Recent Posts

[Richard Dicker, formerly director of the Human Rights Watch International Justice Program, is now a senior adviser with the organization and teaches at Columbia and UCLA law schools. Alina Pucko, a German lawyer, is a candidate for a Masters of Law degree at Columbia Law School.] With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and revelations of apparent war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, attention has turned in...

Said Benarbia is the director of Middle East and North Africa Programme at the International Commission of Jurists Until 29 September 2019, Alaa Abdelfattah, a prominent Egyptian human rights defender, reported to the Dokki police station in Cairo every day at 6 pm. He would spend 12 hours in a windowless office. He would sleep on a chair or the floor....

[Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott is a postdoctoral fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.] With never-ending news cycles churning out depictions of horrid events, causes for hope may appear few and far between. Yet they lay resting, ready to be enacted. One is a passage of the provisional measures order of the International Court of Justice...

[Başak Bağlayan is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law Economy and Finance at the University of Luxembourg. Gamze Erdem Türkelli is an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Antwerp Law & Development Research Group. Başak Etkin is a PhD Candidate at Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, and the co-creator and co-host of the philosophy of international law podcast, Borderline Jurisprudence. Aysel...

[Roy is a faculty member at Jindal Global Law School in India. Roy has published under a pseudonym so that they may remain anonymous.] International law school rankings are dominated by institutions in Europe, North America and Australia. As an indication, the previous editions of the Times Higher Education and QS rankings included just one and two law schools from outside...

[Chris Carpenter is a lawyer and researcher in international law. She holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a master’s from the University of Cambridge.] This piece is about imposter syndrome, which I encountered in beginning my master’s at the University of Cambridge. When I submitted an abstract for this symposium, countless memories spanning almost a decade...

[Mary Hansel is an international human rights attorney and the former Acting Director of the International Justice Clinic at University of California, Irvine School of Law (UCI Law). Ashleigh Hayden is a recent graduate of UCI Law. This post benefitted from the input of numerous UCI Law students and faculty.] Introduction Law schools across the globe have declared their commitment to confronting and addressing...

Until this summer, Brigid Laffan was director and professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and director of the Global Governance Programme at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, where she has worked since 20‌13. In 20‌18, Politico ranked Laffan, a long time professor of political science who grew up in Ireland, among the women who shape Europe....

[Stephen A. Lamony is an International Lawyer.] Introduction The aftermath of Dominic Ongwen's case, from his conviction to his sentence to his defense counsel's certain appeal, presents clear challenges for clans and communities in northern Uganda. In February 2021, the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Public Information and Outreach Section (PIOS) published an impact report on the Ongwen verdict. Among other concerns raised in the report typical...

[Dr Talita de Souza Dias is the Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow in Law at Jesus College, University of Oxford.] 1. Introduction In this post, I discuss the findings of a short statistical survey into the gender and nationality/regional representation of authors published by two mainstream academic publishers in their main international law monograph series: Oxford University Press (OUP) and Cambridge University...

Please think about submitting an abstract for a conference on the legacy of the much loved, much missed, and much lamented Robert Cryer. The conference announcement is below: Robert Cryer: A Life in Law and a Law unto Himself We greatly miss Professor Rob Cryer, who passed away in 2021 at the age of forty-six. We aim to channel this loss, those...

[Carlos Lusverti and Rocío Quintero M are both Legal Advisers for the International Commission of Jurists] The Venezuelan educational system has been in rapid decline. In 2016, in the midst of a wider national humanitarian crisis, teachers started leaving school due to a drastic decrease in teachers' wages. There was also a significant augment in the student dropout rate. Compounding these...