General

[Sara Dal Monico is a PhD fellow in International Law at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice] Digital Sequence Information of Genetic Resources These days (almost) anything can be stored digitally, even the DNA of a plant or seed. One of the latest and emerging debates which has taken over at the Conference of the Parties of December 2022 (CoP) of the Convention...

[Dr. Mais Qandeel is a Senior Lecturer of International Law at Örebro University, Sweden. She holds a Ph.D. in international humanitarian law from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.] Introduction On 7 October 2023, in the wake of Hamas’ attack, Israel declared a ‘state of war’ and invoked its ‘right to self-defence’. Israel launched heavy retaliatory military attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip,...

[Chris McQuade is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Law at the University of Portsmouth. He holds a PhD in International Law from the University of Sussex and researches in the fields of public international law, international humanitarian law and international and domestic human rights law.] In response to the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Israeli army has engaged in an...

[Neil Renic is a Researcher at the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen, focusing on the changing character and regulation of armed conflict, and emerging military technologies such as armed drones and autonomous weapons. Elke Schwarz is Reader in Political Theory at Queen Mary University London, specialising in ethics of war and ethics of technology with an emphasis on unmanned and autonomous...

[Hakan Kaplankaya is a former Turkish diplomat, lawyer and instituDE member.] The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a historic judgment on September 26, 2023, in the case of Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye, which addressed the conviction of an ordinary teacher on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization” held for his connection to the Gülen Group. This landmark ruling, constituting the 60th violation of...

Events and Announcements will resume on 7 January 2024. Happy holidays from Opinio Juris! ⛄️ Calls for Papers National Law School of India Review: The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is the flagship student-edited law review of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. It is now in its 36th year and the oldest such law review in the Indian subcontinent. Volume 36(1)...

[Fatima Mehmood is a lecturer of Public International Law at Universal College Lahore, Pakistan] Is the contemporary prohibition against genocide mere rhetoric considering what we see today in the Gaza strip and beyond or is there some tangible weight to this prohibition which can be translated into effective action for accountability against Israel? How is the prohibition against genocide actionable or...

[Dobrin Dobrev is a recent graduate from Utrecht University’s master’s program in International Law from the Conflict and Security track] Introduction Commercial shipping in the Black Sea has encountered restrictions ever since the full-scale invasion by Russia towards Ukraine began. One of the issues revolves around the rising number of sea-mines in the Black Sea, which are negatively impacting not only the belligerents...

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Senior Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, based in South Africa.] [Jonas Kakule Sindani is an Intern for the International Commission of Jurists, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.] In a recent submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty (the special rapporteurs), the International Commission...

To have your event or announcement featured in next week’s post, please send a link and a brief description to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com. Next Sunday (17 December) will be the last E&A before the New Year, so make sure to send in any calls for papers or events in later December or early January before then! Calls for Papers Netherlands Yearbook of International Law...

[As stated on the Contributors page and in my full profile, I serve as Special Adviser to the ICC Prosecutor on War Crimes. This post is written in my personal academic capacity.] Introduction A group of scholars and practitioners have published an open letter to the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) expressing their "grave concern over the integrity of the Office of...