Noelle Quenivet

• PhD in Law
• Professor (Full) at University of the West of England, Bristol

This article investigates whether international law prohibits the prosecution of children for war crimes and, if it does not, whether it should do so. In particular, the interplay between restorative and retributive post-conflict justice mechanisms, on the one hand, and juvenile rehabilitative justice mechanisms, on the other, is discussed in detai...

Nationality is a surprisingly complex and emotive issue. At a time when global events appear increasingly threatening, the individual desire to align with a solid State is stronger than ever. While the acquisition of nationality is commonly not subject to much controversy, this chapter looks at Russia’s escalating process of conferring nationality...

Whilst most legal scholarship focuses on the responsibility of the United Nations for human rights violations few studies have ascertained the legal basis of the primary rules leading to such responsibility. This article fills this gap by reviewing the theories used to bind the un to customary human rights law: (1) the un has inherited its member s...

The growing number of military operations conducted by States Party to the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) abroad has led to a concomitant surge in court cases, notably relating to the duty to investigate an attack resulting in the death of an individual. Using the example of the British armed forces abroad, this article contends that...

Dominic Ongwen was convicted and sentenced for numerous atrocities by the International Criminal Court ( icc ) in 2021. The Defence focused on the coercive environment that Ongwen was subjected to from his abduction as a boy until his surrender as an adult. The icc rejected the claim of duress as a ground for excluding criminal responsibility in th...

Since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that started on 24 February 2022 accusations of genocide have been levelled against each other by both sides. This article focuses on the claim that Russia is carrying out a genocide in Ukraine. After explaining the concept of genocide and the legal consequences of such qualification, t...

After summarising the key findings of the study, this chapter brings the conversation back to two points. Firstly, it reiterates the legal and ethical importance that alleged perpetrators of international crimes be able to invoke defences and have a fair chance for such a defence to be successful. Secondly, it stresses that the dual status of child...

This chapter begins with an examination of the concept of defences in international criminal law before retracing the development and the application of the defence of duress in national and international law. It also sets out the theoretical differences between duress as a justification defence and as an excuse defence. A theoretical and jurisprud...

In addition to the requirements that must be fulfilled to successfully raise the defence of duress under Article 31(1)(d) of the ICC Statute, a number of limitations and exclusions are integrated into the defence of duress. This chapter explores the limitations placed on the defence of duress in the light of child soldiers. It looks specifically at...

The application of duress as a justification defence by national and international criminal tribunals has resulted largely in a number of accused failing to invoke successfully the defence. This chapter therefore examines the application of duress as an excuse as opposed to a justification defence. By revisiting and applying duress as an excuse rat...

This chapter methodically applies the requirements of the defence of duress to the particular situation of children aged 15–18 years who have committed crimes under international law. This is done by applying all the requirements of the defence of duress in Article 31(1)(d) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute to the specific situation...

This book investigates the use of duress as a defence in international criminal law, specifically in cases of child soldiers. The prosecution of children for international crimes often only focuses on whether children can and should be prosecuted under international law. However, it is rarely considered what would happen to these children at the tr...

Written Evidence Submitted to House of Lords Select Committee on Sexual Violence in Conflict

Discusses and suggests proposals to dealing with enforcement proceedings against the UK under Articles 258-260 TFEU before and after Brexit

Blog Post on withdrawing from the EU and the EEA.

After the UK leaves the European Union, what will happen to UK nationals currently living in another European country? Will they be allowed to stay in those countries? What about those UK nationals who were intending to move to another European country in the next few years?

Written Submission to European and External Relations Committee of the Scottish Parliament

This chapter examines an issue that has been less discussed, that of the crimes related to the international armed conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam. In Duch the Court reluctantly sets itself to the task, finding the appellant guilty of a range of grave breaches including wilful killing, torture and wilful deprivation of the rights of fair and...

The debate between restorative and retributive justice has never been felt so strongly than in relation to the crimes perpetrated by children in armed conflicts in Africa. The society (e.g. Sierra Leone) in which these children have perpetrated the crimes demands justice in the form of punishment. For the victims, children, alike adults, have taken...

International humanitarian law (IHL) is based on the premise that armed conflicts can be categorised as either international under Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions or Article 1(4) of Additional Protocol I or non-international under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and/or Article 1 of Additional Protocol II. Depending on their qu...

The typical armed conflict of the last few decades has not been one in which such instruments of high technology as unmanned drones and guided missiles have been used; rather, it has been fought by young people with AK-47s and machetes. Since the early 1990s, an array of non-governmental organisations and individual activists have strongly argued a...

In the past two decades the United Nations (UN) has deployed personnel, both military and civilian, to maintain peace and security, to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law as well as to protect populations from human rights violations. Still, the mechanism is not without flaws. One of the recent criticisms raised regards widespread...

As a growing number of stories unravelled the involvement of United Nations peacekeepers in human trafficking and sexual exploitation cases, the United Nations adopted in 2003 and implemented a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual encounters between peacekeepers and local women. This article argues that this policy is flawed for a number of reasons...

There is no doubt that the United Nations has on various occasions violated human rights norms. Yet, it is unclear what the international legal source of its obligations to abide by human rights law is. This Article examines whether it is possible to bind the United Nations by way of the laws of treaties to the human rights provisions enshrined in...

New security threats, which have surfaced in the past few years, are seriously jeopardizing the relevance and implementation of international humanitarian law. This paper investigates the impact of the war on terror on the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law, examining in particular whether the practices of some States, notab...

Since 2003 Darfur has been enmeshed in an armed conflict that has caused the deaths of hundred thousands civilians and displaced many more. It is even argued that genocide is being committed in this part of Sudan. According to the newly emerged principle of the “responsibility to protect” the Security Council should take action to put an end to the...

Recently, organisations working with former child soldiers have observed the growing number of girls involved in armed conflicts. While their fate as sexual slaves is well documented, their participation in hostilities is less acknowledged. Girls, like boys, spy, loot, and kill, but they also cook, clean, and run camps. International humanitarian l...

Drawing upon previous theories on the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law, this book examines on the basis of a series of individual case-studies the new theoretical trend arguing for a merge of these two sets of norms. © 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. All rights reserved.

This chapter first discusses the position of individuals as right- and then as duty-holders under the two legal regimes of international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law (HRL). Under the first regime the substantial rights provided to individuals under the various human rights treaties are considered with relation to the idea that human...

This chapter examines the jurisprudence of European Court of Human Rights in relation to the right to life in times of armed conflict, with a specific focus on a series of judgments delivered on February 24, 2005 relating to violations committed on the territory of Chechen Republic in the Russian Federation. It explores the possibility that human r...

The relationship between human rights law (HRL) and international humanitarian law (IHL), also called the law of war, did not draw much attention until the late 1960s. This is the introduction chapter of the book, which examines the current state of the law and the interpretations provided by various legal scholars. At the heart of the enquiry is w...

In 2004, the United Nations Secretary-General published the report of the high-level panel of experts on threats, challenges and change that projected a comprehensive strategy to fight various types of scourges that afflict humankind and notably terrorism. The report and the following world summit documents inscribe themselves in established trends...

The crisis in Darfur (Sudan), which sparked in February 2003, only caught the United Nations’ attention in Spring 2004. Questions emerged as to whether the conflict between the rebels and the government was simply insurgency warfare or, in fact, concealed a genocide carried out by the Arab, Muslim-led government against the Animist and Christian-Af...

This review essay aims to assess whether international law has actually changed significantly since 9/11, or whether there is just an impression of change conveyed by books and articles published shortly after the events. Most books on terrorism start their discussion by wrestling with the concept of ‘terrorism’. In a second step, authors examine t...

Das Symposium, das uns, Friedensforscher aus Deutschland, in Augsburg zusammen gebracht hat, diente dem Austausch von Erfahrungen in der Friedens-und Konfliktforschung in Deutschland. Festgestellt wurde, dass die Friedensforschung zwangsläufig verschiedene Aspekte umfasst, so dass letztlich kein Friedensforscher die Meinung vertreten kann, er/sie h...

On 23 October 2002, a group of about 50 Chechens seized a Moscow theatre and held hundreds of people hostage, threatening to shoot their captives and blow up the building if Russian security amassed outside the theatre attacked. Their demand, that the operations mounted by the Russian army in Chechnya cease, was not taken into account by the author...