EJIL

EJIL’s Associate Editors – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

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EJIL’s Associate Editors – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Writing an article is such a personal endeavour: a struggle with questions, structure and individual sentences. And when that struggle seems to be over and the article appears ready for sharing, it can be submitted to ScholarOne, a ‘journals workflow management software’ that EJIL and many other journals use. That hugely personal product is thus fed to a seemingly impersonal beast.

But ScholarOne is only the interface: behind that interface are, at EJIL, three terrific scholars who, through their intellectual and practical contributions, ensure that an article is shepherded through the editorial process. These scholars are EJIL’s Associate Editors, currently Dr Wanshu Cong, Dr Ana Luisa Bernardino and Dr Francisco Quintana, who joined the team in July 2021, March 2022 and August 2023, respectively.

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Two Weeks in Review, 4 – 17 November 2024 – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

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Two Weeks in Review, 4 – 17 November 2024 – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Cyberspace Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew and Yuval Shany analyze the African Union’s (AU) adoption of the Common African Position (CAP) on international law in cyberspace. The authors focus on the CAP’s approach to digital human rights, including how existing human rights apply online, the potential development of new digital rights, and the obligations of both states … Read more

Some Implications for the Development of Digital Human Rights – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

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EJIL’s Associate Editors – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Introduction

The African Union Peace and Security Council (PSC) has adopted in late January 2024 its much-anticipated and first-ever Common African Position on the Application of International Law to the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Cyberspace (‘Common African Position’ or CAP). The CAP reflects the views of the AU’s 55 member States. Given the fact that only 30 or so other states in the rest of the world published their national positions regarding  the applicability of international law in cyberspace, the CAP provides an exceptionally significant source for identifying international law on the topic.  Much of the discussions on the CAP since its adoption have centred on its drafting process, and on selected themes, such as principles of territorial sovereignty, non-intervention, and non-use of force, and specific issues, such as sovereignty in cyber space. In this post, we seek to explore the ways in which the CAP treats another important aspect of the applicability of international law in cyberspace – the CAP’s approach to the application of international human rights law in cyberspace and, in particular, to the emergence of digital human rights.

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Gaza, Genocide and the Discursive Limits of International Law – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

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EJIL’s Associate Editors – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

Image: Qassem, a Palestinian shepherd from Umm al Fugara, is being investigated by Israeli military police and army for land ownership, after a settler wrongfully accused him of assault. Philippe Pernot.

Whether within the lexicon of international law or the parlance of everyday conversation, invoking ‘genocide’ is pregnant with explosive and abrasive intent. Lawyers and activists alike employ the word’s singular expressive power to condemn and to galvanise. We have seen this in the case of Israel’s assault on the Gazan population over the last year. Initially, genocide was uttered in a number of circles in slightly faltering tones, but it is now used with increasing confidence and conviction in diverse circles even in the face of trenchant opposition. While practices of indescribable pain have become normalised, speakers of the law have tried to resist this trend through creative and abundant genocide anachronisms and neologisms. We understand ‘genocide anachronisms’ as adjacent terms and approaches that were either subsumed or overlooked in the drafting of the 1948 genocide definition. While these broad conceptualisations were capable of capturing the variegated elements of collective annihilation, we suggest that ‘genocide neologisms’ speaks to more recent efforts to reinvigorate the potentiality of genocide, whether as a non-legal scholarly mode of analysis or as an attempt at norm creation. Thus, when trying to characterise the carnage that is Gaza today, for many, it is no longer enough to speak of genocide. Instead, we can see a proliferation of killing (‘cide’) words to try to capture the variegated contours of genocide. Well-worn terms sit alongside newer variants, all jostling to articulate the nature of Israeli criminality. We identify these ‘cides’ as: spacioicide, domicide, ecocide, politicide, economicide, sociocide, scholasticide, memoricide, medicide, Gazacide and related terms such as ‘unchilding’, and Nakba.

Part of the reason for resorting to this cacophony of criminalisation is to undercut anxieties around the purported limitations and rigidities of genocide, especially in relation to intent and its focus on physical destruction. Rather than rejecting the law or the notion of genocide then, we understand these efforts as ways to build on traditional renderings of genocide and make these resonate with the situation in Gaza today. Such efforts perhaps speak to a widespread need by legal and non-legal scholars alike to have their respective fields be seen as relevant in the face of such suffering. It is striking that genocide and its related ‘cides’ often crowds out other paradigms, especially focused on the situation in Gaza as one of numerous crimes against humanity.

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Best Practice for Workshopping Projected Edited Collections (Books, Symposia) in 10 Not So Easy Steps – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

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EJIL’s Associate Editors – EJIL: Talk! – Go Health Pro

On my way out? It appears, you might be thinking, to be a very long and winding way, and I cannot even promise that this is the last instalment….  Still, for what it is worth, here is another of my ‘dos and don’ts’ advice on topics addressed to early career scholars on their way in, and in this case, most decidedly, the advice may profit advanced scholars and even those like me who are on their way out.

Eons ago I inveighed against edited books, or rather, unedited books (see vol. 27:3). When invited to contribute to such volumes, my advice was: proceed with caution, avoid if at all possible.

Here are a few snippets, which can be entitled ‘Worst Practice’:

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