[Dorothea Anthony is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Wollongong, Australia.] When the United States and Israel initiated military action against Iran in June 2025 and February 2026, one response from Iran was to target US foreign military bases. It struck these bases situated in the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,...
This is not a rhetorical question. The arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued on 21 November 2024, 21 months ago. The next step is to confirm the charges contained in the arrest warrants, yet there is no indication that the Deputy Prosecutors, who have been in charge of the OTP since May 2025, have any intention of doing...
[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...
[Davit Khachatryan is a lecturer at American University of Armenia and Russian-Armenian University] There is something almost ritualistic about restating the law of self-defense. Article 51 has been parsed, contested, stretched, and invoked in nearly every major armed conflict since 1945. Few provisions of international law are at once so settled in principle and so contested in application. Yet the war between Iran...
[Sarah Shoker is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow in artificial intelligence at U.C. Berkeley Risk and Security Lab and former Geopolitics Team Lead at OpenAI. Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law and Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.] What began as a quiet contract dispute between the U.S. Department of Defense and the AI...
[Taylor Kate Woodcock is a researcher in public international law at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law and Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.] Four and a half months have passed since the Minab school bombing by United States forces in Iran on 28 February 2026, killing at least 157 people – including 120...
[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law; Zena Assaad is an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Australian National University; Elke Schwarz is a Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London; Ingvild Bode is a Professor of International Relations, University of Southern Denmark. The authors are all members of the Independent Advisory Board on Legal Reviews...
I haven't written about the "unwilling or unable" test for self-defence against non-state actors in a while, largely because I've said all I have to say about why the test is not part of customary international law. (See my many posts here.) But I would be remiss not to note the strangest invocation of the test I've ever seen, which...
[Luciano Pezzano is a researcher and professor of human Rights at the University of Business and Social Sciences (UCES, Argentina) and lecturer of public international law at the National University of Cordoba (UNC, Argentina)] In his recent post on Opinio Juris, Davit Khachatryan offers a very interesting reflection on the gravity of uses of force and the hierarchical position of aggression...
Argentinean President Javier Milei’s recent comments about Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas/Falklands Islands and Trump’s latest threat against a European ally, hinting he could support Argentina’s claim as punishment for Britain’s limited support of his Iran War have catapulted the dispute to centre-stage of global discourse once again. As usual, the discussion is felt personally by both Argentineans and British people, who feel strong personal attachment to...
[Dr Saeed Bagheri is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Law at the University of Reading School of Law. His research focuses on the law on the use of force and international humanitarian law] An Iranian individual traverses the streets of Tehran, with life dictated by meticulous calculation. Words are carefully considered prior to being spoken. Opinions are scrutinised, gestures are moderated,...
[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law; Elke Schwarz is a Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London; Ingvild Bode is a Professor of International Relations, University of Southern Denmark; Zena Assaad is an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Australian National University; and Neil Renic is a Lecturer...