Opinio Juris

[Luciano Pezzano is a researcher and professor of human Rights at the University of Business and Social Sciences (UCES, Argentina) and lecturer of public international law at the National University of Cordoba (UNC, Argentina)] In his recent post on Opinio Juris, Davit Khachatryan offers a very interesting reflection on the gravity of uses of force and the hierarchical position of...

[Nicolás Zambrana Tévar LLM (LSE) PhD (Navarra) is Associate Professor at KIMEP University School of Law] In recent weeks, a remarkable public dispute has captured global attention. Pope Leo XIV—the first American-born pontiff, a Chicago-born Augustinian friar named Robert Prevost—and President Donald Trump have exchanged unusually sharp statements over the United States and Israel’s war against …

[Seyede Masoumeh Zolfaghary is a Ph.D. student in Public International Law at the Department of Public Law and International Law, SRB, Islamic Azad University (Tehran, Iran)] If the erosion of international law continues, the tragedy of Minab may be repeated. International law is frequently assessed through the binary framework of compliance versus violation. Although analytically useful, this pe…

To have your event or announcement featured in next week’s post, please send a link and a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com. Calls for Papers Workshop – The Political Afterlives of Sexual Violence Allegations: The ICC as Case Study: This feminist workshop (leading to a special journal issue) will take place on 7 December 2026 in The Hague, following th…

What follows is a long written interview I conducted with Sareta Ashraph, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London and the co-founder of ATLAS Women, “a global community of female-identifying lawyers, activists, and jurists with expertise in various facets of public international law.” Ashraph is currently serving as Lead Counsel for Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the ICC, in...

[Raghavi Viswanath is a postdoctoral researcher and teaching fellow at College of Law at SOAS. Claire Smith is an editor of Emancipating International Law and a PhD candidate at UvA.] Emancipating International Law announces a lofty aspiration. Departing from academic scholarship about race, it invites readers to think about international law and race. In particular, how racism and racialisation …

Pacific state, regional organisation and civil society leaders are preparing for the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Going into COP30 in Belém last year, they were hoping that Australia would be made the host of this year’s COP31 to make it a “Pacific COP” where Pacific states, those most affected...

[Kamya Vishwanath is an international trade lawyer based in India and will be pursuing her LLM at Georgetown University Law Centre this fall] “If you want to make it as a radical critic these days, slip the word ‘body’ into your title” Terry Eagleton  ‘Caste’ is a relatively modern concept and a preeminent source of racialized violence in India and...

Argentinean President Javier Milei’s recent comments about Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas/Falklands Islands and Trump’s latest threat against a European ally, hinting he could support Argentina’s claim as punishment for Britain’s limited support of his Iran War have catapulted the dispute to centre-stage of global discourse once again. As usual, the discussion is felt personally by bot…

[Suraj Girijashanker is a Residential Fellow at the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School. His research focuses on the nexus between race, empire and international law, particularly in the context of migration] Over the past year, racist violence and abuse targeting Indians across the First World have surged. From attacks on Indian migrants in Ireland to...

The 1990s marked a critical decade in the global recognition of climate change and its impacts. The 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil stands out as a decisive turning point, with states from across the world adopting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In doing so, they acknowledged that high-income countries bear greater responsibility for climate change due...

[Yang Han, PhD, is a Research Associate at China Centre, University of Oxford] Racism has been integral to international relations: e.g., scientific racism, social Darwinism, and the “yellow peril” discourses, just to name a few. Racist beliefs were often used to justify colonialism and imperialism, and invoked to instigate violence, hatred, and discrimination. Likewise, the principle of sovereig…

[Paulina Jimenez Fregoso is an advocacy advisor at the Centre for Reproductive Rights] Intersectionality remains contested. While it includes multiple social categories and personal identities, there is far reaching debate about its contours. While race, class and gender were widely accepted for a time, these were later seen to fall short of the complex dynamics of multiple forms of oppression....

[Dr Shahab Saqib is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Birmingham Law School] Illumination rests on comparison. Comparing those who are situated in similar circumstances but are treated differently generates a desire to demystify the logic and circumstances that enable such discrepancies to emerge and to persist.  In my chapter, I use illumination to unpack the racial...

[Jinan Bastaki is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies at New York University, Abu Dhabi] During the UN General Assembly high-level week (September 2025), the US Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, delivered a presentation entitled “The Global Refugee and Asylum System: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It.” He made five points: a) every nation has the right...

[Karla Schröter is a doctoral researcher at Åbo Akademi University, where she is part of the Institute for Human Rights and the Minority Research profile] Veils worn by Muslim women, whether a hijab worn in public institutions or face-veils in public spaces, are being gradually banned in Europe. Sadly, the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) has repeatedly opined...

[Mohsen al Attar is an Associate Dean (Education) and Reader in International Law at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University] International law is often on the ropes. Each time a state invades another, a security agent tortures a suspect, or a wanted war criminal hobnobs with other state leaders, we are reminded that what international law could have been is always tempered by...

To have your event or announcement featured in next week’s post, please send a link and a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com. Announcement Survey – How do scholars of public international law choose their research methods?: Researchers at Leiden University are conducting a new study to develop a better understanding of the methodological landscape in th…

[Sayed Hussein Anosh is the Executive Director of Human Rights Defenders Plus (HRD+). Kate McInnes practices international human rights law and international criminal law at Arendt Chambers.] Gender persecution has been the defining feature of Taliban rule since its return to power in 2021. Afghan women and girls continue to be subjected to what commentators have described as one of...

[Dr Sergey Sayapin is Professor of Law at KIMEP University (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and Distinguished Visiting Global Scholar at the NUS Centre for International Law (2025)] If climate change exposes the limits of consent-based governance in ecological systems, technological disruption reveals a parallel fragility in the architecture of international law. Artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and …