History of International Law

June 2022 was marked by a critical event in South-North relations: Belgium returning a tooth to Congo. As trivial as it may sound, the return of the gold-crowned tooth ends a quarrel of 62 years between the former colonial and colonized peoples regarding the murder of the anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba. More than that, the declaration that accompanied…

The Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) has a very strong symbolic standing for all post-Soviet nations and especially for Russia. Nuances, complexities and shortcomings are inherent to the IMT legacy. However, in Ukraine, Russia and the wider region, a Nuremberg reference will almost always have the connotation of paramount justice and the victory of the ultimate good…

Philip Allott is a mind-altering substance. It is not possible to leave one of his lectures, or to read one of his books or articles, without undergoing a profound change in thought and attitude towards humanity and the role of law in its service. The idea of international law as the law of all humanity and…

The human world is beset by unprecedented global problems in a state of unprecedented global disorder. Climate change. Destruction of habitats, exhausting of natural resources, extinction of animal species. Global threats to human health, including plagues and pandemics. War and the threat of war, including new forms, such as cyber war, space war, bacteriological war. Internal wars that…