Courts & Tribunals

[Alexander Heinze is an Acting Professor at the University of Bremen and lecturer at the University of Göttingen] On 24 July 2025, Trial Chamber V (TC V) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its 1,600-page Judgment in the Yekatom and Ngaïssona case, convicting both former Anti-Balaka leaders of a catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity—including murder, persecution, forcible...

[Benoit Meystre is a Swiss lawyer and legal advisor at the International Investigations and Litigation Program of TRIAL International.] TRIAL International filed a criminal complaint against Ousman Sonko in 2017. The organisation supported nine plaintiffs who traveled to Switzerland in January 2024 to be heard by the court. It also ensured the regular publication of summaries of the hearings throughout the trial and advocated for the proceedings to...

[Fabián Raimondo is an Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University. He has been a member of the Bar of the City of La Plata (Argentina) since 1990 and on the List of Counsel of the International Criminal Court since 2005. He has acted as counsel and advocate for Sudan in three advisory...

[Jens Iverson is an assistant professor of international law at Leiden University] The Iranian Non-proliferation Problem: Where to Enrich? The main sticking point for a nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran is domestic uranium enrichment. It seems intractable: but it might not be.  Iran has been clear that it is open to a new deal, but insists it must be able to enrich uranium...

[Dr Nina Araneta-Alana (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University (ANU) under an ARC fellowship, where her research examines state engagement with and backlash against the international legal order] The arrest of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a moment of rare consequence in the often-elusive pursuit of accountability for heads of...

On June 25, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the President of Ukraine signed an agreement to create a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine (STCoA). The tribunal, which will be based on Ukraine's territorial jurisdiction but will have a number of international elements -- and is thus properly categorised as a hybrid...

[Megan Hirst is ICC victims' representative in the Bangladesh/Myanmar and Afghanistan situations. Marie O'Leary is acting Principal Counsel for the ICC Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD). The views in this post are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of the ICC. Valeria Babără is Legal Adviser at Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice. Danya Chaikel...

[Megan Hirst is ICC victims' representative in the Bangladesh/Myanmar and Afghanistan situations. Marie O'Leary is acting Principal Counsel for the ICC Office of Public Counsel for the Defence (OPCD). The views in this post are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of the ICC. Valeria Babără is Legal Adviser at Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice. Danya Chaikel is the...

[Dr Veronica Botticelli is a Postdoctoral Researcher in International Law at the University of Milan, Italy. She obtained a PhD from University of Padua.] On 5 May 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, ‘the Court’) issued an order rejecting Sudan’s request for provisional measures in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the...

[Lisa Reinsberg is the founding executive director of the International Justice Resource Center, a PhD candidate with the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University, and a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law] Human rights oversight bodies have rejected an unknown number of complaints because individual complainants used language that was insulting or offensive to...

Introduction On 27 November 2024, Israel appealed two decisions of the Pre-Trial Chamber that were issued simultaneously with the arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. The first decision rejected Israel's claim that it was entitled to a new Art. 18 notification because the OTP's s investigation after October 7 was substantially different than the investigation the OTP opened...

[Terje Einarsen is Professor of International Law at the University of Bergen and Chairperson of the Norwegian Section of International Commission of Jurists]  Part I of this post discussed why the jurisdiction should be extended and the current proposal to amend Article 15bis. An Alternative Proposal: Amending Article 5 Against this background (see Part I), it would presumably be better and more effective...