Excerpt of Foreign Policy op-ed co-authored by GJC President Akila Radhakrishnan.

Last December, reports of a shocking program of forced abortions emerged in Nigeria. The Nigerian military, a Reuters investigation found, has allegedly forcibly terminated the pregnancies of at least 10,000 women and girls who were rescued or returned from Boko Haram-controlled territories in the country’s northeast. A follow-up report found that the army has also massacred children. Both patterns of abuse, Reuters reported, are part of the military’s systematic campaign amid the Boko Haram conflict to end the armed group’s supposed “bloodline.”

Nigerian authorities have rejected these allegations outright, but this is not the first report detailing alleged abuses by the Nigerian military in the Boko Haram conflict. Nor is it the first report to find patterns of violence, including possible crimes against humanity, in which the military has specifically targeted women and girls. For too long, this issue has been ignored by Nigeria’s allies and the United Nations. Now, the international community must act.

Over the past decade, the Nigerian military’s abuses have been well documented. For example, in 2015, Amnesty International issued a report concluding that the military had extrajudicially executed more than 1,200 people, arbitrarily detained at least 20,000 people (leading to at least 7,000 deaths in custody), and committed countless acts of torture in the Boko Haram conflict. These numbers have continued to grow.

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Excerpt of Just Security op-ed co-authored by GJC President Akila Radhakrishnan.

The resolution adopted recently at the United Nations General Assembly’s legal committee on draft articles for a treaty on crimes against humanity creates a two-year process for debate and discussion of the proposal within the committee. This opens the door for the possible adoption of a new, critically needed, global treaty on crimes against humanity within the next three or four years. Such a treaty would close several gaps in the legal architecture of atrocity crimes — particularly the legal obligation to prevent crimes against humanity, a duty not imposed by complementary regimes, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the proposed Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.

As Just Security readers will recall from previous articles, the project had been stuck for the past three years. Each year, an overwhelming majority of States voiced their enthusiastic support in the Sixth Committee. This was then followed by weeks of debate and the adoption of a disappointing resolution “taking note” of the International Law Commission’s work to produce the draft articles and placing it on the agenda for the following year. The primary culprit was not the draft articles themselves or States’ unwillingness to debate this important potential treaty. Instead, it was a product of the working methods of the Sixth Committee, which insist upon “consensus” (meaning de facto unanimity) for any concrete action to occur with respect to ILC products. As we have already noted here and here, this not only prevented any action with respect to the draft articles, but imperiled the legitimacy of the International Law Commission and the Sixth Committee itself.

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Excerpt of The Hill op-ed authored by GJC Legal Advisor Ashita Alag.

In a moment with major repercussions for the future of reproductive rights around the world, the Supreme Courts of India and the United States issued historic rulings on abortion only a few months apart. In the U.S., the fall of Roe v. Wade in June unleashed havoc on the country’s health care system. Yet, in India, the story has unfolded far differently.

Last month, the Supreme Court of India held that a distinction made in Indian law between married and unmarried women and their access to abortion up to 24 weeks was arbitrary and should be abolished. The ruling in the case X v. The Principal Secretary, Health & Family Welfare Department further expanded the right to abortion by clarifying that the listed set of circumstances that allow women to receive abortions up to 24 weeks under current law is not exhaustive. As a result, the right to abortion should be extended to all women who undergo a change in their material circumstances. The court further explained that this could include instances such as financial insecurity caused by losing a job or being diagnosed with a chronic illness.

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Excerpt of Just Security op-ed co-authored by GJC President Akila Radhakrishnan.

Enthusiasm for negotiating and adopting a new global treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity has been growing since the issuance of a model draft treaty 16 years ago, particularly after the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) submitted a final set of draft articles to the General Assembly on Aug. 5, 2019. Although paragraph 42 of the ILC’s report recommended the “elaboration of a convention by the General Assembly or by an international conference of plenipotentiaries on the basis of the draft articles,” progress on this important treaty has stalled in the U.N. General Assembly’s Sixth Committee. But there are ways the Sixth Committee, the U.N. General Assembly panel that considers legal issues, could make progress on the ILC’s draft text, thereby fulfilling its role within the U.N. system and increasing the likelihood that this critical treaty will be negotiated and adopted in the near future.

The Sixth Committee Deliberations over the Past Three Years

When the ILC’s text was introduced to the Sixth Committee in 2019, it was not the first time the idea of a new treaty had been floated at the General Assembly. The ILC had assiduously canvassed State reactions since beginning work on the topic in 2013, and the draft took into account extensive State comments. Thus, a significant majority of States in 2019 were willing to proceed quickly to a Diplomatic Conference to negotiate the treaty, which Austria offered to host. A handful of States demurred, however, asking for more time to study the draft, and an even smaller number opposed the treaty entirely. The result was a disappointing resolution “taking note” of the draft articles and promising to revisit them the following year. Austria, joined by 42 other States, expressed disappointment.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made matters worse. Strict limitations on working methods were imposed, causing the Sixth Committee to adopt a technical rollover resolution again simply “taking note” of the draft articles. This time Mexico, joined by 13 other States, voiced concerns that this ran the “risk . . . of getting caught in a cycle of consideration and postponement of the articles without concrete action, which could undermine the relationship between the General Assembly and the ILC."

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