Nearly 40 legal and political luminaries, including many people for whom I have the utmost respect -- such as Dapo Akande, my Doughty Street colleague Helena Kennedy QC, and Ben Ferencz -- have signed a Combined Statement and Declaration calling on the international community to create a Special Tribunal for the Punishment of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine. The...
[André de Hoogh is Associate Professor in International Law, University of Groningen. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Public International Law, which provides advice to the Dutch government and parliament; this contribution has been written in his personal capacity, and does not reflect in any way the views of the Advisory Committee. His research covers a wide...
Events Society of Legal Scholars Workshop: The SLS International Law Section will host its online PhD Workshop on Responding to Complex Relationships in International Law on 13 May 2022. The programme includes perspectives on global governance, climate change, international criminal justice, and technology and is available here. Attendance is free but the organisers strongly encourage attendees to consider joining the Society of...
By now, many readers -especially those who follow me on Twitter, will have figured out that I have a weird hobby: I like keeping track of who says what about international law in times of crisis. I’ve done it for the Syria strikes of 2018, the Venezuelan elections of 2018, the recognition of Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela in 2019, the attack on Qasem Soleimani...
[Richard L. Kilpatrick, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Business Law at the College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina (USA).] A Technical Tool (Re)Emerges in the Sanctions Spotlight At a time when a violent ground war has mobilized on the European continent, it has been surprising to see a bank messaging system under such intense public debate. Even a month prior to Russia’s...
[Alexandra Hofer (a.s.hofer@uu.nl) is an assistant professor in public international law at Utrecht University and affiliated researcher at the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI).] Note to reader: most of this piece was written on Friday, 25 February. Given the speed at which the situation is evolving it may not be up-to-date at the time of publication, though it tried to take into account some of the additional measures...
Call for Papers Call for Papers - Young Researchers’ Workshop ‘European Human Rights Protection: Twenty years from now': On the 16th of September 2022, the Academy for European Human Rights Protection at the University of Cologne will be opened officially. This joyous occasion will be marked with a colloquy bringing together judges from the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court,...
As of 23:00 CET on 21 February 2022, media outlets and journalists have begun to report on an announcement by Russia that it will send troops for "peacekeeping operations" in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Eastern Ukraine. This followed Russia's announcement earlier the same evening that it would recognize those regions as independent entities, triggering threats of sanctions from...
[Charlotte Renglet is a PhD candidate working on climate litigation and indigenous peoples’ rights at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Prof. Dr. Stefaan Smis is the Head of the Department of Public Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a part-time Reader in International Law at the University...
[Dr Caroline Sweeney is a lecturer in International Human Rights Law with a particular research interest in the intersection between international law and international politics in Syria. She has published on accountability for international crimes committed in Syria since 2011.] On 13 January 2022, the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany convicted Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian intelligence officer, of the...
[Hakan Kaplankaya is a former Turkish diplomat, jurist and INSTITUDE member.] The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), on 23 November 2021, handed down a landmark judgment, Turan and Others v. Turkey, concerning the lawfulness of pre-trial detentions of the judges and prosecutors suspended from office in the wake of the coup attempt that took place on the 15th of July,...
[Marc Weller is Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies at the University of Cambridge and Editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Use of Force in International Law.] The international rules on the use of force are simple. Force may never be employed as a means of international policy. Force is only available by way of self-defence, if specifically...