Recent Posts

[Dr. Natalie Alkiviadou is a Senior Research Fellow at Justitia (Denmark) working on the Future of Free Speech Project. She is co-author to some of the Justitia reports discussed in this piece.] Four point two billion people are active social media users. This has given voice to previously marginalized groups. At the same time, however, extremism, hatred and abuse have become part and parcel of this reality. This...

[Aldo Zammit Borda is Head of Research and Investigation at the Uyghur Tribunal; Stefan Mandelbaum is a Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and Marilena Stegbauer is Assistant to Counsel at the Uyghur Tribunal.] Wherever allegations of mass human rights violations emerge, like in the recent case of the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, the legitimate expectation is that the primary authority...

[Thomas Bickl researches dispute resolution issues with regard to the EU’s neighbourhood policy in Northern and Western Europe, EU enlargement in the Western Balkans, and Law of the Sea issues. His book on the border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia and its implications for EU enlargement was published by Springer in 2020.] The European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK)...

[Eian Katz is a Legal and Policy Analyst at Canmore Company. He previously served as Counsel at Public International Law and Policy Group.] Earlier this month, the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) released a statement on “The Regulation of Information Operations and Activities,” marking an important step in the global effort to reckon with the implications for international law of disruptive forms of online...

[Carlos A. Cruz Carrillo is a PhD Candidate at the University of Basel. Twitter: @Carcru1118.] The rule of law for oceans faces the challenges presented by climate change. Scientific evidence shows that climate change is causing menacing issues in the oceans. For example, sea-level rise, acidification, and deoxygenation of the oceans, amongst others. (see: 2019 IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate). In...

Events Extraterritoriality in International Law Conference: Cedric Ryngaert (Utrecht University) and Austen Parrish (Indiana University Bloomington) are pleased to announce a conference on "Extraterritoriality in International Law" on 15-17 September 2021. The Conference will be held over Zoom (the registration link can be found here) and are scheduled to accommodate speakers from a wide-range of time zones. There are approximately 38...

[Darryl Robinson is a Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law (Canada), specializing in international criminal justice.] In part one of this post, I mapped out the main controversies and choices to be made in defining ecocide.  I now introduce the most difficult conundrum: how to align ecocide with environmental law.  The problems are not initially obvious.  Kevin Heller’s initial posts understandably...

[Darryl Robinson is a Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law (Canada), specializing in international criminal justice.] In recent weeks, there has been lively debate on the crime of ecocide, in response to the proposed definition from the International Expert Panel (see here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, and here).  In two posts, I offer you an overview – or a...

[Javier S Eskauriatza is a Lecturer at Birmingham Law School.] Introduction In October 2020, it was a surprise when the U.S. arrested the former Mexican Defence Secretary, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, on drug-trafficking and corruption charges, at an airport in Los Angeles, California. The indictment accused Cienfuegos of participating in an international conspiracy to manufacture heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana, to import and distribute them in the...

[Kamaxi Sambari is a lawyer-psychologist and is currently a Visiting Faculty member at Symbiosis Law School and Priyanka Prasanth is a final-year student at Symbiosis Law School.] Recent reports suggest that over 6,500 migrant workers, primarily from South Asian Countries have lost their lives in Qatar just in the last decade under mysterious circumstances. This post focuses on the recent changes to the Kafala...

Despite the publication of the MMIWG Report and its findings of an ongoing “race-based genocide” against Canada’s First Nations, issues of indigenous genocide and (neo)colonial oppression have remained side-lined from political discourse in the rest of the American continent. In fact, the situation has arguably worsened: at the same time as Canada protested the unmarked graves of hundreds of indigenous...

Recently, we at Opinio Juris went through the recruitment process for an Editorial Assistant. We were really impressed with the high quality of applications from so many fantastic aspiring EAs from all over the world and it was truly difficult to make our final selection. However, when all was said and done, two superstars shone through: Ameera Ismail and Natasha...