UpRights is pleased to announce its participation to the upcoming Peace&Justice Café event organised by The Hague Humanity Hub in collaboration with The Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law.

The event, as part of Hague Justice Week, will focus on the concept of “People-Centred Justice” which is an idea that emphasizes the necessity, for legal practices and systems, to become evidence-based, outcome-oriented, and accessible to the people they serve. The Peace&Justice Café is a fundamental networking event for human rights professional that fosters and strengthens the collaboration towards a more just world, providing us with the opportunity to collectively come up with concrete solutions to tackle today’s complex and urgent problems. Launched by the Hague Humanity Hub in collaboration with the Municipality of The Hague and The Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law, the event brings together peacebuilders, justice innovators, researchers, humanitarians, impact entrepreneurs, policymakers, and other changemakers from The Hague and beyond to foster an environment of profitable exchange and mutual enriching.

The Peace&Justice Café is based on the “roundabout” sessions: a series of small-scale, interactive and informative discussions aimed at providing an environment for conversation and information sharing among the participants.

Through their contribution, UpRights co-directors and founders Valérie Gabard and Asa Solway will underline the importance of employing an inclusive and people-centred approach to using international law to promote human rights and ensure accountability for serious human rights violations. They will consider the opportunities and challenges in employing international law to empower local and national actors to promote human rights by exploring practical examples of its implementation in the pursuit of justice. Alongside the active engagement of the participants, the session will provide the opportunity to discuss innovative legal pathways, strategies to build partnerships and lessons learned from employing people-centred justice in the context of international law.

Meet us at the Peace&Justice Café on June 8 by registering here and join the conversation!

UpRights co-founders Asa Solway and Valerie Gabard conducted a two-day training for civil society organisations in South Korea on pursuing accountability in different forums for crimes in North Korea.

The training outlined accountability mechanisms with a particular emphasis on submissions before the International Criminal Court. It set out jurisdictional challenges and provided guidance on building effective and persuasive Article 15 communications. The impact and likelihood of different pathways were outlined including recent developments concerning universal jurisdiction, the jurispurdence of the International Court and the benefits and drawbacks of utilizing international criminal law and human rights law. UpRights trainers’ further set out relevant modes of liability and related issues of international criminal law.

The training also focused on best practices related to gathering and analysing evidence in the specific context of civil society in South Korea. International standards and the importance of effective evidence collection was discussed in detail as a foundation to pursue multiple paths to ensuring accountability for victims.

The training built on UpRights recent experience submitting a successful Article 15 Communication to the International Criminal Court concerning crimes against migrants in Libya and its ongoing work to develop the capacity of national actors to effectively leverage domestic and international law to pursue accountability for victims of serious human rights violations.

On Friday, September 30, from 9 to 18:30, the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna will host the Seminar “Migrants’ rights and international crimes. New perspectives and challenges for international and domestic jurisdiction” (Sala Armi, Palazzo Malvezzi, via Zamboni 22, Bologna and online).

The seminar is organized by StraLi for strategic litigation, UpRights and the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna. Together with journalists, researchers, civil society’s representatives, lawyers, prosecutors, and judges, we will discuss pivotal issues at the intersection of migration and criminal law, such as the qualification of abuses against migrants as international crimes and the impact of European migration policies on human rights. It will comprise of three panels (panel 1 and 2 will be held in English, panel 3 in Italian) which will deal respectively with: migration policies from a human rights perspective; migrations and international criminal law; migrations and Italian criminal law.

Alessandro Pizzuti will be among the speakers of panel 1 to discuss human rights’ application at sea. Alice Giannini and Tomas Manguel will be among speakers of panel 2 and will discuss StraLi’s, UpRights’, and Adala for All’s Article 15 Communication on War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Committed Against Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Libya.

The full program, including the list of the topics discussed and the panelists, are available here.

No registration needed.

Save the date!

Asa Solway, UpRights Co-Founder, recently completed teaching a course offering on self-determination in international law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

“Self-determination of Peoples in International Law”, offered for the first time at the Berkeley School of Law in Fall 2021, built on his experience working with self-determination movements and national minorities. It introduced students to the legal underpinnings of self-determination in international law including in the context of the United Nations Charter, case law of the International Court of Justice and national and international self-determination movements. Students considered issues related to decolonization and secession, internal versus external self-determination, minority rights, state sovereignty and claims to natural resources while discussing and debating the scope of the right in the context of numerous case studies.

The course presented the opportunity for students to consider modern approaches and re-evaluation of the right to self-determination in light of modern advocacy movements, including in the Pacific Islands and Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as ongoing debates over the applicability, scope and intent of the right as envisioned in the drafting of the United Nations Charter. The course further considered human rights-related litigation related to past abuses suffered by self-determination movements.

On 13 October 2021, UpRights Co-Founder Alessandro Pizzuti participated in a panel discussion at the University of Amsterdam concerning crimes committed against migrants in Libya. The event, organized by the Amsterdam Center for Criminal Justice at the University of Amsterdam as part of the “Global Justice Sessions” series, included a screening of “Libya: No Escape from Hell” by director Sara Creta. The documentary illustrated ongoing mistreatment of migrants in detention centers across Libya.

As part of the panelist discussion, Alessandro outlined the applicability of international criminal law to the abuses committed against migrants. While crimes against migrants are typically viewed as human rights violations, international criminal law must also be considered as a relevant framework to pursue prosecutions and ensure accountability. In light of the link with the armed conflict ongoing in Libya, the abuses committed against migrants in detention centres may be qualified as war crimes and fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Co-panelists included Ramadan Alamami (former prosecutor in Libya and current CEO of “Adala for all”), Mark Micallef (Director of the “North Africa and Sahel Observatory” of Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime) and documentary filmmaker Sara Creta.

In the last week, UpRights participated in three seminars on current issues in the field of International Criminal Law (ICL) to students of University of Bologna (Italy) and ITAM University of Mexico City (Mexico).

On 24 March, UpRights co-founder Alessandro Pizzuti, and legal researcher Luigi Prosperi met with students of the “International and European Criminal Law” course of the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna to discuss challenges and outcomes of potential International Criminal Court investigations into crimes allegedly committed against migrants in Libya. They actively worked with students to identify challenges related to the jurisdictional requirements arising from the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 which triggered the jurisdiction of the Court and concerning the qualification of the abuses committed against migrants as war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.

On 25 March, Luigi Prosperi discussed with the students of the “International and European Criminal Law” course of the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna the recent decision of the International Criminal Court in the situation in Palestine. He analyzed the context, the reasoning, and the conclusions of the decision as well as the dissent, and the impact the decision may have on the investigation and prosecution of crimes allegedly committed by Palestinian and Israeli nationals during the 2014 Gaza War, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and in the context of the 2018 demonstrations on the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

On 19 March, Luigi Prosperi spoke with students as part of the “Seminario sobre Derecho Internacional Penal” organized by ITAM University of Mexico City (Mexico). He introduced the concept of crimes against humanity, as defined in the Statutes of international criminal tribunals – including the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court – and in the Draft articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity adopted by the International Law Commission in 2019. Discussion focused on the contextual elements of crimes against humanity and current practice of the International Criminal Court concerning the “organizational policy” requirement.

We would like to warmly thank Professors Gabriela Rodríguez and Guilherme Vasconcelos of ITAM University and Professor Emanuela Fronza of the University of Bologna for the invitation, and we look forward to further opportunities to discuss important issues of international criminal law and UpRights’ ongoing projects with students and scholars.