Introduction In a groundbreaking move, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands have announced their intention to take Afghanistan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over gender discrimination, following the Taliban’s brutal repression of women and girls. This would be the first time the ICJ has been used by a state to challenge another under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women for gender discrimination. Since the Taliban seized control in August 2021, Afghan women and girls have faced what many activists, scholars, and policymakers are calling gender apartheid—a regime of systematic oppression that affects virtually every aspect of their lives. The Taliban’s decrees have barred women from education beyond the sixth grade, mandated that they travel only with a mahram (male guardian), and imposed punishments for women who raise their voices in public. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, these measures, coupled with increased surveillance by morality inspectors and restrictions on the media,…
Afghanistan
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Gender Persecution and Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan: Seeking the Appropriate Legal Basis for International Accountability
From as early as 1980, Afghanistan signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a decisive step in protecting women’s rights to equality, notably in education. Additionally, since 1994, Afghanistan has been a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which explicitly…
Are all Afghan women and girls refugees? An analysis in light of the Refugee Convention
Following the withdrawal of the United States (US) and international forces in July 2021, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. Since the Taliban takeover, women and girls have been denied a number of fundamental rights and subjected to various discriminatory measures – including restrictions on education, work, movement and…
Ashraf Ghani’s ambitions to divert the Helmand River now serve his enemy, the Taliban: an International Law perspective
One tragedy follows another in Afghanistan. Occurring amid many other dramatic events, the diversion of the Helmand (Hirmand) River, which flows through Afghanistan and Iran, by the Taliban in January 2022 was almost lost in the news. This deliberate act can cause huge economic losses, degrade entire ecosystems, and threaten the lives of those dependent upon its waters.
9/11 Victims’ Claims to Afghanistan’s Foreign Exchange Reserve
Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserve has drawn considerable interest of late. According to recent reports, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the State’s central bank, holds around USD 10 billion in the form of US treasury bonds, gold offshore and other investments. Given that most of the funds are held in the United States Federal Reserve and denominated in foreign…