In my previous posts on the crime of ecocide -- Post 1, Post 2 -- I argued the theoretical/normative case against the IEP's decision to subject lawful acts to anthropocentric cost-benefit analysis via the "wantonness" requirement. In this post, I want to bracket the issue of whether the definition of ecocide should distinguish between lawful and unlawful acts and question...
I have been eagerly awaiting the results of the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide (IEP), which includes a number of excellent lawyers and some close friends. The exercise has always been largely symbolic: even if 2/3 of states parties are willing to support an ecocide amendment, which is unlikely, an amendment to Art. 5 of the...
[Sava Jankovic, MA (University of Warsaw), MSc (Warsaw University of Technology), PhD (University of Dundee) is Researcher at the Institute of Legal Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His interests include the law of statehood, international responsibility, human rights law and peaceful resolution of conflicts.] The aftermath of the incident: Proceedings before national and international bodies and politically charged sanctions The...
[Sava Jankovic, MA (University of Warsaw), MSc (Warsaw University of Technology), PhD (University of Dundee) is Researcher at the Institute of Legal Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His interests include the law of statehood, international responsibility, human rights law and peaceful resolution of conflicts.] Basic facts The Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius on 23 of May was forced...
While results have not yet been officially announced, it is now a fact that Pedro Castillo, a rural farmer and schoolteacher from the town of Chota, in the northern Peruvian Andes, won Peru’s Presidential Election. Let me say this from the get-go: this is a historical moment. Peru is an immensely centralised, deeply racist country. Castillo’s meteoric rise to the...
[Massimo Frigo is a Senior Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist’s Europe and Central Asia Programme.] On 25 May 2021, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling on the compatibility of systems of mass surveillance with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the essential elements of which were first brought to public light...
[Giovanni Mantilla is University Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and is the author of Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian law and Internal Armed Conflict.] I am humbled by the generous comments of nine excellent readers of my book, Lawmaking under Pressure. Having worked on...
Alas, we are losing our wonderful Editorial Assistant, Parisa Zangeneh, who needs to focus on her PhD at NUI-Galway. Parisa has been an incredible asset to Opinio Juris as an editor and in terms of her own blogging. (See here for an example of the latter.) She will be much missed, though she will maintain her blogging rights and we...
Over at Armed Groups and International Law, Alonso Gurmendi has published his contribution. Check it out here! Alonso Gurmendi is an Assistant Professor at Universidad del Pacífico, in Lima, Peru, where he specializes in international humanitarian law and use of force, with a focus on the history of international law. Currently, he is also a PhD candidate at University College London (UCL). ...
The past few days have been dominated by the horrible images of destruction coming out of Palestine. As is painfully visible to anyone with an internet connection, Israel has been targeting residential and commercial buildings in Gaza under the argument that they are used by Hamas militants. As one tweet by the Israeli Defence Forces put it, according to Israel,...
Call for Papers Call for papers on “The Potential of Public Interest Litigation in International Law”: As there is growing interest in using international courts in the public interest, this project, funded by the University of Exeter and the University of Geneva, aims at analysing what challenges lie ahead and how to overcome them. In order to tackle these questions, the organisers...
Call for Papers Cyprus Human Rights Law Review Call for Papers on special issue: COVID- 19: The Protection of Human Rights in the Pandemic Era: Challenges and Responses: The COVID-19 ongoing crisis has been characterised by the introduction of strict and far-reaching governmental measures restricting fundamental rights to an unprecedented extent for western post-World War II democracies. The Cyprus Human Rights Law...