In association with the International Commission of Jurists

North America

05 Jun

[Dr Lena Riemer is an Assistant Professor of Law at Central European University working on migration related topics] In early 2025, hundreds of migrants from Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, and beyond found themselves confined in a hotel in Panama City. Desperate notes scrawled on scraps of paper and pressed against windows pleaded for help. These individuals had been removed from the United...

|
23 May

[William Worster has taught public international law, the law of international organizations and international migration and refugee law at The Hague University of Applied Sciences for more than sixteen years] This post raises the possibility that the current and proposed deportations from the US might rise to the level of a crime against humanity as they unfold. Recent deportation actions by...

|
02 May

[Dr Henrique Marcos is a lecturer at the Foundations of Law Department, Faculty of Law Maastricht University] This text is inspired by the discussions held at the event “Whatever Happened to TikTok” organised by the Law & Popular Culture Network at Maastricht University Faculty of Law in February 2025. In this post, I discuss the recent ban and subsequent unbanning of TikTok...

|
09 Apr

As I write these lines, the United States is fighting for the very soul of its democracy. Under dispute is whether their government can forcibly transfer a lawful resident – in this case a Latino with a tattoo – to a forced labour camp in El Salvador without any due process. For now, the US Supreme Court’s answer seems to be “no”, provided the...

|
19 Mar

[Javier Urizar is a Guatemalan human rights lawyer, currently working at the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)] A Spanish version of this post has been published on Agenda Estado de Derecho here. National courts have always had an inseparable relationship with human rights. As the controlbody by excellence, they have been fundamental in limiting the acts of authority and sanctioning those...

|
13 Mar

[Frédéric Mégret is the Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law at the Faculty of Law, McGill University and the James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School] The question of how Mexico and Canada police their borders has emerged as a considerable symbolic stake in the current crisis with the US. The US President has made a number of...

|
25 Feb

[Benjamin Thorne is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Criminal Law at the University of Reading] Almost 3 weeks into Donald Trump’s second term as US President and one could have been forgiven for becoming somewhat numb to the seemingly never ending conveyor belt of Executive Orders (EO) being announced. However, one particular EO jolted many from their numbness, not because it...

|
21 Feb

[Jens Iverson is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University and a Visiting Professor/Lecturer at Vermont Law School, Santa Clara University School of Law, and University of California College of the Law, San Francisco] A previous post on Opinio Juris, Threats of Force and Attribution: The Case of Incoming Heads of State, casts doubt on the legal seriousness of Trump’s statements before...

|
11 Feb

[Martin Faix is Vice-Dean for International Affairs and Head of the Centre for International Humanitarian and Operational Law, Faculty of Law Palacký University in Olomouc. Marko Svicevic is a researcher and lecturer at the Centre for International Humanitarian and Operational Law, Faculty of Law, Palacký University in Olomouc and senior research associate at the South African Research Chair in International Law,...

and |
30 Jan

[Elke Schwarz is a Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London] Following the re-election of Donald Trump, the American technology elite has embraced its growing global power. They have always held significant power but now it is out in the open. And with this greater visibility comes a peculiar, dark narrative, cultivated by some of the more vocal tech elites....

|
28 Jan

The inimitable Sam Moyn and I have a chapter on the Vietnam War and international law in the Cambridge History of the Vietnam War: Volume 3, Endings and Aftermaths, which was just published by Cambridge University Press. Here are the opening paragraphs: There have been thousands of histories of the Vietnam War, but none assigns a pivotal role to international law....

|
20 Jan

[Alexandros Bakos is a Postdoctoral Fellow (Industrial Policy and Digital Development Project) at the College of Law, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Amna Zaman is a S.J.D. Candidate and Fellow at the Industrial Policy and Digital Development Project, College of Law, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Georgios Dimitropoulos is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at the College of Law, Hamad Bin...

, and |