February 17, 2026

Mary Guest

Following five years of research and consultations, the ICRC published a new, updated Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) of 1949 in October 2025. GC IV is the cornerstone of protection for civilians in international armed conflict and occupation – protections that remain urgently relevant amid…

February 10, 2026

Salman Khan Haris Huremagić

Those who had hoped for a more auspicious start to the new year for multilateralism were quickly disillusioned by recent developments concerning Venezuela, Greenland and beyond. Simultaneously, the United States (US) President contended that he ‘doesn’t need…

January 26, 2026

Louisa Handel-Mazzetti Marten Zwanenburg

In the beginning of January, following reported United States actions against Venezuela and threats by President Trump against Cuba, Colombia and Mexico, there were renewed statements by President Trump regarding the annexation of Greenland. President Trump stated that “we need Greenland from the standpoint of national…

February 12, 2026

Maria Esther Salamanca-Aguado

Normative and institutional context  On 20 January 2026, the Secretary-General of the International Seabed Authority (the ‘Authority’) – the international organization established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (the ‘Convention’) to organize and control mineral-related activities in the deep seabed beyond…

February 8, 2026

Sebastian von Massow

The last two weeks have taken us from headlines to bylines and beyond. Front-page legal questions on USA-Greenland and Russia-Ukraine continue to occupy commentators. While others draw our attention to the lesser thumbed back pages: from colonial-era agreements in contemporary arbitration, and the recognition of Somaliland, to the…

February 6, 2026

Carmen Martínez San Millán

Many heads of state and government from European and South American countries, as well as representatives of the European Union at the highest level, have hailed the fact that, after three decades of negotiations, the EU has finally concluded its free trade agreement with Mercosur. However, the…

February 8, 2026

Sebastian von Massow

The last two weeks have taken us from headlines to bylines and beyond. Front-page legal questions on USA-Greenland and Russia-Ukraine continue to occupy commentators. While others draw our attention to the lesser thumbed back pages: from colonial-era agreements in contemporary arbitration, and the recognition of Somaliland, to the…

February 2, 2026

Muhammad Syed

Scholarship over the past decade or so has been interested in the imperial origins of international investment law. As much as the current regime has undergone reform, some relics continue to present thorns in the current ‘decolonised’ landscape. They expose its problematic origins and, more importantly,…

January 16, 2026

Guénaël Mettraux

This is a post in our Joint Symposium on "Negotiating a Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity" run in partnership with Just Security.  Understanding the history of a legal concept can help illuminate its normative content, and explain what it stands for, why it is…

February 8, 2026

Sebastian von Massow

The last two weeks have taken us from headlines to bylines and beyond. Front-page legal questions on USA-Greenland and Russia-Ukraine continue to occupy commentators. While others draw our attention to the lesser thumbed back pages: from colonial-era agreements in contemporary arbitration, and the recognition of Somaliland, to the…

January 30, 2026

Oktawian Kuc

In the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, Ukraine and its allies turned to international adjudication with remarkable speed and intensity. This early legal mobilisation enabled Ukraine to seize the legal narrative surrounding the conflict, ‘using its smart-power assets in a case where…

January 23, 2026

Marc Weller

The dispute about Greenland has been conducted by the US as a zero-sum game. Either ‘ownership’ over Greenland would be handed over to Washington, or else economic sanctions or worse would be applied to Denmark and her European allies. It was all or nothing until earlier this…

January 29, 2026

Tamás Molnár

Setting the scene: Frontex, CJEU and the ARIO...and beyond Although the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (ARIO) were adopted 15 years ago by the International Law Commission (ILC), international judicial practice interpreting and unpacking the ARIO remains scarce. That the case law…

October 9, 2025

Sophie Capicchiano Young

Several weeks ago, it was reported by Reuters (here) that the United States would seek to radically reshape the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention) at a side event it had organised at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly.  On the…

November 19, 2024

Itamar Mann

The Palestinian refugee protection framework adopted after WWII faces a crisis of unprecedented proportions. While it remains unclear whether this framework will survive, Israel’s recent attack on it sheds new light on asylum's oldest conundrum: the inherent tension between individual rights protection and state sovereignty.