Prof. Helen Duffy
Helen Duffy runs an international legal practice, ‘Human Rights in Practice,’ and is Gieskes Chair of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Grotius Centre of the University of Leiden. Her areas of specialisation in her academic and practical work include terrorism, security and rule of law. Her practice engages in strategic human rights litigation and she has litigated groundbreaking cases in the European, African and Inter-American regional systems and before international and national courts and bodies. Cases address a broad range of rule of law issues such as CIA rendition and torture (e.g. Abu Zubaydah v Poland/Lithuania), terrorism prosecutions (e.g. Sabbeh v Egypt), judicial independence (Garzon v Spain), slavery or trafficking (e.g. Mani v Niger) and genocide (e.g. Plan de Sanchez v Guatemala). Before setting up her own practice in 2011 she was Legal Director of INTERIGHTS, and prior positions include Legal Director of the Centro para Accion Legal en Derechos Humanos Guatemala, Counsel to Human Rights Watch, and Legal Officer International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Her books and publications include ‘The War on Terror on the Framework of International law (2nd ed., Cambridge, 2015.)
Within the territorial boundaries of the Islamic State’s (IS) ‘caliphate’, women were largely confined to the domestic sphere. Their roles centred on support to militant husbands and the ideological upbringing of children. The physical collapse of IS’ proto-state marks a significant turning point in women’s commitment and activism for the group. Many IS-affiliated women are […]
Right-wing violence and terrorism have slowly gained more academic and public attention in recent years, with an increase in anti-immigration and anti-government organised violence from the extreme right in most Western countries. Some evidence exists that right-wing extremists have attempted to infiltrate the military in their home countries to gain access to tactical training, weapons, […]
Climate change indirectly increases the risk of violent extremism, write Reinier Bergema and General (ret.) Tom Middendorp in their PSI-ICCT policy brief The Warning Signs are Flashing Red: The interplay between climate change and violent extremism in the Western Sahel. Development and security cannot do without the other. It is not enough to counter violent […]