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En Marche: Macron’s France and the European Union

By Anthony Pagden

On the evening of 7 May, Emmanuel Macron walked, almost marched, slowly across the courtyard of the Louvre to make his first speech as the President elect of the French Fifth Republic. He did so not, as others would have done, to the music of the “Marseillaise” but to the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – the “Ode to Joy”, the anthem of the European Union. It was, wrote Natalie Nougayrède in the Guardian, “the most meaningful, inspiring symbol Macron could choose”.

Law and order fundamentalism and the US-Mexico border

By C. J. Alvarez

Today, the United States is experiencing a surge of law and order fundamentalism in the US-Mexico borderland. As it pertains to the international divide, law and order fundamentalism as a political ideology has a long genealogy that stretches back to the late nineteenth century. It is grounded in anti-Mexicanism as well as the abiding conviction that the border is inherently dangerous and “needs” to be policed.

Fixed Term Parliaments Act

By James Morrison

Was there ever a more hollow and impotent piece of legislation than the UK’s Fixed Term Parliaments Act? Trumpeted by the Conservative-led coalition as a way of stopping opportunist prime ministers ever again calling snap elections to capitalize on hefty poll leads – by complicating simple confidence votes in ways that prompted Labour to condemn it as a constitutional “stitch-up” – within six short years of receiving Royal Assent it has proved itself wholly incapable of doing any such thing.

The International Day of UN Peacekeepers

By Daragh Murray

The twenty-ninth of May marks the ‘International Day of UN Peacekeepers’. Today, there are approximately 100,000 UN peacekeepers deployed across the globe, and these individuals’ contribution to the restoration and maintenance of international peace and security – often undertaken in exceptionally difficult circumstances – must be acknowledged. However, recent sexual abuse and exploitation scandals involving UN peacekeepers…

Responsibility and attribution: Criminal law and film

By Nicola Lacey

Many of us have been intrigued this year by two powerful films which explore the difficulty of escaping a troubled past. In Oscar-winning Moonlight, we gradually discover why a small African-American boy is picked on as ‘different’ by his classmates, and follow his path from school-yard harassment and violence through drug dealing, a prison term and a painful achievement of liberation which nonetheless leaves the scars of the past deeply etched on his personality.

Challenges for critical human rights institutions in the Americas

By Thomas Antkowiak

Across the Americas, authoritarian leaders are jailing opponents, firing key investigators, and displacing indigenous communities in efforts to consolidate power.

What more can be done to protect the protectors?

By Alex Murray

So where is the balance between scrutiny and empowerment? Where is the balance between officer protection and police officers representing the community they serve?

How does international human rights law apply during armed conflict?

By Daragh Murray

The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) is the law (by treaty or custom) that regulates the means and methods used in the conduct of armed hostilities. In this video, Daragh Murray, editor of the Practitioners’ Guide to Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict, talks about international human rights law in armed conflict.

Which fictional detective are you?

By Heather Saunders

The classic Golden Age of Detective Fiction in the 1920s and 30s brought us such legendary characters as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, and detective stories on page and screen have kept audiences guessing ever since.

Storm Stella and New York’s double taxation of nonresidents

By Edward A. Zelinsky

The physical aftermath of Storm Stella is now over. The tax aftermath of Storm Stella, however, has just begun. How can a winter storm cause taxes? Because New York State, under its so-called “convenience of the employer” doctrine, subjects nonresidents to state income taxation on the days such nonresidents work at their out-of-state homes for their New York employers.

On criminal justice reform, keep fighting

By Michelle Phelps, Joshua Page, and Philip Goodman

In the late 1970s, many people studying and working inside criminal justice institutions in the U.S. felt that they had awoken to a whole new world.

Will there be justice for Syria?

By James Cockayne

The war in Syria has wreaked havoc on the lives of the Syrian people, and affected many others. Since the war begin in March 2011, several hundred thousand people have been killed. Some 13.5 million people require humanitarian assistance, and over 10 million people have fled their homes – with 4 million fleeing Syria altogether.

Sean Spicer’s Hitler comments: a warning from the history of speech and atrocity

By Gregory Gordon

Earlier this month, during a media briefing, Donald Trump’s Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, engaged in what some have referred to as a form of Holocaust denial. Genocide denial is not merely an ugly reminder of a bloody past but should also be treated as a potential harbinger of a violent future. We are not anywhere close to that stage now, but we have been given notice and we ignore the larger context at our own peril.

Ireland in 1922 and Brexit in 2017

By Michael Tugendhat

In 1922 most of the people of Ireland left the larger United Kingdom, but the Irish were divided. The UK today is leaving the larger European Union. The comparison gives grounds both for hope and for fear.

The international protection of diplomatic and consular agents

By Sanderijn Duquet and Jan Wouters

On Monday 19 December 2016, President Vladimir Putin had made plans to attend Woe from Wit, a satirical comedy on post-Napoleonic Moscow. It was written in 1823, six years before its author – poet and diplomat Alexander Griboyedov – was murdered by a crowd of Islamic religious fanatics, when Ambassador to Persia.

Conor Gearty speaks to the Oxford Law Vox about human rights

By Conor Gearty and Daisy Simonis

In this episode of the Oxford Law Vox podcast, human rights expert Conor Gearty talks to George Miller about human rights in the UK. To hear the full interview with Conor Gearty, and to listen to a bonus podcast about his career and background, visit the Oxford Law Vox on SoundCloud.