School of Law (ETDs)

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37938

Browse

Filters

2023 - 20242

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.International law

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Strengthening Accountability for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence under International Human Rights Law
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Leung, Ka Yan; Chenwi, Lillian
    This research report critiques the current mechanisms available for ensuring accountability for sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the context of international human rights law. It appraises the international, as well as regional, legal frameworks for SGBV, identifying common mechanisms flowing from those instruments. The report also identifies gaps and current challenges in the efforts to provide increased accountability for survivors and victims of SGBV. Key findings include an inefficient, heteronormative approach in respect of, and protection for, non-binary and gender-diverse victims of SGBV, and poor reporting by states in terms of the international human rights instruments. It concludes that taking a more gender-inclusive approach to instruments, and advocating for a new binding instrument with a more encompassing human-rights framing, may be of value, alongside the development of more progressive feminist jurisprudence. While these solutions do not claim to be the cure for all SGBV violations, they will greatly contribute to the protection of persons affected
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Recognising the racial past and discriminatory present of international law – the international community’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
    (University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-02-12) Razzaki, Usaid Mutjaba; Madlingozi, Tshepo
    On 24 February 2022, Russia unilaterally invaded Ukraine without any prior United Nations Security Council (‘UNSC’) approval. Within ten days of this invasion, the United Nations General Assembly (‘UNGA’) adopted resolution A/49/L.1 condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanding the immediate removal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. Moreover, on 28 February 2022, only four days after the initial invasion, the International Criminal Court’s (‘ICC’) Chief Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan of the United Kingdom decided to ‘open an investigation into the situation of Ukraine’. In the Middle East, territorial wars, or wars relating to borders have been fought between Palestine and Israel since 1948. There is evidence that an investigation was launched into the case of Palestine on 03 March 2021. But my criticism is this; whereas it took the ICC merely 4 days to launch such an investigation in Ukraine, it took the ICC nearly 70 years to do the same in Palestine. The UNSC is reduced to a council where political decisions are influenced based on gratuity of allies and own political agendas where the international law framework itself provides for a loophole for international law to be manipulated, construed, and controlled to the whims and fancies of the powerful (big 5) nations through the use of the veto power. Then, I argue, international law as it currently stands, is in need of serious remodelling.