General

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...

[Charlotte Renglet is a PhD candidate working on climate litigation and indigenous peoples’ rights at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Prof. Dr. Stefaan Smis is the Head of the Department of Public Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a part-time Reader in International Law at the University...

[Vrishank Singhania is a final year student at the National Law School of India University. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the National Law School of India Review. ] In June 2021, an Independent Expert Panel (IEP) released a report, detailing proposed amendments to the Rome Statute, to include a fifth crime – ecocide. This proposal would criminalize at an international level,...

[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...

[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...

[Dr. Syed Ali Akhtar is an Academic Fellow at National Law University, Delhi. He holds a PhD in International Law from South Asian University. Pranav Ganesan is also an Academic Fellow at National Law University, Delhi. He has recently graduated from the University of Oxford’s BCL Programme.] On December 13, a draft resolution framing the problem of climate change as a...

[Kebene Wodajo (PhD) is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Business Ethics, University of St. Gallen. Her current research project focuses on the question of justice and responsibility in cyberspace and she serves as an assistant editor of the African Journal of Business Ethics.] Digital identity solutions are trending at national and global levels, supported by programs that are promoted...

[Hakan Kaplankaya is a former Turkish diplomat, jurist and INSTITUDE member.] The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), on 23 November 2021, handed down a landmark judgment, Turan and Others v. Turkey, concerning the lawfulness of pre-trial detentions of the judges and prosecutors suspended from office in the wake of the coup attempt that took place on the 15th of July,...

[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...

[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...

[Seyfullah Hasar is a lecturer in international law at Dicle University, Turkey and author of the forthcoming book State Consent to Foreign Military Intervention during Civil Wars, published by Brill] What started as peaceful protests against a sharp rise in fuel prices in Kazakhstan turned into a violent confrontation between the protestors and security forces. The President, claiming that the situation was taken advantage...

Call for Papers Call for Papers - Palestine Yearbook of International Law (UPDATED): The Palestine Yearbook of International Law (PYBIL) has opened an invitation for a round of submissions for Volume XXIV by 31 March 2022. We are interested in particular in critical approaches to public international law, and welcome submissions in relation to Palestine. In addition, the PYBIL welcomes articles on critical...