In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

11 Aug

[Bhavani Fonseka is an Attorney-at-Law and Researcher based in Sri Lanka] May 2026 marked 17 years since the end of the war in Sri Lanka, a period in which accountability for the violations that occurred during the war have been elusive. Despite the passage of time, the demand for accountability persists with victims both in Sri Lanka and outside agitating and mobilizing in search of...

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10 Aug

[Olivera Simić is a Professor with the Griffith Law School, Griffith University] In this piece, my main question is: if the future of international law is domestic, then who guarantees that domestic courts apply universal jurisdiction and enforce international standards in their proceedings? Here, I reflect on some differences that may arise when prosecuting international crimes under the principle of universal...

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10 Aug

[Antonia Mulvey is a British lawyer, and the founder and executive director of Legal Action Worldwide.] International law, international justice institutions, and human rights are under extraordinary pressure as conflicts are increasing and displacement is at record levels. Using the law to protect rights and demand justice has rarely been more important, or more difficult. The Rohingya accountability effort shows both the possibilities and the limits of...

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10 Aug

[Emma Palmer is an Associate Professor at Griffith Law School researching the use of universal jurisdiction to prosecute international crimes in the Asia-Pacific. Prasadi Wijesinghe is a PhD Candidate at Griffith Business School researching intellectual property law and artificial intelligence.] This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE250100597). The views expressed herein are those...

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07 Aug

[Gaia Zoboli is a PhD candidate and Lecturer in Public International Law at Maastricht University. Ruben Peetam is a PhD candidate in Dutch Constitutional and Administrative Law at Maastricht University and a member of the Maastricht Research Centre for Society and Law.] Introduction ‘How many military flights connected to the illegal war in Iran make use of the Dutch airspace?’. This question was...

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07 Aug

[Quazi Omar Foysal is a Bangladeshi-qualified international lawyer, currently pursuing a PhD at La Trobe University, Australia] While deliberating on the Provisional Measures Order in the Sudan Genocide case, the International Court of Justice (“ICJ” or “Court”) devoted most of its attention to the UAE's reservation to Article IX of the Genocide Convention. Although the Court’s finding of a manifest lack of jurisdiction relieved it...

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06 Aug

[Sanjna Jain is an International Law and Human Rights Fellow at the International Commission of Jurists in their Africa Regional Program] After months of deliberation, on 7 July 2026 Zimbabwe’s President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has signed into law a constitutional amendment that will that will keep him in office until 2030, delaying the originally scheduled 2028 presidential election. The constitutional amendment fundamentally reshapes Zimbabwe’s electoral system and...

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06 Aug

[Guy S. Goodwin-Gill is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Emeritus Professor of International Refugee Law, University of Oxford] In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Coast Guard to stop Haitians on the high seas and return them to the country they had fled, despite international law prohibiting such conduct. In 2026, the Court allowed U.S. officials to stop...

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05 Aug

[Emanuele Cimiotta is a Full Professor of International Law at the University of Perugia] Establishing a state’s genocidal intent is a hard task. Yet intent constitutes one of the building blocks of genocide: the so-called dolus specialis, whose presence is essential for a state to be held responsible. To this end, the violence that Israel has been perpetrating against Palestinian children...

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05 Aug

[José Enrique Conde Belmonte is a Professor of Public International Law and European Union Law at the Complutense University of Madrid. He writes here in a personal academic capacity.] On 30 July 2026, roughly 60,000 people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish city of Ceuta — population 84,000 — in under forty-eight hours, most of them by sea around the Tarajal...

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05 Aug

[Larissa Kojoue is a researcher at the LGBT division with Human Rights Watch] Legislation that strips people of their rights is gaining momentum across Africa, in the name of “African Family Values” and “Sovereignty.” It is not driven by popular demands, but rather because domestic actors find it politically rewarding, and external forces find the African continent a strategic arena to advance a coordinated agenda of exclusion...

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04 Aug

[Dr Sergey Sayapin is Professor of Law at KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and Distinguished Visiting Global Scholar at the NUS Centre for International Law (2025)] The discussion in Part I of this blog post has examined how contemporary economic interdependence generates structural vulnerabilities within financial systems, sovereign debt, and global production networks. Yet the significance of economic fragility extends well beyond these domains. The modern...

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