In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Public International Law

01 Mar

[Elin Hellquist is a researcher in the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University.] If you want to take the temperature on international relations (IR), study sanctions. Competing understandings of core IR-concepts such as sovereignty, power, legitimacy and justice are embodied in the politics of sanctions, classically described as an instrument ‘between words and wars’ (Staibano & Wallensteen 2005). Moreover, the empirical universe of sanctions is an...

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28 Feb

[Larissa van den Herik is a professor of public international law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University.] As the balance of world power is tilting east with China’s economic might and its increased international political power ending US hegemony, it is said that we are entering into a new geoeconomic world order in which economic instruments follow the logic of conflict rather than...

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28 Feb

[Alexandra Hofer (a.s.hofer@uu.nl) is an assistant professor in public international law at Utrecht University and affiliated researcher at the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI).] Note to reader: most of this piece was written on Friday, 25 February. Given the speed at which the situation is evolving it may not be up-to-date at the time of publication, though it tried to take into account some of the additional measures...

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28 Feb

[Jennifer Trahan is Convenor of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression, and Clinical Professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.] Let us be clear why the United Nations is largely paralyzed in the face of one of the clearest cases of aggression since 1939:  it is because of the veto power of a permanent member of the UN Security...

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25 Feb

[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden Law School.] ‘In times of war, the law falls silent’ (silent enim leges inter arma). This famous maxim by Cicero is often used to illustrate the lack of power of law in the face of conquest and occupation. In the discourse over the war in Ukraine, we witness...

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24 Feb

[Ryan Thoreson is a researcher in the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.] For most children, nationality is clear-cut. Most countries pass nationality down to children who are born to at least one of their citizens, while a smaller number grant nationality to any child born on their territory. But citizenship laws are by nature more exclusive than inclusive. For children whose parentage or family structure...

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22 Feb

As of 23:00 CET on 21 February 2022, media outlets and journalists have begun to report on an announcement by Russia that it will send troops for "peacekeeping operations" in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Eastern Ukraine. This followed Russia's announcement earlier the same evening that it would recognize those regions as independent entities, triggering threats of sanctions from...

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16 Feb

Events Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Centre virtual event: IHL and the protection of persons with disabilities: Even though about 15 percent of the population have some form of disability, this group is largely ignored when an armed conflict breaks out. International humanitarian law (IHL) does not include specific provisions for the protection of people with disabilities. At a virtual side-event on...

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15 Feb

[Dr. Sigurd D’hondt is an Associate Professor at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). Dr. Juan-Pablo Peréz-León-Acevedo and Dr. Fabio Ferraz-de-Almeida are researchers associated with the project reported on here, and Elena Barrett is a PhD candidate at the department.] Introduction On 4 February 2021, Trial Chamber IX (TC-IX) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Dominic...

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14 Feb

[Dr Caroline Sweeney is a lecturer in International Human Rights Law with a particular research interest in the intersection between international law and international politics in Syria. She has published on accountability for international crimes committed in Syria since 2011.] On 13 January 2022, the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany convicted Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian intelligence officer, of the...

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08 Feb

[Marc Weller is Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies at the University of Cambridge and Editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Use of Force in International Law.] The international rules on the use of force are simple. Force may never be employed as a means of international policy. Force is only available by way of self-defence, if specifically...

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08 Feb

[Sophia Zademack, MLaw, LL.M. has previously worked with different Human Rights Organizations and is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Zurich. Luke James, LLM. is a security analyst interested in peace processes. He has worked at the ICC, OSCE, British Red Cross, Platform for Peace Humanity, UNV and is an Army Reservist.] Summary The defensive weapons supplied to Ukraine are...

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