Sixty-five years ago today, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Peoples and Countries. Fourteen years later on the same day, it set out its definition of aggression. Both—in different but related ways—remain highly pertinent, as the last two weeks at EJIL:Talk! have shown. The last fortnight takes us from shadow tankers and AI-enabled weapons systems, to Ukrainian and US strikes on foreign-flagged vessels, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution at thirty, the reconstruction of Gaza, and an interview with the President of the ICJ. Not to mention the next posts in the series on International Law in the Current Moment.

Ukraine

asks whether states that assist a victim of aggression—here, Ukraine—have a legal right to claim reparations from the aggressor for the costs they incur in providing that assistance. Although precedent is sparse and causation doctrine malleable, assisting states can plausibly qualify as “specially affected” injured states and their financial losses are legally attributable to Russia’s ongoing aggression, even if the decision to assist was voluntary. He concludes that such claims are reasonable in principle, more convincing than the counter-arguments based on broken causation or lack of injury, and consistent with the structure and purpose of the law of state responsibility. But what any court would ultimately decide remains uncertain—the issue will likely be resolved politically rather than judicially.

Strikes at sea
 
Looking at the other side of the coin, turns our attention to recent Ukrainian strikes on foreign-flagged tankers. He argues that—contrary to a growing narrative—they cannot be justified as attacks on “war-sustaining” targets under the law of naval warfare. While acknowledging the complexities of vessel classification in an era of shadow fleets, he stresses that neither Ukraine nor Russia have activated the belligerent rights regime that would permit economic warfare at sea, leaving Article 52(2) Additional Protocol I as the governing standard. The result is a firm rejection of any attempt to stretch “military objectives” to cover remote economic contributions—such an expansion would endanger one of the core tenets of modern naval warfare law.
 
These are not the only naval strikes raising questions of international law. turns to President Trump’s lethal attacks on small boats at sea—framed as strikes on “narco-terrorists”. She argues that they represent a sharp break from lawful maritime law enforcement and a dangerous slide into extrajudicial killing. Neither self-defense nor armed-conflict rules justify the operations, and attempts to resurrect post-9/11 legal theories risk normalizing an unlawful war footing across the Caribbean and Pacific. She calls for a sustained, clear reaffirmation of the right-to-life framework to prevent these practices from becoming entrenched and to help future administrations restore compliance with international law.

Law of the sea

From strikes at sea, to the law of the sea more broadly—UNCLOS has remained in focus, this fortnight like the last.

and argue that the upcoming wave of national laws to implement the BBNJ Agreement offers governments a rare chance to close a major UNCLOS gap: the lack of domestic prohibitions on unauthorised deep seabed mining. Integrating UNCLOS Articles 136–139 into BBNJ legislation would strengthen treaty compliance, deter unlawful deep seabed mining—including emerging unilateral efforts—and reinforce coherence across the legal regimes governing areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The risks of unregulated deep seabed mining for the system at large are set out by and . They argue that aspiring Canadian mining firm, The Metals Company, is pursuing a dual, mutually incompatible strategy—ISA-sponsored contracts and unilateral US permits—a strategy that threatens the integrity of UNCLOS and the Authority itself. They explain why the ISA must treat the TMC Group as a single, effectively Canadian-controlled entity and use its full enforcement powers to deny extensions, suspend contracts, or terminate them outright. They conclude that only decisive action—quarantining TMC from the UNCLOS system—can prevent a systemic breach of the “common heritage of humankind”.

Dark doings are not limited to the oceanic depths. turns his attention to “shadow fleet” tankers. He argues that they exploit regulatory gaps in UNCLOS and IMO rules to evade sanctions, while their decentralised, opaque operations make enforcement difficult and risky. He explains why proposed EU bilateral boarding agreements with flag States are impractical—too slow, too fragmented, and ill-suited to the fluid realities of these operations. And concludes that the only effective strategy is to target the financial and logistical enablers of the trade, treating sanctions evasion as organised economic crime rather than a boarding problem.

ICC jurisdiction: Darfur

Where are the limits of a UN Security Council referral?  turns to Darfur to argue that the ICC lacks a solid legal basis to investigate atrocities committed since 2023. These events are not sufficiently linked to the situation referred by the UN Security Council in 2005. He explains how ICC practice applies a “sufficient link” test to determine the temporal reach of referrals, highlights judicial disagreement over how strictly that test should be interpreted, and shows why the current Sudan conflict fails to meet it. He concludes that only a new Security Council referral—or Sudan’s consent—can lawfully authorize ICC jurisdiction over the recent crimes.

Gaza reconstruction plan

Building on last fortnight’s post by Michelle Burgis-Kasthala, and argue that UNSC Resolution 2803 breaks new ground—and sets a dangerous precedent—by endorsing Trump’s Gaza “reconstruction” plan. This plan repackages immense destruction into a libertarian, investor-driven real-estate scheme inspired by charter-city and SEZ ideology. They show how the plan reflects Trump’s broader fascination with privately governed “new cities”, sidesteps Palestinian rights, and risks entrenching exclusion, displacement, and corporate-style governance under a Security Council-created entity with international legal personality. They conclude that, implemented or not, the resolution ushers libertarian private-ordering into UN practice in ways that threaten both Palestinian self-determination and the foundations of international law.

AI-enabled weapons systems

From the destruction in Gaza to the systems that make it possible:  examines AI-enabled weapons systems, arguing that they pose significant environmental risks throughout their lifecycle: from mineral extraction for hardware, to energy-intensive AI training and eventual deployment. These processes contribute to ecological damage, high carbon emissions, and potential deliberate environmental harm, highlighting the need for international legal frameworks to set limits, enforce accountability, and regulate private actors involved in their development and use.

Bosnia and Herzegovina
 
On the thirtieth anniversary of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitution,  argues that the so-called Dayton Constitution endures not because it enjoys democratic legitimacy, but because fragmented domestic politics and competing foreign patrons have frozen the post-war constitutional order in place. He shows how three decades of shifting international intervention, ethnic veto politics, and foreign-targeted lobbying have entrenched an externally created constitutional regime rather than replacing it. He concludes that this impasse stabilizes the state at a very low bar—preventing secession and renewed violence—while postponing the inclusive, democratic constitution-making process the country still needs.
 
Genocide
 
Picking up from ’s recent post,  continues the analysis of Sweden’s first appellate-level genocide conviction against an ISIS-affiliated perpetrator and draws our attention to another striking development: Swedish courts now treat a “real threat” to a group’s survival—and thus a collective genocidal context—as a principled requirement for genocide. In doing so, the judgment risks elevating contextual evidence to an element of the crime itself, effectively edging the “lone genocidaire” beyond the realm of legal possibility.
 
Interview with Judge Yuji Iwasawa
 
speaks to the President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Yuji Iwasawa. This wide-ranging interview charts Judge Iwasawa’s path from academia to the Court and sets out his priorities: safeguarding the quality of ICJ judgments, bringing the Court closer to the public, and modernising its working methods. He reflects on an unprecedented caseload, mounting pressures on the international legal order, and the limits of what the Court can deliver amid political tensions and budget constraints. The result is a candid picture of a judge steering one of the world’s oldest courts through a period of rapid change.

 

International Law in the Current Moment

The series of reflections on the state of international law today continues with two posts.

argues that treating international law as a language helps explain both its generative power and its current strains, from double standards to outright abandonment by powerful states. She shows how technological shifts, informal governance, and changes in political speech are reshaping the conditions for shared legal communication, urging scholars to rethink the metaphor itself and the infrastructures needed to sustain—or indeed remake—the language of international law.

From how we speak to how we teach, reflects on the dilemmas of teaching international law in a moment when students are confronted with atrocity, great-power impunity, and deep scepticism about the discipline’s authority. He sees two predominant pedagogical instincts: treating crises as revealing moments that expose law’s political character; or “holding the line” by defending core legal rules. But both ultimately narrow the field by casting lawyers as guardians of a fixed order and by obscuring how international law is continually remade through contestation. Teaching today requires shifting the frame toward longer histories of everyday legal struggle: how legality is produced, appropriated, and undone over time.

And as ever, announcements and events of the last fortnight can be found here and here.