Videos

Every juristic tradition has at least one point in common: they seek to distinguish between lawful and unlawful behaviours, usually extrapolating a normative parallel between right and wrong or, with ecclesiastical fervour, between good and bad. Tied up with this narrative are notions of accountability (for wrongdoers) and restoration (for those wronged). Of course, morality almost always morphs into moralisation,...

In her book "Justice for Some: The Role of International Law in the Palestinian Struggle," Noura Erakat makes a provocative claim: that international law, often hailed as a neutral guardian of justice, has actually strengthened Israeli settler-colonialism. Erakat contends that international law's supposed neutrality is but a mirage, shaped and coloured by global power imbalances. In this episode,...

Few emotions rival the existential horror a PhD candidate experiences when asked to justify their topic’s relevance to the discipline. Having adopted “Mass Media and International Law” as my banner, I’ve received a fair share of queries about “where’s the law”. Though the frequency of these challenges has decreased with our discipline’s recent gestures towards multi-disciplinarity, their persistence reflects the...

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University School of Law and Associate Research Fellow at the International Center for Counter-Terrorism--the Hague. Nilza Amaral is a Project Manager with the International Security Programme at Chatham House with expertise in drone technology and the conduct of war. Part I of the post can be found here.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhslESKNes4&t=2s Explainer: European Use of Military...

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University School of Law and Associate Research Fellow at the International Center for Counter-Terrorism--the Hague. Nilza Amaral is a Project Manager with the International Security Programme at Chatham House with expertise in drone technology and the conduct of war.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhslESKNes4&t=2s Explainer: European Use of Military Drones, Chatham House Introduction Two weeks ago, Chatham House published the research...

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of giving an online lecture for the Iranian Center for International Criminal Law about the relationship between the US and the ICC. In the lecture, I trace the evolution of the US-ICC relationship and try to predict what that relationship will look like under President Biden. I also speculate about why Trump has...

As you may remember, last month Peggy, Duncan, and I attended a conference at Yale Law School on the contributions of the New Haven School to international law. In part this was about the policy-oriented jurisprudence associated with Harold Lasswell, Myres McDougal, and Michael Reisman (among others). In part the conference was about the ideas of transnational legal...