The Right to the Truth relates to the obligation of the State to provide information to victims or to their families or even society as a whole about the circumstances surrounding serious violations of human rights. The domestication of this right in India is a positive sign of dilution of state control and consolidation of constitutionalism. The article attempts to highlight the genesis of this right in International Law, how it finds an implicit space in our Constitution and implications of having the right in documentation of human rights violations and to counter the culture of impunity.
Unlike what the Central Government hopes to secure with its application, the Rafale judgment now stands vitiated by reason of what is said in para 25; it is one of the critical pillars supporting the judgment. Therefore, the outcome of the judgment can no longer be the same should para 25 lose those critical conclusions of “facts” that never took place. Hence, the Court will have to summarily remove its own judgment and rehear the issue.
Our legal system subscribes to the principle of open justice. The prayer for live-streaming of courtroom proceedings has its genesis in this principle. Open courts effectively foster public confidence by allowing litigants and members of the public to view courtroom proceedings and ensure that the judges apply the law in a fair and impartial manner.
Mutilation of dead bodies is a ‘clear violation’ of both customary, and treaty norms in both international armed conflict (IAC) and non-international armed conflict (NIAC). Under international criminal law, the prohibition of mutilating dead bodies in international armed conflicts is covered as a war crime.
The apex court refused to stop the deportation from taking place, citing that as per the Government’s statement the men had consented to being repatriated, and that Myanmar had accepted them as “citizens/nationals”. The key considerations based on which the Supreme Court refused intervention in the deportation of the Rohingya men were gravely misplaced, and raises grave concerns about its willingness to preserve basic human rights.
International law recognises the practice of enforced disappearance as a distinct offence and States have an obligation under international law to not partake in such arbitrary deprivations of liberty and human dignity. Article 1 of the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance places a non–derogable prohibition against enforced disappearance. While Pakistan has taken steps, India is woefully behind in recognising enforced disappearance as a distinct offence.
Article 35A, being the right under the Constitution to define a permanent resident, and to consequently confer upon such citizens rights related to immovable property, is intrinsically connected to both land and law in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Tampering with it, therefore, might itself give rise to claims of self-determination propelled by forces that will inevitably manifest under any forced ‘integration’ scenario.
The Brazilian Supreme Court is holding a two-day public hearing about the decriminalisation of abortion, and Senior Advocate Anand Grover was selected through an open application to speak on the subject from India. At the hearing, which took place on August 3 and is taking place today, August 6, about 50 speakers can be heard, including health, law and social science experts, as well as feminist and international human rights organizations, and religious representatives.
The latest ‘Basic Law’ that was enacted by the Israeli Knesset on July 19, 2018 has adverse effect on Palestinians within Israel and in the occupied territories of Palestine, contravenes even the assertions made in the Declaration of Independence by the Provisional Government of Israel on May 14, 1948. The existence of at least 65 other laws that seek to discriminate Arab Palestinians vis-à-vis their Jewish counterparts provide proof of the existence of an Apartheid system in Israel, which is well captured in the ESCWA Report of 2017.
Israel on July 19, 2018 adopted its Basic Law on Nationality. A salient feature of this law is that it declares Israel as the home of the Jewish people and states that the right to self determination vests exclusively with the Jewish people. In practice what this would mean is that in the event of a one state solution, the one state will have a Jewish character.
The legislation lays down that the state shall ‘act within the Diaspora to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people’ and ‘views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation’.
US foreign policy now is subject to domestic political interests i.e., catering to a particular voter base, rather than being one that is about a broader engagement with the global community.
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