Much has already been written about the legality of Israel and the US's attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities -- Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer -- including excellent critiques by Marko Milanovic (here and here) and Adil Haque (here). I don't want to rehash their arguments, with which I entirely agree. Instead, I want to explain in this post...
[Image by Freepik.] Introduction It is widely acknowledged that, without regulation, Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) can contribute to violations of international law and benefit from impunity. Both corporate actors and States increasingly rely on PMSCs to secure their operations in high-risk areas—whether through direct contracts, in-house security arrangements, or outsourcing military and law enforcement functions. Numerous UN reports have documented...
[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...
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...
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....
[Johanna Trittenbach is a PhD Candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University. Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University and Otto Spijkers is a Lecturer of International Law at Amsterdam and Leiden University College (AUC and LUC).] Introduction On 12 February 2024, the Court of Appeal in The Hague ordered the Netherlands...
As part of my position at the University of Copenhagen's Centre for Military Studies, I have started a podcast entitled "Lex Ferenda: Conversations about Law and War." Here is the general description: This podcast involves monthly hour-long video interviews with experts whose work and practice focuses on how international law affects the conduct of military operations. Guests will normally be drawn...
[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.] On 5 July, Ret. Colonel John Spencer spoke at NATO’s Urban Warfare Conference in London. He described how Ukrainian President Zelensky “turned his civilians into fighters”, telling the Ukrainians citizens...
[Joseph Cho is a South Korea-based lawyer, qualified in New York as well as in England and Wales.] “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States…and as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”President Donald J. Trump, 2017 Introduction In 2002, President George W....
Announcements Online Event - "Minimalism vs. Maximalism in the ECHR": We are pleased to announce an online panel “Minimalism vs. Maximalism? Challenges and Future Directions in the Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights” on 8 June, 4 pm CET. How does, and how should, the European Court of Human Rights interpret and apply the rights protected under the European Convention on Human...
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...
[Deborah Brown is a senior digital rights researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch.] An upcoming trial in Ecuador should put technologists working in the public interest on high alert. Ola Bini, a Swedish programmer, internet activist, and human rights defender will be in a Quito court accused of trying to destabilize the government by gaining access to an information system...