Business and Human Rights

Page 1 of 2

Filter category

Feature post image

Sovereign Darkness: Iran’s Internet Blackout and the Four-Body Problem of International Law

May 20, 2026

By 21 April 2026, Iran’s internet blackout had entered its fifty-third consecutive day, the longest nationwide internet disruption ever recorded (NetBlocks; IODA Iran shutdown report). Connectivity remained at approximately one per cent of pre-war levels. The shutdown was costing the economy an estimated $35–40 million per day in direct losses, rising to $70–80 million when indirect effects were included, with approximately one billion dollars of accumulated damage by day fifty; online sales fell by eighty per cent (NPR). Hospitals operated in an information vacuum, reporting critical shortages of blood and supplies (The Lancet). People crossed the Turkish border for internet access (NPR). Starlink terminal users faced up to ten years’ imprisonment, or execution (IranWire).

Read more

The Court That Built the Advisory Opinion It Refused to Complete: OC-30/25 on Arms Trafficking, Corporate Immunity, and the Reach of Advisory Jurisdiction

March 26, 2026

Mexico’s effort to hold the gun industry to account has now encountered an institutional setback in San José. Its request for an advisory opinion raised six questions before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). This post examines, against a more expansive account of OC-30/25 offered here, whether laws granting public or private arms-industry companies…

Read more

The Inter‑American Court’s Warning Shot: Illicit U.S. Firearms and the Hemispheric Duty States Keep Ignoring

March 23, 2026

Criminal organizations finance, procure, broker, transport, and illegally distribute U.S.‑made weapons throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to fuel political violence in the region. Latin America is experiencing a surge of violence that is neither spontaneous nor locally contained. It is engineered—manufactured, trafficked, and laundered through a hemispheric supply chain that begins overwhelmingly in the United States and…

Read more

Reassessing Consent in Counterclaims: Rebalancing Investment Protection and Public Interest under the UNCITRAL ISDS Reform

November 27, 2025

In mid-2025, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III (WGIII) released a new set of Draft Provisions on Procedural and Cross-Cutting Issues, as part of its ongoing reform of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which aims at addressing long-standing concerns about the fairness, balance, and effectiveness of the current system. One of…

Read more

How Not to Trade with Occupying Powers: Western Sahara and the Amendment to the EU-Moroccan Association Agreements

October 16, 2025

On October 3 2025, the EU and Morocco concluded an amendment ('the amendment') to the EU-Mediterranean Agreement (‘the association agreement’). With the approval of the Council it is already being applied provisionally pending entry into force. Its purpose is to enable the continued granting of tariff preferences to products originating in occupied Western Sahara. This…

Read more