Session 8: International Legal Frameworks for Accountability 

Thursday, 29 January 2026

2:30pm UTC (8pm India / 2:30pm London / 9:30am New York)

Register here: https://uva-live.zoom.us/meeting/register/T8wsZFdNR7uItxIGFKLMcA

InSAF India invites you to register for the eighth session in the series ‘Deadline or Death Sentence: State Violence and Indigenous (Adivasi) Peoples' Resistance in India’. This series critically interrogates the Indian state’s 2026 “Maoist-free” deadline and its violent consequences for Indigenous peoples’ survival and self-determination.  

Session 8 will provide a critical understanding of legal frameworks such as ‘Command Responsibility’ in international criminal law and the qualification of ‘Non-International Armed Conflict’, under international humanitarian law (IHL). These frameworks become applicable in internal asymmetrical armed conflicts and large-scale violence. Even though the ongoing global violations of IHL raise questions, this session will discuss how the absence of such frameworks in India have reinforced impunity and compromised accountability, leading to persistent denial of justice to affected communities, such as in the Bastar Division of the state of Chhattisgarh, India. 

Speakers: 

Chantal Meloni, Associate Professor of Criminal Law, International Criminal Law, Universitá degli Studi di Milano, Italy and Senior Legal Advisor, International Crimes and Accountability, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Berlin 

Kalika Mehta, Legal Researcher, Centre for Reflexive Globalisation and the Law (RefLex), Humboldt University, Berlin 

Registration link: https://uva-live.zoom.us/meeting/register/T8wsZFdNR7uItxIGFKLMcA