Public International Law

[Dzimbabwe Chimbga is an international human rights and climate justice lawyer. He is currently the Team Leader at the African Climate Platform and the lead drafter of the Request for an advisory opinion on climate change, currently pending before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.] A Historic Petition On 2 May 2025, the African Climate Platform (ACP), a Pan-African coalition...

[Beatrice Njeri is a human rights lawyer, an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and Regional Litigator for Africa at the Global Strategic Litigation Council. Maria Jose Alarcon is an Assistant Editor for Opinio Juris. She writes in her personal capacity. The views expressed in this post are her own and do not represent those of the Climate Litigation Network (CLN)...

[Wassim Dbouk is a Research Fellow at the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton and serves as a climate negotiator for Lebanon, where he leads on the negotiations on the Just Transition Work Programme.] At the June 2026 climate meetings in Bonn (SB64), I participated in negotiations under the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) that revealed competing...

[Godfrey Odongo is a nonresident senior fellow with the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.] Introduction Africa has witnessed several intractable armed conflicts, political crises and upheavals. including examples over the last four decades such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide and previous armed conflicts dating back to the 1990s. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 2025 that Africa...

[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...

[Veronika Vozniuk is a Ukrainian legal and policy professional working on issues related to international humanitarian law, human rights, and the legal consequences of armed conflict.] Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has made significant efforts to investigate and prosecute individuals responsible for war crimes committed on its territory. The scale of the alleged crimes is immense and continues...

[Amir Abbas Kiani is a collaborating researcher in International Law at Shiraz University, Iran.] On June 17, 2026, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America (U.S.) signed an agreement, formally entitled the ‘Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU), to resolve certain disputes arising from the international armed conflict (IAC) that broke out between them on February 28, 2026,...

[Mohammad Zayaan Asimi is a D.Phil. candidate in socio-legal studies at the University of Oxford.] Introduction Internet services in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (Kashmir) were severely restricted since 5th June 2026 after widespread protests in the region linked to electoral reforms and other socio-political demands of the people. More than forty people were killed, and hundreds were wounded after the army and police forces...

[His Excellency Filipo Tarakinikini is the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Fiji to the UN. He has spent more than two decades as an infantry officer and then another two in United Nations service.  Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops is a professor by special appointment of Politics of International Law at the University of Amsterdam and defence counsel before the ICC, having...

[Dr Lena Riemer is an Assistant Professor of Law at Central European University working on migration related topics.] When around 80,000 people (according to the Spanish government) crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in early August, reactions quickly framed the event as a test of the EU’s border control and policy and the solidarity amongst its member states (for a...

[Dr Mais Qandeel is an Associate Professor of International Law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway, Ireland, and Örebro University, Sweden. She holds a Ph.D. in international humanitarian law from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.] Introduction  In addition to the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by Israel since October 2023, Israeli settlers and military have been escalating their deadly...