Public International Law

[Douglas Guilfoyle is Associate Professor of International and Security Law at UNSW Canberra.] I have been asked to write on taking teaching online during the coronavirus pandemic. Others are much better qualified to speak on the topic (see some great resources here from Joe McIntyre and here from Kate Galloway), but I do have the possible advantage of having taught only in face-to-face formats until last year when...

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists. Ian Seiderman is the Legal and Policy Director of the International Commission of Jurists.] The first part of this post looked at the general obligations of the right to health in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, including in relation to the private sector. We now turn to the...

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists. Ian Seiderman is the Legal and Policy Director of the International Commission of Jurists.] In evaluating the existing or potential human rights consequences of the varied State responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, a great deal of attention has been focused on the question of limitations or emergency-based derogations to human rights protections...

[Elizabeth Stubbins Bates is a Junior Research Fellow in Law at Merton College, University of Oxford.] In the shock and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleagues have begun to reflect on international human rights law’s continued importance: with analyses of due diligence, the right to life and right to health; derogations under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (also see page...

[Martins Paparinskis is Reader in Public International Law at University College London, Faculty of Laws.] ‘Is COVID-19 also disrupting the foundations of international law?’ The cliché on the topic safely out of the way in the first sentence, let me say that I will not add to discussion of how international law shapes possible responses in technical and institutional terms, nor will I say anything about...

[Pedro A. Villarreal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.] The WHO's Oversight of the IHR's Obligations – Still No Health Police As explained in the previous post, the WHO cannot invoke legal responsibility when states breach the IHR. Reports of non-compliance have been presented at the World Health Assembly – without further action....

[Pedro A. Villarreal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.] In what is now an omnipresent claim, the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic currently rages throughout the globe. The epidemiological situation changes on a daily basis, often in dramatic fashion. Such fast-paced dynamism also encompasses the measures adopted by domestic authorities – for which there is a very...

[Philippe Sands is a Professor of Law at University College London and a barrister at Matrix Chambers.] The birth and transmission of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, and the COVID-19 illness it generates, and the response to it - are matters for international law. The full consequences will emerge over time, but certain observations may be proposed. It is plain that the health...

[Barrie Sander is a Fellow at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil and Jason Rudall is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University.] The entire symposium is accessible in PDF format here. As we write this introduction we are each sitting in different houses, in different countries, on different continents, and in different hemispheres. We could not be much farther apart. And...

[Todd Carney is a student at Harvard Law School. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Communications. He has also worked in digital media in New York City and Washington D.C.] Though most of the headlines regarding disputed territory in Eastern Europe focus on Crimea and Kosovo, there is another region in Eastern Europe that continues to be in question,...

[Jennifer Trahan is a Professor at the NYU Center for Global Affairs.] On March 5, 2020, the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber issued an extremely significant ruling authorizing the opening of the Afghanistan investigation.  The decision is important in that it confirms the Prosecutor’s discretion in evaluating whether or not to proceed “in the interests of justice” under Article 53(1)(c) of the Rome Statute, thereby allowing the Afghanistan...