A Voice for the Voiceless

By: Carson Roberts

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

Strasbourg, France – Ten children, ages one to five at the time, have not been heard from since Russia took control of Crimea in 2014. On September 22, 2026, a Ukrainian human rights group asked the European Court of Human Rights to recognize that silence as an enforced disappearance.

Women with children in strollers pass armed men believed to be Russian servicemen outside a Ukrainian military base near Simferopol, Crimea, in March 2014. Photo Courtesy of Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters.

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) filed the application in January 2023 on behalf of the ten children. When Russia asserted jurisdiction over the peninsula in 2014, they were living in state childcare institutions and under the care of the Ukrainian state. According to UHHRU, more than 4,000 children in Crimea without parental care were automatically declared Russian citizens after the occupation began. Ukrainian authorities requested their return. Russia declined and instead opened adoption procedures. Profiles of these ten children later appeared on Russian adoption and foster placement databases, and information about some has since disappeared from public sources. The applicants say this may indicate that the children have been adopted.

The application relies on two provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights: Article 5, which guarantees the right to liberty and security, and Article 8, which protects private and family life. Under international law, enforced disappearance combines deprivation of liberty with a refusal to acknowledge a person’s fate or whereabouts. The applicants argue that the children were unlawfully detained and their whereabouts concealed, constituting an enforced disappearance under Article 5, and that the arbitrary change of their citizenship violated their rights under Article 8.

The Court held the public hearing at the applicants’ request. It will rule on admissibility and the merits later.

Represented by the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, the applicants argued that the conduct must be read cumulatively. They submitted that imposing Russian citizenship, combined with the ability to change a child’s name, date of birth, and place of birth, erased the children’s social identity as Ukrainians.

Several third parties intervened. International Partnership for Human Rights and the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health jointly submitted that the removal, adoption, and Russification of Ukrainian children are not isolated wartime incidents, but amount to “a deliberate state policy,” planned at the highest levels of the Russian government, codified in federal legislation, and administered by permanent federal institutions. The Government of Ukraine and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute also addressed the Court.

The Russian Government filed no observations and did not appear. The judges pressed the parties on the evidence showing that any of the children had in fact left Crimea or been placed with a family, and on why the application was lodged nine years after the events.

The International Criminal Court has charged similar conduct under a different theory. In March 2023, its judges issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the war crimes of unlawful deportation and transfer of children, covering conduct dating back to at least February 24, 2022. Neither warrant has been executed, and the ICC has no power to make an arrest itself. By contrast, the case before the European Court of Human Rights requires no arrest and reaches back to 2014.

For further information, please see:

Agence Europe – ECHR Holds Hearing on Placement of 10 Ukrainian Children in Russian Adoption System in Crimea – 23 Sept. 2026

Al Jazeera – ECHR Hears How 10 Children Went Missing After Russia Annexed Crimea – 22 Sept. 2026

ECHR – European Convention on Human Rights – 1950

ECHR – Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union on behalf of ten Ukrainian children v. Russia, no. 6719/23 – 10 Jul. 2026

ICC – Situation in Ukraine: ICC Judges Issue Arrest Warrants Against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova – 17 Mar. 2023

IPHR – IPHR Addresses European Court of Human Rights on Russia’s Programme of Adoption and Russification of Ukrainian Children – 22 Sept. 2026

By Megan Bush

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

ARUSHA, Tanzania – On June 5, 2026, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights delivered its final judgment in the case of Masudi Said Selemani v. United Republic of Tanzania.  The court ruled that the imposition of a mandatory death sentence without judicial discretion violates due process. 

On July 15, 2010, the appellant killed his cousin, following false reports made by his cousin’s family to the village authorities that the appellant stole maize from a neighbor. Subsequently, on October 18, 2012, Selemani was arrested and arraigned. Selemani was later convicted on May 15, 2013 of murder. Due to the nature of his crime, Selemani was automatically sentenced to death by hanging. Selemani appealed to an appellate court, but the court dismissed his appeal on November 22, 2014.

On August 19, 2019, Selemani filed an application to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights seeking for the court to set aside his death sentence and remove him from death row. The application was accepted.

African Court on Human and People’s Rights during the ruling of the case in Arusha, Tanzania on June 5, 2026. Photo courtesy of The East African.

During the hearings, Selemani argued that Tanzania violated his right to life under Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and his freedom from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment under Article 5.

The court found the imposition of a mandatory death sentence without the allowance of judicial

discretion is a violation of due process. The mandatory death sentence also violates Article 4 because it arbitrarily deprives life. The court additionally found that Article 5 was violated due to Selemani’s prolonged detention on death row, dehumanizing conditions, and the execution method of hanging being implemented.

Due to its findings, the court ordered Tanzania to take all necessary measures to remove the mandatory death sentence provision quickly and to disallow the use of hanging as a method of execution. Additionally, the court directed Tanzania to vacate Selemani’s sentence, remove him from death row, and rehear his case through a procedure allowing judicial discretion. The court awarded Selemani 300,000 Tanzanian shillings in moral damages.

For further information, please see:

African Case Law Analyzer – Selemani v. Tanzania, No. 042/2019 June 2026

OAS – African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul Charter)

The East African – “African Court Orders Tanzania to End Mandatory Death Penalty, Hanging” June 2026

September 25, 2026

By: William Cody Hubbard

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor  

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court (ICC) has rejected a request to open an examination into the complicity of European arms dealers contributing to the Yemen conflict. 

Yemen’s Houthi followers on December 17, 2024, on the outskirts of Sana’a, Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

In 2019, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), along with other organizations such as Mwatana for Human Rights and Amnesty International, filed a formal communication submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC requesting an investigation to determine whether European corporate and government actors aided and abetted war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia in conjunction with the war in Yemen. 

The communication details 26 incidents of airstrikes conducted by the Saudi-UAE Coalition on residential buildings, schools, hospitals, a museum, and heritage sites which could amount to war crimes under the Rome Statute. 

According to the ECCHR, the Office of the Prosecutor did not provide any specific legal reasoning as to why it declined to open an investigation, coming to this conclusion almost seven years after the communication was submitted. 

The OTP is granted the ability to initiate investigations based on information received by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the ECCHR, and may do so if the OTP determines that the crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC, pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute. The ICC may then choose to exercise its jurisdiction over the matter. 

Because the OTP did not provide specific legal reasoning as to why it did not initiate a preliminary investigation, NGOs are left to speculate. The Arms Trade Litigation Monitor (ATLM) argues that there could be a hurdle in establishing a causal link between the conduct of the alleged accomplices of the war crimes and the crimes themselves, reasoning that ambiguity in the nature of arms dealing, such as end-user transfer dates, is a significant challenge to establishing criminal liability. 

An argument made in support of prosecution is that European arms dealers should be held criminally liable for war crimes, or crimes of aggression, under Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute, which says that a person shall be held criminally liable for a crime if they aid, abet, or provide the means for the commission of the crime. 

Opponents of the OTP decision say that the lack of international accountability lets arms dealers continue to act with impunity. 

Similar cases had been filed in ICC member states such as in Italy; however, there is currently a lack of investigation happening in domestic jurisdictions in Europe regarding criminal liability for arms dealers’ involvement in war crimes. 

For further information, please see:  

European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights – ICC rejects request to open examination into complicity of Rheinmetall and other arms traders in Yemen conflict – 11 May 2026

European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights – Made in Europe, bombed in Yemen

Arms Trade Litigation Monitor – Arms in Yemen at the International Criminal Court

Human Rights Watch – Yemen: Coalition Bombs Homes in Capital – 21 Dec. 2015

Arms Trade Litigation Monitor – Individual Criminal Liability for Arms Exports under the ICC Statute: A Case Study of Arms Exports from Europe to Saudi-led Coalition Members Used in the War in Yemen – 18 Oct. 2019

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

September 23, 2026

By: Conner Scholze

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States – Filing suit in 2011, practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious movement that started in China in the 1990s, alleged that an American technology company built the surveillance tools China used to find and detain them.

Surveillance cameras in operation in Shanghai, China in January of 2022. Photo Courtesy of Qilai Shen/Bloomberg News.

Under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) and the Torture Victim Protection Act, plaintiffs, who are practitioners of the Falun Gong religious movement, contended that the Chinese Government persecuted them due to their religious beliefs. Specifically, these victims alleged that Cisco Systems, Inc., aided and abetted international law violations including torture, cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, forced labor, detention, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial killing, and forced disappearance. Through developing surveillance technology that allowed China to identify and apprehend Falun Gong practitioners, the plaintiffs believed that Cisco aided and abetted in violating international law. One plaintiff sought to go so far as to bring a claim against two Cisco executives individually for aiding and abetting torture. Defendant, Cisco, is an American multinational technology corporation that designs and manufactures internet networking devices and services for the communications and information technology industries.

Among the statutes involved, the Alien Tort Statute is a procedural tool that grants federal district courts jurisdiction over civil suits brought by foreign nationals “for a tort only committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” The Torture Victim Protection Act creates civil liability for anyone acting under color of law of any foreign nation who subjects an individual to torture or extrajudicial killing.

In June of 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved whether a judicially implied private right of action for aiding and abetting exists under the ATS and under the Torture Victim Protection Act.

As Cisco would ultimately convince the Court, the Alien Tort Statute is a jurisdictional statute that does not create new private actions for violations of international norms because Congress is tasked with creating private rights. Cases involving the ATS inherently implicate the political branches.

In reaching its decision, the Court drew on Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, which established that the ATS is a jurisdictional statute that creates no new causes of action. However, Sosa left open a narrow possibility that courts could recognize new causes of action under a two-part test guided by the international norm and judicial discretion. Sosa determined whether a Mexican national who was abducted and arbitrarily detained in Mexico could sue those involved in U.S. courts. On the issue of interpreting the Torture Victim Protection Act, the majority found that the statute’s silence on aiding and abetting created no liability for the two Cisco executives.

In dissent, Justice Sotomayor argued that under the Torture Victim Protection, subjecting an individual to torture ordinarily means the person “consciously and culpably participates in the torture so as to help make it succeed.”

As American companies continue to operate and sell abroad, the decision forecloses aiding and abetting liability under both statutes for U.S. corporations and their executives, redirecting foreign nationals seeking redress to Congress, the Executive, or other international actors.

For further information, please see:

Supreme Court of the United States – Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe, No. 24-856 – 23 June 2026

Supreme Court of the United States – Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 – 29 June 2004

The Alien Tort Statute, Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute – Feb. 2024

H.R. 2092 – Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, Library of Congress – 25 Nov. 1991

Supreme Court – Alien Tort Statute Does Not Authorize Judicially Created Causes of Action, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP – 25 June 2026