Rights and justice

   This reading list gathers articles and videos published between February and June 2024.

On Thursday, April 4, 2024 at 6:30pm, the CRASH team welcomed Emilie Medeiros, Eloïs Voisin and Raphaël Torlach for a conference/debate on the situation of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

On Thursday 29 February at 6.00pm, we welcomed sociologists Théo Boulakia and Nicolas Mariot, the authors of "L’Attestation. Une expérience d’obéissance de masse, printemps 2020".

This interview by Didier Billion and Marc Verzeroli was originally published in the Revue internationale et stratégique. To examine the concept of de-westernization, Rony Brauman describes the current state of international relations, marked by fluid alliances and new power relationships. He states and details his reservations about whether universal values truly exist and how the international criminal justice system functions.

On March 8, 2020, the FIFDH Geneva organised a debate between Rony Brauman, Annyssa Bellal - Strategic Adviser on International Humanitarian Law - and Amani Ballour, a paediatrician who spent five years in an underground hospital in Syria and the protagonist of the film The Cave, to answer the question "Does international humanitarian law legitimise wars ?"

Concerned about the fate of these two whistleblowers, particularly the founder of Wikileaks, Jean-Hervé Bradol and Rony Brauman, former presidents of Doctors Without Borders, demand that he receive treatment.

The publication of the journalist Judi Rever’s book, In Praise of Blood, on the crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s armed rebellion has rekindled discussion over the existence of a “double genocide”, one committed against the Tutsis under the orders of Rwanda’s interim government which took power in April 1994 following the assassination of President Habyarimana, and the other against the Hutus by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which seized power in July 1994. There is little or no controversy about the reality of the genocide of the Tutsis in the world of Rwandan studies, but the claim that the Hutus were in turn victims of genocide sparks reactions as violent as they are confused. The cause of this confusion can be found in the different definitions of a term used in at least three fields: history, law and politics.

Rony Brauman has just published “Guerres humanitaires ? Mensonges et intox”. This book, a collection of interviews co-authored with Régis Meyran, explores a number of recent armed interventions that have all shared the goal of saving lives. Reviewing conflicts in Somalia, Libya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, Brauman discusses the reasons advanced for justifying these wars and the accompanying lies.

How can anyone write about Rwanda without being called a denialist? Marc Le Pape tries to craft an answer in this article, published on the website The Conversation on 19 October 2017.  

How much is known about the daily experiences of humanitarian workers in extreme situations such as major conflict or disaster? In their new book, “Humanitarian Aid, Genocide and Mass Killings: Médecins sans frontières, the Rwandan experience, 1982-97”, Marc Le Pape and Jean-Hervé Bradol set out to answer some of these questions. The book is also informed by Bradol’s experience of working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Rwanda during the genocide.