Announcements ABILA - Crisis in Ukraine: International Law and Accountability: The ABILA ICC Committee is pleased to co-sponsor a virtual panel on Crisis in Ukraine: International Law and Accountability on Thursday, March 31 at 12:15-1:45 pm ET. Given the tragic outbreak of war in Ukraine and Russia’s flagrant violation of the UN Charter and ongoing commission of crimes, this panel will...
In an excellent recent blog post at Just Security, Tom Dannenbaum identified four options for prosecuting Russia's unprovoked aggression against Ukraine: [T]he International Criminal Court, an ad hoc international tribunal (whether along the lines proposed at Chatham House or pursuant to a General Assembly resolution), a domestic court exercising territorial jurisdiction (in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine), or a domestic court exercising...
[Mateusz Piątkowski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Łódź, Poland (Faculty of Law and Administration, International Law Department), Attorney-at-law, and Member of the Polish Society of the Military Law and the Law of War. You can find Part I of this post here.] Under international law, military confrontations between states are measured by their intensity and gravity. To establish...
[Mateusz Piątkowski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Łódź, Poland (Faculty of Law and Administration, International Law Department), Attorney-at-law, and Member of the Polish Society of the Military Law and the Law of War. The author thanks Dr Tomasz Lachowski from University of Łódź, Poland and LtnCol. Dr Wojciech Mendel from the Polish Society of Military Law and...
[María Manuela Márquez Velásquez is an LL.M. Candidate in Advanced Studies in Public International Law at Leiden University. LL.B. Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá-Colombia. She is currently Assistant Student Editor at Leiden Journal of International Law and Coordinator of the Theory of Public International Law Research Group at Universidad del Rosario.] The Office of Prosecutor ICC (OTP) has announced a new policy...
Nearly 40 legal and political luminaries, including many people for whom I have the utmost respect -- such as Dapo Akande, my Doughty Street colleague Helena Kennedy QC, and Ben Ferencz -- have signed a Combined Statement and Declaration calling on the international community to create a Special Tribunal for the Punishment of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine. The...
Events Society of Legal Scholars Workshop: The SLS International Law Section will host its online PhD Workshop on Responding to Complex Relationships in International Law on 13 May 2022. The programme includes perspectives on global governance, climate change, international criminal justice, and technology and is available here. Attendance is free but the organisers strongly encourage attendees to consider joining the Society of...
[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden Law School.] ‘In times of war, the law falls silent’ (silent enim leges inter arma). This famous maxim by Cicero is often used to illustrate the lack of power of law in the face of conquest and occupation. In the discourse over the war in Ukraine, we witness...
[Amirali Alavi is the Chair of the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims’ Legal Committee. Irwin Cotler is Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and former Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada. Yonah Diamond is an international human rights lawyer with the RWCHR.] On January 8, the...
Events Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Centre virtual event: IHL and the protection of persons with disabilities: Even though about 15 percent of the population have some form of disability, this group is largely ignored when an armed conflict breaks out. International humanitarian law (IHL) does not include specific provisions for the protection of people with disabilities. At a virtual side-event on...
[Marc Weller is Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies at the University of Cambridge and Editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Use of Force in International Law.] The international rules on the use of force are simple. Force may never be employed as a means of international policy. Force is only available by way of self-defence, if specifically...
[Sophia Zademack, MLaw, LL.M. has previously worked with different Human Rights Organizations and is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Zurich. Luke James, LLM. is a security analyst interested in peace processes. He has worked at the ICC, OSCE, British Red Cross, Platform for Peace Humanity, UNV and is an Army Reservist.] Summary The defensive weapons supplied to Ukraine are...