The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has, this morning, issued what seems to be an extremely controversial decision on Head of State Immunity. At the time of writing, the full written judgment is not yet available in the appeal by Jordan against the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber referring that state to the UN Security…

Anyone who has studied a general course on international law will certainly be familiar with the criteria for Statehood contained in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: permanent population; defined territory; government; and capacity to enter into relations with other States. In addition, they may have learned of the argument, put forward most…

In a recent piece on Just Security, Tom Ruys and Felipe Rodríguez Silvestre argue that a state whose territory is unlawfully occupied by another state does not have the right to use of force in self-defence to recover the occupied territory. The post considered the position in relation to the recent armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan…