State Responsibility
The Conflict in Eastern DRC and the State Responsibility of Rwanda and Uganda
In late January 2025, a rebel alliance involving the militia group M23 seized control over the town of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Notwithstanding their declaration of a unilateral ceasefire, at the time of...
Countering Space-Based Weapons of Mass Destruction
Russia’s alleged effort to develop a space-based nuclear weapon threatens to violate the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, undermine international peace and stability, and hold at risk the peaceful use of space for all nations. Other emerging threats, such as China’s...
The Baltic Sea Cable-Cuts and Ship Interdiction: The C-Lion1 Incident
According to widely held Russian perceptions, Russia is at war with NATO. In September 2024, Vladimir Putin stated that lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range NATO missiles to attack Russia “will mean that NATO countries—the United States and European...
Article 9 and the Attribution of Armed Groups’ Attacks to the Territorial State
The ongoing conflicts between Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah continue to raise complex questions of international law. Some of these involve issues of State responsibility, requiring an assessment of whether the conduct of the relevant armed groups can be attributed to...
Attacking a Pipeline: Legal Issues for Consideration
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are pipelines constructed by a Russian State-controlled company called Gazprom to transport 110 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year from the Russian Federation under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Gazprom has a 51 percent...
EU Support to Ukraine through Windfall Profits: Reparative Value, International Law, and Future Pathways
Over two years into the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the fate of Russian assets frozen by Western sanctions is followed almost as closely as battlefield developments. Considering the figures at play (assets worth an estimated $300 billion),...
Reparations in Colombia: Redressing Civilian Harm in the Midst of Armed Conflict
Commentators often point to Colombia as a success story in terms of confronting the consequences of armed conflict through its extensive engagement with transitional justice efforts to secure peace and to prevent repetition. Yet despite the peace agreement in 2016...
ISIS Detentions in Syria and the Responsibility of Supporting States
While the world’s attention is focused on the hostilities in Gaza and Ukraine, the conflict against ISIS in Syria and Iraq continues. Although out of the headlines, coalition forces led by the United States continue to work with local partner forces to achieve the...
The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission and Gaza – How is it Involved?
On 20 June 2024, the government of the Republic of Poland signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) regarding the incident on April 1, 2024 in the Gaza Strip during which seven people working with the...
Space Privateers or Space Pirates? Armed Conflict, Outer Space, and the Attribution of Non-State Activities
Famously, George Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France at the end of the First World War, quipped that “generals always prepare to fight the last war, especially if they won it.” Such flaws of perspicacity, of course, are not limited to generals. After all, as Nobel...
Israel-Hamas 2024 Symposium – Pro-Israel Lawfare, Symbolism, or Genuine Legal Concern?
Israel often perceives itself at the receiving end of what today is termed “lawfare”: warfare by legal means or the use of strategic litigation to achieve in the courtroom what cannot be achieved on the battlefield. South Africa’s case against Israel or Nicaragua’s...
Lessons Learned from the Latest Rendition Cases at the European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently finalized its judgment against Lithuania in a case involving Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) detainees. The ECtHR ordered Lithuania to pay Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi 130,000 Euros as redress for violations of the European...