persons

T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Joanne Csete, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, Ian M. Kysel, Petra Molnar, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, Monette Zard

Building upon the 14 Principles – which set out how international law should protect migrants, refugees, and other displaced persons during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been endorsed by more than 1,000 scholars worldwide – a group of international law scholars have collaborated to create a series of short essays looking at a set of pressing legal…

Oct 2021

Forum: New Content Series

Human Mobility and Human Rights in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Revisiting the 14 Principles of Protection for Migrants, Refugees, and Other Displaced Persons

Oct 2021

The Right to Health, Vol. 54

Joanne Csete

Among the “14 Principles” for protection of migrants, refugees and displaced persons in the COVID-19 pandemic is that all persons have a right to health, which, in essence, means an equal right to basic health services. In more than a year of COVID-19 challenges, it has become clear that migrants, refugees and displaced persons are…

Oct 2021

Implementing Principle 2: The Legal Framework vs. the Reality, Vol. 54

Iain Byrne

The international legal framework mandates that everybody, including all people on the move, should enjoy their right to health without discrimination. However, the reality for refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants during the last 12 months of the pandemic has been very different. This is explored below through discussion of the lived experience of millions…

Oct 2021

COVID-19, Surveillance, and the Border Industrial Complex, Vol. 54

Petra Molnar

Technological experimentation at the border is being given free rein, knit together into what amounts to a tapestry of an increasingly powerful global border industrial complex. This experimentation legitimizes techno-solutionism at the expense of human rights and dignity and has only been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Powerful actors—often in the private sector—increasingly dictate what…

Oct 2021

Refugees and the Scope for Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination, Vol. 54

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik

Vaccination programs are regularly celebrated as one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions ever developed. Yet, in a global context characterized by an acute lack of vaccines coupled with unfair distribution, COVID-19 vaccination schemes are controversial. Inaccurate and misleading stories about the vaccines risk becoming a “second pandemic.” However, long before COVID-19,…

Oct 2021