Rearming Europe: Accountability Gaps, War Economies, and Global Risks
TwoLaW - Lecture Series on the Laws of War
Europe’s rearmament surge reveals a fundamental paradox: while legitimate defense needs require growing military capabilities, current rearmament methods risk undermining democratic values and international legal frameworks. This lecture identifies three interconnected challenges: accountability gaps for downstream damage created by regulatory exemptions in EU defence procurement; the risk of escalatory rearmament dynamics decoupled from strategic necessity; and Ukraine’s warning that collective security failures are driving a global arms race. Drawing on comparative analysis of arms export control regimes across Europe, the lecture argues that existing legal frameworks cannot reconcile these tensions without systemic institutional reform.
León Castellanos-Jankiewicz is Senior researcher in international law at the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Law and the Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague. He is principal investigator of the RELY Project: Rearming Europe with Legal Accountability funded by the NWO (Netherlands), which develops actionable legal safeguards and human rights risk mitigation strategies at the European Union level to prevent corporate and state misconduct for wrongful weapons transfers as the bloc ramps up its defense capabilities.
Registration
The presentation will take place online via MS Teams.
Please register below. The link and login data will be sent to those registered at the day of the event.
Please fill in this form to register: Registration TwoLaW Lecture, 27 July 2026, 6.00 – 7.00p.m., León Castellanos-Jankiewicz – Formular ausfüllen
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact Salma Said(student research assistant to Prof. Andreas Kulick): ssaid@students.uni-mainz.de
About the Lecture Series
TwoLaW is an online lecture series on the theory, history, policy and practice of the laws of war. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing conflict in the Middle East, rarely in recent memory have both the ius contra bellum and the ius in bello faced so many daunting challenges: use of force by and self-defence against non-state actors; the participation of private military companies in hostilities; the digitization of warfare; the protection of civilians and the environment in international, non-international and hybrid armed conflicts; peace agreements and post-conflict claims; international criminal responsibility before and beyond the ICC – to name but a few of them. TwoLaW invites engaging discussions on these matters, seeking to bring into dialogue the law on the prohibition of the use of force and international humanitarian law despite their necessary doctrinal separation. TwoLaW provides a critical perspective on pertinent challenges of the laws of war, broadly understood, in light of their theoretical, doctrinal, historical and political implications. Each one-hour event features a thought-provoking presentation by a leading scholar in the first half hour followed by a discussion in the second half hour. All events are held exclusively online from 6-7 pm CET.