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On Thursday 29 November 2019, Professor Anne Orford (Melbourne Law School) will deliver the Fifth T.M.C. Asser Lecture at the Peace Palace in the Hague. Asser Institute researchers Taylor Woodcock, Dr. Antoine Duval and Dr. Dimitri Van Den Meerssche had the opportunity to speak with Professor Orford about her ambition to place the social question (back) on the agenda of international law(yers). A...

I have posted the first draft on SSRN. The article is entitled, intending to be provocative, "Genuine" Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention -- Another Ticking Time-Bomb Scenario. Here is the abstract: The activation of the crime of aggression at the ICC has renewed interest in one of the oldest and most fraught questions of the jus ad bellum: whether a state is entitled...

[Alexandra Lily Kather, is a Legal Advisor, International Crimes and Accountability Program, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Silvia Rojas Castro is a ECCHR Critical Legal Trainee, International Crimes and Accountability Program, and Vandita Khanna is ECCHR Critical Legal Training Alumn*, International Crimes and Accountability Program.] 75 years after the Malaya Lolas (“Free Grandmothers”) were sexually enslaved by the...

[Solon Solomon is a Lecturer in the Division of Public and International Law at Brunel University London School of Law.] The last few days have seen a renewed legal interest in both sides of the Atlantic concerning the legality of the Israeli settlements. On November 12, the European Union’s court, the ECJ, held that products coming from these settlements must be labelled accordingly....

[Mattia Pinto is a PhD Candidate and teaching assistant in the Law Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His PhD research analyses the role that human rights play in fostering and legitimising penal expansion. Diletta Marchesi is a PhD Fellow for fundamental research of the Research Foundation – Flanders at the KU Leuven Institute of...

The judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) continue to attract attention, sometimes for all the wrong reasons. Their suit before the International Labour Organisation for a salary increase as reported by the New York Times, and questionable legal judgements such as Pre-Trial Chamber II’s decision to deny the Prosecutor’s request to open a much needed, and clearly warranted investigation...

I've been meaning to write for a while now about Stefan Talmon's brilliant new article for the Chinese Journal of International Law, which is entitled "The United States under President Trump: Gravedigger of International Law." It's rare you see an international lawyer of Talmon's eminence and care give an article such a provocative title, so you know he must be...

[Dimitrios A. Kourtis is a Research Associate and Adjunct at the School of Law of the University of Nicosia. He is completing his PhD at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki studying remedies for victims of genocide in international law.] In a possibly historical movement, The Gambia has launched an application instituting proceedings against Myanmar for acts and omissions targeting the Rohingya allegedly constituent...

On 11 November 2019, The Gambia filed an application at the International Court of Justice against Myanmar, alleging violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention.  This legal step has been in the works for some time now, with the announcement by the Gambian Minister of Justice that instructions had been given to counsel in October to file the application. As a result, the application has been...

Over at Just Security, my friend Adil Haque has written a fantastic post on self-defense and non-state actors. Adil’s main point is that Article 51 of the UN Charter does not apply to armed attacks by non-state actors given its “Latin American origin”. He explains how it should be read in accordance with the Act of Chapultepec, which referred only to inter-state uses of force. I highly...

At the International Conclave on Justice and Accountability for the Rohingya organized by the Centre for Peace and Justice (BRAC University), the Asia Justice Coalition and the International Institute of Social Studies on 18 October 2019, the Minister of Justice for The Gambia announced that he had instructed counsel on 4 October to proceed to file an application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)...