Human Rights at the International Court of Justice: An Avenue for Global Justice?

The litigation of human rights issues has proliferated at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over recent years, within both its contentious (inter-State) and advisory proceedings. Some notable examples include the proceedings brought by South Africa against Israel in December 2023 on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip, the pending Advisory Opinions on the Right to Strike under ILO Convention No. 87 and Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, as well as the July 2024 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. 

Please join us for this event which will explore the ICJ’s role in the development, protection, and enforcement of international human rights law across different subject matters: from genocide to climate change. The panel will analyse this new era at the ICJ from both a positive and a critical perspective. While on the one hand, the ICJ has been instrumental in progressing the understanding of rights such as the right to self-determination (first in its Chagos Advisory Opinion in 2019, and again in its Advisory Opinion on the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2024), it is not specifically a human rights court, resulting in limitations on how far it can go in advancing international human rights law and global justice. In particular, the panel will discuss subjects matters such as the relationship between domestic and regional court proceedings with the ICJ’s proceedings, State responsibility for genocide, and the role and engagement of civil society with the ICJ. The seminar will be in person at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights.

Başak Çalı is head of research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Professor of International Law. Previously, she was professor of international law and founding director of the  Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School, Berlin. She holds a permanent visiting professorship from the I-Courts Centre for Excellence at the University of Copenhagen and is a fellow the University of Essex Human Rights Centre and the Hertie School. She has held visiting professorships in Ankara, Oslo, Paris, and Natolin and serves on the board of a number of journals.

Her expertise concerns international law and human rights. She has published widely in the fields of authority of international law, standards of review in international law, the relationship between international law and domestic law, European human rights law, UN human rights law and comparative international human rights law. She has pioneered the study of bad faith violations of human rights law (Wisconsin International Law Journal, 2018), and is the author of 'Authority of International Law: Obedience, Respect and Rebuttal' (OUP 2015), editor of International Law for International Relations (OUP, 2010), co- editor of Legalisation of Human Rights: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights and Human Rights Law (Routledge 2006), Migration and the European Convention on Human Rights (OUP, 2021) and Secondary Rules of Primary Importance: Standards of Review, Causality, Evidence and Attribution before International Courts and Tribunals (OUP, 2022).

She is the principle investigator of ‘Deep Impact through Soft Jurisprudence? The Contribution of United Nations Treaty Body Case Law to the Development of International Human Rights Law’ (German Science Council 2023-2026) and co-investigator of ‘Frames: Framing Reality and Normativity in European Human Rights Law: Climate Change, Migration, and Authoritarianism (Volkswagen Foundation 2023-2025).

As a legal practitioner, Başak is a co-founder of the European Implementation Network, Europe’s leading civil society organization that advocates for the full and effective implementation of human rights judgments. She has acted as an expert on the European Convention on Human Rights since 2002 and has trained judges, prosecutors, lawyers and police officers in the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights across the Council of Europe. She has acted as a legal representative or advisor in cases before the European Court of Human Rights.

Lara Ibrahim is a DPhil in Law candidate at the University of Oxford. Her main research interests are in Public International Law, looking specifically at extraterritorial human rights obligations of States in relation to environmental harm and climate change. In 2023/24, Lara was a Judicial Fellow at the International Court of Justice, clerking for the Vice-President of the Court, where she worked on a wide range of contentious and advisory cases. Lara also completed the Bachelor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford, and graduated from the University of Sheffield with her LLB Law

Harj Narulla is a barrister specialising in climate law and litigation at Doughty Street Chambers in London. He is an Honorary Research Associate in climate law at the University of Oxford's Sustainable Law Programme and is also a Visiting Senior Fellow in at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. 

Harj represents and advises States, international organisations, NGOs and vulnerable communities on climate and environmental matters. He recently acted for the Solomon Islands before the International Court of Justice in its climate change proceedings, and has previously represented clients in climate cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He has also advised the UNFCCC and the Asian Development Bank on climate and environmental law reform.

Clive Baldwin is Senior Legal Advisor for the legal and policy office at Human Rights Watch, where he has been working on issues of international law since 2007. He is the lead author of HRW’s report documenting UK and US crimes against humanity against the Chagossian people. 

Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Clive was a practicing lawyer in London for the human rights law firm, Bindman and Partners, and worked on European human rights litigation at the AIRE Centre. He subsequently worked for the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, and later served as Head of Advocacy for Minority Rights Group International. 

He has litigated or supported litigation in key international tribunals, including the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice.  He studied at the University of Leeds, Princeton University and City University, London.