Ten years after its establishment in Arusha, Tanzania, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is still hampered by shortcomings that would render any court ineffective. Whilst the willingness to establish a human rights court on a continent victim to devastating crimes against humanity is commendable, the Court is characterised by

This article deals with the premises that ought to be considered when analysing developments in China. It then goes on to suggest why one ought not to be disappointed, but be cautiously optimistic of the reforms laid out in the Third Plenum concluded on 12th November 2013.

Over the past week, Lithuania, Nigeria, Chile, Chad and Saudi Arabia were elected unopposed to five non-permanent member seats in the UN Security Council. Only a few hours later, Saudi Arabia, though hardly a state celebrated for its human rights record, rejected its seat

On Saturday 12th October, the African Union held an extraordinary session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to consider Africa’s relationship with the International Criminal Court. The outcome of that debate was a request from the African Union to the Security Council to defer the cases of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto

There’s an odd, and slightly twisted argument doing the rounds at the moment. It goes: it’s perfectly ok to let genocide happen, yes, even on your doorstep. Let’s just restrict the discussion to that. Not regime change, not geopolitical advantage, simply the prevention of genocide. It’s ok.

The big watchword for the upcoming Indonesian legislative and presidential elections in 2014 is golput. Golput, which has its history in the New Order regime, is perhaps best understood as a form of protest vote against the current political establishment. It tends to take the form of low voter turnout or intentional non-marking of the ballot to invalidate it.

On the 6th of September, the Kenyan Parliament passed a motion to withdraw from the ICC. Kenya is the first country ever to make moves to withdraw from the court and this could have wide reaching implications, not least for Kenya.

The ongoing 'Arab Winter' is showing that there was always more than dictatorships to blame forthe Arab world's malaise. Popular protests across the Arab world in early 2011, which led to the overthrow of deeply entrenched authoritarian dictatorships, were warmly welcomed around the world.

Algeria has the potential to emerge from the Arab Spring as a regional power. This may be good news for western states, but it's bad new for Arab revolutionaries. In the context of the Arab Spring, or Arab Winter, much attention has been paid to those states seen to be exerting influence from behind the scenes

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s influence in the Middle East has been greatly undermined and its policy has changed in emphasis and intensity. While during the clash between the two superpowers – the US and the Soviet Union – the Middle East was part of its ideological battlefield