In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Humanitarian Law

28 Sep

[Dr Marco Longobardo is a Reader in International Law at the School of Law of the University of Westminster. He is the author of The Use of Armed Force in Occupied Territory (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Sufficient Gravity before the International Criminal Court (Edward Elgar 2026).] Introduction In the week that started on 7th September 2027, the ICJ heard the pleadings...

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28 Sep

[Jinan Bastaki is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at New York University, Abu Dhabi.] The International Court of Justice’s proceedings in Alleged Breaches of Certain International Obligations in Respect of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Nicaragua v. Germany) raise questions that extend well beyond the immediate dispute between the two States. At their core is the question of when international law can hold one...

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28 Sep

[Zsuzsanna Deen-Racsmány holds a Ph.D. in public international law from Leiden University. She is an independent researcher and has worked, inter alia, at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam, and been a rapporteur for Oxford International Organizations.] Introduction This post concludes a series of three. Following an introduction that described the parse mention in the submissions in The Gambia v. Myanmar...

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28 Sep

[Zsuzsanna Deen-Racsmány holds a Ph.D. in public international law from Leiden University. She is an independent researcher and has worked, inter alia, at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam, and been a rapporteur for Oxford International Organizations.]  Introduction This post is the second in a series of three in which I advocate for reconsideration of the dominant interpretation of Article II...

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28 Sep

[Zsuzsanna Deen-Racsmány holds a Ph.D. in public international law from Leiden University. She is an independent researcher and has worked, inter alia, at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam, and been a rapporteur for Oxford International Organizations.] Introduction Contrary to the earlier genocide cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ or the Court) against Serbia (here and here), the nature...

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19 Sep

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (IIFFM), created by the Human Rights Council, has released a new report. It's a depressing read, painstakingly cataloging Iran's human-rights violations and analysing two airstrikes carried out by the United States on 28 February 2026 -- the notorious attack on the the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, which...

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18 Sep

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law and Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.]The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI) released its 18-page report to the Human Rights Council on 17 September 2026. In the report, among other findings, the Mission outlines reasonable grounds to believe that the United...

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07 Sep

[Melanie O’Brien is Professor of International Law and Deputy Head of School (Research) at the University of Western Australia Law School, and visiting scholar with the University of Minnesota Law School’s Human Rights Center. Thomas Shacklock is the research director of Crane Center for Mass Atrocity Prevention, a research contributor at the Human Rights Research Center, and a nonprofit consultant at...

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07 Sep

[Mehmet Sercan Ercan is an independent researcher with a PhD in Public Law, working in the fields of general public law and constitutional law.] International legal norms already exist. What is missing is the institutional capacity to enforce them in situations of mass atrocity. The post-Cold War era nurtured the ambition to transform humanitarian intervention into a universal standard, later conceptualized...

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31 Aug

[Mei Ching Liu is an Associate Research Fellow with the Military Transformations Programme (MTP) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore.] All views expressed in this post are the author’s own and do not reflect the official position of RSIS. The UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) will meet later this month...

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28 Aug

[Yousuf Syed Khan is a Manager, Law and Policy at Legal Action Worldwide in Geneva. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council (Strategic Litigation Project), and an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague. Jérôme de Hemptinne is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University.] In Part I of this post, we clarified which legal regimes...

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