Valentina Azarova | Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research (original) (raw)

peer-reviewed journal articles by Valentina Azarova

Boston University Journal of International Law, 2022

The international legal prohibition of enforced disappearances first developed in the context of ... more The international legal prohibition of enforced disappearances first developed in the context of authoritarianism. In particular, throughout the second half of the 20th century, several Latin American governments used state agents and non-state actors to disappear political opponents and other identity groups. Today, advocates and scholars are employing the same category to contest state violence in a very different context: the
disappearance of migrants, through detention and/or death, under the guise of border enforcement. In this paper, we consider acts of border violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border and at the EU’s Southern and Eastern borders, including the Mediterranean Sea, imagining the potentials and limitations of labeling such practices as enforced disappearances in legal advocacy. After first exploring the doctrinal histories prohibiting enforced disappearance in international law, the paper examines two questions: first, what are the common and differing underlying assumptions in the authoritarianism and
border violence contexts that make the legal category of “enforced disappearance” relevant for migrants and their families? Second, what are the practical benefits for migrant rights struggles in such a framing? Beyond simply characterizing such acts of border violence as egregious, the categorization of certain practices as enforced disappearances under international law can provide the relatives of missing migrants with concrete informational remedies and other forms of reparation, including through
their rights provisioned by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. For countless individuals whose loved ones have gone missing on the move for reasons of State design, this legal framing could help finally uncover the truth behind the fate and whereabouts of their disappeared.

ASY -- Revue suisse pour la pratique et le droit d’asile, 2021

This article traces the evolution of practices of refoulement performed by EU states, in particul... more This article traces the evolution of practices of refoulement performed by EU states, in particular Italy. The authors of the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN; now of/about work that has now moved to de:border | migration justice collective) and Forensic Oceanography (FO) observe that, especially since the Hirsi and Jamaa judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in 2012, EU states tend to shift the responsibility for refoulement on to third states and, more recently, to private actors, in order to avoid any legal sanction. By presenting a number of landmark cases from their collaboration, they demonstrate not only that it is necessary, but also possible to adapt the documentation and legal approach in order to combat these violent and dangerous practices.

HuV Humanitäres Völkerrecht – Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, 2021

The ongoing conflict in Yemen is a site of humanitarian catastrophe, unimaginable atrocity, and h... more The ongoing conflict in Yemen is a site of humanitarian catastrophe, unimaginable atrocity, and human suffering. Since the Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015, several months after the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the Yemen conflict has been fuelled by ongoing arms supplies by Western states and corporations. The scale and significance of these arms supply relationships has been the subject of unprecedented, concerted efforts by a legal platform of non-governmental organisations and legal advocates to mobilise the ATT in its broader environment of cognate international and domestic laws, to challenge these arms transfers before the domestic courts of arms-supplying states. In the absence of international oversight mechanisms, the ATT casts national authorities, licensing bodies, and domestic courts in a principal governing role in relation to the global arms trade. Drawing on the transnational legal work to contest and resist arms supply relationships conditioning the violence in Yemen, this essay examines the interpretative and paralegal practices of domestic authorities, constituted by and generative of (inter)national arms control law.

Global Affairs, 2018

The European Union (EU) is undertaking a prolonged, slow-burning revision of its relations with I... more The European Union (EU) is undertaking a prolonged, slow-burning revision of its relations with Israel, driven by the need to avoid recognition of an illegal situation. This article reviews these ongoing developments from the perspective of international law. As compared with the EU’s response to the annexation of Crimea by imposing sanctions on Russia, its measures vis-à-vis Israel aim at protecting the EU internal legal and political order from the
illegal situation created by Israel’s institutional practice with regards to the Palestinian territory. The EU’s approach to nonrecognition is a rule-based cornerstone of its external relations law and foreign policy, and provides insights on the otherwise opaque workings of this obligation in international law and the transnational legal enforcement process in which it manifests.

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2018

This article examines the regulation in international law of situations of foreign territorial co... more This article examines the regulation in international law of situations of foreign territorial control that breach peremptory norms on interstate force and self-determination of peoples, which it designates as unlawfully prolonged occupations. Traditionally, such situations are regulated by the international humanitarian law rules on belligerent occupation, or conflict management law. This practice apparently derives from the distinction between the jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and the dichotomy in the application of the two bodies of law. But this seemingly outdated logic is under pressure, as it also amounts to a silencing and failure to address the legality of the occupying state's pursuits, and that of the continued denial of the right to self-determination of people to the local population. Applying only the specialized law on occupation, in isolation from other applicable law, overlooks the consequences of unlawfully prolonged occupations on the protection of individual rights, and the systemic integrity of international law. This article re-situates occupation law within its broader normative environment, and proposes a regulatory approach to predatory acts, that would better support the unity, systemic integrity, and value system of contemporary international law.

Business and Human Rights Journal, 2018

The law and practice concerning the responsibilities of businesses and the obligations of their h... more The law and practice concerning the responsibilities of businesses and the obligations of their home states in relation to private dealings in occupied territory are under-developed. The establishment of a database by the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor the activities of corporate actors in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is an opportunity to provide much-needed guidance on the scope of application of existing international law in this paradigmatic case of a high-risk business environment. This article engages with the contribution of this initiative to the regulation of transnational corporate dealings through two normative issues: the structural characteristics and effects of the violations taking place in certain business environments maintained in the OPT on the responsibilities of business and home states; and the various modes through which businesses become directly linked with and contribute to the illicit property rights regime underpinning the existence of settlements and the serious human rights abuses perpetuated by their maintenance.

Questions of International Law, 2017

Despite the burgeoning literature on the consequences in international law of Israeli practices a... more Despite the burgeoning literature on the consequences in international law of Israeli practices and policies in the territories it occupies, there has been only limited legal consideration of the intentions that drive Israel’s practices and the structures and processes that underpin them. This essay assesses Israel’s administration of justice in the occupied Palestinian territory in light of Hart’s category of the pathology of legal systems, which offers a normative perspective on the ends and means of a state’s relationship to international law. The essay examines the posture of Israel’s legal system towards international law to provide a distinct normative perspective on the thick background rules of Israel’s internationally unlawful acts. It analyses the presumptions underlying the operation of its administration of justice in the occupied territory, and explores how the systemic denial of Palestinians rights is based on the rejection of Palestinian sovereignty over the territory Israel occupies. The essay’s review of Israeli practices as manifestations of a legal pathology concludes with reflections on the utility of this analytical category, particularly for the determination of the nature of state responsibility in international law.

This article interrogates the potential role of the ICC in the Israeli-Palestinian context as a f... more This article interrogates the potential role of the ICC in the Israeli-Palestinian context as a function of the relationship between international criminal justice and the maintenance of peace. It argues that the Palestine situation presents the ICC with a critical opportunity to redress its ‘crises’ of effectiveness and legitimacy. The risks of an ICC intervention for the Palestinian population and for the Court may have been underappreciated. However, the Court’s reluctance to open an investigation in the Palestine situation, and missed opportunities during the deliberation of Palestine’s 2009 declaration requesting jurisdiction, have undermined its institutional integrity and contributed to the waning of its standing as an enforcer of international law. This contribution concludes that the ICC’s potential to deter international crimes in the Israeli-Palestinian context is limited, and the Court needs a ‘Palestine situation’ more than the Palestine needs the ICC.

Palestine Yearbook of International Law Vol XVIII (2015), 2016

International Criminal Law Review, 2012

Boston University Journal of International Law, 2022

The international legal prohibition of enforced disappearances first developed in the context of ... more The international legal prohibition of enforced disappearances first developed in the context of authoritarianism. In particular, throughout the second half of the 20th century, several Latin American governments used state agents and non-state actors to disappear political opponents and other identity groups. Today, advocates and scholars are employing the same category to contest state violence in a very different context: the
disappearance of migrants, through detention and/or death, under the guise of border enforcement. In this paper, we consider acts of border violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border and at the EU’s Southern and Eastern borders, including the Mediterranean Sea, imagining the potentials and limitations of labeling such practices as enforced disappearances in legal advocacy. After first exploring the doctrinal histories prohibiting enforced disappearance in international law, the paper examines two questions: first, what are the common and differing underlying assumptions in the authoritarianism and
border violence contexts that make the legal category of “enforced disappearance” relevant for migrants and their families? Second, what are the practical benefits for migrant rights struggles in such a framing? Beyond simply characterizing such acts of border violence as egregious, the categorization of certain practices as enforced disappearances under international law can provide the relatives of missing migrants with concrete informational remedies and other forms of reparation, including through
their rights provisioned by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. For countless individuals whose loved ones have gone missing on the move for reasons of State design, this legal framing could help finally uncover the truth behind the fate and whereabouts of their disappeared.

ASY -- Revue suisse pour la pratique et le droit d’asile, 2021

This article traces the evolution of practices of refoulement performed by EU states, in particul... more This article traces the evolution of practices of refoulement performed by EU states, in particular Italy. The authors of the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN; now of/about work that has now moved to de:border | migration justice collective) and Forensic Oceanography (FO) observe that, especially since the Hirsi and Jamaa judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in 2012, EU states tend to shift the responsibility for refoulement on to third states and, more recently, to private actors, in order to avoid any legal sanction. By presenting a number of landmark cases from their collaboration, they demonstrate not only that it is necessary, but also possible to adapt the documentation and legal approach in order to combat these violent and dangerous practices.

HuV Humanitäres Völkerrecht – Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, 2021

The ongoing conflict in Yemen is a site of humanitarian catastrophe, unimaginable atrocity, and h... more The ongoing conflict in Yemen is a site of humanitarian catastrophe, unimaginable atrocity, and human suffering. Since the Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015, several months after the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the Yemen conflict has been fuelled by ongoing arms supplies by Western states and corporations. The scale and significance of these arms supply relationships has been the subject of unprecedented, concerted efforts by a legal platform of non-governmental organisations and legal advocates to mobilise the ATT in its broader environment of cognate international and domestic laws, to challenge these arms transfers before the domestic courts of arms-supplying states. In the absence of international oversight mechanisms, the ATT casts national authorities, licensing bodies, and domestic courts in a principal governing role in relation to the global arms trade. Drawing on the transnational legal work to contest and resist arms supply relationships conditioning the violence in Yemen, this essay examines the interpretative and paralegal practices of domestic authorities, constituted by and generative of (inter)national arms control law.

Global Affairs, 2018

The European Union (EU) is undertaking a prolonged, slow-burning revision of its relations with I... more The European Union (EU) is undertaking a prolonged, slow-burning revision of its relations with Israel, driven by the need to avoid recognition of an illegal situation. This article reviews these ongoing developments from the perspective of international law. As compared with the EU’s response to the annexation of Crimea by imposing sanctions on Russia, its measures vis-à-vis Israel aim at protecting the EU internal legal and political order from the
illegal situation created by Israel’s institutional practice with regards to the Palestinian territory. The EU’s approach to nonrecognition is a rule-based cornerstone of its external relations law and foreign policy, and provides insights on the otherwise opaque workings of this obligation in international law and the transnational legal enforcement process in which it manifests.

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2018

This article examines the regulation in international law of situations of foreign territorial co... more This article examines the regulation in international law of situations of foreign territorial control that breach peremptory norms on interstate force and self-determination of peoples, which it designates as unlawfully prolonged occupations. Traditionally, such situations are regulated by the international humanitarian law rules on belligerent occupation, or conflict management law. This practice apparently derives from the distinction between the jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and the dichotomy in the application of the two bodies of law. But this seemingly outdated logic is under pressure, as it also amounts to a silencing and failure to address the legality of the occupying state's pursuits, and that of the continued denial of the right to self-determination of people to the local population. Applying only the specialized law on occupation, in isolation from other applicable law, overlooks the consequences of unlawfully prolonged occupations on the protection of individual rights, and the systemic integrity of international law. This article re-situates occupation law within its broader normative environment, and proposes a regulatory approach to predatory acts, that would better support the unity, systemic integrity, and value system of contemporary international law.

Business and Human Rights Journal, 2018

The law and practice concerning the responsibilities of businesses and the obligations of their h... more The law and practice concerning the responsibilities of businesses and the obligations of their home states in relation to private dealings in occupied territory are under-developed. The establishment of a database by the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor the activities of corporate actors in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is an opportunity to provide much-needed guidance on the scope of application of existing international law in this paradigmatic case of a high-risk business environment. This article engages with the contribution of this initiative to the regulation of transnational corporate dealings through two normative issues: the structural characteristics and effects of the violations taking place in certain business environments maintained in the OPT on the responsibilities of business and home states; and the various modes through which businesses become directly linked with and contribute to the illicit property rights regime underpinning the existence of settlements and the serious human rights abuses perpetuated by their maintenance.

Questions of International Law, 2017

Despite the burgeoning literature on the consequences in international law of Israeli practices a... more Despite the burgeoning literature on the consequences in international law of Israeli practices and policies in the territories it occupies, there has been only limited legal consideration of the intentions that drive Israel’s practices and the structures and processes that underpin them. This essay assesses Israel’s administration of justice in the occupied Palestinian territory in light of Hart’s category of the pathology of legal systems, which offers a normative perspective on the ends and means of a state’s relationship to international law. The essay examines the posture of Israel’s legal system towards international law to provide a distinct normative perspective on the thick background rules of Israel’s internationally unlawful acts. It analyses the presumptions underlying the operation of its administration of justice in the occupied territory, and explores how the systemic denial of Palestinians rights is based on the rejection of Palestinian sovereignty over the territory Israel occupies. The essay’s review of Israeli practices as manifestations of a legal pathology concludes with reflections on the utility of this analytical category, particularly for the determination of the nature of state responsibility in international law.

This article interrogates the potential role of the ICC in the Israeli-Palestinian context as a f... more This article interrogates the potential role of the ICC in the Israeli-Palestinian context as a function of the relationship between international criminal justice and the maintenance of peace. It argues that the Palestine situation presents the ICC with a critical opportunity to redress its ‘crises’ of effectiveness and legitimacy. The risks of an ICC intervention for the Palestinian population and for the Court may have been underappreciated. However, the Court’s reluctance to open an investigation in the Palestine situation, and missed opportunities during the deliberation of Palestine’s 2009 declaration requesting jurisdiction, have undermined its institutional integrity and contributed to the waning of its standing as an enforcer of international law. This contribution concludes that the ICC’s potential to deter international crimes in the Israeli-Palestinian context is limited, and the Court needs a ‘Palestine situation’ more than the Palestine needs the ICC.

Palestine Yearbook of International Law Vol XVIII (2015), 2016

International Criminal Law Review, 2012

Sergey Sayapin and Evhen Tsybulenko (eds), The Use of Force against Ukraine and International Law, 2018

What happens to the international law of occupation when the de facto administrator not only subj... more What happens to the international law of occupation when the de facto administrator not only subjectively rejects its applicability, but maintains the occupation with the intention to acquire or transform territory? What effects does it have on the de facto administrator's status? And what implications on the welfare of the civilian population? Is it appropriate for international law to regulate such situations as belligerent occupations? Russia's occupation of Crimea exemplifies the regulatory challenges created by contemporary situations of occupation qua annexation, which

Sufyan Droubi and Jean d'Aspremont (eds), International organisations, non-State actors, and the formation of customary international law, 2020

The chapter offers a constructivist account of the proliferating roles of non-governmental organi... more The chapter offers a constructivist account of the proliferating roles of non-governmental organisations (NGO) in the making of customary international law (CIL). While these roles are largely informal, and NGO influence on the content and interpretation of CIL norms is primarily indirect, NGOs contribute to the formation of CIL through an increasingly diverse set of activities, which has been particularly influential when implemented in a strategic and concerted manner. NGO documentation, litigation, lobbying, and other forms of advocacy have contributed to treaty-making and-ratification; to the domestication and internalisation of international norms and processes, including domestic accountability and remedies; and to codifying the obligations of, and stimulating practice by non-state actors such as business and armed groups. Despite a broad acknowledgment of the increasing involvement of NGOs in global governance by scholars and practitioners, their role in CIL-making remains under-appreciated. To understand the increased influence of NGOs on the identification, formation, and application of customary international law rules, the chapter offers a differentiated, effects-based account of NGO participation in CIL-making.

Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko (ed), Human Rights and Power in Times of Globalisation (Brill 2017), 2017

The chapter interrogates the remedial limits of international law as regards the regulation of ex... more The chapter interrogates the remedial limits of international law as regards the regulation of extraterritorial business by their home-states, by exploring the conceptual foundations of this area of law and their effects on state practice. The un Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights offer limited guidance to home-states on their obligations to regulate their corporate nationals’ extraterritorial activities. At the same time, traditional approaches to the domestic implementation of international human rights law have failed to account for the interplay and interrelation between international law and domestic law. As a result, the limits of the remedial nature of human rights law as regards the regulation of extraterritorial corporate activity have effectively shielded businesses and their home-states from consequences under both international and domestic law. Home-states’ obligations to ensure the non-recognition as lawful of internationally unlawful acts by its domestic legal order open the possibility of regulating such wrongs as either illegally-constituted gains or unlawfully obtained factors of production under domestic laws – and not only as violations of human rights law. The chapter offers such a re-examination and invites a rethinking of the regulation of extraterritorial business as a transnational legal process.

Annyssa Bellal (ed), The War Report: Armed Conflict in 2014 , 2015

This chapter assesses key issues related to jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and accountability that ... more This chapter assesses key issues related to jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and accountability that are raised by the hostilities. It commences by examining the possibility of invoking the right to self-defence, as the legal justification for the use of force in the Gaza conflict context (A). he chapter then surveys specific violations of the principles on the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law (IHL) committed during the 2014 hostilities by the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups (B). he final part discusses the effects of recent developments related to individual accountability for IHL violations in the Israel–Palestine setting with particular attention to the prospects of Palestine’s accession to the International Criminal Court (ICC) (C).

Mutaz Qafisheh (ed.), Membership of Palestine in the UN: Legal and Political Implications (Cambridge Scholars, 2013)

Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (OUP 2016)

Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (OUP 2016)

Andreas Zimmermann (ed.), The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of the Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Annyssa Bellal (ed.), The War Report: Armed Conflict in 2014 (Oxford University Press, 2015), 2015

Kuremer – The Blog of the Centre for Global Public Law, Koç University Law School, 2016

JURIST - Academic Commentary, 2016

JURIST -- Academic Commentary, 2017

Al-Majdal, Issue No 58 (Spring 2016)

Opinio Juris, 26 January 2016

Just Security, 18 June 2015

open GlobalRights, 16 June 2015

Al-Shabaka – The Palestinian Policy Network, 1 April 2015, 2015

European Journal of International Law: Talk!, May 2014

Foreign Policy, 11 November 2013

Rights as Usual, 29 May 2013

Rights as Usual, 1 May 2013

Open Democracy, 31 July 2013

PETI Committee, European Parliament, 2020

European Court of Auditors, 2020

The complaint, filed 20 April 2020, to the European Court of Auditors argues that the EU should s... more The complaint, filed 20 April 2020, to the European Court of Auditors argues that the EU should suspend funding for its program to stem migration from Libya because the program breaches EU budgetary laws and international human rights law. The complaint demonstrates that the European Commission provides financial support for projects that result in the return of people to Libya, where they face abuse, breaching its obligations not to contribute to serious human rights violations. It thus requests the Court of Auditors, the body responsible for auditing the EU budget, to initiate a special review of the ‘Integrated Border Management programme’ (IBM) run through the European Trust Fund for Africa that supports Libyan authorities, and recommend that the EU Commission suspend the programme pending necessary revisions as required in EU law.

The complaint is based on an opinion (annexed to the complaint) provided by EU budget and development law experts Prof. Dr. Phillip Dann and Dr. Michael Riegner of Humboldt University and Ms. Lena Zagst of Hamburg University.

Complaint: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://sciabacaoruka.asgi.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/GLAN-ASGI-ARCI-ECA-Libya-complaint-expert-opinion.pdf
NGO coalition supporting joint statement: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://sciabacaoruka.asgi.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Joint-statement-on-EU-financial-responsibility-final.pdf
Press release: https://sciabacaoruka.asgi.it/en/legal-complaint-against-eu-financial-complicity-in-illegal-push-backs-to-libya/

UN OHCHR, 2022

The submission is based on our litigation, research and legal advocacy to further the application... more The submission is based on our litigation, research and legal advocacy to further the application of the international law on enforced disappearances in the migration context, and draws primarily on practices taking place in Greece and at the EU’s external borders between Greece and Turkey, as one of several locations where migrants are subjected to extreme forms of violence and where we undertake much of our relevant work. The submission is divided into four sections that comment on the following issues: a) Non-discrimination, equality and equal recognition before the law; b) The applicability of specific definitional elements of enforced disappearances in the migration context; c) Direct and indirect practices and policies of disappearance in the migration context; and d) Remedies, transnational cooperation and search and data infrastructure.

UN OHCHR, 2021

Relying on our cases, complaints and other legal interventions to various regional and internatio... more Relying on our cases, complaints and other legal interventions to various regional and international bodies (including SS v Italy to the European Court of Human Rights, SDG v Italy to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and the complaint submitted to the European Court of Auditors) with a view to challenging the harmful policies of the EU and its Member States and their effects on asylum-seekers, refugees and other migrants making their way from, or through, Libya to the EU, the submission surveys various legal and factual bases for the EU and its Member States’ separate and joint international responsibilities for endorsing, wrongfully assisting, enabling, and contributing to the development and implementation of policies and practices of illegal pushback at the EU’s external borders, that we urge the FFM to consider in its analysis with a view to adopting its findings. The illegal pushbacks – facilitated and enabled through different forms of co-operation between the EU and its Member States, in particular Italy and Malta, on the one hand, and Libyan actors, on the other – amount to serious violations of human rights obligations, including the right to life, the right to leave any country including one’s own, the right to asylum, and the prohibitions of ill treatment, refoulement, enslavement and collective expulsion. These violations are committed in Libyan territory, within the contested Libyan Search and Rescue Region, and on the high seas in operations carried out by the Libyan Coastguard but enabled and facilitated by European actors, thus falling well within the remit of the IFFM mandate. We argue that current EU and Member State policies and practices amount to their involvement in the commission, along with Libyan actors, of serious violations against asylum-seekers, refugees and other migrants, including their being summarily and violently forced back to Libya and suffering abuse at sea and in detention centres upon disembarkation, without consideration of their human rights and an individual assessment of their international protection needs. In light of this, we call for European perpetrators to be held accountable for their complicity in such actions.

Arms Trade Treaty Expert Group (Saferworld, GLAN and ICJ), 2021

Since the Saudi Arabia- and United Arab Emirates-led coalition began its armed intervention in Ye... more Since the Saudi Arabia- and United Arab Emirates-led coalition began its armed intervention in Yemen in early 2015, it has been widely condemned for serious and repeated violation of international law, including suspected war crimes, using military equipment supplied by many of the world’s major arms manufacturers. In response, lawyers, non-governmental organisations and activists in at least nine countries have launched a series of legal challenges to stop governments from arming the Yemen war. Almost all of the countries being challenged are parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which places an explicit legal obligation on them to avoid transferring arms that risk being used in breach of international law.

This briefing – the eighth in our ATT Expert Group series – examines, compares and contrasts ten separate legal challenges to stop the governments of the UK, US, France, Canada, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and South Africa from continuing to supply arms into the Yemen war. It also considers some of the broader points of law raised by this recent trend, including the implications it might have for the implementation of the ATT and whether the ATT itself might be a factor in this development.

Lighthouse Reports & GLAN, 2020

The control of post-sale services by both international and domestic arms export control laws is ... more The control of post-sale services by both international and domestic arms export control laws is generally weak and unfit for purpose. Even the most rigid national licensing procedures, often grant most original sales contracts one export license that extends to a range of mission-critical post-sale services to be provided by defense corporations for multiple years after the weapons’ delivery. Based on the legal methodology, which was prepared ahead of Lighthouse Reports' 'Invisible link' investigations (https://euarms.com/), this legal guide for investigators of unlawful arms transfers in the form of post-sale services offers the first comprehensive account of the laws and regulatory processes that govern weapons-linked post-sale services at the domestic and international levels. It is also a tool for those looking to understand the gaps in the regulatory framework for such dealings, and to pursue state and corporate accountability on behalf of the victims of the illegal use of weapons. The initial analysis of the regulatory deficiencies that enable such military assistance offered by the guide points to the need to ensure that such accountability efforts extend beyond legal advocacy and strategic litigation to promote necessary law and policy reforms.

Authored by Dr Valentina Azarova and attorney Stefano Trevisan, the guide benefited fro the invaluable input of European national laws and procedures from Hans Lammerant (Vredesactie); Aymeric Elluin (Amnesty International); Christian Schliemann (ECCHR); and Linde Bryk (University of Amsterdam/ECCHR).

Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), 2018

European Council on Foreign Relations, 2017

EuroMed Rights 2016 NGO Briefing Paper on Accountability

EuroMed Rights 2016 NGO Briefing Paper on Accountability

Amnesty International (December 2014)

Amnesty International (November 2014)

'Taming Power in Times of Globalization: What Role for Human Rights?', Conference-Workshop, Irish... more 'Taming Power in Times of Globalization: What Role for Human Rights?', Conference-Workshop, Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, 30 November - 1 Dececember 2015

Fourth Annual Conference: Internationalization of the Question of Palestine: Opportunities and St... more Fourth Annual Conference: Internationalization of the Question of Palestine: Opportunities and Strategic Requirements’, MASARAT – The Palestinian Centre for Policy Research and Strategic Studies (October 2015)

Law on the Bosphorus III: Dynamism and Distinction in Human Rights Law, International Summer Scho... more Law on the Bosphorus III: Dynamism and Distinction in Human Rights Law, International Summer School, Istanbul University Faculty of Law – Leiden University, Leiden Law School, 20-30 July 2015, Istanbul

Debates in the world of human rights theory and practice have interrogated the function and role ... more Debates in the world of human rights theory and practice have interrogated the function and role of human rights, in terms of their objectives and legitimacy as well as their effectiveness in ‘fixing the problem’ of abuses. Why aren’t human rights groups able to end human rights abuses? What good is it to document violations and write reports? Critics say that human rights groups use language that is self-referential and divorced from reality, set goals that are too lofty and ambitious to be implemented, and are too concerned with their own respectability as opposed to with the effectiveness of their work. This session will explore some criticisms of human rights work and also examine ways to make human rights work more effectively by invoking bases for action that can compel political actors.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a leading international human rights organisation, has a long history in “naming and shaming” violators of rights through international media and lobbying of political officials with considerable influence and success. Yet, the work of the MATTIN Group on EU-Israel relations signals a methodological shift in human rights work on Palestine and contributes an interesting dimension to broader dilemmas in the field of human rights advocacy and activism.

Open Democracy, an online opinion forum, is hosting a discussion on advocacy strategies, considering the successes and failures of civil society worldwide. This session will consider some of the questions raised in this forum: How can wrongdoing states be brought to alter their behaviour? How have human rights groups, local and international, sought to hold political actors to account for wrongdoing? What is the future of effective human rights work and how can political interests be aligned with respect for human rights – making respect for rights a need, and not merely a choice?

New Directions in Global Thought: IGLP at Five, The Institute for Global Law and Policy’s 2013 Co... more New Directions in Global Thought: IGLP at Five, The Institute for Global Law and Policy’s 2013 Conference, Harvard Law School, June 3-4, 2013

Centre for the Study of the Drone, Human Rights Program, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New Y... more Centre for the Study of the Drone, Human Rights Program, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, 12 March 2013

'An Update on Palestine: Human Rights Concerns and the Role of International Law’, International ... more 'An Update on Palestine: Human Rights Concerns and the Role of International Law’, International Human Rights Program, University of Toronto, 31 October 2012 (with Bill Van Esveld, Human Rights Watch).

Seminar, Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, 23 April 2012

'The Question of Palestine: What's Law Got to Do with It?', Panel Discussion with Bill van Esveld... more 'The Question of Palestine: What's Law Got to Do with It?', Panel Discussion with Bill van Esveld, Hani Sayed, Rose Parfitt and Jason Beckett, American University in Cairo, 17 February 2013.

Panel Discussion with Professor John Dugard, Dov Jacobs and Joseph Powderly, Grotius Centre for I... more Panel Discussion with Professor John Dugard, Dov Jacobs and Joseph Powderly, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University, The Hague, Netherlands, 29 March 2012.

'Palestine's Application to the United Nations and its Impact on the Protection of Civilians', Co... more 'Palestine's Application to the United Nations and its Impact on the Protection of Civilians', Conference, Diakonia IHL Resource Centre (2011)

Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University Law School, 9 February 2011.

Call for participants: Community Course on Gendered Violence and Transformative Justice (January ... more Call for participants: Community Course on Gendered Violence and Transformative Justice (January 30 to April 2, 2024)

In-person at the Feminist Autonomous Centre for research in Athens. Facilitated by Valentina Azarova & Anna Carastathis

The open call closes on December 11, 2023.