In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Public International Law

06 Feb

[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...

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28 Jan

[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...

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16 Jan

[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....

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14 Jan

[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...

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14 Dec

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law, an Executive Board Member of Airwars, and the Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.] In a New York Times essay published last week, Jeh Johnson, General Counsel of the Department of Defense in President Barack Obama’s first term and Director of Homeland Security in his second, seeks...

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12 Nov

[Omar Grech is Associate Professor within the Department of International Law, University of Malta] Several excellent posts on this blog have already explored different facets of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, including its treatment of state responsibility and obligations erga omnes. This post takes a different tack. It argues that the Opinion marks a doctrinal breakthrough for the concept...

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07 Nov

[Amir Abbas Kiani is a collaborating researcher in International Law at Shiraz University, Iran] On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its ‘historic’ Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. As part of its reasoning, the Court examined the issue of lex specialis derogat legi generali (lex specialis) to determine “…the relationship between...

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07 Nov

[Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott is the author of State Responsibility for Non-State Actors: Past, Present and Prospects for the Future (Oxford: Hart | Bloomsbury, 2022, re-issued in paperback 2024)] This is the second part of a two-part post; see Part I here. But wait! How silly of me. Apologies for jumping the gun. There are other attribution tests under the ILC Articles...

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07 Nov

[Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott is the author of State Responsibility for Non-State Actors: Past, Present and Prospects for the Future (Oxford: Hart | Bloomsbury, 2022, re-issued in paperback 2024)] This is the first part of a two-part post; see Part II here. Information operations can impact societies in many ways. Whether by undermining specific human rights, for example, as a result of crossing...

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06 Nov

[Dr Marika McAdam is an independent international law and policy advisor who works globally on human rights-based criminal justice responses to organized crime and other issues] As the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime opened for signature last month, one would like to imagine cybercriminals pulling their computers from their sockets, anxious about their doors being kicked down when that instrument enters...

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03 Nov

[Dr Jeremie M. Bracka is an international human rights law scholar and transitional justice expert at RMIT University’s School of Law (Melbourne). He previously worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and is the author of Transitional Justice for Israel/Palestine? (Springer, 2022)] The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is witnessing a striking rise in genocide litigation, as global armed conflicts...

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21 Oct

[Eric Fripp is a Barrister at 36 Public & Human Rights, part of the 36 Group, Gray’s Inn, London and Senior Visiting Fellow for the Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London] Deprivation of Nationality Deprivation of nationality, which breaks an important tie between state and individual and potentially increases the number of persons unable to obtain protection by...

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