Breaking Legal Ground: ICC Investigations in Palestine

Abstract

Over the past decade, MH Group, leading international justice and human rights consultancy, has tackled some of the most challenging and controversial international cases before global and regional bodies. MH Group President and University of Oxford Lecturer, Dr Mishana Hosseinioun returns with the lead counsel of her legal team, Rodney Dixon QC, to update the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Group on the recent cases undertaken, the latest developments, and with a comparative analysis. The cases have included the capture and trial of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi in Libya following the 2011 NATO intervention; the impeachment and imprisonment in 2017 of the former President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye; and, the prospective investigation before the International Criminal Court (ICC) of war crimes in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories starting in 2014 with Operation Protective Edge. The review and assessment will highlight the close intersection between breakthough legal precedents in cases which are acutely in the political spotlight, and their impact on the course of domestic political and legal developments. These live case studies show the real significance of how existing international mechanisms can be employed to protect universal human rights and promote the rule of law in national jurisdictions. 

Bios

Dr Mishana Hosseinioun

Dr Mishana Hosseinioun is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include Middle East politics, human rights and democratization and, political psychology. She is currently working on the application of social contract theory in the Middle Eastern context and diagnosing state psychopathy, split-brain politics, and other ‘disorders’ in international relations. Her research benefits from her work in the field as both a practitioner and theorist through intimate involvement via her global consultancy MH Group in live political cases from Libya to South Korea and close dealings with international bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court and African Commission and Court of Human Rights.

Rodney Dixon QC

Rodney Dixon QC is a barrister specialising in public international law, international criminal law and human rights at Temple Garden Chambers. He has a diverse practice in the UK and globally, and regularly appears on behalf of Governments, serving and former Heads of State, politicians, military commanders, individual complainants and defendants, international organisations, companies and businesses, NGOs, and victim groups. Between 1995 and 1999, he worked as Legal Adviser (International Law) and Counsel in the Office of the Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Between 2012 and 2015, he was Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is called to the Bar of England and Wales and qualified as a solicitor in South Africa.