is the Principal Legal Counsel & CEO at Newlaw Law Firm, a member of the Appeals Disciplinary Board of the International Criminal Court (2023-2027) and a member of the ICCBA Executive Council (former ICCBA vice president in 2019-2020 and 2021-2022).
He is also the editor-in chief of Eurozine’s Greek partner journal Intellectum, a columnist (Fingerprints of the Day), writer (aka poet Konstantinos Melissas) and a translator.
Tsilonis serves as an academic tutor for the LLM Programme on ‘Criminological and Penal Law Perspectives on Corruption, Economic and Organised Crime’ at the Hellenic Open University. In addition, he serves as the Chairman of Intellectum NGO and was the 2020 Greece ICC Judicial Nominee. He wrote the book ‘The Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court’, Springer (Switzerland, 2019), with a forthcoming 2nd edition expected shortly in 2023.
As police carry away protesters blocking oil carriers, a very detailed and technical debate is unfolding about the framework to introduce the notion of ecocide in international criminal law. Social scientists and legal experts debate the approach, and Victor Tsilonis cautions them to always consider practical applications.
The egregious crimes against Ukraine’s civilian population might just be too much for the International Criminal Court to handle. Not only does it lack resources but it also doesn’t have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression – in part due to the position of its most influential member states and the Trump administration’s staunch opposition.
The results of Greece’s snap general election, triggered by Syriza’s defeat in May, are eagerly awaited. Support for the far-right Danish People’s Party has collapsed, while Lithuania has grown more conservative. But isn’t there more to European politics than national swings and roundabouts?
The outcome of this year’s European elections is more likely to be determined by the state of nations’ finances than their media landscapes. However, the making and breaking of coalitions is something that money still, it seems, cannot buy.
From 1975 until 2002, the terrorist activities of the revolutionary organization 17 November, or “17N”, preoccupied Greek public opinion and the secret services of several states. Victor Tsilonis critiques the first book offering a view “from within” 17N, by offender-author Dimitris Koufontinas.
The periodical translation of news into words and the associated analysis that constitutes the print medium, writes Victor Tsilonis, is no longer enough. It cannot attract a wider audience. The answer: humorous, issue-specific poster, social media and video campaigns.
With sharp drops in advertising revenue and drastic public cuts, the financing system for Greek journals has never been less transparent. As the “networking” factor attains new levels, meritocracy seems a far-off dream says Intellectum editor Victor Tsilonis.
The Greek media “failed completely” to predict the consequences of debt-fuelled reality loss, says journalist Stelios Kouloglou in interview with Intellectum editor Victor Tsilonis. The very sector whose job it was to burst the bubble played a major role in creating and preserving it, he argues.
The suicide of a pensioner outside the Greek parliament, the latest in a series, sums up the mood of a population confronted with the steady erosion of its rights. Victor Tsilonis wonders whether tomorrow will be just another day in Greece’s “predestined” future.
“Sometimes we forget that maybe we need to ask more questions about the situation we are getting into. Then we have the right to say no.” In 1999, forensic anthropologist Sue Black joined a British UN Forensic Team investigating mass graves in Kosovo, and has since been to Sierra Leone and Iraq. She talks to the journal Intellectum about how she came to work in warzones, and why, despite everything, she loves what she does.
