Nasredeen Abdulbari was in the Georgetown University Library, working on his doctoral dissertation, when he received a call on his phone. “You’ve been nominated to be the Minister of Justice,” the man on the other end told him. Fifteen years ago his community was decimated by a genocide that catalyzed thousands of ordinary Americans to […]
Beyond Takedown: Expanding the toolkit for responding to online hate
January 17, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Rebecca J. Hamilton (with Molly K. Land), Beyond Takedown: Expanding the Toolkit for Responding to Online Hate, in Propaganda and International Criminal Law (Predrag Dojčinović, ed.)(2019). The current preoccupation with ‘fake news’ has spurred a renewed emphasis in popular discourse on the potential harms of speech. In the world of international law, however, ‘fake news’ […]
After Dictatorship
December 8, 2019 by Leave a Comment
KHARTOUM, Sudan—During the morning shift at Omdurman Teaching Hospital, sick people group under trees in the courtyard, awaiting admission. There are 645 beds and upwards of 1,500 patients each day. Inside, Mohammed Elhag Hamed brought a manila folder over to me. The documents inside formed a paper trail of corruption. They showed how the political […]
Bringing the Rule of Law to Sudan
October 1, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Last week, as Americans grappled with potential impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, and lawyers on the other side of the Atlantic digested the British Supreme Court’s prorogation decision, Nasredeen Abdulbari, Sudan’s new minister of justice, appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to recount the seismic shifts afoot in his country, too: “As […]
Seize this Moment in Sudan
September 30, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Sudan is in the midst of a once-in-a-generation moment. Courageous and persistent pro-democracy protesters, who broke the grip on power that president Omar Hassan al-Bashir had held for three decades, have now succeeded in bringing civilian reformers into leadership positions. The significance of this moment might be overlooked by anyone who expects a democratic transition to be […]
Atrocity Prevention in the New Media Landscape
September 6, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Journalists have traditionally played a crucial role in building public pressure on government officials to uphold their legal obligations under the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. But over the past twenty years there has been radical change in the media landscape: foreign bureaus have been shuttered, young freelance journalists have taken […]
Commission on Unalienable Rights
June 5, 2019 by Leave a Comment
On May 30, without fanfare, a notice of intent to establish a State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights was published in the Federal Register. The stated purpose of the Commission is to provide “fresh thinking about human rights” and propose “reforms of human rights discourse where it has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law […]
It Takes a Village to Make a Monster
April 16, 2019 by Leave a Comment
The world loves to hate a villain, and Sudan’s recently ousted president, Omar al-Bashir, is a villain worthy of despise. During his 30 years of autocratic rule, he presided over the deaths of millions of Sudanese citizens, oversaw the establishment of proxy militia that have devastated communities across the country, and fostered a ruthless security […]
Bashir is out
April 11, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Today I spoke with Marco Werman at Public Radio International: “I think one of the challenges for people to understand is that this is not just about who is the individual in charge of Sudan. Sudan’s real challenge and what the protesters have been fighting for is for a state that will actually represent all […]
Sudan’s new ruler is no democrat – and he has Darfur to answer for
April 11, 2019 by Leave a Comment
After 30 years, President Omar al Bashir is no longer the ruler of Sudan. Following months of protests, the Sudanese military has taken charge of the country. This marks the fifth military coup in Sudan’s post-independence history. And while Bashir’s downfall is an extraordinary development, there is a long way to go before the protesters’ […]
