Principle of Non-Intervention

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Two nodes of interaction between AI and the obligation to respect state sovereignty

Artificial intelligence (AI) is interacting in ever more complex ways with the sovereignty of states. On the one hand, AI technologies are beginning to underpin key sectors and services, including national security, the economy, healthcare. Consequently – and unsurprisingly – states are seeking to protect AI capabilities and the data infrastructure they rely on. The UK, for instance, designated data centres as critical national infrastructure in 2024 and is planning to designate them as essential services. Such designations play an important role in domestic law – imposing, among others, obligations of risk mitigation and notification on operators of designated infrastructure. These designations may also play a role under international law. Considering AI tools and infrastructure as critical infrastructure or an essential service may affect the application of obligations deriving from state sovereignty.

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Must States Control Their Borders? The Ceuta Crisis and International Law

Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast with a population of approximately 80,000, experienced an unprecedented mass influx of people during the last week of July. Around 70,000 people, mostly Moroccan nationals but also persons from other countries, entered the territory irregularly. Although the precise causes remain uncertain, the immediate trigger appears to…

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The Twice-Coerced Zambia and the Synergy Between Human Rights Violations and Prohibited Intervention

Last week, like many other scholars and activists, I was due to participate in RightsCon, the leading conference on human rights in the digital age. This year it was supposed to take place in Zambia, with thousands of participants. The conference is organised by Access Now. They had for many months directly cooperated with the…

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U.S.’s moves to label Brazilian crime syndicates as “terrorist organizations”: a prelude to the use of force?

On March 6th, 2026, the United States re-ignited their pressure on Brazil to designate two major Brazilian crime syndicates, PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and Comando Vermelho, as “terrorist organizations”. In this post, I will introduce the U.S. practice to label Latin American drug syndicates “terrorist organizations”, and outline how this raises issues in relation…

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Two Weeks in Review: 23 February—6 March 2026

Here we go again? Last weekend saw yet another shock to the system, as the US and Israel launched an armed attack on Iran: the last week on the blog has seen some initial reactions. These are joined by analyses of the hard-fought (and already faltering?) EU-Mercosur trade agreement, regional shifts in dispute settlement under UNCLOS, an apparently…

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