Monthly Archives: October 2024

Illegal Wildlife Trade: The Critical Role of the Banking Sector in Combating Money Laundering

Banking and Finance

During the past two decades or so, the sale of illegally harvested wildlife or derivatives thereof, commonly referred to as illegal wildlife trade (IWT), has developed into a highly profitable organised crime, with the World Economic Forum estimating an annual generation of approximately USD 20 billion in proceeds from wildlife products. The increasing demand for wildlife products such as pelts, ivory, furs, wildlife-based medicines and exotic pets poses major consequences for the international financial system. It also threatens biodiversity, enables corruption and increases public health risks such as the spread of zoonotic diseases which are transmitted from animals to humans. This widespread impact illustrates the seriousness of IWT.

A Cosmo-medial Supplement to Law and Literature

International Law

As law and literature reorients itself to the global South and other understudied localities, the question of what remains of the European legacy in the postcolonial conjuncture becomes all the more pressing. In Planetary Gifts of Law and Literature published in Law & Literature, I attempt to address this by reading Nuruddin Farah’s Gifts (1993), a Somali novel surrounding a young Muslim nurse Duniya’s care for a foundling, alongside Immanuel Kant’s writings on cosmopolitanism, enlightenment, and book publishing. My suggestion is that these key exchanges between Farah’s critique of humanitarian aid in late-1980s Somalia and Kant’s classics reflect the importance of (re)staging dialogues between postcolonial literature and the European legacy as we work towards a planetary discourse of law and literature.

Engagement of Swiss Courts with International Law

International Law, Public Law

Switzerland is usually seen as a country friendly to international law: it is home to many of the world’s international organisations, is active in peace-building around the world, and, not least, acts as depository and is party to a large number of international treaties. However, in recent times, its respect for international law, and for the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), has been called into question. So, what is Switzerland’s relationship with international law? And specifically, what is the role of domestic courts in the application of international law? These are the questions explored in the paper entitled ‘Engagement of Swiss Courts with International Law’ that I co-authored with Prof. Eva Maria Belser in the book ‘The Engagement of Domestic Courts with International Law’, edited by André Nollkaemper, Yuval Shany, Antonios Tzanakopoulos, and Eleni Methymaki, published in May 2024 by Oxford University Press.