[Dimitrios A. Kourtis is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Nicosia and a PhD researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.] In Aesop’s fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf a young shepherd repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking that a wolf is going to attack. When this happens, poetic justice intervenes and the liar who ‘cried wolf’ is not believed....
In an excellent recent blog post at Just Security, Tom Dannenbaum identified four options for prosecuting Russia's unprovoked aggression against Ukraine: [T]he International Criminal Court, an ad hoc international tribunal (whether along the lines proposed at Chatham House or pursuant to a General Assembly resolution), a domestic court exercising territorial jurisdiction (in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine), or a domestic court exercising...
[Dr Carrie McDougall, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, is author of The Crime of Aggression under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2nd ed 2021, Cambridge University Press) and was involved in the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression and ICC Assembly of States Parties’ negotiations in relation to the crime of aggression.] This post is a reply to the post published...
[Agata Kleczkowska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland.] Since February 24, the international community has been discussing Russia’s ‘attack’, ‘aggression’, ‘invasion’, or ‘assault’ against Ukraine. While certainly all of these terms rightly describe what happened in Ukraine on the morning of February 24, many seem to forget that there has been an ongoing...
[Marc Weller is Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge and a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers. He served as United Nations Senior Mediation Expert and has been an advisor in a large number of peace negotiations. He is the co-editor of International Law and Peace Settlements (Cambridge University Press, 2021). The views expressed are his own alone.] On Monday, Russia floated a peace balloon....
[Nikolas M. Rajkovic is Chair of International Law at Tilburg University (The Netherlands). He is a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the Law Department of the European University Institute (Italy).] NATO and EU leaders present Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as a storied conflict between geopolitical power and a “rules-based order.” In the hours that followed the invasion, EU Commission President, Ursula Von...
[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 is an Adjunct Professor of International Law at Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City) and Universidad Panamericana (Guadalajara).] In the wake of the Russian invasion on Ukraine, which the UN General Assembly has already politically qualified as an act of...
[Hiruni Alwishewa is a PhD Candidate in International Law at The Graduate Institute Geneva, researching the responsibilities of actors involved in the transfer of arms to conflict zones.] Introduction The recent invasion of Ukraine will likely revive the assertion that international law has failed to constrain Russian aggression, as occurred when the Autonomous Region of Crimea was annexed by Russia in March...
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...