Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation
24 Jun The Pathology of Arab State Silence on Palestine: How Rapprochement with Israel Reveals Complicity in the Conflict and Could Cause Further Unrest in the Region
...open reversal of prior commitments to Palestinian statehood and ending Israeli occupation reflects the abandonment of an earlier era of firm Arab opposition to Zionist expansionism. More shockingly, Arab leaders over those perilous 11 days showcased a callous lack of empathy. In the face of a level of violence and destruction unseen by Palestinians since ‘Operation Protective Edge’ in 2014, deemed illegal under international law and subject to an open investigation by the International Criminal Court, several Arab states displayed a form of state psychopathy in their willingness to ignore,...22 Jan Guest Post: The Palestinian Accession to the Rome Statute and the Question of the Settlements
...words "directly or indirectly", looks like an ex post facto law to me, unless I am to suppose that the presence or absence of the words makes no difference. Ex post facto laws are forbidden in most jurisdictions of the world. Jordan Edward: use of ex post facto law for criminal sanction purposes would constitute a violation of international law (e.g., human rights law as well as the customary principle of nullum crimen sine lege [no crime without law], set forth in Article 22 of the Rome Statute for the...01 Aug Joint Declaration Charging Legal Violations in Israel’s Gaza Offensive
A group of international law and criminal law scholars have issued a joint declaration denouncing Israel’s Gaza offensive for causing “grave violations…of the most basic principles of the laws of armed conflict and of the fundamental rights of the entire Palestinian population.” It is the latest front in the public debate over legal violations arising out of the Gaza conflict, some of which we have noted here at Opinio Juris (the legality of denying electricity to Gaza and the legal effect of Israeli warnings to civilians).Personally, I don’t think there...22 Mar The ICC and Israel: Prosecuting the Punitive Demolition of Palestinian Homes – Part 2
punitive demolitions would likely pass the tests of complementarity and gravity under Art. 17 of the Rome Statute. It is clear that Israel is not prosecuting any State officials for this conduct (‘the same case’ test in ICC case law), and it is probable Israel would be found “unwilling” to prosecute its officials for designing and implementing what is after all an official State policy of the Israeli government (the same goes for settlements activities, illegal under international law but sanctioned by domestic law). Complementarity should therefore not pose any...
29 Apr Symposium on Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War: The Making of Future Wars – A Methodological Note
[Karin Loevy is a fellow at NYU School of Law, where she serves as the manager JSD Program. She is also a researcher at the Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ) where she leads the History & Theory of International Law workshop series. Her current work is in history of international law in the Middle East in the period leading to the mandate system.] One thing that I find fascinating about history of law generally is that it allows us to think deeply about one main aspect of what...
19 Sep Public-Private Genocide?
[Professor Sundhya Pahuja is ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Professor and Professor of international law at the University of Melbourne. She is the Director of the Laureate Program in Global Corporations and International Law . Dr. André Dao is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Laureate Program] On 30 June 2025, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese issued a report detailing corporate complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and genocide against the Palestinian people. Special Rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate and...
07 Feb ICC and Palestine Symposium: ‘Imprisoning’ Self-Determination–The Israeli Military Law Enforcement System in the West Bank and Its Relevance for the ICC
brought to a judge (24 hours in Israeli domestic law, compared with 8 days under military orders), or the maximum period of detention without access to a lawyer (48 hours under Israeli domestic law, against 90 days under the military orders). The legal discriminations are then aggravated by the unequal law enforcement policies. Organizations denouncing settlers’ violence against Palestinians, for example, have reported that – in ten years of activity – 85.3% of the investigations have been closed due the failure to locate suspects or to collect sufficient evidence; just...20 May The Unredeemable Republic of China: Why Professor Lung-Chu Chen’s Theory of Effective Self-Determination May Be Harmful to Taiwan’s Statehood Claim
[Dr Ming-Sung Kuo is an associate professor of law at University of Warwick (UK) where he has taught international law, constitutional and administrative law, and legal theory. He earned his JSD and LLM from Yale University and his LLB and another master degree from National Taiwan University.] In Professor Lung-Chu Chen’s recent post on Opinio Juris, he reiterates his justification of Taiwan’s statehood, which I first heard when I was still a senior law student at National Taiwan University. In this brief note, I aim to point out why Professor...
05 May Symposium on the UNWCC: War Crimes Against Culture – Poland’s Charge File Submissions to the UNWCC
legal measures that could be taken to hold those responsible to account, informed debates at the United Nations War Crimes Commission, founded in October 1943. Representatives of the Polish War Crimes Office (created in November 1943) were cognisant of the pre-UNWCC discussions about war crimes, which had taken place in a range of unofficial fora, and had taken part in the Polish Government’s deliberations in 1942 and early 1943 on the draft Polish law relating to war crimes. That law, the ‘Decree of the President of the Republic of Poland...