International Humanitarian Law

[Professor Lena Salaymeh is a jurist and historian who teaches at the École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL. She was previously Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University. She co-founded the Decolonial Comparative Law Program at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private International Law in 2019 and co-directed it until 2023.] Horrifying images of children in Palestine and Lebanon murdered and...

[George Bisharat is an Emeritus Professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East for both academic and general audiences. He is currently leading an international comparative research project examining the role of private violence in settler colonial societies.] Three cases related to Palestine have been before...

[Mohsen al Attar is Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University as well as a Contributing Editor to Opinio Juris] Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza—a fifth since its false disengagement in 2006—has once again exposed the catastrophic failures of international law in protecting the world’s most vulnerable from militarism and settler-colonialism. While purportedly targeting resistance, a dubious goal...

[Hussein Badreddine is a Ph.D. Candidate in Public International Law at the University of New South Wales, Canberra] Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah and Israel have been engaging in a low-level armed conflict. This conflict has however been intensifying, and further talks about an imminent ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel are on the rise. A previous conflict between Hezbollah and...

[Nadeshda Jayakody is an Australian qualified lawyer specializing in international human rights law, international humanitarian law (IHL), international criminal law and transitional justice. Nadeshda previously worked on accountability for human right and IHL violations that occurred in Sri Lanka as a Senior/Legal Officer at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Australia and as a Senior Researcher at the South Asian...

[Maryam Jamshidi is an Associate Professor of Law at University of Colorado Law School] As Israel has stated again and again since October 7, its military objective in Gaza is to destroy Hamas, the political party and armed group that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. Israel has deployed a version of this argument to challenge South Africa’s case before...

[Andreas Piperides is a PhD candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant in Public International Law at the University of Glasgow] Introduction The recent unanimous judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) on the merits of Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea) has been described as a ‘a clear and undeniable victory for Ukraine’. In the judgment the Court finds...

[Amanda Alexander is a senior lecturer at the Australian Catholic University] The ICC’s delayed judgement in the Al Hassan case had been long-anticipated in the hope that it might contribute to some emerging areas of international criminal law - in particular gender-based crimes and the treatment of non-state actors’ governance. When, however, the long and complex judgement was published, it created...

[Ayesha Malik is Deputy Director at the Research Society of International Law where she leads the Conflict Law Centre. She is also Adjunct Faculty at the Lahore University of Management Sciences where she teaches international criminal law to undergraduate students.] On April 1, Israel attacked Iran’s consulate in Damascus killing Iranian generals and military officers. Nearly two weeks later, Iran responded...

[Jérôme de Hemptinne is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University] Several posts have been devoted to the delicate question of whether Western States could be implicated in an international armed conflict (IAC) against Russia because of the military, financial, and intelligence support they provide to Ukrainian authorities (see here, here, here, and here). The same question could also be raised regarding...

[Benjamin Meret is a PhD Candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Geneva. He holds an MA in international law from the Geneva Graduate Institute of international and development studies.] On the evening of January 9th, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared that the country’s armed forces were in an internal armed conflict against various criminal groups. This followed several critical...

[Full disclosure: I serve as the Prosecutor's Special Adviser on War Crimes.] In this post I want to provide an overview of the Rome Statute's principle of complementarity. The principle has been consistently misrepresented by politicians and journalists since word first got out that the Prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, intended to seek arrest warrants in the Palestine situation not only for...