Blog post archive

Monday, 21 Oct 2024
Civil Society Participation in International Criminal Justice

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is in trouble. To commentators and observers of the Court, one crisis seems to lead on to the next, so that the field of international criminal justice has been described as being in ‘perpetual crisis’. Following a brief ‘revitalization’ of the Court due to its ...

Monday, 21 Mar 2022
The Taliban, International Law and the Rest of the World

The population of Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Twenty-three million Afghans, more than half of the population, are starving. The UN warns of a risk that a million Afghan children will die. In this situation, there is no way of avoiding cooperation with those in control of the country, namely ...

Saturday, 5 Mar 2022
Forced Displacement from Ukraine: Notes on Humanitarian Protection and Durable Solutions

The Russian invasion of Ukraine February 24 2022 marks the start of a new displacement crisis. In a statement on February 24, Filippo Grandi, the High Commissioner for Refugees, emphasized that ‘The humanitarian consequences on civilian populations will be devastating. There are no winners in war, but countless lives will ...

Wednesday, 2 Mar 2022
Russia Has Violated the Fundamental Rules of International Law. What Are the Consequences?

Vladimir Putin’s speech on 24 February was not only a formal announcement of his invasion of Ukraine, but also a defence of this use of force under international law. The fact that Russia is relying on international law is no surprise – Russia has always done so. The question is ...

Wednesday, 20 May 2020
The SDGs, access to civil justice, and legal technology

This blog critically assesses the potential of legal tech for improving access to civil justice as measured by the new Sustainable Development Goals indicator 16.3.3. Unresolved legal issues engender marginalisation. The need for better legal aid services is significant not only in Least Developed Countries, but remains a challenge in emerging and ...

Friday, 21 Feb 2020
Teaching transitional justice after conflict and terror: Cases of Kosovo and Norway

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Kjersti Lohne ask: How can education help to realize the multiple goals and visions of transitional justice, and how can transnational justice be adapted to new educational objectives? This is the first post in an occasional series on the legal, bureaucratic and political aftermaths of the July ...

Friday, 14 Feb 2020
Is Legal Technology a New ‘Moment’ in the Law and Development Trajectory?

Introduction This post addresses an emergent field of inquiry for critical geography, namely the transnational dissemination of legal technology for rule of law purposes. Whereas critical attention has been given to digital humanitarianism and the “marketization” of displacement through Big Data (Burns 2019; Taylor and Meissner 2019), little focus has ...

Tuesday, 4 Feb 2020
“Drone technology has democratized”: An Interview with Bruno Oliveira Martins and Andrea Silkoset

On February 12 PRIO will host a launch event for the report: Counter-Drone Systems: Implications for Norway in an EU and NATO context. The report aims to comprehensively address opportunities and potential risks, associated with the implementation of counter-drone technology (C-UAS). Together with Arthur Holland Michel, PRIO researchers Bruno Oliveira ...

Thursday, 31 Aug 2017
Building a Sociology of Law for the Humanitarian Field

Legal sociology has paid significant attention to human rights, but in contrast to legal anthropology, little focus has been given to humanitarianism. In this contribution, we ask, what does a legal sociological research agenda for the humanitarian field look like? Humanitarianism is many things to many people. As described by ...