What are the challenges for human rights in Afghanistan, and what prospects may be identified, with the Taliban's return to power? This article analyses the challenges facing human rights in Afghanistan following the collapse of democratic governance in August 2021. In doing so, it asks two secondary questions: how transitional justice principles can be incorporated in cases where transition leads to worse human rights outcomes, and what role can the international community have in leveraging these periods of transition to encourage positive justice developments in non-paradigmatic transitions? Our analysis considers five thematic areas - human security; disproportionate uses of military force; torture; the repression of the media and press; and women's right under the current Taliban rule. We then discuss the prospects for human rights and transitional justice in Afghanistan, identifying areas where domestic actors and the international community may be able to advocate for greater protection and fulfilment of international human rights norms. This article contributes to the discussion on human rights in Afghanistan and explores the challenges of protecting human rights in conflict and post-conflict settings, and the potential for transitional justice in cases where transitions may lead to worsening democratic outcomes.
Family separation is a critical yet underexamined protection risk in global migration, particularly for women and children. This study, conducted by the ICRC Central Tracing Agency's Red Cross Red Crescent Missing Persons Centre and the Red Cross Red Crescent Global Migration Lab, in collaboration with 17 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, explores the causes and impacts of separation on migrant families in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, and approaches to prevent separation and mitigate its impacts on women and children. Drawing on 818 qualitative interviews with migrant women, children, families of missing migrants, and key informants, the research identifies gendered, structural, legal, and situational factors contributing to separation. These include experiences at borders and checkpoints, the actions of smugglers and criminal groups, and constraints on migrant communication. All these factors emerge from many migrants in vulnerable situations having little to no choice but to travel on irregular routes that are often highly dangerous. The paper highlights how separation of women and children from their families increases vulnerability to exploitation, sexual and gender-based violence, trafficking, and death, particularly in contexts of irregular migration and legal precarity. The findings are framed through a protection lens, emphasising that risks emerge from the intersection of threats, vulnerabilities, and migrant capacities. Key mitigation strategies range from access to legal documentation and safe routes, to mobile communication, humanitarian support, and accurate information. The paper concludes that separation is not an inevitable consequence of migration, but a preventable harm exacerbated by restrictive policies and lack of safe pathways for migration and asylum. Strengthening protection systems, supporting migrant-led strategies, and enabling humanitarian actors are critical to addressing the issue.
Stalking produces profound yet often invisible harms, including fear, psychological distress and forced alterations to daily life. Despite its severe impacts and well-documented links to gender-based violence, stalking remains weakly conceptualised and largely unnamed within international human rights laws and standards. The article advances two central claims. First, when interpreted in light of authoritative soft-law instruments and treaty body guidance, international human rights law already engages state obligations to prevent and respond to stalking as a form of gender-based violence. Second, the absence of explicit recognition of stalking in international standards has materially slowed domestic legal development by depriving states of conceptual, definitional and policy guidance. Through a comparative analysis of regional frameworks, contrasting the silence of the Inter-American system with the explicit regulation of stalking under the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention, the article demonstrates the regulatory effects of naming harm. It concludes with a case study of Mexico, showing how stalking remained legally invisible until grassroots mobilisation forced its recognition and criminalisation, illustrating the critical role of language and international norm-setting in shaping domestic legal responses.
Despite persistent efforts by the international community, represented by the United Nations and international human rights organisations, to alleviate the setbacks that have arisen in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians, the resurgence of armed conflict in Gaza in 2023 highlighted the ineffectiveness of previous attempts. This article posits that it is incumbent upon the international community to engage in a comprehensive re-evaluation of the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Palestinian issue. This inquiry necessarily extends across restorative justice, deterrence theory and complementarity, as these aspects reflect the core functions of the ICC and are essentially mutually reinforcing. Therefore, this paper adopts a multi-dimensional analytical framework. It provides a detailed analysis of the challenges confronted by the ICC in the context of the Palestinian issue. The article seeks to answer what the different prospects are for the deterrent effect and the complementarity role of the ICC in pursuing justice for the victims of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It argues that enhancing the complementarity with the ICC is a necessary approach to finding new possibilities and solutions for the pursuit of justice, and conducts an in-depth discussion on this issue.
