Nearly 40 legal and political luminaries, including many people for whom I have the utmost respect -- such as Dapo Akande, my Doughty Street colleague Helena Kennedy QC, and Ben Ferencz -- have signed a Combined Statement and Declaration calling on the international community to create a Special Tribunal for the Punishment of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine. The...
[André de Hoogh is Associate Professor in International Law, University of Groningen. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Public International Law, which provides advice to the Dutch government and parliament; this contribution has been written in his personal capacity, and does not reflect in any way the views of the Advisory Committee. His research covers a wide...
By now, many readers -especially those who follow me on Twitter, will have figured out that I have a weird hobby: I like keeping track of who says what about international law in times of crisis. I’ve done it for the Syria strikes of 2018, the Venezuelan elections of 2018, the recognition of Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela in 2019, the attack on Qasem Soleimani...
[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden Law School.] ‘In times of war, the law falls silent’ (silent enim leges inter arma). This famous maxim by Cicero is often used to illustrate the lack of power of law in the face of conquest and occupation. In the discourse over the war in Ukraine, we witness...
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...
[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...
[David J. Scheffer is a former US diplomat, an international law professor, and a Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is author of The Sit Room: In the Theater of War and Peace.] Legal principles matter as two major democracies—Taiwan and Ukraine—are threatened by superpower neighbors. Whether one argues about Taiwan’s status as a country or a province...
[Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. She is the founder and co-editor of the Armed Groups and International Law blog.] [Andrew Clapham is Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, a member of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, and an Honorary Member of the International Commission of...
[Dapo Akande, Antonio Coco, Talita Dias, Duncan B. Hollis, James O’Brien and Tsvetelina van Benthem.] In the past few months, nothing has reminded everyone of the etymology of the expression ‘computer virus’ like ransomware. This form of malicious code is delivered through a vulnerability in the victim’s system, such as a phishing email or password spraying, infiltrating and potentially crippling it...
[Kai Ambos is Professor of Criminal and International Law at the University of Göttingen and a judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, The Hague. He writes here in his academic capacity. The author would like to thank Dr Lippold, Göttingen, for his important suggestions, and Dr Margaret Hiley for the preparation of the English version.] Reports on the U.S. drone killings in connection with Afghanistan reveal an...