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The year 2015 marked the beginning of a tumultuous time for the Polish judiciary. The adopted laws changed the organization and the functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal (CT), the National...

‘A politician (…) thinks of the next election, while the statesman thinks of the next generation,’ James Freeman Clarke wrote in an 1870 essay with the pressing title Wanted, a...

International law is, by definition, a global discipline. Yet in practice, scholarly discourse often remains hampered by the borders of national publishing cultures and fora. The voices that are most...

Am 13. Januar 2022 endete der weltweit erste Prozess wegen Staatsfolter in Syrien. Das OLG Koblenz verurteilte Anwar R. zu lebenslanger Haft wegen Tötung, Folter, schwerwiegender Freiheitsberaubung, Vergewaltigung und sexueller...

As 2021 marked the 75th anniversary of the first international criminal trial in Nuremberg, this post will reflect on the current state of international criminal law (ICL). The conventional wisdom...

Das neue Jahr beginnt für viele mit guten Vorsätzen. Was das mit (regionalen) Menschenrechtsverträgen zu tun hat, erklärt Isabel im Grundlagenteil. Dabei geht sie auf die Rolle des Europäischen Gerichtshof...

In November 2021, the United States unveiled a flurry of sanctions in response to human rights and humanitarian law violations in the year-long armed conflict in northern Ethiopia. The conflict...

It is this time of the year again – as always in the past years, we would like to begin the new year on Völkerrechtsblog looking back on the previous...

Usually when Christmas is portrayed in the media, a fairy-tale like scene takes place. Family and friends meet up, gather around a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, joyfully present each other...

Das insbesondere in Frankreich beliebte Weihnachtsessen Foie gras ist ein krankes Produkt, nämlich die pathologisch verfettete Leber von Enten und Gänsen. Die mit der Herstellung verbundene Tierquälerei sollte EU-weit beendet...

Christmas time was story time. My childhood memories of Advent season are filled with them. I remember fairy-tales about mystical creatures, gospel readings about compassion and forgiveness, and movies about...

For many of us, the current days lead into a bit of a winter break. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter solstice today - the days will be getting...

On 13 November 2021, the New York Times (NYT) published an investigative article revealing how the US military had hidden an airstrike which had killed dozens of civilians in Syria...

In-between the expectations of the international community and domestic rule of law realties, the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt sentenced Taha Al J. to life imprisonment in a historic verdict....

Ein Autokrat auf der einen und ein wankender Rechtsstaat auf der anderen Seite: An der polnisch-belarussischen EU-Außengrenze treffen menschenverachtende Praktiken auf den scheinbaren Widerwillen der EU-Mitgliedsstaaten, eine schnellstmögliche Abhilfe zu schaffen. Dieses gesellschaftliche...

Business and human rights (BHR), as an emerging field of modern law and legal research, is at an inflection point. On the one hand, its most prominent set of norms,...

Prison inmates are inherently subject to far-reaching interferences with their civil rights and liberties. Still, states increasingly tend to exceed their legal boundaries by imposing additional restrictions on them. Consequently,...

On 18 November 2021, the Institute for International Peace and Security Law of the University of Cologne, under the leadership of its Director, Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Claus...

It is Human Rights Day, again – an occasion to reflect on the state of academic debate about human rights. After a phase of significant human rights critiques, the debate has increasingly...

Professor Rudolf Bernhardt, former President of the European Court of Human Rights and former director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law died on 1 December 2021...

AUKUS has been called one of the greatest tectonic shifts in geopolitics since the Suez-Crisis and the fall of the Berlin wall. But is that true? Dr. Moritz von Rochow...

In early October shocking videos were released by Lighthouse Reports (a collaborative journalism platform) showing Croatian border police brutally beating young migrants with sticks and forcing them back into Bosnia....

Three weeks ago, on 15 November 2021, a Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test was reported, raising serious legal and political questions about the prohibition of the use of force in outer space. Not...