In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Humanitarian Law

21 Jun

[Ahmed Abofoul is a Research Assistant at Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law and a Guest lecturer of Public International Law at Al-Azhar University – Gaza. He worked as a Research Assistant to Dr. Robert Heinsch and Dr. Giulia Pinzauti in submitting their amicus curiae observations in the Situation in the State of Palestine to the Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court] Introduction: The Palestinian people...

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18 Jun

[David Hughes is the Alex Trebek Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.] Late last month, Ireland formally declared that Israel’s policies in the West Bank amounted to “de facto annexation.” The Dáil Éireann, the lower house and principal legislative chamber of the Irish Oireachtas (“parliament”), debated a motion that had been tabled by the main opposition party, Sinn Féin, but that...

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18 Jun

[Michael Lynk is an Associate Professor of Law at Western University, London, Ontario. In May 2016, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Professor Lynk as the Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.] In late June 1980, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 476, amidst diplomatic reports that the Israeli Knesset was seriously debating a...

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18 Jun

[Ingo Venzke is Professor for International Law and Social Justice at the University of Amsterdam and Director of the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL).] Our edited volume has asked a question that is deceptive in its simplicity: Could international law have been otherwise? One could expect the answer to be a resounding ‘yes’, given that no serious account is nowadays...

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18 Jun

[Doreen Lustig is a Senior Lecturer at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law and the author of Veiled Power: International Law and the Private Corporation 1886-1981 (Oxford University Press, 2020).] Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller’s edited volume Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories (Oxford University Press, 2021) (hereinafter: Contingency) is a rare editorial accomplishment. A coherent and multifaceted...

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17 Jun

[Marina Veličković is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Her research interests include International Criminal Law, Political Economy and Critical Theory. I The author extends many thanks to Francisco-Jose Quintana and Justina Uriburu for their comments on an earlier draft.] ‘Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories’, an ambitious volume edited by Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller which was...

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17 Jun

[Vidya Kumar is an Associate Professor of Law at Leicester University, UK. Twitter: @DrVidyaKumarUK] Between you and me, Professors Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller’s edited collection reads like a classic expositional text on the ways to think about contingency in international law – not unlike Susan’s Mark’s timeless work “False Contingency”. Composed of no less than 30 innovative readings of the operation – and non-operation – of contingency...

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16 Jun

[Kanad Bagchi is a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. The author would like to thank the editorial team for thier comments and feedback.] Edited collections often tend to surface within the hegemonic voice of the editors – they introduce the concept, set the frame, determine the contours, and also illustrate the specific set of argumentative...

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16 Jun

[Hirofumi Oguri is a Senior Assistant Professor of International Law at Okayama University in Japan.]  In his famous series of lectures delivered at Cambridge University, E. H. Carr displayed a cynical attitude towards those who tend to ask what if an event had happened otherwise. Carr dismissed this ‘might-have-been’ school of thought as no better than a ‘parlour game’. However, asking ‘what if’ questions is...

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15 Jun

[Ntina Tzouvala is a Senior Lecturer at Australian National University College of Law.] At a time when overseas travel, in-person academic events, and mediocre conference food were still commonplace, I attended the conference in Amsterdam that forms the backdrop for this impressive volume. The event, organised by Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller, was lively, joyful, and not without controversy, which...

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14 Jun

[Erica Gaston is an international lawyer and non-resident fellow with the Global Public Policy institute (GPPi). She has been engaged in research on IHL and conflict-related human rights issues in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and other countries since 2007.] As introduced in Part I of this two-part blog, Western states are now more than ever finding themselves in partnerships (direct or tacit)...

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14 Jun

[Erica Gaston is an international lawyer and non-resident fellow with the Global Public Policy institute (GPPi). She has been engaged in research on IHL and conflict-related human rights issues in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and other countries since 2007.] In the last two decades, Western states have frequently worked with nonstate or substate armed groups to help confront security threats. The greater frequency of...

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