On November 4th, the GJA hosted its annual Ruth Adler Lecture, welcoming Baroness Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, as the distinguished speaker. Baroness Kennedy opened her lecture by expressing deep concern over the growing acceptance of authoritarian regimes, and the lack of respect for human rights by such regimes.
Following her introductory remarks on current global issues, Baroness Kennedy delved into the history and evolution of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). She traced the Court’s origins to its earliest form in the wake of World War I. During the 1920s, the then Permanent Court of International Justice addressed significant issues such as the implications of the Balfour Declaration and the question of Jerusalem, while also overseeing matters of international communication and navigation. However, as the 1930s progressed, political tensions led to states withdrawing support and refusing to appoint judges, which effectively paralyzed the Court. It was not until after World War II that the ICJ was reconstituted, setting the foundation for its current role in international law.
Baroness Kennedy continued by highlighting how the Allied powers sought to establish a new international legal order, exemplified by the creation of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. This initiative, strongly backed by both the American and British governments as early as 1942, aimed to hold perpetrators accountable for the atrocities of war. The primary purpose of this new order was to promote peace and provide mechanisms to prosecute crimes like genocide, a term which had just been coined by Raphael Lemkin.
While the ICJ primarily addressed disputes between states, Eleanor Roosevelt, alongside a diverse group of jurists and political experts, sought to transform the “Never Again” promise into a legal framework with universal human rights at its core. Roosevelt explored the essence of a global standard of law that could prevent the horrors of WWII from recurring, focusing on fundamental human aspirations: freedom from fear, the ability to love and be loved, access to opportunities, and freedom of belief. This work culminated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a landmark document that, while not legally binding, set forth a universal benchmark for human dignity against which all laws could be measured.
Baroness Kennedy noted the flurry in creation of further conventions and institutions, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, the Refugee Convention, enabling states to share responsibility for protecting those facing persecution in their state of origin, and the Genocide Convention, which aimed to prevent genocides before they could occur. Additional human rights treaties followed, such as the Convention Against Torture, and updates to the Geneva Conventions that set standards on targeting and proportionality, protecting civilians during armed conflicts.
By the 1970s, civil society organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch began actively exposing abuses of human rights. In response to atrocities in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, special International Criminal tribunals were established, leading to the founding of the International Criminal Court(ICC) which purports to hold all abusers of rights accountable. However, noted the speaker, the work of ICC was disproportionately focused on African leaders and gave more leniency to European leaders who have also perpetrated human rights abuses. This was until Putin, had an arrest warrant issued against him because of the relocation of Ukrainian children, taken from orphanages during the ongoing conflict.
Baroness Kennedy recalled that since the landmark arrest of Augusto Pinochet on UK soil in 1998, an important precedent was set. Pinochet had travelled to the UK for a medical appointment, and a Spanish magistrate issued a warrant for his arrest. Baroness Kennedy attended the hearing, witnessing how, despite Pinochet eventually being permitted to return to Chile on medical grounds, the incident sent a powerful message: dictators and violators of international law could no longer evade justice while traveling for trivial or personal reasons, such as medical needs. Reflecting on this moment, Baroness Kennedy recalled that with Pinochet’s arrest and the passage of the Human Rights Act in the UK, she had hoped the 21st century would be the “century of human rights.”
However, after the 9/11 attacks, this optimism faded as the “war on terror” cast a long shadow. The U.S. established the notorious detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, which constituted a place where torture was sanctioned, and the world was horrified by images from Abu Ghraib prison, revealing severe human rights abuses by American military personnel. The UK also compromised its commitment to international law, becoming involved in the Iraq war and cooperating with rendition programs. Yet at that time, the Human Rights Act preserved a measure of integrity, preventing a complete erosion of legal principles. Recently, however, Baroness Kennedy noted a troubling shift: the government increasingly treats questions of law and fact as if they could be legislated away. For instance, the government’s attempt to declare Rwanda a “safe” country through an act of Parliament, following the finding to the contrary by the UK Supreme Court, reflects an effort to reshape legal truths to suit political aims. This attitude signals a growing contempt for the rule of law in both the UK and the US, driven partly by the fact that younger generations, with no direct memory of WWII, may not fully grasp the origins of the post-war world order.
In recent decades, the erosion of human rights has often been justified under the banner of counterterrorism, which became the favoured excuse for Western governments to curtail civil liberties. This trend has not gone unnoticed by countries transitioning from authoritarian regimes, where leaders see it as license to adopt similarly repressive policies. As a result, states like Russia and Belarus have devolved into what Baroness Kennedy called “Mafia states”. Despite the presence of “elections”, true democratic principles, such as open debate and tolerance of political opposition, are absent. In Russia, all significant political opponents of Putin have been systematically silenced, often through assassination, even on foreign soil. Despite these clear human rights abuses, the international community largely remained inactive, including during Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Chechnya’s separatist movement faced brutal repression under the guise of “anti-terrorism,” akin to China’s similar justification for its treatment of the Uyghur population. China has also recently dismantled democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, and, after her vocal criticism of the Chinese government, Baroness Kennedy now faces restrictions on travel to China and potentially to allied states in Africa.
Baroness Kennedy reflected that these actions represent a disturbing swing away from human rights principles, enabled by Western states’ complacency. She then turned to the issue of Israel and Palestine, deeming it a profound failure of the West, which has not acted to meaningfully support the two-state solution or condemn settlement expansions by Israel. She argued that Israeli leadership opposes in a two-state resolution, leading to the current devastation in Gaza, where the Palestinian population faces extermination. Subsequent to her lecture, the ICC has issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant as well as the military leader of Hamas, Mohammed Deif (who is presumed dead) and the ICJ is evaluating whether recent actions constitute genocide.
Baroness Kennedy observed that the law no longer wields the influence it once did. Human rights institutions have faced significant challenges. She highlighted the justified anger of many countries in the Global South, noting how international justice has often disproportionately targeted African leaders, while overlooking human rights abuses committed by allies of the Global North, such as Israel, partly shielded by lingering Holocaust guilt, or other nations valued for economic interests.
Baroness Kennedy also expressed outrage over issues like the treatment of women in Afghanistan. Having worked personally with Afghan women who, during the American occupation, trained to become lawyers and judges, she witnessed their dedication to creating spaces where women could report sexual crimes and gender-based violence without the intimidation of a male-dominated judiciary. These women, however, were ultimately abandoned by the once occupying powers of the West.
Reflecting on the current global climate, she noted that fear and instability have spread widely, making the need for human rights advocates and lawyers more urgent than ever to restore the international legal order now under threat.
