EJIL: Talk!
- Reading the Updated Commentary on GCIV in an Imperial Moment 20/02/2026The updated ICRC Commentary of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) is a monumental, if not timely, achievement. At its core, it provides a set of very useful legal interpretations on an enormous body of rules and provisions, reflecting a gigantic amount of work by an adroit ICRC team, supported by numerous experts from both academia […]Boyd van Dijk
- Stepping Forward, with Caution: The Inter-American Court’s Approach to Transfemicide in Leonela Zelaya 19/02/2026Just a few weeks ago, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights delivered its long-awaited judgment in Leonela Zelaya and Other v Honduras, concerning Leonela Zelaya’s transfemicide. Leonela Zelaya was born in Cortés, on Honduras’ northern coast. Estranged from her family and expelled from her home, she moved to Tegucigalpa in her twenties, where she engaged […]Carlos J. Zelada
- Judicial Independence Under Threat: Russia’s Conviction in absentia of Nine International Criminal Court Officials 18/02/2026On 12 December 2025, the Moscow City Court convicted nine International Criminal Court (ICC) officials in absentia for crimes relating to the unlawful prosecution of Russian citizens. These individuals were prosecuted in retaliation for the issuance of ICC arrest warrants against several Russian nationals, including President Vladimir Putin. A group of UN experts promptly declared […]Caleb Wheeler
- Protecting civilians in good faith: A joint symposium on the updated ICRC Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention 17/02/2026Following 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 patterns of urban warfare, strikes on essential services, […]Mary Guest
- Announcements: Global Law at Reading Ghandhi Research Seminar Series; Where Human Rights Take Place Workshop; KÜREMER Call for Papers; BIICL Training Programme 15/02/20261. Global Law at Reading (GLAR) Ghandhi Research Seminar Series. GLAR has announced the following events for the remainder of the academic year (all times are UK time, and all are welcome without prior registration): (1) Dr Andrea Maria Pelliconi, Lecturer in Human Rights at the University of Southampton, Demographic engineering and the reconfiguration of self-determination […]Mary Guest
- Time, Form, and Coalitions: Reflections on the 53rd Session of UNCITRAL Working Group III 13/02/2026The 53rd Session of UNCITRAL Working Group III (WGIII), held in mid-January 2026 in New York, marked another modest but revealing step in the long road toward reforming investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS). The meeting delivered some progress, particularly in clarifying what kind of legal instrument(s) might eventually emerge from the cluster of partially linked reform […]Jonathan Bonnitcha
- The ‘Economic Unity’ Theory and the Discretionary Power of the International Seabed Authority to Deny Contract Extensions 12/02/2026Normative 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 national jurisdiction (Article 157, UNCLOS) – notified Member States […]Maria Esther Salamanca-Aguado
- Labour Mobility as a Blind Spot in International Economic Law: Recent Lessons from Sanctioned Economies 11/02/2026Labour mobility as a structural blind spot in international economic law International economic law is structured around the regulation of goods, capital, and services, yet it remains strikingly underdeveloped when it comes to the governance of cross-border labour mobility. Although labour functions economically as a factor of production, its movement is treated as legally exceptional, […]Ridam Gangwar
- The Dismantling of UN Peace Operations under the Trump Administration 10/02/2026Those 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 international law’ but is guided instead by his ‘own morality’. All of this might, at times, appear as […]Salman Khan
- The Steering Committee’s ‘Preliminary Draft Text’ for the Chișinău Declaration: Nothing is Wrong with the ECtHR’s Migration Case-Law 09/02/2026In the past months the academic community has tried to understand what the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or ‘the Court’) could have done wrong regarding the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR or ‘the Convention’) in the field of migration. The question was, what could have induced its Contracting States […]Lorenzo Acconciamessa