From 27 to 29 June, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on West Papua was in session. Convened at Queen Mary University of London, the tribunal spent three days hearing testimonies to assess allegations of environmental destruction and repression in West Papua at the hands of the Indonesian Government and various corporate actors. A frequently faltering Zoom room allowed witnesses from West Papua to call in and audiences outside of London, me among their number, to follow the proceedings. The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal was established in 1979 by Italian activist and politician Lelio Basso. Basso had previously participated in the Russell Tribunal of 1967, the first and most well-known peoples’ tribunal that held the United States responsible for violating international law in the Vietnam War. Peoples’ tribunals are assemblies that behave like courts but lack any authorization from states or international organizations to do so. The Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal is a serial organizer of peoples’ tribunals, this session on West Papua being its 53rd. The organization’s workings are outlined in its…
History of International Law
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Damaged Beyond Repair? International Law after Gaza
“Never has [an international law professor] sensed such profound skepticism about the legitimacy and usefulness of the discipline he teaches. Hasn’t the appalling conflict unfolding before our eyes demonstrated with tremendous eloquence the vanity, or at least the extreme fragility, of a so-called legal order in relations between states, at the very moment when its development was…
Project 2100—Is the International Legal Order Fit for Purpose?
It is in the darkest moments that we must ask the hardest questions and peer through the gloom in an attempt to see the light. The events to the east of us raise stark questions—about the current world order; about the place and effectiveness of the United Nations; about what the U.S. long-term assessment of global…
Belgium’s return of Lumumba’s tooth: A new moment for anti-colonial struggles?
June 2022 was marked by a critical event in South-North relations: Belgium returning a tooth to Congo. As trivial as it may sound, the return of the gold-crowned tooth ends a quarrel of 62 years between the former colonial and colonized peoples regarding the murder of the anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba. More than that, the declaration that accompanied…
Russia’s Aggression against Ukraine and the Idealised Symbolism of Nuremberg
The Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) has a very strong symbolic standing for all post-Soviet nations and especially for Russia. Nuances, complexities and shortcomings are inherent to the IMT legacy. However, in Ukraine, Russia and the wider region, a Nuremberg reference will almost always have the connotation of paramount justice and the victory of the ultimate good…