Following the attempt by ISIS to annihilate the Yazidi minority, there has been growing momentum to achieve accountability. Global Insight assesses the routes to justice.

In May, the UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee published the report Influencer culture: Lights, camera, inaction?. It highlights that ‘child influencers are some of the most successful influencers’, and ‘influencer agencies see family influencers as some of the most in-demand social media stars […] because they appeal to both children and parents’.

A German court has handed down the second conviction of genocide for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) campaign to eradicate the Yazidi religious minority, seven months after the first genocide conviction.

In Poland, pregnant people face heightened scrutiny following an order from the Health Minister, signed in early June, requiring doctors to register all pregnancies in the country. Information collected will include past or current illnesses, medical visits, treatment and blood type. In light of Poland’s near-total abortion ban, there are fears the register could be weaponised to monitor pregnancy outcomes and persecute women suspected of having abortions or suspected abortion providers – particularly as the information can be accessed by the Polish prosecutor’s office through a court order.

The Ukraine refugee crisis has prompted unprecedented public and political support. Global Insight assesses the potential for more compassionate responses to future crises.

The ongoing trials in Germany of a former Nazi concentration camp guard and secretary demonstrate a path to individual accountability for past, present and future war crimes worldwide.

A year after insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol building, disinformation’s grip on the country is only increasing. In a year in which US voters will go to the polls for mid-term elections, Global Insight explores the dangerous direction that US democracy is heading in.

Over the past year, the Uyghur Tribunal in London has broken with tradition by hearing evidence of an alleged genocide while the atrocity is said to be ongoing. As the Tribunal prepares to hand down its judgment on whether China is committing genocide against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Global Insight reviews the proceedings.

When lockdowns first arrived, the enforced flexibility of working from home full-time was hailed as a game-changer for gender equity in corporate workplaces. COVID-19 was imagined to be the great leveller: an opportunity for all genders to equally share household chores and home-schooling, or balance extracurricular duties and volunteering while retaining full-time jobs with flexible hours. If that has been the result, why do women still report bearing the brunt of unpaid domestic work?

The fall of Afghanistan to Taliban forces in mid-August led to a mass exodus from the country as many citizens sought to escape the new regime. Following the 70th anniversary of the Refugee Convention, Global Insight examines how threats to, and gaps within, the international refugee protection regime may undermine the assistance owed to those who have fled the Taliban.

Despite restrictions on movement resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 saw the highest number of people becoming internally displaced in a decade, at 40.5 million. The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) globally reached a record 55 million in December 2020, according to a report from the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Although 85 per cent of all known IDPs have fled conflict, disasters caused more than three-quarters of 2020’s new displacements. Of those, 98 per cent were triggered by weather-related hazards, such as storms and floods, which are increasing in intensity and frequency due to factors including climate breakdown.

In late June, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the state of Honduras was responsible for the death of transwoman and activist Vicky Hernández, in the first transfemicide case to come before the Court.

In Honduras and across Latin America, transgender women don’t tend to live past 35. Thanks to social stigma reinforced by a lack of rights and legal protections, they face extreme violence and limitations on the scope of their lives.

The murder of one trans woman – Vicky Hernández – over 12 years ago has shone a spotlight on the deadly nature of state-sanctioned discrimination. Now, the landmark ruling in her case could change the lives of transgender people across the Americas.

Since high-profile Republicans warned that mail-in voting had to be limited for the party to ever win the presidency again, hundreds of restrictive bills have been introduced across state legislatures. But rights advocates are battling voter suppression, and corporate America is being pulled into the fight.

Former US President Donald J Trump faces a number of investigations, both criminal and civil, following his departure from the White House.

The United Kingdom has come under fire over its treatment of asylum seekers, with concerns raised about inhumane housing conditions and new plans that treat claims as inadmissible before an asylum seeker even reaches UK shores.

In early February, the International Criminal Court (ICC or the ‘Court’) convicted former child soldier and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Dominic Ongwen of 61 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005.

In February, the government of the Netherlands created new guidelines to determine requests for the return of colonial-era artefacts from former colonies. The guidelines apply to objects held by state museums and galleries, and if an object is deemed to have been stolen from a former colony, it will be returned unconditionally.

In autumn 2020, Ann Kappler took on a new role as Executive Vice President and General Counsel at insurance company Prudential Financial. She enters the job at a time of transformation for the company and of pandemic-induced disruption for the world, as In-House Perspective reports.

US senators voted in mid-February to acquit former president Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection. Conviction would have required 67 votes, but only 57 senators voted in favour and 43 voted to acquit.

The international community has been failing in its obligations to protect global populations from atrocities. Global Insight assesses what intervention and accountability need to look like going forward.

Global Insight examines how, even as the Bidens move into the White House and the Democrats take control of the Senate, the legacy of the Trump presidency remains strong.

The rights of half of the world’s population are threatened thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic and a state-driven backlash against gender equality. Global Insight explores recent regressions in the rights of women, the connection to the rise of nationalistic populism, and how best to counter this rollback.

A report on state responsibility for the Yazidi genocide has claimed that Iraq, Syria and Turkey should be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for failing to discharge their obligations under international law.

The UK ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (known as the ‘Istanbul Convention’) in late July, ten years after first signing it.

However, the UK has been criticised for reserving the right not to be bound by Article 59, which compels states to protect migrant women whose residency status is dependent on that of an abusive spouse or partner, including by suspending deportation proceedings to allow victims to apply for residence permits.

A Congressional House Select Committee is investigating the attack on the US Capitol last January. Global Insight assesses what these hearings mean for the legacy of former President Donald Trump – and for the future of US democracy.

On 2 May, a draft majority opinion showing that the US Supreme Court intends to overturn 49 years of a constitutional right to abortion was leaked to the public. The opinion on the case before the Court, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, reads: ‘The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision’.

For refugee rights advocates, the displacement crisis created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February demonstrates the importance of coordinated, compassionate and less bureaucratic approaches to international refugee support.

Facing low fertility rates that could undermine labour forces and social structures, governments are pursuing labour reforms, immigration expansion and pronatalist policies. Global Insight explores the impact of such policies on human rights and gender equality.

An independent people’s tribunal has found that China has committed genocide, torture and crimes against humanity against the Uyghur Muslims and other Turkic minorities. The Uyghur Tribunal in London delivered its judgment in early December after 18 months of analysing reports, documents, publicly heard witness testimony and other evidence.

Governments across Europe are being called upon to take gender-based violence as seriously as terrorism.

A novel approach to lawmaking has enabled a Texas abortion ban to evade judicial scrutiny despite concerns about its constitutionality.

As Covid-19 restrictions ease and offices reopen, the legal profession is embracing flexible working on a wide scale for the first time. In-House Perspective explores how in-house legal teams may need to support their own organisation in undertaking broader hybrid working practices, as well as adjusting to the new ways in which external firms will be operating.

The US Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative judge supermajority – created with the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the Trump administration’s last days – has begun reviewing and ruling on a string of politically divisive cases. The ongoing debate over reform of the Court itself was already heated; now the temperature of that debate is rising.

In early July, the UK’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, introduced new post-Brexit immigration reforms into Parliament. The Nationality and Borders Bill would enable officers to treat asylum seekers differently based on factors including their route of arrival, potentially criminalising those crossing the English Channel, and have asylum seekers processed offshore, among other changes.

But similar reforms elsewhere have been condemned by human rights advocates, who are concerned about the threat to the rights and protections of asylum seekers and refugees globally as governments push back against territorial asylum systems.

Following the launch of the IBA 50/50 by 2030 project on gender parity in senior legal positions, Jennifer Venis spoke to senior female lawyers about what they expect the project will find.

In April, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder and manslaughter of George Floyd, who was Black. Floyd was arrested by Chauvin and three other officers in May 2020, on suspicion of trying to use a fake $20 bill. Chauvin, who is white, knelt on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes.

In mid-February, the Tokyo High Court ruled that the Japanese government and nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) should pay a total of JPY 278m (approximately $2.6m) in damages to a group of survivors of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Sternford Moyo – Senior Partner and Chairman of Zimbabwean law firm Scanlen and Holderness – began his term as IBA President in January 2021. In this wide-ranging conversation with the IBA’s Multimedia Journalist, Jennifer Venis, Moyo gives his views on subjects including the challenges facing the International Criminal Court and tackling corruption.

As the first 100 days of the Biden presidency draw to a close, Global Insight assesses whether the administration looks set to ‘build back better’, or simply reset the United States to the pre-Trump era.

In late January, the European Commission and individual European Union Member States threatened legal action over significant delays to Covid-19 vaccine dose deliveries from AstraZeneca. The bloc almost triggered Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, which enables controversial export controls along the politically fraught border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, but U-turned after broad condemnation.

A joint report from four criminal justice watchdogs, published in mid-January, has found significant delays plaguing access to justice in England and Wales. The inspectorates for policing, prisons, probation and prosecutions have raised ‘grave concerns’ about long-term damage to the justice system as a whole.

After US President Joe Biden’s election win in November, the Trump administration and its allies launched a suite of lawsuits to attempt to overturn the result and secure Donald Trump a second term. Lawyers involved in bringing these proceedings have faced criticism on the basis of professional ethics concerns.

UK government ministers face increasing condemnation for verbal attacks on the legal profession in the aftermath of an alleged terrorism incident at a London firm.

The UK government faces a rising tide of legal action regarding decision-making during the Covid-19 pandemic. As Martyn Day, Co-Founder at Leigh Day in London, tells Global Insight, the handling of the pandemic has in some ways been ‘ripe for legal intervention’.