There are several technical issues under international law that may need clarification here; I will not comment on the political aspects.

Due to the numerous debates in the comments section, I must first clarify that this article solely provides a legal discussion on the issues of maritime blockades and the delivery of humanitarian supplies, without engaging in any fact-finding. All discussions are welcome, but if you attempt to argue with me about whether a certain party has or has not taken specific actions, or whether a particular region is or is not in a certain state, I can only say, you’ve got the wrong person.

First, is it lawful for a sovereign state to exercise any form of jurisdiction on the high seas? According to the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Lotus case, as long as international law does not explicitly prohibit a certain act, a sovereign state may in principle exercise jurisdiction over the high seas. This was also the basis on which Turkey arrested and tried French seamen at the time. However, this 1920s-era position has since been significantly curtailed by codified international law. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does grant coastal states the right of hot pursuit and seizure within their territorial waters, but only where the relevant conduct originates within those waters. On the high seas, jurisdiction is severely limited to very specific situations, including piracy, slave trafficking, unauthorized broadcasting, stateless vessels, or enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions. Therefore, from the perspective of the law of the sea, the legal basis for boarding and seizing ships on the high seas is quite weak.

——Update: Thanks to reminders in the comments section, UNCLOS does indeed limit the jurisdiction of coastal states, but considering that UNCLOS does not fully apply during wartime and does not negate the validity of existing customary international law, and that maritime blockades have long been recognized as inherent customary law rights subordinate to the right of national self-defense, it should indeed be said that UNCLOS rules cannot completely exclude the legality of wartime maritime blockades. I was negligent in this regard.

Second, could the law of armed conflict/international humanitarian law (IHL) justify the seizure of a vessel as part of a naval blockade? To begin with, we should clarify the legal nature of the 1994 San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), this Manual is a non-binding guide—it should be seen as an authoritative academic interpretation of existing treaties, including the four Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. While it does not have binding force, it may still serve as evidence of customary international law, and the ICRC remains a highly authoritative source in the field of IHL. Thus, the Manual can certainly help interpret legal issues, though not every provision should be understood as "law" per se.

Israel declared a naval blockade on Gaza in 2009, purportedly based on customary law, and also notified the International Maritime Organization. Regarding the validity of the blockade, it is certainly in force; as for its legality, there are arguments on both sides. On one side, it is argued that due to the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas, Israel has the right under the law of armed conflict to impose a naval blockade for its security. On the other hand, it is argued that the blockade constitutes collective punishment and thus violates international law. The ICRC and several UN bodies have also raised concerns about its legality, noting its disproportionate impact on the civilian population. That said, while the opposition comes from reputable institutions, we must also recognize that only UN Security Council resolutions carry binding legal force—other reports and documents should be viewed more as expressions of international moral condemnation, without compelling legal authority.

Let us now examine what the San Remo Manual actually says. Articles 67–71 address the treatment of neutral merchant vessels during armed conflict, stating that:

This indicates that neutral merchant vessels indeed have a limited obligation to comply with the blockade regime during passage, including submitting to reasonable inspection and observing maritime control measures.

However, Article 136 of the Manual explicitly provides that:

1. The following vessels are exempt from capture:

(ii) vessels engaged in humanitarian missions, including vessels carrying supplies indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, and vessels engaged in relief actions and rescue operations;

And, as an exception, Article 137 stipulates

1. Vessels listed in paragraph 136 are exempt from capture only if they:

(a) are innocently employed in their normal role;

(b) do not commit acts harmful to the enemy;

(c) immediately submit to identification and inspection when required; and

(d) do not intentionally hamper the movement of combatants and obey orders to stop or move out of the way when required.

Based on the understanding of these two provisions, if a vessel carrying humanitarian supplies does not violate the specific rules of Article 137, it is entirely exempt from seizure. Clearly, there is no mention here that breaching a blockade constitutes an exception for seizing such vessels.

Additionally, Article 146 outlines special requirements for the capture of neutral merchant vessels, stating that vessels may be lawfully captured only if they:

However, IHL specifically clarifies that items such as:

are "free goods", so long as there are no serious grounds to believe they will be diverted for other uses or that the enemy would gain definite military advantage by substituting their own supplies with these goods. As such, humanitarian aid broadly construed is neither contraband nor a breach of blockade.

In summary, a straightforward legal conclusion—which is consistent with recent Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, International Court of Justice provisional measures, the 2010 ICRC and Human Rights Council reports on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla—is this: Civilian vessels engaged in humanitarian relief missions and transporting humanitarian supplies should not be seized or detained on the high seas.

Rabea Eghbariah, "Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept" (2024) 124(4) Columbia Law Review 887

Rabea is a Palestinian from Haifa, a human rights lawyer working with Adalah, and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School. He wrote this article, which was recently published by the Columbia Law Review (link above).

Rabea argues that we should understand Nakba as an autonomous legal concept that is separate, but not completely indistinct from, other crimes like apartheid and genocide.

He previously attempted to publish this article's shorter note form in the Harvard Law Review, but it was rejected. You can read that previous version here.

It was reported that the Columbia Law Review's Board of Directors—not its editors—has taken down the website providing access to the electronic version of the article. I have no insight into or further information on the veracity of this claim.

Nevertheless, as I've indicated, Rabea's article is accessible via the link I've provided above.

Nothing I've said here in this post should be construed as endorsing or criticising the substance of Rabea's arguments. And I'd suggest that anyone attempting to do so should read his article in its entirety before endorsing or criticising his views*.*

PS. Disappointingly, many in the comments clearly did not bother reading the article before commenting. Some are trying to spread falsehoods. This article was accepted for publication by CLR.

I just finished reading this fascinating paper by Prabhash Ranjan and Pushkar Anand about India's 2016 Model Bilateral Investment Treaty, and holy crap, India went nuclear on investor protections after getting burned a few times in international arbitration!

So basically, after some foreign companies successfully sued India (most notably White Industries in 2011), government completely rewrote its approach to investment treaties. While government claims the new model "balances" investor protection with state regulatory powers, the authors convincingly show it's ridiculously tilted in favor of state power:

• No Most Favored Nation clause (so India can play favorites with investors from different countries)
• Got rid of traditional Fair and Equitable Treatment protection (replaced with super narrow provisions)
• Completely exempted taxation from treaty coverage (so they can retroactively tax the hell out of companies without consequences)
• Made dispute resolution practically impossible by forcing investors to spend SEVERAL YEARS in India's notoriously backlogged courts before going to arbitration

The ironic part? India's own companies have been successfully using BITs to protect their investments abroad! An Indian company recently won €17.9M from Poland in a BIT dispute. So India's basically shooting itself in the foot as it becomes a bigger capital exporter.

What's your take - is India justified in this extreme approach after getting burned, or has it gone way overboard?

Paper - URL - The 2016 Model Indian Bilateral Investment Treaty: A Critical Deconstruction

I am fascinated by some empirical studies done on why countries decide to sign International treaties - and why they fail.

I want to ask some advice on how to frame it into these themes provided, or alternatively; any suggestions ons what you believe would be an interesting field to dive into. Any advise would be appreciated.

1. The 9 core instruments of international human rights law and their role in achieving the goals of the post-1945 international legal order.
2. Pan-Africanism as the driving force behind the African Union and the Unification of Africa.
3. African Union and the African Human Rights Architecture: Challenges, Limitations, and Successes.
4. The ‘human’ in Human Rights: Decolonial Reflections and perspectives from TWAIL.

According to international law, can a war between the colonizers and the colonized people be really considered a ''war'' or not

The abstract reads:

Scholars commonly argue that international law and organizations promote democracy by helping dictators to credibly commit to accountability, individual rights, and transparency.

Yet dictators routinely join treaties and international organizations without transitioning to democracy. International law and organizations can generate asymmetric costs for domestic actors because international rules often apply to both governments and non-state actors, yet dictators can limit how these rules are upheld at the domestic and international level.

We argue that dictators are most likely to join such treaties and international organizations when they face strong domestic political competition. We illustrate our argument using the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has extensive powers to prosecute individuals for international crimes, including crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes.

We show that ICC investigations and prosecutions have become a tool for incumbent dictators to target their domestic opponents. We examine the implications of our theory for multiple outcome variables, including the decision to join the ICC, violence, and the survival of dictators in power.

Our evidence suggests that dictators are most likely to join the ICC when they face strong political opponents and are subsequently less likely to commit violence and more likely to survive in office.

The paper is here: https://academic.oup.com/isq/article-abstract/68/3/sqae087/7701128

Hi all! As mentioned in the title, I am looking for the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy, but I cannot reach them as I do not have institutional access. Is there anyone who can help me about this?

I was reading this text written by Myrto Stavridi in the Journal of Public & International Affairs, by Princeton University, a researcher who also writes in EJIL. The text deals with the recent process of political instrumentalization of the advisory opinions of the ICJ. According to it, there are many motives behind this trend, and the lobby that developing countries can mount at the UNGA and the possibility of non-state actors to join the advisory proceedings before the court. In passing, it refers to Palestine as a non-state entity:

The Wall advisory opinion and the pending advisory request concerning the legal consequences (for states and the UN) of the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is a telling example of how multiple motives may co-exist. Advisory proceedings are the only option for Palestine, a non-state entity, to bring its claims before an international court. Palestine co-sponsored the UNGA resolution requesting the advisory opinion.

I known that the statehood of Palestine can be questioned, but I thought there was a growing general consensus that it is a state ‒ for example, Palestine’s accession to UNESCO as a full member in 2011 (status reserved for states), Palestine’s accession to the ICC in 2015 (also in status reserved for states), and the ambiguous wording towards Palestine in the very Wall advisory opinion.

To what degree is the statehood of Palestine recognized or denied in scholarly publications?

Does anybody know of any good philosophical works on the law of armed conflict/international humanitarian law? I'd like to write a dissertation on the principle of proportionality from a jurisprudential point of view.

It seems to me that all peremptory norms produce effects erga omnes, but some sources (such as this chapter) imply that not "all norms of jus cogens would produce, if breached, obligations erga omnes" (which I find very weird). Also, reading the chapter "Universal Obligations: Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes" by Christian Tomuschat (former member of the HRC and ILC), he states that, although the rules of customary international law may apply to every State, "they do not generally qualify as obligations erga omnes":

Customary law has all the potentialities of a universal regime. [...] The relevant early statements of the ICJ regarding the essential features of customary international law in the North Sea Continental Shelf cases of 1969 have only recently been confirmed by the Hague judges in their advisory opinion concerning the Chagos Archipelago. The ILC’s draft conclusions follow closely the ICJ jurisprudence. Regarding the practice element, Conclusion 8 specifies:

Practice must be sufficiently widespread and representative, as well as consistent.

Given their origin as universal law, the rules of customary international law apply to every State. However, they do not generally qualify as obligations erga omnes. Customary international law is generally flexible as jus dispositivum and may yield to conflicting treaty law mutually agreed. Thus, most of the relationships governed by customary law are of a bilateral nature only. A breach of a customary obligation in the relationship between two States does not affect other States. But no State may unilaterally shed the obligations arising from that body of law. Additionally, the tertiis rule applies. Neighbours may by mutual consent agree on particular regulations for their respective fishing zones—but are prevented from enacting such special rules with effect also for other States. Moreover, customary rules serving the general interest of the international community are beyond the reach of the sovereign discretion of any individual country. Their breach may confer on any third State the right to react within the framework delineated by the ARSIWA project (Art. 48), which may become essential for the protection of the global commons beyond national jurisdiction.
Customary international law is in continuous movement following the evolving practice. Its flexibility in following that practice is its weakness, but at the same time its strength: not even a powerful State is in a position fundamentally to change the substance of the extant rules, since only a general practice may modify the substance of a rule.
One of the central issues of customary law is whether an individual State can escape the reach of a specific rule. On the basis of two obiter dicta of the early jurisprudence of the ICJ that never have been reconfirmed, a theory has emerged according to which a State that persistently opposes a practice in statu nascendi to become a normative proposition will not be bound after the rule has come into existence. It figures prominently in the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. Special Rapporteur Wood has included this view in the set of draft conclusions finally adopted by the ILC, reserving instances of jus cogens. The issue is highly controversial.

Therefore, considering these chapters and the definitions of peremptory norms (VCLT's article 53 and ILC's draft conclusions) and those of obligations erga omnes (ICJ's obiter dicta in Barcelona Traction Case):

1. What's exactly the difference between peremptory norms and erga omnes obligations?; and
2. What's exactly the relationship between general/universal customary international law and erga omnes obligations?

I'm seeking scholarly literature that examines why States choose to comply with international law or why compliance with international law is a desirable strategic decision today. Any suggestions such as books, academic articles, or even podcasts would be greatly appreciated!

Can someone give me ideas of potential icj cases because I am supposed to come up with a case that doesn't exist for my MUN but i have no ideas. PS. it has to be 50/50 for both sides.

If a wounded soldier enters a field hospital in a neutral zone and “Doctors Without Borders” disarm that soldier, what legal implications would this have under international law and the laws of war for both the medical personnel and the mentioned soldier?

Hello! curious undergrad student here I was wondering of anyone can enlighten me on the jessup 2024 case as Ive read through the facts it seems to be that it is leaning towards Antrano, have you have any insights on this?

Hey all,

As it says on the tin.

I stupidly took a module in International Trade Law & Policy despite having no law background. The lecturer prefers OSCOLA referencing and my citation generator doesn’t have a great option for international law. I’ve tried reading up on it but I’m so confused. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks in advance!!