March 2020

Announcements Rosalyn Higgins Prize: The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals (LPICT) now invites submissions for the 2020 Rosalyn Higgins Prize. The deadline for the prize is 30 June 2020. The Rosalyn Higgins Prizeis an annual prize which awards EUR 1.000 of Brill book vouchers and a one-year LPICT subscription to the author of the best article on the law and...

[Dr. Leonie Steinl, LL.M. is a post-doctoral researcher at Hamburg University, where she works in a DFG-project on "Strategic Litigation Networks and Accountability for Gross Violations of Human Rights". Dr. Wenke Brückner currently works as a lawyer in Berlin, specializing in German and international criminal law. Both authors have previously worked on different aspects of the case of Hanan v. Germany for...

[Ciara Laverty is a PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. Dieneke de Vos received her PhD in international criminal law from the European University Institute, Florence and currently works in the humanitarian sector on the prevention of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse.]   On 11 February 2020, Colombia’s Constitutional Court made public its full reasoning in the precedent-setting tutela action...

Events Call for Proposals - BIICL Conference on Teaching International Law: The British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) is delighted to be convening a conference entitled 'Teaching International Law'. The conference will take place at BIICL on 7-8 September 2020. The Organising Committee invites all those engaging with the teaching of international law from around the world to share their...

Last Thursday, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued its decision concerning which states, individuals ,and organizations will be permitted to submit observations on the OTP's request for a jurisdictional ruling in the Palestine situation. The PTC granted leave to 43 of the 45 potential amicus curiae. It denied one request (para. 52) because the individual who submitted it did so on behalf...

Most readers will be familiar with the Caroline Affair. A group of Canadian rebels seized an American vessel and used it to transport ammunitions from the US to Canada. British forces raided the ship, burned it, killed two men, and sent its wreckage over the Niagara Falls. The incident gave rise to perhaps one of the most frequently quoted maxims in the law of use...

A couple of years ago, I helped GLAN and the Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic prepare a 115-page communication to the OTP regarding Australia's unconscionable treatment of refugees and asylum seekers detained on Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Here is the key paragraph from the Executive Summary: The communication finds that there is a reasonable basis...

UN Audiovisual Library The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added the following mini-series to the Mini-Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law (AVL) website: Ms. Philippa Webb on “Consular and Diplomatic Relations”.The Audiovisual Library of International Law is also available as a podcast, which can be accessed through the preinstalled applications in Apple or Google devices, through SoundCloud or through the podcast application of...

[Rawan Arraf is an Australian lawyer and director of the Australian Centre for International Justice. This post represents the personal view of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Centre for International Justice.] This is a belated follow up to the introductory post in the matter of Taylor v Attorney General which concerned the attempted private...

[Dire Tladi is a Professor of International Law in the Department of Public Law, and a Fellow at the Institute of Comparative and International Law in Africa, at the University of Pretoria.] On 11 February 2020, the government of Sudan took the extraordinary (and yes surprising) decision to surrender the former President, Al Bashir, to Sudan.  The attention that the “Al...

[Todd Carney is a student at Harvard Law School. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Communications. He has also worked in digital media in New York City and Washington D.C.] Over the last three years, the world has seen two European democracies, Slovakia and Malta, face major political scandals regarding the murder of a journalist in each...