In April 1940, in what would come to be known as the Katyn Massacre, members of the feared Soviet secret police force, the NKVD, began the systematic murders of more than 21,000 Polish prisoners of war. The victims of the massacre — which, in addition to military officers, included many civilians — were buried by [...]
For Oleh Kornat, a lawyer-turned-member of the Ukrainian resistance, a disturbing element of Moscow’s invasion of his country has been its misuse of the term “genocide” to justify it. “Civilians are being targeted. Maternity wards have been attacked. Children with cancer have been displaced. And this has all happened under the guise of Russia’s ostensible [...]
In the days that have passed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many have questioned the implications of this unchecked aggression against a sovereign nation for the post-war international order. Fears have proliferated that international justice is dead, that autocracy has won. But a closer look reveals that this invasion is the product of weakness, not [...]
“Lately, I have been experiencing a strong form of survivors guilt,” said Afghan legal scholar Ahmad Ali Shariati in a recent interview. A recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship, he had just completed his studies for a legal master’s at the University of Aberdeen when the Taliban reclaimed control of Kabul amid the fallout of [...]
Knowing what you know now about the Holocaust, if you were given a chance to go back in time and attend the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, would you? Would you willingly support the propagandistic rebranding efforts of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime? Or would you do everything in your power not only to [...]
“Lawyers have the courage to speak up. Lawyers are educated. Lawyers are the people that can object to whatever dark policies would like to implement. is going to start very soon. It’s going to be really, really terrible, even compared to what we have seen so far,” warns Saeeq Shajjan, a corporate attorney from Kabul. [...]
January 24 marks the International Day of the Endangered Lawyer—an occasion to reflect on lawyers worldwide who have been subjected to harassment, silencing, pressure, threats, persecution, torture, murder and disappearance. In theory, the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers aim to safeguard members of the profession, but in practice, far too many attorneys [...]
Months have passed since the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan amid the chaotic final chapter of the United States’ 20-year war in the country. Yet many thousands of the Afghan citizens who provided critical assistance to Washington and other foreign governments and international organizations over the past two decades now find themselves targeted for this [...]
As the diplomatic and military consequences of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan continue to unfold, the true human cost remains immeasurable. Months after the last US forces departed from Kabul, leaving the country under Taliban rule, many face persecution for having upheld the very democratic ideals Washington and its allies spent two decades fostering [...]
On Sunday, a group of young Afghan lawyers gathered in a Kabul hotel to hold a press conference about the importance of an independent legal profession and respect for the rule of law in Afghanistan. As they prepared to go live, their plans were thwarted by two carloads of armed Taliban. This was the latest [...]
