Can’t help thinking this is as much about avoiding the hypocrisy of still inviting the US
06.03.2026 14:21
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Can’t help thinking this is as much about avoiding the hypocrisy of still inviting the US
"To prevent the US from leading the world down a dangerous slide from which there is no return, governments at the Convention on Conventional Weapons should use this week’s meeting to support and strengthen the draft treaty banning and regulating autonomous weapons systems."
- @verityc.bsky.social
Hospital admissions of young people for knife assault have almost halved since I set up London’s Violence Reduction Unit in 2019.
London's Violence Reduction Unit director Lib Peck spoke to The Crime Agents about how prevention has played a key role in the progress we’re making:
Apollo with the dodgeball of prophecy
Years ago in another life I gave a guest lecture at The Hague warning “AI weapons” could be invoked to remove accountability for war crimes from the chain of command. I said “there are no autonomous weapons, only unsupervised ones,” and sadly it seems I was cooking with that one
Today's presentation of evidence and victim's testimony underlines @elainepearson.bsky.social 's remark that this "really shows the power of human rights documentation to hold perpetrators of abuses to account"
Before: Duterte’s Fans Rally in The Hague as the I.C.C. Weighs Evidence Against Him After: Duterte Won’t Appear at Hearing as I.C.C. Weighs Evidence Against Him
Change in Headline
The targeting of vital body parts would certainly be unlawful, but the weapon itself is also proscribed. International law is very clear: "birdshot" is never a legitimate weapon for police to use in crowd-control contexts (see UN's Guidance on Less-Lethal Weapons, §7.5.6).
Of course if it’s not Anthropic it’ll be just another AI company who will gladly acquiesce, but it’ll be interesting to see how firm Anthropic’s red lines will be now. The bar is already quite low www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Honoured to be invited to speak at this morning's convening organised by SA's Dept of Justice about the human rights obligations to protect individuals from sexual violence in places of detention, alongside powerful presentations from @justdetention.bsky.social -SA #JusticeBehindClosedDoors
geneva-academy.ch/wp-content/u...
International law meant to limit effects of war at breaking point, study finds
reposting both for underlying insight and for solid use of "zugzwang"
The second phase of the SA Human Rights Commission's inquiry into Operation Vala Umgodi is due to get underway next week, including hearing evidence from the police
Would be interested to see that data… I assume a study looking at the relative (in)effectiveness of different types of additional or remedial training on top of a certain baseline?
Postgraduate students sat around a table in discussion.
We’re delighted to offer bursaries covering the cost of delegate fees and accommodation for up to 16 PhD students to attend the LEPH2026 conference (6-9 September) and Postgraduate Day (5 September 2026).
Deadline: Monday 9 February 2026, 17:00 GMT
Read more and apply:
leph2026.org/funded-places/
Today Dr Kwanele Pakati, Head of #SouthAfrica's National Preventive Mechanism, will discuss their detailed new position paper on how NPMs can more robustly address the tools of torture, including their manufacture and trade, in line with obligations under the UNCAT & the Robben Island Guidelines
I am 100% certain that this is standard partisan views of the economy stuff. Just our partisanship is so age-structured this is how it manifests
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
LONDON'S HOMICIDE RATEIS LOWESTIN RECORDED HISTORY Targeted measures led by the Mayor to tackle violent crime have helped London achieve its lowest per capita homicide rate on record in 2025, despite a growing population. 3.0 Г Homicide rate per 100,000 residents 55% LOWER THAN 1997 2.5 V 2.0 - 1.5 T 1.0 1997 2001 2009 2013 2017 Source: MPS recorded homicide data for period 1s January to 31s December, 1997 to 2025 Population Source: ONS Mid Year Population Estimates for London, 2024 2025
Lowest murder rate in London since records began.
good (and extremely timely) first step to removing qualified immunity for all governmental actors
One for @omegarf.bsky.social…?
EVs, though a clear improvement on their petrol predecessors, reproduce many of the same problems of car-based urbanism, binding us into a system of maintaining expensive machines that are stationary 95% of the time. The loss of Zipcar isn’t a business failure; it’s a warning that our leaders’ transport priorities are out of whack. Ultimately, if we want a country built for people rather than parked cars, we need to get serious about sharing.
Yes, but it *is* also a case of business failure...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The IACHR reiterates that, under the standards of the Inter-American Human Rights System, the use of military force for public security purposes should be exceptional, strictly regulated, and limited to circumstances where civilian authorities are unable to respond effectively. The deployment of armed forces in operations against alleged criminal groups, particularly outside the territory, carries a high risk of arbitrary deprivation of life, lack of accountability, violations of due process, and erosion of civilian oversight.
It's being reported that a first family of victims has sought remedy before the Inter-American Commission (I'm sure others will join): www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
Worth noting that (I think before that news broke) the Commission issued a press release yesterday:
www.oas.org/en/IACHR/jsF...
The law of armed conflict is generally a more permissive legal regime for the use of military force than international human rights law (IHRL). In particular, the LOAC permits targeting members of the armed forces, including members of organized armed groups, based on their status, and others if and for such time as they “directly participate in hostilities,” which encompasses more than conducting attacks. By contrast, targeting based on status outside an armed conflict is prohibited. Acts opening the door to the use of force against an individual are generally limited to situations in which they pose an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. If the Hegseth and Bradley orders and the ensuing second strike had been violations of LOAC in a non-international armed conflict, they would, a fortiori, have violated human rights law as a matter of peacetime law enforcement. With respect to the U.S. lethal strikes on suspected drug trafficking vessels at issue here, two of us (Schmitt and Goodman, along with co-author Marko Milanovic) have explained why “there is absolutely no question that the U.S. lethal strikes on the boats are a violation of international human rights law.” Without rehashing that analysis here, the bottom line is that the U.S. strikes on suspected drug traffickers at sea are clearly arbitrary deprivations of the right to life under IHRL, an obligation that the United States acknowledges applies extraterritorially. As they wrote: The widely-accepted standard for arbitrariness prohibits the use of force likely to cause death or grievous bodily injury “except in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives” (Basic Principles on…
www.justsecurity.org/125948/illeg...
#LFJL welcomes the transfer of Khaled Mohamed Ali Al Hishri to #ICC custody after his arrest in Germany earlier this year. Al Hishri, a senior member of the Special Deterrence Force, is accused of overseeing torture, rape, and other serious crimes at Mitiga Prison.
✨ A hard copy has arrived! 📘
Excited to share my contribution "A Feminist Critique" to the @oxunipress.bsky.social Handbook of Peaceful Assembly, edited by T. Abu El-Haj, M. Hamilton. @thomasprobert.com, and S. Srinvasan!
@edinburghpir.bsky.social @uoe-sps.bsky.social
📣 Torture equipment found at Paris arms fair: A team from @amnestyfrance.bsky.social
& Omega discovered Chinese companies marketing illegal torture equipment at the Milipol arms & security trade fair. As a result of our intervention, fair organisers took measures against the firms involved.
A counterclaim might be an interesting idea
‘A Muslim’s rights are secondary to perceived security concerns.’
Asim Qureshi on the case of Fahad Ansari, and the uses and abuses of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
