Recent Posts

[Mattia Pinto is a PhD Candidate and teaching assistant in the Law Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His PhD research analyses the role that human rights play in fostering and legitimising penal expansion. Diletta Marchesi is a PhD Fellow for fundamental research of the Research Foundation – Flanders at the KU Leuven Institute of...

The judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) continue to attract attention, sometimes for all the wrong reasons. Their suit before the International Labour Organisation for a salary increase as reported by the New York Times, and questionable legal judgements such as Pre-Trial Chamber II’s decision to deny the Prosecutor’s request to open a much needed, and clearly warranted investigation...

Call for Papers The University of Michigan Law School invites junior scholars to attend the 6th Annual Junior Scholars Conference, which will be held on 17-18 April 2020, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The conference provides junior scholars with a platform to present and discuss their work with peers, and to receive detailed feedback from senior members of the Michigan Law faculty. The Conference...

I've been meaning to write for a while now about Stefan Talmon's brilliant new article for the Chinese Journal of International Law, which is entitled "The United States under President Trump: Gravedigger of International Law." It's rare you see an international lawyer of Talmon's eminence and care give an article such a provocative title, so you know he must be...

[Dimitrios A. Kourtis is a Research Associate and Adjunct at the School of Law of the University of Nicosia. He is completing his PhD at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki studying remedies for victims of genocide in international law.] In a possibly historical movement, The Gambia has launched an application instituting proceedings against Myanmar for acts and omissions targeting the Rohingya allegedly constituent...

An investigation by BBC Panorama and the Sunday Times has revealed what 11 detectives have called “credible evidence” of war crimes committed by British soldiers in Iraq. This will not come as news to those who are aware of the European Centre for Constitutional Human Rights (ECCHR)’s file that was submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the...

The past week has been a momentous one for the Rohingya, in their quest for justice and accountability.  On Monday 11 November, The Gambia filed an application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging violations of the genocide convention against Myanmar. On 13 November, a case was filed in Argentine domestic courts on the basis of what is termed ‘universal jurisdiction’ against members...

Events On Thursday, 28 November 2019 at 4 p.m., international law scholar Prof. Anne Orford will deliver the Fifth T.M.C. Asser Annual Lecture in the Peace Palace in The Hague. The theme of the lecture is "International Law and the Social Question." Prof. Anne Orford will argue that human welfare, social unrest, labour relations, and migration receive too little attention from international lawyers. Though international...

On 11 November 2019, The Gambia filed an application at the International Court of Justice against Myanmar, alleging violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention.  This legal step has been in the works for some time now, with the announcement by the Gambian Minister of Justice that instructions had been given to counsel in October to file the application. As a result, the application has been...

Call for Papers In 2020, an ESIL Symposium on 'Exploring the Frontiers of International Law in Cyberspace' will be co-organized by the Chair of Public International Law, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands. The symposium will consist of two one-day events, one organized on 15 May 2020 in Kraków, the...

Over at Just Security, my friend Adil Haque has written a fantastic post on self-defense and non-state actors. Adil’s main point is that Article 51 of the UN Charter does not apply to armed attacks by non-state actors given its “Latin American origin”. He explains how it should be read in accordance with the Act of Chapultepec, which referred only to inter-state uses of force. I highly...