Astrid Coracini and Jennifer Trahan have a new post at Just Security that argues a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression created either by treaty or by a General Assembly-endorsed agreement between Ukraine and the UN would not have to recognise the personal immunity of Russian officials. I disagree, for reasons I have explained in a recent article in...
[Professor Shane Darcy is the Deputy Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights in the School of Law at the University of Galway and the author of ‘To Serve the Enemy: Informers, Collaborators and the Laws of Armed Conflict’ (Oxford University Press).] Every war has its collaborators. And every country at war must at some point not only come to...
[Dr Erica Moret is Policy Director at the Swiss Centre for Policy Engagement, Polisync; Senior Researcher at the Centre for Global Governance at the Graduate Institute, Geneva and Senior Fellow on Sanctions and Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR). She provided input to the 2022 Kyiv Security Compact on the role sanctions could play in...
On Tuesday, the Office of the President of Ukraine issued a press release concerning plans for creating a Special Tribunal for Russian Aggression. Most of the information in the press release was boilerplate, reaffirming the need for such a tribunal and expressing hope that the international community will get behind one. One comment, however, set off my lawdar: As noted at...
[Agata Kleczkowska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland.] Introduction On 26 September two underwater explosions caused a total of four leaks in the pipelines Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, two each in Denmark’s and Sweden’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs). According to these States, the ‘magnitude of explosions measured...
[Raquel Vazquez Llorente is the Head of Law and Policy, Technology Threats & Opportunities, at WITNESS. Wendy Betts is the Executive Director of eyeWitness, initiated by the International Bar Association.] Traditionally, international justice has adjudicated abuses and crimes that occurred well in the past. For the first time in history, we are seeing active and cooperative investigations from the beginning of a...
[Daniel Davies is a lawyer and forced migration specialist who has worked with refugees in the Middle East, East Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region.] “Estonia is home to our people, not for convenience refugees of an aggressor state.” Kaja Kallas, Estonian Prime Minister of Estonia “Lithuania will not be granting asylum to those who are simply running from responsibility. Russians should stay...
[Patricio Barbirotto is a research fellow and adjunct professor of International Law at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy.] On 11 July 2022, the President of the Russian Federation V. V. Putin signed the Presidential Executive Order n. 440 “on Amending the Executive Order of the President of the Russian Federation No. 183 of April 24, 2019, ‘On the Definition of Categories of Persons Entitled...
[Beatrice Lau is a humanitarian professional from Hong Kong who has worked in Niger, Haiti, Tajikistan, Malaysia, Libya, Tunisia, and Belarus. She holds an LL.M in Advanced Studies in Public International Law from Leiden University.] Brittney Griner, the American Women National Basketball star and two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted in Russia on August 4 for drug possession and sentenced to...
[Mateusz Piątkowski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Łódź, Poland (Faculty of Law and Administration, International Law Department), Attorney-at-law, and Member of the Polish Society of the Military Law and the Law of War.] On February 27, 2022, the EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrel announced that the European Council decided to offer Ukraine a package of lethal weapons of significant value,...
[Luke James, LLM. is a security analyst interested in peace processes. He has worked at the ICC, OSCE, British Red Cross, Platform for Peace Humanity, UNV and is an Army Reservist.] On 5 July, Ret. Colonel John Spencer spoke at NATO’s Urban Warfare Conference in London. He described how Ukrainian President Zelensky “turned his civilians into fighters”, telling the Ukrainians citizens...
[Dr Talita Dias is the Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow in Law at Jesus College, Oxford, as well as a Research Fellow with the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), at the Blavatnik School of Government. The views expressed here are hers alone.] 1. Introduction A prime example of ‘hybrid warfare’, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has witnessed a...