The Waters Were Already Muddy: A Rebuttal to Victor Kattan

Steven Kay QC is Head of Chambers at 9 Bedford Row.  Joshua Kern is a barrister at 9 Bedford Row). On 3 July 2019, we submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) (summarised here)  which argued that Palestine’s objective legal status as a non-State entity, as well as Palestine’s indeterminate sovereign territorial claim, operate...

A few weeks ago I presented my book on the Peruvian armed conflict at FIL, Lima’s International Book Fair. The book, “Conflicto Armado en el Perú: La Época del Terrorismo bajo el Derecho Internacional” (“Armed Conflict in Peru: The Times of Terrorism under International Law”), published by Universidad del Pacífico Press, explores how politicized misinformation on the conflict’s history has...

Last Monday, Prof. Stephen Walt published a controversial article on his Foreign Policy blog. The title (which he did not choose and has since been changed) was regrettable: “Who Will Invade Brazil to Save the Amazon?” Written as part of the fallout from Brazil’s new (and terrible) deforestation policy, the post asks what exactly should the international community do to prevent states like Brazil from causing...

[Carola Lingaas is an Associate Professor of Law at VID Specialized University in Oslo (Norway). She earned her PhD in November 2017 from the University of Oslo with a thesis on ‘The Concept of Race in International Criminal Law’, which is under contract for publication by Routledge.] Introduction In November 2018, the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC) rendered its judgment in the case 002/02 against the former senior...

[Sarah Kay is a human rights lawyer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is working on counter-terrorism and human rights and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. Photo credit: Zach D. Roberts.] In her new book, “Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life”, writer Natasha Lennard examines various aspects of contemporary resistance movements. While the book is, by and large, political, it focuses on issues close to the...

Call for Papers The Juris En Conference on International Law 2020 (JECIL 2020) is an academic conference on the modernist approaches of International Law and its allied fields. This conference is being organized by Internationalism, a research organization dedicated to the innovative evolution of international law via academics, learning, and social entrepreneurship. We are in collaboration with ISAIL-Lucknow Institute for a Greater...

[Marie Davoise is an English-qualified lawyer who specialises in business & human rights and international criminal law. Previously in private practice, she is currently working as a Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICC or its members.] Although...

On 23 January 2019, Juan Guaidó, the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, proclaimed himself as the caretaker President of Venezuela in accordance with Article 223 of the Venezuelan Constitution. Guaidó’s Government falls foul of the criterion of effectiveness (control of at least some territory, habitual obedience of a majority of the population, and reasonable prospect of permanence), which remains with Maduro. The claim is purely...

[Ricardo Arredondo is professor of Public International Law at the University of Buenos Aires and at the University of Palermo. He is Professor of Diplomatic Law and Practice at the Institute for the Foreign Service of Argentina.] After more than two decades of negotiation, on June 28, Mercosur and the European Union reached “a political agreement for an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive trade agreement”, according to the...

Max du Plessis is Senior Counsel in South Africa, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers and an Honorary Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Christopher Gevers is a Lecturer in the School of Law at University of KwaZulu-Natal. In our first post, we identified how the...