“I want to tell the world that we need peace – stop the war. We need to make sure children and women are protected. People who rape need to be arrested.” – Félicité, aged 13, who was raped in DRC.
Solomon Sacco is a Zimbabwean lawyer who works for Interights, a human rights litigation centre litigating on human rights cases. They take cases on economic, social and cultural rights (particularly rights to health and education), security and rule of law, and equality.
Having spent two weeks in the Lioness Mountains, Peter Smith turns the spotlight onto the developing justice system he encountered there.
The deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals is fast approaching. 2015 is just around the corner and it seems almost certain that there is too little time left to meet many of the targets agreed on by the international community at the turn of the millennium.
Can lawyers do better than scientists at persuading the public of the importance of climate change? This question was put to me recently by a respected climatologist. A concern that science is typically ignored or distorted led him to wonder if a different perspective is required.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) came into force in 1995. For many developing countries this required changes in their national intellectual property legislation particularly in the area of protection over plants and plant varieties.
The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) must contain the strong and unequivocal language of “shall” or “shall not” which makes clear the obligation to act or refrain from acting in specific ways. This is particularly important if certain types of transfers based on arms transfer criteria are to be prohibited, as this language clearly determines the content of the obligation. It is only then that strong and unequivocal obligations on States Parties will be created.
The global conventional arms trade is highly complex, involving states, companies and individuals across jurisdictions with contrasting laws and regulations. To function it relies on the activities of arms brokers.
On Monday we held our first Governance Knowledge Group meeting, and what a great way to kick off this series of seminars.
Last month we celebrated the UK’s National Pro Bono Week, a good time to reflect on the importance of pro bono in the life of a lawyer.