Stocktaking of the International Criminal Court

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

Stocktaking of the International Criminal Court

15.07.2022

Michael Lysander Fremuth Konstantina Stavrou Andreas Sauermoser

We are extremely grateful to the editors of Völkerrechtsblog, especially, Miriam Nomanni and Raphael Oidtmann, for hosting this symposium. A big ‘thank you’ also goes to the contributors – Tom...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes

15.07.2022

Kim Thuy Seelinger

One metric by which the success or failure of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has often been measured is that of its record regarding sexual and gender-based crimes (SGBCs). This...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

The ICC at 20 and the Crime of Aggression

14.07.2022

Tom Dannenbaum

As the International Criminal Court (ICC) enters its third decade, the Court is at an inflection point. So, too, is the criminalization of aggression. However, while the catalyst for these...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

Towards an ‘International Criminal Evidence’?

14.07.2022

Yvonne McDermott Rees

Does the International Criminal Court (ICC) have an ‘evidence problem’? Recent practice would seem to suggest so. Numerous cases have been dismissed at the confirmation of charges stage, with the...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

The End of an (Unsuccessful) Era?

13.07.2022

Gabriel M. Lentner

Much hope was put into the possibility of gaining jurisdiction over situations in States which are not party to the Rome Statute through the UN Security Council (UNSC) referral mechanism....

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

Back to the Drawing Table!

13.07.2022

Harmen van der Wilt

It is fairly generally accepted amongst ICL-scholars that the success of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after being some 20 years in operation is not to be merely gauged by...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

Referrals, Deferrals and Many Double Standards

12.07.2022

Lukas Emanuel Müller

The International Criminal Court’s (“ICC”) 20th birthday provides an opportunity to briefly recapitulate the troubled history of the relationship between the Security Council (“SC”) and the ICC. It all started...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

(In-)Sufficient Gravity of Cases before the International Criminal Court

12.07.2022

Ingrid Mitgutsch

According to article 17(1)(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Statute), ‘the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where [it is] not of sufficient gravity...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

Reflections on the International Criminal Trial Experience

11.07.2022

Damien Scalia

While the war in Ukraine is raging and many war crimes have been committed, the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is presented as one of...

Symposium
The Past and Future of the International Criminal Court

‘An International Criminal Court […] is Hereby Established’

11.07.2022

Andreas Sauermoser Konstantina Stavrou

Benjamin Berell Ferencz, former prosecutor at the Nuremburg tribunal, once said ‘There can be no peace without justice, no justice without law and no meaningful law without a Court to...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

A Framework Agreement in Business and Human Rights?

24.06.2022

Surya Deva Claire Methven O'Brien Michael Riegner Anna Sophia Tiedeke Justine Batura

We are pleased to conclude our Symposium with a special treat for our readers: a double interview with two renowned scholars, Surya Deva and Claire Methven O’Brien, who are rather emblematic for different approaches...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Beyond the Ritual of Treaties as Gestures

24.06.2022

Larry Catá Backer

A framework convention approach to the regulatory management of the human rights and sustainability effects of economic activity holds much promise. Defined as an international instrument establishing a general governance...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Resisting Corporate Capture

23.06.2022

Flávia do Amaral Vieira

In 2014, the Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 26/9, which established, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, an intergovernmental body charged with the responsibility to...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

How to Avoid Politicised Monitoring?

23.06.2022

Nils-Hendrik Grohmann

It is one thing to draft international laws that protect individuals, but quite another to ensure their implementation and compliance by State parties. Taking into consideration existing framework conventions, particularly...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Oops! They Did It Again

22.06.2022

Tara Van Ho

When they finally joined negotiations on the proposed business and human rights (BHR) treaty, the USA immediately called for ‘exploring alternative[s]’ to the current draft, including a potential framework convention. In...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Bounded Rationality, Metonymy, Humility

22.06.2022

Claire Methven O'Brien

History does not stop, a truth of which recent years have provided a gruesome reminder. Trajectories of globalising production and exchange that were widely perceived as uninterruptable have, since 2019,...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Caught between Principles and Perfectionism

21.06.2022

Lucas Roorda

One of the driving forces behind the movement towards a legally binding instrument on business and human rights (BHR) has been the need for effective remedies for victims of corporate...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

The Short Arm of the Law and the Long Arm of Economics

21.06.2022

Jonathan Klaaren

How does the idea of Business and Human Rights framework agreements (BHR framework agreements) look from an African perspective and – more specifically from one aware of the growing impact...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Unpacking the Potentials of a Framework Agreement on Business and Human Rights

20.06.2022

Giulia Botta

In a context of mounting evidence of adverse impacts of business activities on human rights and the environment, the Business and Human Rights (BHR) legal framework has gained momentum in...

Symposium
Framing Business & Human Rights?

Framing Business & Human Rights?

20.06.2022

Justine Batura Anna Sophia Tiedeke Michael Riegner

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,...

Interview
Symposium
International Law and the Political

International Law and Class Dynamics

10.06.2022

Umut Özsu Hendrik Simon

In the face of massive crises and revealed ambiguities of the liberal international order, Marxist thought has experienced a significant revival in recent years—also in (international) legal thought. But what...

Interview
Symposium
International Law and the Political

Revolutions Are Not Made by Laws

09.06.2022

Umut Özsu Hendrik Simon

In the face of massive crises and revealed ambiguities of the liberal international order, Marxist thought has experienced a significant revival in recent years—also in (international) legal thought. But what...

Symposium
Interview
International Law and the Political

On History, Responsibility and Critique

25.05.2022

Anne Orford Sué González Hauck Hendrik Simon

While in the first part of our conversation with Anne Orford we talked about the politics of "turning to history" in international legal scholarship, the second part is about possible...

Symposium
Interview
International Law and the Political

Turning to History – A Political Project?

24.05.2022

Anne Orford Sué González Hauck Hendrik Simon

In the last 30 years, a considerable part of international legal scholarship has discovered a renewed interest in the history of international law. But is this 'turn to history' perhaps...

Symposium
Media
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

Returning ‘To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth’

20.05.2022

Martti Koskenniemi Ankit Malhotra Christian Pogies Hendrik Simon

Following the Völkerrechtsblog symposium on Martti Koskenniemi’s new book, our editorial board members Christian Pogies and Hendrik Simon were invited by Ankit Malhotra of the Jindal Society of International Law...

Symposium
Interview
International Law and the Political

Sentiment without Sentimentality

08.04.2022

Gerry Simpson Hendrik Simon

In his new book, Gerry Simpson engages with the ‘Sentimental Life of International Law’ (OUP 2021). But what does ‘sentiment’ – without sentimentality, as the author points out – mean...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Lessons on “Adaptation Litigation” from the Global South

25.03.2022

Elizabeth Donger

In the most recent IPCC report, global climate experts warned “Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Indigenous Climate Litigation in Anglophone Settler-Colonial States

25.03.2022

Sam Bookman

The “Global South” is a concept constructed by histories of colonialism., reflecting a binary divide between empires and colonies. Current and former colonies of the Global South continue to bear...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

As the Lung of the Earth Dries Out, Climate Litigation Heats Up

24.03.2022

Carlotta Garfalo

Known as lung of the earth, the Amazon Forest is one of the most valuable ecosystems on earth, both for the ecological services it provides to the communities living in...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Transformative Constitutionalism and Climate Litigation

24.03.2022

Eklavya Vasudev

Climate change through its very nature is making survival much more difficult for those most vulnerable and dependent on natural resources. It hits those countries the hardest which have contributed...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Protecting Whose Children?

23.03.2022

Manuela Niehaus

In the fight against climate change, going to court has become one of the most powerful strategies of climate activists. Since the Urgenda v. the Netherlands ruling of 2015, many...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

No Kidding!

23.03.2022

Lorenzo Gradoni Martina Mantovani

When Greta Thunberg invited us adults to panic, few of us thought that she was about to sue, if only because litigation is quintessentially a game for grown-ups. On 23...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

A Climate Warrior for the Global South

22.03.2022

Sathiabama. S Vedavalli. S

As the global average temperature rises, the number of human rights violations, too, will increase. In the Anthropocene epoch, protecting human rights is a clarion call for all States to...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

The Right to Health in Climate Change Litigation

22.03.2022

Thalia Viveros-Uehara

As Latin America’s inequalities exacerbate the climate-related health crises that disproportionately affects marginalized communities, the need to realize these populations’ right to health becomes ever more pressing. While the region’s...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Climate Change Litigation: What the ECtHR Could Learn from Courts in the Global South

22.03.2022

Melanie Murcott Maria Antonia Tigre Nesa Zimmermann

Climate change is increasingly recognized as an issue of justice, including because it is causing (and worsening) human rights violations (see here, here, and here). In response to climate injustice,...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Tracing the Trend

21.03.2022

Tatenda Lucia Wangui Cathrin Zengerling Oliver Fuo

Legal and social science scholars observe a growing trend in climate litigation over the last three decades with large regional discrepancies. Of roughly 1,900 climate cases concluded or pending by...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Governing through Courts?

21.03.2022

Agung Wardana

Indonesia is one of the 10 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world. This is because of the emissions from two sectors: forestry (47.8%) especially from deforestation for plantation and...

Symposium
Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

Introducing the Symposium on Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

21.03.2022

Maxim Bönnemann Meike Krakau Anna-Julia Saiger

“We are dealing with core, indeed, high policy-making”. Last week, in overturning the ground-breaking Sharma decision, Justice Allsop of the Australian Federal Court made this crucial statement. This decision has...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

TWAIL Feminist Perspectives on Conflict

19.03.2022

Vasuki Nesiah

In 2002, the Feminist Majority Foundation famously heralded the US and NATO forces as a “Coalition of Hope” that was heroically “freeing Afghan women.” In 2021, 20 years after it...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

Ukraine’s Travel Ban, Gender and Human Rights

18.03.2022

There is a war in Europe. Since almost three weeks, pictures of bomb attacks on Ukrainian cities, people in shelters and soldiers in tanks have been broadcast all over the...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

We Must All Engage with Feminist Approaches to International Law

10.03.2022

Rohini Sen

In course of the last few weeks, my Twitter feed displayed three different trending news with varying degrees of urgency: Ukrainian responses to the Russian armed attack, a record complaint...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

India’s Forced Sterilization Practices Under International Human Rights Law

10.03.2022

Ramya Jawahar Kudekallu

Raji Kevat (story originally found here) consented to a procedure in 2014 that promised her the possibility of spacing the birth of her children. Her sister-in-law suggested it because she...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

The Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Africa

09.03.2022

Satang Nabaneh

Sexual and reproductive health and rights has been recognized to be embodied in human rights instruments. The achievement of sexual and reproductive health relies on realizing sexual and reproductive rights. This means...

Symposium
Bofaxe
Women in International Law Vol. 1

Abortion in Latin America Through the Lens of the IACtHR

08.03.2022

Lea Bilke Vanessa Bliecke Ella Schönleben

Discussing reproductive rights – and more specifically abortion rights – in a legal setting is challenging. Legal arguments blend with political, moral and religious discussions, blurring the line between lex...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

A Womb of One’s Own?

08.03.2022

Eva Maria Bredler

Reproduction is one of the most intimate and fundamental human experiences, and inextricably linked to our bodily autonomy. Despite significant progress in European health care, abortion remains a crime in...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 1

Introducing the Annual ‘Women in International Law’ Symposium

08.03.2022

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on the 8th of March, Völkerrechtsblog celebrates women in international law with the establishment of the annual ‘Women in International...

Symposium
A Critical Christmas Week

The ICJ and the Winter Holidays

24.12.2021

As the mood of winter holidays has found its way in different parts of the world by now, readers interested in international law might curiously wonder what is happening during...

Symposium
A Critical Christmas Week

A Grinch-Like View on Environmentally Unfriendly Christmas Traditions

23.12.2021

Liv Christiansen

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...

Symposium
A Critical Christmas Week

Ein Weihnachtsgeschenk für Enten und Gänse

22.12.2021

Anne Peters

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...

Symposium
A Critical Christmas Week

De-Ritualizing International Law

21.12.2021

Lys Kulamadayil

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...

Symposium
A Critical Christmas Week

Introducing the Critical Christmas Week

21.12.2021

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni Meike Krakau Cathérine Van de Graaf

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...

Symposium
Law Beyond the State

Response: States and the Paradox of Commitment

12.11.2021

Carmen E. Pavel

Many thanks to the Völkerrechtsblog for hosting this symposium, to Andreas Føllesdal and Steven Ratner for collecting and editing the comments and my reply, and to Kostia Gorobets, Kristen Hessler,...

Symposium
Law Beyond the State

Doing Away with Hobbes

11.11.2021

Kostia Gorobets

Carmen Pavel’s new book Law Beyond the State is a great example of how political philosophy of international law may be compelling, thought-provoking, and analytically razor-sharp. Its basic premise about...

Symposium
Law Beyond the State

On Pavel’s Division of Labor

10.11.2021

Alain Zysset

Central to the thesis of Carmen Pavel’s book is the claim that international law already contains the normative and conceptual resources of a global constitutional pact that she is advocating...

Symposium
Law Beyond the State

Why Not Kant?

09.11.2021

Kristen Hessler

Pavel’s argument in favor of constitutionalizing international law begins by defending a Humean normative framework. I’ll argue that this focus is not the best fit for her own positive proposals,...

Symposium
Law Beyond the State

Is a Global Constitutional Order Possible, or Even Desirable?

08.11.2021

David Lefkowitz

Carmen Pavel’s new book, Law Beyond the State, provides a lucid and generally compelling argument for the necessity of international law, and indeed, for the development of a robust global...

Symposium
Law Beyond the State

A Moral Defense of Robust International Law

08.11.2021

Steven Ratner Andreas Follesdal

Do today’s international lawyers and political philosophers have something to learn from one another? Do they, we dare say, share any common agendas about the future of global governance? Judging...

Symposium

Comparative Climate Litigation in North-South Perspective

25.10.2021

Anna-Julia Saiger Michael Riegner Maxim Bönnemann

We invite you to send us your blogposts for a joint blog symposium to be published on Verfassungsblog and on Völkerrechtsblog. Selected contributions may also be developed into full articles for a...

Interview
Symposium
International Law and the Political

(Writing) International Legal Histories – Continuation of Politics by Other Means?

17.09.2021

Anne Peters Raphael Schäfer Hendrik Simon

Dear Professor Peters, dear Mr. Schäfer – to begin with the genesis of your anthology Politics and the Histories of International Law: How did this publication project come about? Where...

Interview
Symposium
International Law and the Political

Völkerrechtsgeschichte (schreiben) – Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln?

17.09.2021

Anne Peters Raphael Schäfer Hendrik Simon

Liebe Frau Professorin Peters, lieber Herr Schäfer - um mit der Entstehungsgeschichte Ihres Sammelbandes „Politics and the Histories of International Law“ zu beginnen: Wie kam es zu diesem Publikationsprojekt? Wo würden Sie...

Symposium
International Law and the Political

International Law and the Political: Setting the Scene

17.09.2021

Hendrik Simon

With this blogpost we start our new interview series ‘International Law and the Political’. Regardless of one’s school of thought, it can hardly be contested today that international law is...

Symposium
The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

Komplexitäten und Parforce-Ritte

06.09.2021

Wolfgang Kaleck

Mit dem Buch "Die konkrete Utopie der Menschenrechte" wollte ich kein fertiges Konzept vorlegen, sondern einen Beitrag in einem offenen Diskussionsprozess. Diese Einladung zur Debatte scheint - auch dank des...

Symposium
Media
Who Speaks International Law?

Livestream: Who Speaks International Law?

04.09.2021

Sundhya Pahuja Shaun McVeigh

Today at 8:45 am CEST, we will livestream Prof. Dr. Sundhya Pahuja and Prof. Dr. Shaun McVeigh's keynote here. They will engage in a conversation on the theme of the...

Media
Symposium
Who Speaks International Law?

Livestream: Race, Borders and Jurisdiction

03.09.2021

Tendayi Achiume

Today at 5 pm CEST, we will livestream Professor Achiume’s keynote ‘Race, Borders and Jurisdiction’ here. This keynote is part of this year’s AjV-DGIR conference on ‘Jurisdiction – Who Speaks International...

Symposium
Who Speaks International Law?

Constitutionalization of Territory

03.09.2021

Walter Arévalo-Ramírez

Delimitation disputes in Latin America must face a constitutional reality: territory clauses. How States interpret their constitution and their territory clause in Latin America is crucial to the authority of...

Symposium
Who Speaks International Law?

Jurisdiction Over the Post-Ceasefire

02.09.2021

Júlia Miklasová

The end of the Second War in Nagorno-Karabakh and the signing of the ceasefire agreement by the Azerbaijan President, the Armenian Prime Minister, and the Russian President on the night...

Symposium
Who Speaks International Law?

Invoking Systemic Ideals or Legal Rules?

01.09.2021

Nicola Strain

What “law” are specialised international economic tribunals authorised to apply? This seems to be a simple question, but the inconsistent practice of the WTO and investor-state tribunals suggests otherwise. Different...

Symposium
Who Speaks International Law?

Show Justice

31.08.2021

Shiri Krebs

“Colonel Powell, Ma’am, I am the pilot in command responsible for releasing the weapon. I have the right to ask for the CDE to be run again. I will not...

Symposium
Who Speaks International Law?

Who Speaks International Law?

30.08.2021

Sué González Hauck Julian A. Hettihewa

The legal concept of jurisdiction refers to an actor’s competence to provide binding answers to legal questions. Questions of legal validity cannot be answered without examining the notion of jurisdiction....

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

Response: Storytelling

27.08.2021

Martti Koskenniemi

Was I writing a sequel to Mahabharata? Surabhi Ranganathan’s comment wriggled its way under my skin to give eloquent expression to a tradition of storytelling that she suggested was evoked...

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

Dastan-e Western Civ: Martti Koskenniemi as Storyteller

26.08.2021

Surabhi Ranganathan

In this review, I suggest we read To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth as an exercise in storytelling that evokes the narrative traditions of India, as also other parts of...

Symposium
The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

The ‘Virtue of Failure’

25.08.2021

Raphael Oidtmann

In his most recent book ‘Die konkrete Utopie der Menschenrechte’ [‘The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights’], Wolfgang Kaleck ventures to square the circle of delineating a future vision of human...

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

Martti Koskenniemi’s (German) Legal Imagination and the Politics of Panorama

25.08.2021

Alexandra Kemmerer

Earlier this summer, on a long car trip that took me from my hometown of Seligenstadt am Main (a small but significant lieu de mémoire of that very idea of...

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

The Koskenniemi Sutra: Britain, Empire, and Legal Imaginations

24.08.2021

Prabhakar Singh

What sutras (principles) do we extract from the three chapters on Britain in Martti Koskenniemi’s To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth (TUPE)? Part III of the book has three...

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

French Legal Imaginations from Richelieu to Rayneval

24.08.2021

Frederik Dhondt

“This is not a history of international law. Instead, it is a history of the legal imagination as it operates in relationship to the use of power in contexts that...

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

A Teleology of Ius Gentium?

23.08.2021

Manuel Bastias Saavedra

It is not an easy task to review and do justice to the chapter on “The Political Theology of Ius Gentium. The Expansion of Spain 1524–1559” in Martti Koskenniemi’s monumental...

Symposium
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

Legal Imagination as Bricolage

23.08.2021

Christian Pogies Hendrik Simon

The publication of Martti Koskenniemi’s new book marks a much-anticipated event among scholars working on the Theory and History of International Law. This may come as little surprise, given that...

Symposium
The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

The Borders of Human Rights and the Need for Utopian Blueprints Today

19.08.2021

Maurice Stierl

Wolfgang Kaleck’s book The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights has emerged from within a period of crisis and profound transformation - and could thus not be any timelier. The Covid-19 pandemic has...

Symposium
The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

Die Komplexität der Menschenrechte

18.08.2021

Janne Mende

Das Buch „Die konkrete Utopie der Menschenrechte“ von Wolfgang Kaleck (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights) leistet im besten Sinne Menschenrechtsarbeit. Es verbindet Menschenrechtstheorie und Menschenrechtspraxis, sozialwissenschaftliche und juristische Perspektiven,...

Symposium
The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

Women, Rights, Human Rights

16.08.2021

Magdalena Baran-Szołtys Christian Berger

Failure as a Concept Reading Wolfgang Kaleck’s “Die konkrete Utopie der Menschenrechte” [The concrete utopia of human rights] is fun. And so should be human rights work! However, Kaleck articulates the...

Symposium
The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

Symposium Introduction: The Concrete Utopia of Human Rights

16.08.2021

Dana Schmalz Sebastian M. Spitra

This week, Völkerrechtsblog hosts a symposium on Wolfgang Kaleck’s newly published book Die konkrete Utopie der Menschenrechte. The book discusses the history and present of the legal struggle for human...

Symposium
70 Years of UNHCR and Refugee Convention

The UNHCR in 2021: Refugee Resettlement as a Challenge of Underfunding, Power Imbalance and Impartiality

20.07.2021

Janine Prantl

In 2021 and beyond, refugee resettlement remains an indispensable protection tool for refugees facing particular vulnerability in countries of (first) refuge. Alarmingly, the resettlement numbers have reached the lowest levels...

Symposium
70 Years of UNHCR and Refugee Convention

Oldie but Goodie: Resilience of the 1951 Refugee Convention 70 Years On

13.07.2021

Alma Stankovic

While many question the relevance of the 1951 Refugee Convention today, refugee protection in the EU has actually expanded in the past 30 years. In just one generation, doctrinal shifts...

Symposium
Media
Defining Ecocide

Defining Ecocide – An Interview with Christina Voigt

09.07.2021

Justine Batura Philipp Eschenhagen Raphael Oidtmann Christina Voigt

Wrapping up our Symposium ‘Defining Ecocide’, Christina Voigt, member of the Independent Expert Panel, explains her views on the definition of ecocide. In a conversation with Justine Batura, Philipp Eschenhagen...

Symposium
Defining Ecocide

A Missed Opportunity for Accountability?

09.07.2021

Jelena Aparac

In June 2021 the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide issued its proposal of the legal definition of ecocide along with its accompanying commentary. With its proposal,...

Symposium
Defining Ecocide

Repairing Ecocide

08.07.2021

Fin-Jasper Langmack

Given the justified rhetoric of urgency surrounding ecocide, this post thinks ridiculously far into the future: it thinks about a time when the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) will have enacted...

Symposium
Defining Ecocide

On Symbolism and Beyond

08.07.2021

Natascha Kersting

On 22 June 2021, more than 300 curious minds joined the Stop Ecocide Foundation for a video conference in which the long-awaited definition of ‘ecocide’ was to be unveiled. It...

Symposium
Defining Ecocide

Mens Rea and the Proposed Legal Definition of Ecocide

07.07.2021

Anastacia Greene

This June, a panel of international experts revealed a proposed legal definition for “ecocide,” with the hopes that this crime eventually can be included in the Rome Statute and heard...

Symposium
Defining Ecocide

Introducing the Symposium on the Draft Definition of Ecocide

07.07.2021

Justine Batura Philipp Eschenhagen Raphael Oidtmann

The proposed definition of a novel international crime of ecocide - unveiled on 22 June by the StopEcocide initiative - has been discussed widely across the international law blogosphere and beyond....

Symposium
70 Years of UNHCR and Refugee Convention

Ungarn 1989, oder: Wie die Genfer Flüchtlingskonvention half, die Berliner Mauer einzureißen

06.07.2021

Frank Wolff

2021 ist aus migrationshistorischer und völkerrechtlicher Sicht ein ambivalentes Gedenkjahr. Neben der in dieser Blogreihe erinnerten Gründung des UNHCR und der Unterzeichnung der Genfer Flüchtlingskonvention (GFK) vor 70 Jahren sollte...

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

How Could International Law Have Been Otherwise? A Rejoinder

18.06.2021

Ingo Venzke

Our edited volume has asked a question that is deceptive in its simplicity: Could international law have been otherwise? One could expect the answer to be a resounding ‘yes’, given...

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

Revisiting the Impossible

18.06.2021

Doreen Lustig

Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller’s edited volume "Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories" (Oxford University Press, 2021) (hereinafter: Contingency) is a rare editorial accomplishment....

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

Planned Obsolescence of International Law

17.06.2021

Marina Veličković

‘Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories’, an ambitious volume edited by Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller which was published in April 2021, puts international...

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

Contingency „Between“ and „Beyond“

17.06.2021

Vidya Kumar

Between you and me, Professors Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller’s edited collection reads like a classic expositional text on the ways to think about contingency in international law –...

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

Thinking Like ‘Fools’: Recovering the Radical Potential of Contingency in International Law

16.06.2021

Kanad Bagchi

Edited collections often tend to surface within the hegemonic voice of the editors – they introduce the concept, set the frame, determine the contours, and also illustrate the specific set...

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

Are What-Ifs a Virtual Experiment or a Parlour Game?

16.06.2021

Hirofumi Oguri

In his famous series of lectures delivered at Cambridge University, E. H. Carr displayed a cynical attitude towards those who tend to ask what if an event had happened otherwise....

Symposium
70 Years of UNHCR and Refugee Convention

Afrikas vergessene Flüchtlingskonvention

15.06.2021

Marcia C. Schenck

1969 entwickelte die OAU (Organisation für Afrikanische Einheit, heute die Afrikanische Union, AU) ihre eigene Flüchtlingskonvention, welche afrikanische Werte widerspiegeln sollte. Sie wurde am 10. September 1969 in Addis Abeba...

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

Contingency in the History of International Law?

15.06.2021

Ntina Tzouvala

At a time when overseas travel, in-person academic events, and mediocre conference food were still commonplace, I attended the conference in Amsterdam that forms the backdrop for this impressive volume....

Symposium
Contingency in International Law

New Music for Old Ears

14.06.2021

Adeel Hussain

Ingo Venzke and Kevin Jon Heller’s Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories, an edited volume with thirty distinct contributions just published by Oxford University Press,...