EJIL: Talk!
- International Law in the Current Moment: Radically Different or Much the Same, and Then What? November 25, 2025The language of ‘crisis‘, ‘collapse‘, ‘destruction‘, ‘dystopia‘, and even ‘death‘ is surrounding the words international law at the moment. For international lawyers, including those involved in publishing international law, this raises the question whether we should be doing something differently and if so what and how. The question was put to the EJIL advisory and executive […]Sarah Nouwen
- The Erosion of Women’s Rights and the ECtHR’s Judgment in A.R. v. Poland November 25, 2025Reproductive rights have become an increasingly central dimension of the contemporary human rights landscape, shaping the evolution of both general human rights doctrine and the specific trajectory of women’s rights. They function not only as indicators of progressive legal development but also as sensitive barometers of broader political shifts. Across the world, resurgent right-wing movements […]Hanna Welte
- “Intent to Destroy”: Reflections on the Swedish Yazidi Genocide Case November 24, 2025Reading the Swedish judgments in the Lina Ishaq case is an unsettling experience. The description of the atrocities inflicted on the Yazidi community by ISIS is presented with a level of factual precision that leaves little space for abstraction. The Stockholm District Court’s account of the attacks on Sinjar and the subsequent treatment of Yazidi […]Paola Gaeta
- Eighty Years Ago, At Nuremberg: By Their Fruits We Best Know Them November 22, 2025An event, and a speech, always deserving of reflection – eighty years ago, Justice Robert Jackson (who never finished college and did only one year of law school), on leave from the US Supreme Court while he served as the Chief US Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal, delivered his opening statement in courtroom 600 […]Marko Milanovic
- A Human Right to Informational Self-determination: What it is and why it matters for Digital Human Rights November 21, 2025On 9 October 2025, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (‘Inter-American Commission’) published a thematic report titled “The Impact of Digital Surveillance on Freedom of Expression in the Americas”. Among other things, the report called on member states to give effect to a new human right – the “right to informational self-determination”. The report comes […]Yuval Shany
- Justice Recoded? Why It Matters that the International Criminal Court Embraced Open-Source Software and Ditched Microsoft November 20, 2025On 31 October 2025, the International Criminal Court (Court) confirmed reports that it is replacing its Microsoft Office Suite with openDesk– open-source software (OSS) developed by Germany’s ZenDiS (Center for Digital Sovereignty). That development is hardly surprising – and, for some, “about time”. Nevertheless, it bears important implications for the Court’s daily ability to fulfill its […]Jennifer Tridgell
- Remodel the World Trade Organization: A Comparative Institutional Perspective November 19, 2025The World Trade Organization (WTO) is under a prolonged stress test, as its Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala termed recently in a Financial Times article. This stress test is not unique; it is happening also to other international economic organizations (IEOs), as globalization shrinks and unilateralism spreads. An international organization seems much too vulnerable, facing the […]Gu Bin
- Abstaining from Abstention: UNSC Resolution 2774 (2025) and Obligatory Abstention under Article 27(3) of the UN Charter November 18, 2025UN Security Council resolution 2774 (2025) was a long-awaited resolution on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as non-procedural draft resolutions had been vetoed by Russia since the invasion. However, its content is very simple: it has only two preambular paragraphs and one operative paragraph, which urges a ‘lasting peace’ between Ukraine and Russia. Moreover, the vote […]Akira Kato
- The World Court on Law of the Sea and Statehood in the Context of Climate Change-Related Sea-Level Rise November 17, 2025On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change (Advisory Opinion). This was the third advisory opinion on climate change obligations issued by an international judicial body, with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the […]Nathaniel Khng
- From Climate to Cosmos: The ICJ’s Advisory Opinion and Its Implications for Sustainable Space Governance November 17, 2025Introduction Assume hypothetically a future request for an International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on States’ obligations to protect outer space. How would the ICJ draw from the Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change (Climate Change Advisory Opinion, CCAO) of 23 July 2025? The current congested, contested, and competitive […]Yu Takeuchi