Courts & Tribunals

[Milena Sterio is a Distinguished Professor of Law at Cleveland State University and Managing Director of the International Law & Policy Group.  Bhavani Fonseka is a human rights defender and transitional justice expert from Sri Lanka. Stephen Rapp is a former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice and former international prosecutor at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone tribunals.] Introduction ‘The Court of the...

[Kevin Bell is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Australia) and Adjunct Professor at Monash University.  Goran Lambertz is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of Sweden and former Chancellor of Justice of Sweden.] Introduction ‘The Court of the Citizens of the World organized by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, sat as an Ecocide Tribunal in Berlin, Germany, during 16-19...

[Stephen Rapp is a former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice and former international prosecutor at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone tribunals] Introduction by Stephen Rapp ‘The Court of the Citizens of the World organized by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, sat as an Ecocide Tribunal in Berlin, Germany, during 16-19 February 2026, to hear witnesses and receive documentary evidence. The Prosecution...

[Garima Dhankhar holds an LL.M. in International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution from the National University of Singapore. She currently works with Justice Indu Malhotra, former Judge of the Supreme Court of India and a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, assisting in international arbitrations.] The past few years have demonstrated, with increasing clarity, that geopolitical conflicts are no longer peripheral...

What follows is a long written interview I conducted with Sareta Ashraph, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London and the co-founder of ATLAS Women, "a global community of female-identifying lawyers, activists, and jurists with expertise in various facets of public international law." Ashraph is currently serving as Lead Counsel for Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the ICC, in...

For obvious reasons, I am not going to comment on the substance of the investigation or any of the recent media commentary on it. In this post, I simply want to address a narrow legal issue that is drawing attention on social media: what is the standard of proof that applies in disciplinary proceedings at the ICC? The answer is...

[Asuman Ece Yildiz is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen] In today's world, conflicts frequently take the form of non-international armed conflicts involving a variety of non-state armed groups espousing ideologies. These groups often assert de facto control over territories for extended periods, spanning years and even decades. Such control necessitates the establishment of governance systems, bureaucracies, and, in...

[Kate McInnes and Elsa Wyllie practice international criminal law at Arendt Chambers] Bill 5776-2026, establishing a special tribunal for the perpetrators of the October 7 attacks on Israel (the “October 7 Court”), is rapidly advancing through the Knesset.  The legislation’s earliest iterations presented the October 7 Court as a hybrid tribunal in all but name. What was proposed was a special judicial...

[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...

[Thairi Moya Sánchez (PhD) is a full-time professor of public international law at Complutense University of Madrid] Leer en español / A Spanish version of this post is available here. Over recent months, the Venezuela file has moved into an accelerated escalation: international airlines suspended or curtailed operations amid official safety advisories and mounting regional military risk; Washington announced coercive maritime...

[Maud Sarliève and Dr Pauline Martini are associate research fellows at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London] On 4 December 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched its groundbreaking Policy on Addressing Environmental Damage under the Rome Statute: severe environmental harm can now be prosecuted as an international crime. This document represents...