Opinio Juris

[Natia Navrouzov is a lawyer and the Executive Director of Yazda, a global Yazidi organisation that has documented ISIL’s crimes since 2014 and supports survivors of the Yazidi genocide through legal, psychosocial, and advocacy work] On 20 March 2026, the Paris Assize Court convicted Sabri Essid of genocide and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed against the Yazidi community in...

[Fadel Abdulghany is executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights and author of The Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria and the Failure of the International Community and Undermining the Independence of the Judiciary in Syria and Pathways to Its Reform.] For six years, Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria was the world’s largest and most troubled detention site linked to the Islamic …

[Arez Rizgari is an Iranian scholar. The author is writing under a pseudonym because they are concerned that this post will subject them to political retaliation or restrictions on their academic freedom by Iranian authorities.] On the morning of 17 July 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck the offices of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan in the...

[Luis Valentín Ferrada (Chile) is a professor of international law at the Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Law, where he leads the Antarctic Studies Program (U-Antártica) and is a principal investigator at the Millennium Institute for Biodiversity of Antarctic and Subantarctic Ecosystems (BASE). He collaborates with different research teams of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)…

[Rafael Braga da Silva is an international criminal and human rights lawyer] The symbol of the red cross against a white field has become common in modern media. It has been used in books, movies, videogames, toys and costumes throughout. Its meaning usually deemed obvious: a red cross on a white field equals health, healing, recovery. It is ubiquitous visual...

[Aldo Zammit Borda is a Professor at The City Law School, City St George’s, University of London. Stefan Mandelbaum is a Lecturer at Leicester Law School, University of Leicester. Andrea Maria Pelliconi is a Lecturer in Human Rights Law at the University of Southampton.] The ICJ’s 2012 judgment in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece intervening) has...

[Efrén Ismael Sifontes Torres is an Ayudante de Segunda in international law courses, and the academic co-coordinator of the Observatory of International Humanitarian Law, for the University of Buenos Aires School of Law] On 24 July, the Venezuelan’s interim authorities announced through their Minister of Foreign Affairs’ X account, the “firm and unwavering” decision to withdraw from …

[Tomás Cristóbal Alonso Sandoval Tomás has a PhD in Advanced Studies in Human Rights (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), and is a lawyer, international litigator, university professor, and researcher] The Forgotten Dictatorship: An Authoritarianism Operating in Silence The expression “forgotten dictatorship” accurately describes the Nicaraguan situation because, although international organizatio…

[Benazir Jatoi is a UK-based human rights lawyer from Pakistan. She has consulted with the UNFPA and UNWomen, Pakistan.] It is essential that countries critically re-examine the expansionist approach to self-defence. This is because it has become an arbitrary tool of affluent military powers to justify war and set dangerous precedents of raw and brutal force, causing devastating human suffering,.…

[William A. Schabas is Professor of international law at Middlesex University London and Professor emeritus at Leiden University and the University of Galway] There are important lessons to be learned from the lengthy crisis leading to the 24 July 2026 decision of the Assembly of States Parties to remove Karim Khan as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. This article...

[Clara Sandoval is an international human rights lawyer, Honorary Professor at Essex University, and founding member of the Essex Transitional Justice Network. She is also a visiting professor at the Geneva Academy, and Director of Programmes at the Global Survivors Fund where she works on reparation.] The author served as expert in this case, providing analysis on Peru’s reparations framework,...

[Kenaw Akililu is currently a MAS candidate in the Master of Advanced Studies in Transitional Justice, Human Rights and Rule of Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and a former law lecturer at Bahir Dar University] Introduction  Cyber operations and targeting of cyber infrastructure, including data centres, are increasingly employed during armed conf…

[Timothy William Waters is the Richard S. Melvin Professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, and author of Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World (Yale University Press, 2020). His new book on secession in the United States is tentatively titled Unmapping America: The Case for A New Declaration of Independence (The New Press, forthcoming...

[Amin Motamedi is an Arbitrator at the Iranian Chamber of Commerce (ACIC), a university lecturer, and holds a PhD in international law] Artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly been employed in a wide range of professional contexts, including legal analysis and dispute resolution. Practitioners have relied on AI tools to address legal questions, conduct analytical assessments, and, in certai…

[Davit Khachatryan is a lecturer at American University of Armenia and Russian-Armenian University] There is something almost ritualistic about restating the law of self-defense. Article 51 has been parsed, contested, stretched, and invoked in nearly every major armed conflict since 1945. Few provisions of international law are at once so settled in principle and so contested in application. Yet …

[Darryl Robinson is a Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law (Canada)] Matthew Gillett and Rohit Gupta make several excellent points in their two-part response (here and here) to my two newest articles about ecocide, Humans Matter Too and a Challenge for Ecocide Scholarship. I would urge readers, before drawing conclusions about my articles based on the portrayal in those...

[Sarah Shoker is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow in artificial intelligence at U.C. Berkeley Risk and Security Lab and former Geopolitics Team Lead at OpenAI. Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law and Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.] What began as a quiet contract dispute between the U.S. Department of Defense and the...

[Chuka Arinze-Onyia is a doctoral student researching universal jurisdiction at Griffith University Law School] This research was funded by the Australian Government through Associate Professor Emma Palmer’s Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE250100597). The views expressed herein are those of the author. What does success look like in international crimina…

[Kate Schuetze is a Regional Researcher on the Pacific Islands in the East and Southeast Asia and Pacific Regional Office of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. Jan Wetzel is a Senior Policy Adviser in the International Justice Team and the East and Southeast Asia and Pacific Regional Office of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International.] The genesis sinc…