Multi-Blog Series: First Thoughts from Academia on the Updated GCI Commentary

[This is the third episode in the Multi-blog series on the Updated Geneva Conventions Commentaries, jointly hosted by the Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog, Intercross and Opinio Juris. The first, by Jean-Marie Henckaerts, can be found here, and the second, by Sean Murphy, here.] It is a great pleasure to contribute to this multi-blog series on the ICRC’s newly-released Commentary on...

Event For its 10-year anniversary the Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law (ICL Journal) will host a conference dedicated to its very scope: The one day event to be held on 23 September 2016 at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) will focus on the concept of International Constitutional Law. Keynote lectures will be presented by Frederick Schauer and...

[Dr. Frederick Cowell is a Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London School of Law.] On the 6th of July the UK’s Iraq Enquiry report was finally published having taken almost seven years to complete. The process,  chaired by a leading former British civil servant, Sir John Chilcot, aimed to look at the causes and consequences of the 2003...

[Liu Haiyang is a research fellow at the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies, Nanjing University, China. This post was submitted to Opinio Juris under the auspices of the Chinese Initiative on International Law, an NGO with a mandate of promoting a better understanding of international law, particularly international criminal law and justice.] The ad hoc Arbitral Tribunal established...

The much-anticipated long awaited South China Sea Arbitration award on the merits is here!  It is a slam-dunk, complete, utter, massive, total legal victory for the Philippines on all counts (lots of metaphors here, none are quite sufficient). Essentially, the tribunal ruled in favor of almost all of the Philippines' claims in the arbitration.  Perhaps the most headline friendly result:...

In the second installment of episode 1 in this multi-blog series on the updated Commentaries, Professor Sean Murphy responds to Jean-Marie Henckaerts first post on locating the commentaries in the international legal landscape. Sean D. Murphy, Professor of International Law at George Washington University and Member of the U.N. International Law Commission, considers the role of the ICRC commentaries as a...

Did you hear the one about Judge de Gurmendi, the President of the ICC, taking bribes for from 2004 on to ensure Omar al-Bashir's indictment? The president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is facing calls to resign after it emerged that she may have received financial rewards said to be in millions of dollars to ensure the indictment of Sudanese President...

[Dr. Joanna Nicholson is a Researcher at PluriCourts – Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order at the University of Oslo.] For a crime to amount to a crime against humanity, it must be shown to have been part of a bigger picture, namely part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population....

Just a reminder: this summer we will host our Fourth Annual Emerging Voices symposium, where we invite doctoral students and early-career academics or practicing attorneys to tell Opinio Juris readers about a research project or other international law topic of interest. If you are a doctoral student or in the early stages of your career (e.g., post-docs, junior academics or early...

Event On 15-16 December 2016, the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI) at Ghent University will be hosting an international two-day conference entitled ‘International Immunities: Law in a State of Flux?’ The aim of the conference – organized in partnership with the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) – is to take stock of recent evolutions...

[William S. Dodge is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law and Co-Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law: Jurisdiction. From August 2011 to July 2012, he served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.] In RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community,...

For the first episode in the Multi-blog series on the Updated Geneva Conventions Commentaries, the Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog has published Locating the Geneva Conventions Commentaries in the International Legal Landscape, by Jean-Marie Henckaerts. View of destruction in downtown Homs, Syria. © Jerome Sessini/Magnum Photos for ICRC Jean-Marie is the head of the unit in charge of the update of the...