Via @ConversationUK – Twenty years after Srebrenica, ethnic cleansing has become a defence to genocide

Prof James A. Sweeney

Ethnic cleansing has become a defence to genocide http://t.co/WN62FuHb87 #Srebrenica pic.twitter.com/SoXKhHNgKY

— The Conversation (@ConversationUK) July 10, 2015

James A. Sweeney (@James_Sweeney_) is Professor of International Law in the Law School at Lancaster University.  He has published widely in the areas of human rights and refugee law, and is the author of The European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era: Universality in Transition, the first monograph to examine transitional justice in the jurisprudence of the ECHR.  His work on the human rights of failed asylum seekers, [2008] Public Law 277-301, has the distinction of being cited with approval both by the House of Lords and the Court of Appeal, in the cases of R (on the application of M) v Slough BC [2008] UKHL 52, [28], and SL v Westminster City Council [2011] EWCA Civ 954, [16].

You can find out more about James’ research at http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/law/profiles/james-sweeney

Genocide and Cosmopolitanism in Europe

Prof James A. Sweeney

Over the last month I’ve done work in Turkey and London with the Kosovo judiciary, and spoken by invitation at a conference on ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’ in Oslo.  In this post I’ll try to set out what connects these activities, and offer a comment upon a recent European Court of Human Rights case.

Kosovo and its highest courts: At the coalface of transitional constitutionalism

Professor James A. Sweeney

The German professor on my right is banging his fist on the desk, making a good point loudly.  On my far right is the President of the Kosovo Supreme Court.  To my left is the President of the Kosovo Constitutional Court.  Judges of both of these two courts are sitting at tables perpendicular to mine, facing each other like opposing quiz teams.