EJIL: Talk!
- Countering the Coup in Benin: A jus ad bellum perspective December 17, 2025On 7 December in Benin, a small group of soldiers attempted a coup d’État. Early in the morning, after gunfire was heard around the presidency, eight armed soldiers appeared on national television, presenting themselves as the Comité militaire pour la refondation (CMR). They announced that they had deposed President Patrice Talon and proclaimed Lieutenant-Colonel Pascal […]Julien Antouly
- A Fourth Optional Protocol to the CRC to Strengthen the Right to Education in International Law? December 17, 2025Introduction The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1989, is the most widely ratified treaty within the UN human rights system. Comprising 54 articles, the CRC covers the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children, recognising them as individual rights holders. Between […]Elena Patrizi
- International Law’s Problem of Evil December 16, 2025This post continues the series International Law in the Current Moment. “It is no more possible to continue doing law in an intellectually respectable way once the metaphysic is gone, than to continue worship once God is dead. Law is like God—here. And once you say that God is just a bunch of conventions, he […]Yussef Al Tamimi
- Prosecuting Members of Russian Mercenary Groups for War Crimes, a Remedy for Victims? December 15, 2025‘Remedy is rare’ for the victims of atrocity crimes and human rights violations committed by contemporary mercenaries. Indeed, there have been only a few prosecutions of mercenaries fighting in Ukraine since 2014 and those have been specifically for the crimes of mercenarism or for engaging in foreign military service. A shift occurred, however, on 14 […]Sorcha MacLeod
- Levée en Masse at Sea? Rethinking a Forgotten Category of IHL December 15, 2025One of the more unusual features of international humanitarian law is its recognition that civilians—ordinary inhabitants of a territory—may spontaneously take up arms against an invading force and still qualify as lawful combatants. This is the concept of levée en masse: an exceptional status reserved for moments of extreme urgency, before civilians have time to […]Pornomo Rovan Astri Yoga
- Two Weeks in Review: 1—12 December 2025 December 14, 2025Sixty-five years ago today, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Peoples and Countries. Fourteen years later on the same day, it set out its definition of aggression. Both—in different but related ways—remain highly pertinent, as the last two weeks at EJIL:Talk! have shown. The last fortnight takes […]Sebastian von Massow
- Announcements: CfP Digital Solidarity and International Law; CfA AILA Conference on International Law; UN Audiovisual Library of International Law; CfP Navigating Stormy Seas; CfS ASIL International Criminal Law Workshop December 14, 20251. Call for Papers: Digital Solidarity and International Law – Collective Action and Human Rights in the Digital Age. This edited volume will be published under a contract with Routledge in the Routledge Research in International Law series. It will examine how solidarities are formed and expressed in the digital sphere and their implications for […]Mary Guest
- Targeting Third-State Merchant Vessels: Military Objectives and War-Sustaining Objects in the Russo-Ukrainian Armed Conflict December 12, 2025The Russian aggression that precipitated the Russo-Ukrainian armed conflict has long seen both states affirm the validity of forcible economic warfare at sea. Invoking the law of contraband, they have declared and to varying degrees demonstrated their intent and willingness to inspect, intercept and/or divert, capture or destroy private shipping at sea. Notably though, thus […]Himanil Raina
- Effective Opposition to Summary Executions in an Escalating Phony War at Sea December 12, 2025President Donald Trump’s attacks on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific began on September 2, 2025. To date, 87 people have been killed in 23 incidents, all on the high seas. The President has justified the killings by labeling the individuals involved “narco-terrorists” and linking his policy to the terror wars of his predecessors. […]Mary Ellen O'Connell
- “The Court is not blind to the human suffering behind many of our cases” – An interview with the President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Yuji Iwasawa December 11, 2025Photo: The Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands – home of the International Court of Justice (Photo: Frank van Beek – Courtesy of the ICJ) On 5 November 2025, I interviewed Judge Yuji Iwasawa, President of the International Court of Justice. It was a wide-ranging conversation in which we discussed, among other things, Iwasawa’s priorities […]Edward Haxton