Kashmir

On August 5, 2019, India attempted to unlawfully annex the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir by abrogating Article 370, a constitutional provision which accorded a special status to the state. Since then, the Conflict Law Centre at RSIL has been publishing legal opinions and articles on India’s actions in the region. We have produced a memoranda which lays out our legal analysis of the situation as one of occupation which has become an annexation. We have also looked at whether a siege existed shortly after the abrogation when the region was physically, socially, and electronically isolated. India’s obligations to its occupied peoples under the law applicable to pandemics, to burial rites, and to residents’ private property have also been written about. In light of the forthcoming delimitation for elections being undertaken by the Indian government, we hope that these legal briefs act as a call to action for the international community to uphold the sanctity of international law as a legal and moral obligation.