In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

13 Feb

[Ariel Costa holds a doctorate in public international law and has worked with universities and research institutions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The author lives in the US on a temporary research visa. They are writing under a pseudonym because they are concerned this post will subject them to arrest or removal proceedings.] On January 3, US forces captured Venezuela’s...

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13 Feb

[Mojtaba Touiserkani has a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Tehran] In early January 2026, Iran went dark. Protests that began as economically driven unrest—sparked by a collapsing rial—spread rapidly beyond Tehran and quickly widened in demands. The state answered with escalating force. On 8 January, authorities imposed a complete nationwide internet shutdown, severing the public’s ability to see,...

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13 Feb

[Mohit Khubchandani is an International Disputes Resolution Attorney with over a decade of experience working at the government, UN, ICJ, ILC, ITLOS and at international arbitration firms in London and Paris. Jason Rudall is Associate Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University.] Introduction The ICJ has handed down 3 of its 4 judgments in contentious cases on the question of compensation since 2012,...

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12 Feb

[The authors are third year law students at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS), Kolkata.] The UN Charter rests on a distinctive normative conception of sovereignty. Sovereignty is not abolished in matters of international peace and security; rather, it is collectively mediated through universality. Article 2(1) affirms the sovereign equality of states, grounding participation in peace and security governance in strictly juridical status....

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12 Feb

[Brian McGarry is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University] The just-concluded hearings in The Gambia v. Myanmar mark the culmination of a long campaign that expanded the reach of public interest litigation, while foreshadowing the popularization of third-State intervention in ICJ cases. All of this has received more than its share of attention, including the Court’s admission of 11 intervening States...

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11 Feb

[Zsuzsanna Deen-Racsmány holds a Ph.D. in public international law from Leiden University. She is an independent researcher and has worked, inter alia, at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam, and been a rapporteur for Oxford International Organizations.] In January 2026, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court) held public hearings on the merits in Application of the Convention on...

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11 Feb

[Mahemud E. Tekuya, a former lecturer of Law at Dire Dawa University, Ethiopia, holds a JSD/Ph.D. from McGeorge School of Law, where he received the 2022 Award of Excellence for JSD Achievement (highest GPA and scholarship achievement). He is the author of The Nile in Legal and Political Perspective: Between Change and Continuity. 1st ed. Boston: BRILL, 2023] On December 26, 2025, Israel...

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11 Feb

[Sanmay Moitra is a research assistant at ‘Human Rights in Practice’ and an Advanced LLM candidate at Leiden University. He has previously studied international law at the University of Oxford and Georgetown University.] On January 18, the full text of a Charter for Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ (BoP) was made public. Although UNSC Resolution 2803 had first authorised and conceived of the...

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11 Feb

[Saumya Kaushik is an LL.M. candidate in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, focusing on international dispute settlement and compliance mechanisms.] Often the discourse on international dispute settlement lays emphasis on the choice of forum; i.e., whether States should resort to legal means of dispute settlement or diplomatic means of settlement. As Marcelo Kohen identifies, these are two sides of the coin...

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10 Feb

[Dr. Joshua Joseph Niyo is the Regional Legal Adviser for East and Central Africa at Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. He has served as an adjunct lecturer at UCLA, UC Irvine, and Pepperdine University, and was a Swiss National Science Foundation Visiting Researcher. He is actively involved in a multi-year project to enhance IHL capacity in Mozambique,...

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