In association with the International Commission of Jurists

General

24 Aug

[Mark A. Drumbl is Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law and Director of the Transnational Law Institute, Washington and Lee University. Kirsten J. Fisher is an Associate Professor with the Department of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan.] We are delighted that Opinio Juris is hosting a symposium on our edited collection Reframing Transitional Justice: Innovations, Boundaries, and Refractions (Routledge, 2026). We...

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24 Aug

[Dr Ekaterina Antsygina is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, working on the deep-sea mining on the Norwegian continental shelf.] As discussed in Part I, the provisions on common management through the ISA constitutes a foundational element of the legal regime governing the Area. Disregarding...

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24 Aug

[Dr Ekaterina Antsygina is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, working on the deep-sea mining on the Norwegian continental shelf.] In 2025, the U.S. President Donal Trump issued an Executive Order promoting unilateral licensing for deep-sea mining not only on the U.S. continental shelf but...

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21 Aug

[Natia Navrouzov is a lawyer and the Executive Director of Yazda, a global Yazidi organisation that has documented ISIL’s crimes since 2014 and supports survivors of the Yazidi genocide through legal, psychosocial, and advocacy work] On 20 March 2026, the Paris Assize Court convicted Sabri Essid of genocide and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed against the Yazidi community in Iraq....

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21 Aug

[Fadel Abdulghany is executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights and author of The Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria and the Failure of the International Community and Undermining the Independence of the Judiciary in Syria and Pathways to Its Reform.] For six years, Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria was the world's largest and most troubled detention site linked to the Islamic State and the...

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21 Aug

[Arez Rizgari is an Iranian scholar. The author is writing under a pseudonym because they are concerned that this post will subject them to political retaliation or restrictions on their academic freedom by Iranian authorities.] On the morning of 17 July 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck the offices of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan in the Kurdistan...

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20 Aug

[Luis Valentín Ferrada (Chile) is a professor of international law at the Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Law, where he leads the Antarctic Studies Program (U-Antártica) and is a principal investigator at the Millennium Institute for Biodiversity of Antarctic and Subantarctic Ecosystems (BASE). He collaborates with different research teams of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).] Introduction At the XLVIII Antarctic...

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20 Aug

[Rafael Braga da Silva is an international criminal and human rights lawyer] The symbol of the red cross against a white field has become common in modern media. It has been used in books, movies, videogames, toys and costumes throughout. Its meaning usually deemed obvious: a red cross on a white field equals health, healing, recovery. It is ubiquitous visual slang:...

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20 Aug

[Aldo Zammit Borda is a Professor at The City Law School, City St George's, University of London. Stefan Mandelbaum is a Lecturer at Leicester Law School, University of Leicester. Andrea Maria Pelliconi is a Lecturer in Human Rights Law at the University of Southampton.] The ICJ’s 2012 judgment in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece intervening) has been read from...

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19 Aug

[Efrén Ismael Sifontes Torres is an Ayudante de Segunda in international law courses, and the academic co-coordinator of the Observatory of International Humanitarian Law, for the University of Buenos Aires School of Law] On 24 July, the Venezuelan's interim authorities announced through their Minister of Foreign Affairs' X account, the “firm and unwavering” decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute and therefore, leave the International...

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19 Aug

[Tomás Cristóbal Alonso Sandoval Tomás has a PhD in Advanced Studies in Human Rights (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), and is a lawyer, international litigator, university professor, and researcher] The Forgotten Dictatorship: An Authoritarianism Operating in Silence The expression “forgotten dictatorship” accurately describes the Nicaraguan situation because, although international organizations have documented serious, systematic, and ongoing human rights violations, the country’s crisis...

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19 Aug

[Benazir Jatoi is a UK-based human rights lawyer from Pakistan. She has consulted with the UNFPA and UNWomen, Pakistan.] It is essential that countries critically re-examine the expansionist approach to self-defence. This is because it has become an arbitrary tool of affluent military powers to justify war and set dangerous precedents of raw and brutal force, causing devastating human suffering, primarily...

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