In association with the International Commission of Jurists

July 2016

15 Jul

[Dr. Frederick Cowell is a Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London School of Law.] On the 6th of July the UK’s Iraq Enquiry report was finally published having taken almost seven years to complete. The process,  chaired by a leading former British civil servant, Sir John Chilcot, aimed to look at the causes and consequences of the 2003...

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14 Jul

[Liu Haiyang is a research fellow at the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies, Nanjing University, China. This post was submitted to Opinio Juris under the auspices of the Chinese Initiative on International Law, an NGO with a mandate of promoting a better understanding of international law, particularly international criminal law and justice.] The ad hoc Arbitral Tribunal established...

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12 Jul

The much-anticipated long awaited South China Sea Arbitration award on the merits is here!  It is a slam-dunk, complete, utter, massive, total legal victory for the Philippines on all counts (lots of metaphors here, none are quite sufficient). Essentially, the tribunal ruled in favor of almost all of the Philippines' claims in the arbitration.  Perhaps the most headline friendly result:...

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11 Jul

Here’s your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world: Africa Violent clashes in South Sudan claimed the lives of two Chinese U.N. peacekeepers, bringing to three the number of troops China has lost in the past two months as it ramps up its engagement in peacekeeping efforts. Al Shabaab Islamist militants rammed a car packed...

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07 Jul

In the second installment of episode 1 in this multi-blog series on the updated Commentaries, Professor Sean Murphy responds to Jean-Marie Henckaerts first post on locating the commentaries in the international legal landscape. Sean D. Murphy, Professor of International Law at George Washington University and Member of the U.N. International Law Commission, considers the role of the ICRC commentaries as a...

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06 Jul

Did you hear the one about Judge de Gurmendi, the President of the ICC, taking bribes for from 2004 on to ensure Omar al-Bashir's indictment? The president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is facing calls to resign after it emerged that she may have received financial rewards said to be in millions of dollars to ensure the indictment of Sudanese President...

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04 Jul

[Dr. Joanna Nicholson is a Researcher at PluriCourts – Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order at the University of Oslo.] For a crime to amount to a crime against humanity, it must be shown to have been part of a bigger picture, namely part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population....

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04 Jul

Just a reminder: this summer we will host our Fourth Annual Emerging Voices symposium, where we invite doctoral students and early-career academics or practicing attorneys to tell Opinio Juris readers about a research project or other international law topic of interest. If you are a doctoral student or in the early stages of your career (e.g., post-docs, junior academics or early...

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03 Jul

Event On 15-16 December 2016, the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI) at Ghent University will be hosting an international two-day conference entitled ‘International Immunities: Law in a State of Flux?’ The aim of the conference – organized in partnership with the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) – is to take stock of recent evolutions...

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