International Criminal Law

[Alexandre Skander Galand is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School, Berlin.] On 3 April 2022, President Zelenski announced that he ‘approved a decision to create a special justice mechanism in Ukraine for the investigation and judicial examination of every crime of the occupiers. The essence of it is the joint work of national and international experts: investigators, prosecutors and...

[Dr Plesch is Professor of Diplomacy and Strategy at SOAS University of London and a member (door tenant) of the chambers of Stephen Kay QC at 9 Bedford Row. He is the author of Human Rights After Hitler.] The Russian aggression against Ukraine has created fresh interest in international criminal justice. Vital support for this next phase in the application and development of international criminal law is...

[Danya Chaikel is currently consulting with FIDH's International Justice Desk and is the Co-Vice Chair of the IBA’s War Crimes Committee.] This amicus curiae brief was submitted by: Louise Arimatsu, Adejoké Babington-Ashaye, Danya Chaikel, Christine Chinkin, Carolyn Edgerton, Angela Mudukuti, and Cynthia T. Tai.* Following the Ongwen Appeals Chamber’s (AC) invitation to scholars and legal practitioners we submitted an amicus brief contending that duress and sexual violence...

[Matt Cannock is the Head of Amnesty International’s Centre for International Justice. Dr. Rosemary Grey is a Lecturer at Sydney Law School and a Sydney Southeast Asia Centre DECRA Fellow. Akila Radhakrishnan is the President of the Global Justice Center, where she directs GJC’s work to establish legal precedents protecting human rights and ensuring gender equality. Alix Vuillem is the Senior Advocacy Adviser / Program Manager...

[Valerie Oosterveld is Professor of International Law at Western University’s Faculty of Law (Canada) and Associate Director of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Kathleen M. Maloney is Visiting Law Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and Founding Board Member of the international human rights organization, Just Planet. Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western...

[Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum is Associate Professor of Clinical Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where she directs the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic and the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR). Magali Maystre is an international criminal and human rights lawyer and adviser with a background of more than 15 years...

[Alexandra Lily Kather (she/they) is a lawyer, international justice practitioner & co-founder of the Emergent Justice Collective (EJC). Their work focuses, inter alia, on strategically addressing the intersectional dimensions of core international crimes. Angela Mudukuti is a member of Opinio Juris and a human rights lawyer specialised in international criminal law. She has worked with a variety of international organsisations including the International Criminal Court and Human Rights...

[Deepak Raju is a Senior Managing Associate at Sidley Austin LLP, Geneva, focusing on international disputes; he is also a visiting faculty at National University of Juridical Sciences (India), and a doctoral candidate at the University of Geneva.] In a recent post on EJIL: Talk, I discussed Ukraine’s new dispute before the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) against Russia, and compared...

[Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. She is the founder and co-editor of the Armed Groups and International Law blog.]  The author is grateful to comments from Brianne McGonigle Leyh and Vivek Bhatt on an earlier draft of this post. Reading Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War at a time when the prospect of...

[Dr Ka Lok Yip is an Assistant Professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University.] Events vs Tendencies: an Interdisciplinary Divide? In view of the gravity of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is understandable that most legal commentators focus on the legal norms regulating the event directly, jus contra bellum, rather than other legal norms regulating the tendencies that make up the more...

A little-known aspect of the war in Ukraine is that both Russia and Ukraine have deployed weapons that are capable of being used fully autonomously: for Russia, Lancet drones; for Ukraine, Punisher drones. Both weapons are capable of being operated semi-autonomously, and it is not clear whether Russia or Ukraine has used them in their fully autonomous mode. But the...