Public International Law

[Thomas Obel Hansen is the Beatriz Galindo Distinguished Professor with the Department of International Law, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), co-funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science. He is associated with the Francisco de Vitoria Institute of International and European Studies at UC3M and has a research affiliation with the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University.] Debate has emerged in some...

[Vanessa Murphy and Helen Obregón Gieseken are Legal Advisers at the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva] At the 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in October 2024, Nigeria and European Union Member States pledged, among other things, to consider acceding to the Convention on the Prohibition of Military Use of...

[Victoria Capriles is a Venezuelan feminist attorney and academic. She is currently a visiting fellow at the T.M.C. Asser Institute, where her doctoral research examines the severe Venezuelan migratory and refugee crisis. Geraldine Chacón Villarroel is a Venezuelan attorney and public policy consultant. A former Amnesty International-designated prisoner of conscience, she has worked as a human rights consultant for organisations such...

[Metra Mehran, is an activist from Afghanistan, member of the End Gender Apartheid Campaign and Afghanistan Advocacy Specialist at Amnesty International.  Azadah Raz Mohammad is a legal advisor for the End Gender Apartheid Campaign and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. She is the co-author of the Handbook on Universal Jurisdiction: Holding the Taliban Accountable for International Crimes. Akila Radhakrishnan is an independent human rights lawyer...

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law; Elke Schwarz is a Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London; Ingvild Bode is a Professor of International Relations, University of Southern Denmark; Zena Assaad is an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Australian National University; and Neil Renic is a Lecturer...

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law; Elke Schwarz is a Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London; Ingvild Bode is a Professor of International Relations, University of Southern Denmark; Zena Assaad is an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Australian National University; and Neil Renic is a Lecturer...

[Anji Manivannan is the Legal Director of People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), where her work contributes to its international justice and genocide recognition efforts] In 2015, two UN documents instilled cautious hope for Tamil victims of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, which ended on May 18, 2009. That September, the UN released a comprehensive human rights investigation on Sri...

[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...

[Dr Sergey Sayapin is Professor of Law at KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and Distinguished Visiting Global Scholar at the NUS Centre for International Law (2025)] International law was largely designed for a world in which harm could be identified, responsibility attributed, and violations remedied. Its core concepts – breach, obligation, responsibility, reparation – presuppose a legal universe structured around discrete acts, identifiable actors, and...

[Metra Mehran, is an activist from Afghanistan, member of the End Gender Apartheid Campaign and Afghanistan Advocacy Specialist at Amnesty International.  Venesa Sulimani is a survivor-led advocate from Kosovo, advancing accountability for conflict-related sexual and other gender-based violence and mental health awareness.] Last week, we sat in the United Nations in New York as preparations began on what could become the first global...

[Christine Ryan is the director of the Crimes against Humanity Project at Columbia Law School. Richard Dicker is the founding director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. Akshaya Kumar is the Crisis Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch.] On January 19, a process that has been 80 years in the making will get underway at United Nations headquarters in New York....

[Davit Khachatryan is an international law expert and lecturer specializing in public international law, alternative dispute resolution, investment law, international humanitarian law, and security] A short video clip circulating online appears to show a US strike on a small vessel at sea, followed by imagery that has been read as suggesting that there were survivors in the water. The clip has...