State Responsibility

Twenty-six years after Minas Gerais enacted a law creating a Human Rights Memorial in the building that housed the state's Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), a political police body central to dictatorship-era repression, the site has still not been officially converted into the memorial the law envisaged. In November 2025, the Federal Public Prosecutor…

On 1 July 2026, the IMO's non-mandatory International Code of Safety for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships took effect. The Code provides guidelines for maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS), or ships that, to various extents, operate independently of direct human control and are overseen or remotely controlled by humans in remote operations centres (ROCs), where the data,…

On 7 September 2026, Jamaica, which remains a Commonwealth Country with King Charles III as its head of state, will formally present a petition to the King with three questions about the legality of transatlantic chattel slavery and the UK’s responsibility to make reparations. Jamaica's petition is part of a decade-long coordinated campaign of Caribbean (CARICOM) countries…

Lunar exploration during the 20th century sought to reach, explore and, in some cases, return from the Moon, rather than to serve as successive stages in the construction of permanent lunar infrastructure. Today, lunar missions are mostly about establishing the long-term infrastructure necessary to remain there. Under the Artemis Programme, NASA is developing phased infrastructure for…