The Weekly Round-Up: ICC Arrest Warrants, Landmines in Ukraine, & Defining Sex in the Supreme Court
25 November 2024
In the News
US President Joe Biden agreed last week to provide Ukraine with anti-personnel land mines as part of their 70th military aid package to Ukraine. The decision represents a significant departure from the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2022 policy which committed to limiting the use of landmines on the grounds that the weapons have a ‘disproportionate impact on civilians, including children, long after fighting has stopped’. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the US in a video address last Wednesday, stating that the ‘essential’ mines will ‘significantly strengthen troops on the front line’. However, the decision has been met with widespread concern. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines has condemned the decision as ‘unconscionable’, expressing that the ‘human cost of this decision cannot be overstated. Ukraine already faces decades of demining work due to extensive Russian landmine use. Adding new mines to this contamination will only extend the suffering of civilians and complicate post-conflict recovery efforts’.
Uganda opposition leader Kizza Besigye appeared in military court this week after disappearing on November 16th in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Last Wednesday, it transpired that he was being held in Ugandan military custody when he appeared before the court charged with national security offences and unlawful possession of firearms. Winnie Byanyima, Besigye’s wife and human rights activist, said in a post on X that Besigye ‘has not owned a gun in the last 20 years’, and, as a civilian, ‘should be tried in a civilian court not a military court’. Human Rights Watch have stated that this is only the ‘latest example of Uganda’s authorities misusing military courts and military-related charges to clamp down on the opposition’. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk has released a statement expressing his ‘shock’ at the ‘abduction’ and the ‘deeply concerning practice in Uganda of prosecuting civilians in military courts, in contravention of the country’s obligations under international human rights law’.
In the Courts
On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced its decision to issue warrants of arrest for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside Mohammed Deif, Hamas military leader whom Israel claim was killed earlier this year. The decision comes after the dismissal of two challenges launched by Israel disputing the Court’s jurisdiction. The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant are issued after the Chamber found ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe the individuals bear criminal responsibility for alleged ‘crimes against humanity and war crimes’. Netanyahu responded later on Thursday to the news of a warrant being issued against him, claiming that the ICC’s warrant is based on ‘false’ accusations made by ‘biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic sentiments against the one and only Jewish state’, and that ‘no war is more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza’. US President Joe Biden has called the decision ‘outrageous’, stating that ‘whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas’. Downing Street, though declining to comment on the specific case, has indicated that it will fulfil its ‘legal obligations’ as imposed under international law. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, speaking to Sky News, added that it is ‘not really a question of should; we are required to because we are members of the ICC.’
A Wyoming Judge on Monday struck down the State’s ban on abortion – including its explicit ban on abortion pills – following a legal challenge brought by a group of women and non-profit organisations. Melissa Owens, Teton Country district judge, ruled that the ban violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment which enshrined the right of Wyoming citizens to have control over their healthcare decisions. Owens stated in judgment that ‘abortion procedures constitute essential health care for pregnant women’ and that there is ‘no compelling governmental interest to eliminate abortion procedures based on the State’s position that abortions are gruesome and barbaric’. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon announced the day after judgment was handed down that he has instructed the Attorney General to prepare an appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court, whose members were all appointed by anti-abortion Republican governors.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission published its written submissions last week in advance of the Supreme Court hearing in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers, in which it has been granted permission to intervene. The case, which is likely to result in a landmark decision on the legal definitions of ‘woman’ and ‘sex’, is due to take place on the 26th and 27th of November. The appeal has been brought by the controversial gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland and contests the lawfulness of Scottish Government guidance which states that a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate that recognises their gender as female is to be treated as having the sex of woman. The EHRC’s submissions on appeal take the view that the definition of sex in the Equality Act ‘creates significant inconsistencies, which impair the proper functioning of the Equality Act and jeopardise the rights and interests of women and same-sex attracted people. […] As the equality regulator, we deem this to be a wholly unsatisfactory situation, which Parliament should address with urgency’. Amnesty International UK, who are also intervening, have stated that they are doing so because they believe ‘it is vital the Court is assisted by submissions setting out why legal gender recognition is a human rights issue and that trans people should not be expected to live without it’. A case note on the decision being appealed this week can be found here on the blog.
