Introduction
Advances in battlefield medicine have transformed the legal relevance of the principle of unnecessary suffering in international humanitarian law—but the legal community has not yet absorbed this transformation. For most of the history in which the relevant legal standards developed, certain vascular injuries caused in armed conflict were almost invariably fatal or resulted in
EJIL: Talk!
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The Award in Rwanda versus the United Kingdom: The PCA’s Interpretation of VCLT, Article 13
The PCA’s Award in the arbitration between Rwanda and the United Kingdom, decided on May 15, 2026, was released on June 1, 20226. The arbitration related to the decision by the incoming Labour Government to cancel the Agreement between the United Kingdom and Rwanda (formally the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Rwanda …
Constitution or Compass? A Quiet Renegotiation of the Maritime Order
Constitution or Compass? A Quiet Renegotiation of the Maritime Order
Vito De Lucia
In June 2026, the China Institute for Marine Affairs published a substantial assessment of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Assessment Report on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: Achievements, Positioning and Challenges…
Magnifica Humanitas and the International Legal Technocratic Imagination
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is not a source of international law. It creates no treaty obligations, modifies no customary rules, and settles no legal status for artificial intelligence. However, its relevance lies not only in the fact that it exposes a difficulty that international AI governance has not fully confronted, but…
Announcements: CfP Journal of International Peace and Organization; Academy in Advanced Legal Research and Method; BIICL International Law Short Courses; CfP Iuris Dictio Journal
By Mary Guest
1. Call for Papers: Journal of International Peace and Organization / Die Friedens-Warte. The Journal of International Peace and Organization / Die Friedens-Warte is inviting submissions for a special issue on the “Crisis of the International Law-Based Order?”. The special issue, edited by Professor Pierre Thielbörger (Ruhr University Bochum and Hertie School) and Professor Andreas
…
Concluding the Normative Synergy on State Continuity: The ILC, the General Assembly and the Climate Advisory Opinion
A month ago, the United Nations General Assembly took a position significantly less ambiguous than the ICJ on a question of existential importance to island States threatened by climate-induced sea-level rise. Referring to the Climate Change Advisory Opinion, it recalls that the Court “found that, once a State is established, the disappearance of one of…
Crimean Coastal State Rights and the Resilience of International Arbitration
By Michael Raff
Introduction
On 15 June 2026, the Permanent Court of Arbitration published its merits award in Ukraine v. the Russian Federation concerning coastal state rights in the Black Sea, Sea of Azov, and Kerch Strait (PCA Case No. 2017-06). The award itself had been issued on 22 April 2026. The case concerned an array of claims…
Two Weeks in Review: 15—26 June 2026
The last two weeks have primarily grappled with the implications of the Chişinău Declaration, along with Israel’s continued policies concerning occupied Palestine: the establishment of ad hod military courts and its blockade of the Sumud Flotilla. Criminal proceedings in Iranian courts around the Minab school bombing raise questions about the prosecution of war crimes in…
Contracting Sovereignty? Greece’s Experiment with the Contractual Allocation of Maritime Delimitation Risk in Offshore Lease Agreements
In February 2026, Greece signed offshore lease agreements with a Chevron-led consortium for the exploration of oil and gas south of Crete. A month later, the agreements were ratified by the Greek Parliament, thereby acquiring binding force in domestic law. Turkey and Libya were quick to condemn the contracts as unlawful and as encroaching upon…
Migration in Times of Fascization
By Jens Thielen
In May 2025, the infamous “letter of the nine” was published. In it, the governments of nine European states laid out their vision of various anti-migrant policies and called for “a new and open minded [sic.] conversation about the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights”. The case-law of the European Court…