Expert Witness with Sondos Asem

In this episode of Expert Witness, Middle East Eye news editor Sondos Asem speaks to Martin Griffiths, the former UN aid chief to discuss the latest in Gaza and Sudan, where two of the worst humanitarian crises in the world have been taking place over the past two years. Griffiths had over fifty years of professional experience as a humanitarian, British diplomat and conflict mediator with the Uni...

Ben Saul is the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights and the Challis Chair of International Law at the University of Sydney. In this episode of Expert Witness, he discusses the legal implications of US President Donald Trump's Gaza "take-over" plan, Israel's ban on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), and other international law questions arising from Israel's war...

In this in-depth interview, Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the chair of The Hague Group, discusses why nine states launched a coalition in January 2025 to hold Israel accountable under international law. Filming date: 17 March 2025, London

What is the future of Unrwa, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees? In this episode of Expert Witness, Unrwa chief and Swiss-Italian humanitarian Philippe Lazzarini talks to Middle East Eye’s news editor Sondos Asem on the current humanitarian situation in occupied Palestine, and the future of the cash-stapped agency. Lazzarini is the 11th commissioner-general of Unrwa, the largest provider of...

What steps should be taken to protect the International Criminal Court? In this episode of Expert Witness, Professor Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, discusses with Sondos Asem the implications of President Donald Trump’s executive order of 6 February, which sanctioned the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan over his investigation into top...

In this episode of One on One, journalist and news editor Sondos Asem spoke with Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, the world's leading human rights group. Callamard joined MEE from The Hague, on 5 December 2024, following Amnesty's release of a landmark report concluding that Israel has committed and continues to commit the crime of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza....

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the US rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), explains to Sondos Asem the organisation’s submission to the International Criminal Court in January 2025, urging Prosecutor Karim Khan to investigate former US President Joe Biden and members of his administration for their alleged complicity in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in...

What can more than 100 years of the international justice system tell us about its present and future? In this episode of Expert Witness, Professor William Schabas, widely recognised as one of the world’s leading scholars of international criminal law, provides a reflection on his decades of experience as an academic lawyer and genocide expert, and the challenges facing international law after Isr...

In this episode of One on One, journalist and news editor Sondos Asem is sitting down with Francesca Albanese, an outspoken international human rights lawyer and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. She is the 8th person to hold that role, and the first woman. She is a self-described “reluctant chronicler of Geno...

Has Israel been using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza? In this episode of Expert Witness, leading international law scholar, Professor Tom Dannenbaum, discusses with Middle East Eye news editor Sondos Asem the nuts and bolts of the starvation war crime throughout history and what needs to be done to make the law more effective. He argues that under international law, there’s a very strong ca...