In its final hours soon after midnight of 14 December 2017, the 16th Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court decided to activate the Court‘s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. This is the effect of operational paragraph 1 of resolution ICC-ASP/16/Res.5. But in the same breath, the Assembly in operative…

A Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on the topic of Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWS) concluded its first meeting in Geneva on 17 November 2017. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and built upon on three informal meetings of experts held between 2014 and 2016 (for reports…

Nikolas Stürchler is a Diplomatic Officer at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Directorate of International Law, and author of “The Threat of Force in International Law” (Cambridge University Press 2007). This text reflects the personal views of the author. It does not in any manner implicate the views of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. The UN Charter is clear in demanding that all…