In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Criminal Law

29 Oct

[Laurence Atkin-Teillet is a lecturer in international criminal and humanitarian law at Nottingham Law School] There are no innocent onlookers in this struggle. Just the guilty, and the dead.Braig in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim The Elder Scrolls is a long-standing gaming franchise published by Bethesda Softworks, with its first instalment released in 1994. Set in a richly imagined fictional universe, the...

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28 Oct

[Eirini Fasia is a lecturer at the Law Group of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford specializing in public international law, environmental law, and the law of the sea] ‘This is hell. What are the rules in hell?’ Jang Deok-su, Season One Netflix’s Squid Game (2021-2025) offers more than a dystopian spectacle. It dramatizes economic...

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20 Oct

[Ezequiel Podjarny is an Argentine professional working as a Legal and Policy Fellow at the Human Rights Foundation. He holds an MA in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute and an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics] When revising the literature and jurisprudence on the subject of the personal immunity of foreign officials, the opinion of...

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02 Oct

[Laura Baron-Mendoza is a legal consultant to the Office of the Prosecutor and is part of the core team responsible for drafting the upcoming policy paper on environmental crimes under the Rome Statute. She is also an international law consultant and PhD candidate at McGill University] The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ recent Advisory Opinion on Climate Emergency and Human Rights (AO-32/25)...

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19 Sep

[Professor Sundhya Pahuja is ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Professor and Professor of international law at the University of Melbourne.  She is the Director of the Laureate Program in Global Corporations and International Law. Dr. André Dao is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Laureate Program] On 30 June 2025, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese issued a report detailing corporate complicity in...

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01 Sep

[Kate McInnes is a Vancouver-based criminal defence lawyer and the Principal at Arendt Chambers, Canada's first and only law firm practicing exclusively in international human rights law and international justice] The creation of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (STCAU), a court embedded within the Council for Europe framework, marks a historic effort in securing accountability for...

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13 Aug

[Isabelle Bienfait is a programme co-ordinator at eyeWitness to Atrocities] Two recent convictions of Syrian nationals for crimes committed during the civil war merit attention. On 16 June 2025, Syrian-born Alaa M. was convicted by a Frankfurt court for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed at several medical and military facilities. A few weeks earlier, on 28 May 2025, a...

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08 Aug

[Alexander Heinze is an Acting Professor at the University of Bremen and lecturer at the University of Göttingen] Part 1 of this post examined the Trial Chamber V’s remarkably efficient case management approach in Yekatom and Ngaïssona, highlighting how flexibility became the key to handling an exceptionally complex trial with nearly 20,000 exhibits and 174 witnesses. I explored the Chamber’s innovative...

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08 Aug

[Alexander Heinze is an Acting Professor at the University of Bremen and lecturer at the University of Göttingen] On 24 July 2025, Trial Chamber V (TC V) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its 1,600-page Judgment in the Yekatom and Ngaïssona case, convicting both former Anti-Balaka leaders of a catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity—including murder, persecution, forcible...

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08 Aug

[Mohamed Hanafy (associate researcher and advocacy officer) and Juliette Rémond Tiedrez (associate legal adviser) both work with the International Commission of Jurists’ Middle East and North Africa programme] This post is based on the Q&A Libya’s acceptance of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction: stakes and implications published by the International Commission of Jurists in July 2025. On 12 May 2025, the Government of...

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08 Aug

[Ananya Bhargava (she/her) is a law student at Jindal Global Law School] Introduction Historically in situations of war, international law has maintained fidelity to a strictly parochial understanding of what constitutes “use of force.”  This understanding adheres to the normative belief that “use of force” solely includes armed force. Any deviation from this belief would invariably lead to the unsettling of definite...

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