In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Public International Law

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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02 Oct

With contributions from Mohsen al Attar, Brendan Ciarán Browne, Shahd Hammouri, Nawal Hend, Ata Hindi, and Ali Osman Karaoğlu The Gaza Riviera: Colonial Fantasy Masquerading as Peace Both the American president, Donald Trump, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, caught the headlines this week, with much of mainstream media publicising the offering of a “peace plan” to the Palestinians. The European...

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23 Sep

From Liberation in Algiers to Pacification in Brussels More than most disciplines, international law has found it difficult to escape the stability of its canon, a series of venerated doctrines and texts that circumscribe legal imagination within the confines of Western thought. Indeed, international law has long stood as an essential feature of the structuring logic of imperial domination—including the doctrine...

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19 Sep

[Louisa Handel-Mazzetti is an Assistant Professor at the Royal Netherlands Defense Academy (NLDA) and a PhD Candidate at the Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University] In May 2025, President Trump unveiled the 175 billion dollar plan to build the Golden Dome missile shield, originally introduced in January 2025. Drawing inspiration from Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (‘Star Wars’) and...

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01 Sep

[Kate McInnes is a Vancouver-based criminal defence lawyer and the Principal at Arendt Chambers, Canada's first and only law firm practicing exclusively in international human rights law and international justice] The creation of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (STCAU), a court embedded within the Council for Europe framework, marks a historic effort in securing accountability for...

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