General

[Shashikala Gurpur is the Director of Symbiosis Law School and Dean of the Faculty of Law at Symbiosis International University. Sayantan Bhattacharyya is a 4th-year B.B.A LL.B  ( Hons) student at Symbiosis Law School and Sujata Arya is an Assistant Professor of Law at Symbiosis Law School.] On 6 May, 2021, Dominic Ongwen, an erstwhile Commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (“LRA”) in Uganda, was sentenced...

[Moisés Montiel Mogollón is a lawyer advising individuals, companies, and States on matters of international law, human rights, and other international areas at Lotus Soluciones Legales. He teaches Treaty Law and LOAC at Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City) and Universidad Panamericana (Guadalajara). Twitter: @moisesmontielm] Opinio juris remains, to date, the most controversial part in the law governing sources of international law. No one dares question that its verification is necessary for a...

[Paul Mougeolle is a representative of the association Notre Affaire à Tous, legal researcher for the NGO Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Ph.D. candidate at University of Paris Nanterre and University of Potsdam.] A wind of change is currently blowing in climate change litigation. Plaintiffs secure pioneering wins before the highest courts of Colombia, the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Germany. On the 26th of May...

[Cecilia Pechmeze is a public international law practitioner, and the founder of Pechmeze Law. She tweets @ceciliapechmeze.] 27 years after the genocide that targeted the Tutsi population in Rwanda, and in the line of several others, two reports, ordered by France and Rwanda respectively, were published to decipher the role of France in the events. During years preceding President Habyarimana’s death, on 6...

[Jindan-Karena Mann is a PhD Researcher at the University of Amsterdam and Nicky Touw is a PhD Researcher at the Open University of the Netherlands.] The North Mara gold mine in Tanzania has been under scrutiny for many years now. Reports paint a picture of ongoing corruption, environmental harms, and human rights violations, including the excessive use of force by private security and police forces working with the mining...

[Radu Mares is an Associate Professor, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University (radu.mares@rwi.lu.se)] The last two decades marked a dramatic expansion of civil liability cases against parent companies. In this period, transnational litigation offered a way to get around the legislative inaction or slowness. Indeed, civil liability principles already exist in all home states. They apply to both natural...

[Ekaterina Aristova is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. Carlos Lopez is a Senior Legal Advisor at the International Commission of Jurists.] Past decades saw an emerging trend towards reliance on civil liability claims to address business-related human rights abuses. A movement that had initial impetus from the United States of America has now expanded to other continents, especially to Europe. The...

[Ahmed Abofoul is a Research Assistant at Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law and a Guest lecturer of Public International Law at Al-Azhar University – Gaza. He worked as a Research Assistant to Dr. Robert Heinsch and Dr. Giulia Pinzauti in submitting their amicus curiae observations in the Situation in the State of Palestine to the Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court] Introduction: The Palestinian people...

Events Women and the International Law Commission: The Minerva Law Network is pleased to announce an event on "Women and the International Law Commission" on 30 June from 11:00–12:00 CEST. This is an online webinar where the panelists, who comprise current and former women of the International Law Commission, will discuss their experiences in the Commission and their work on the...

[David Hughes is the Alex Trebek Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.] Late last month, Ireland formally declared that Israel’s policies in the West Bank amounted to “de facto annexation.” The Dáil Éireann, the lower house and principal legislative chamber of the Irish Oireachtas (“parliament”), debated a motion that had been tabled by the main opposition party, Sinn Féin, but that...

[Michael Lynk is an Associate Professor of Law at Western University, London, Ontario. In May 2016, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Professor Lynk as the Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.] In late June 1980, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 476, amidst diplomatic reports that the Israeli Knesset was seriously debating a...

[Ingo Venzke is Professor for International Law and Social Justice at the University of Amsterdam and Director of the Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL).] Our edited volume has asked a question that is deceptive in its simplicity: Could international law have been otherwise? One could expect the answer to be a resounding ‘yes’, given that no serious account is nowadays...