Happy New Year for 2023 and our Most Read Posts of 2022

Happy New Year to all our readers! 2022 was a busy year for us on the blog, probably our busiest year yet. We probably published more posts last year than in any previous year. We typically try to keep posts to no more than one a day but last year we had periods where we were publishing two posts a day and sometimes three! As you would imagine the busiest period was just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine but overall there has been lots of activity on the blog throughout the year. Although we don’t keep statistics on the submissions we receive, it seems to me that the number of submissions we received far outstripped  those in previous years. The blog has been going since the end of 2008 and in the early years much of our job as editors was to write posts for the blog, and to solicit for others to write for us. Today, it is a very different job, with most of our time taken up reviewing the daily stream of submissions that come in. We are very grateful to you for continuing to send us your materials.

You will find below the posts that were most read on the blog in 2022. I should be clear that these are the posts that most attracted the attention of our readers (not necessarily a reflection of posts published in the year as a whole). The make-up of the list of top 20 most read posts of 2022 is very different from previous years. Typically, there is diversity in the topics that you – the readers – have found to be of interest in the year. However, in 2022, like 2020 (where the list was dominated by COVID related posts) one thing has grabbed attention this year – the Russia – Ukraine war! Only one post in that list does not relate to that topic. Also, it will often be the case that some (or even a good number) of the posts on the list of most read posts in a particular year were published in previous year. Unusually, all of the most popular posts read in 2022  were published in that year. In fact, the vast majority were written in February and March, the immediate days and weeks after the invasion of Ukraine (and in one case just prior to the invasion). The top 5 posts were all written by Marko and Rebecca Barber who provided incredibly timely analysis of the various legal issues emerging from the war. I am grateful to them and to all the other authors for speedy but elegant work. I also take this opportunity remind readers of the episode of EJIL:The Podcast! – From Russia with War that we put out at that time. 

Our readership has also remained high and, according to Google Analytics, we are consulted by tens of thousands of unique browsers each week and close to 2 million in the year. It is of particular interest to me to note where we are being read, by which I mean the location of our readership. When one looks at the top 10 countries where our readers in 2022 are located, most of them are western, with the US, UK, the Netherlands and Germany being the top four locations. However, India is no 5 and China no. 6. Readership in China has skyrocketed over the past few years and is now about six times higher than it was just five years ago. Other non-western countries in the top 25 include Philippines (no, 12), Japan (no. 15), Turkey (no. 16), Russia (no. 20), Singapore (no. 21), South Africa (no. 22), and Indonesia (no. 23).

Thank you for sticking with us in 2022 and we look forward to many more engagements with you in 2023.

Now for those top 20 posts:

1. Marko Milanovic, What is Russia’s Legal Justification for Using Force against Ukraine? (February 2022)
2. Marko Milanovic, Ukraine Files ICJ Claim Against Russia (February 2022)
3. Rebecca Barber, Could Russia be Suspended from the United Nations?(March 2022)
4. Rebecca Barber, What can the UN General Assembly do about Russian Aggression in Ukraine? (February 2022) 
5. Marko Milanovic, ICJ Indicates Provisional Measures Against Russia, in a Near Total Win for Ukraine; Russia Expelled from the Council of Europe (March 2022)
6. Ralph Janik, Putin’s War against Ukraine: Mocking International Law (February 2022) 
7. Alain Pellet, Open Letter to my Russian Friends: Ukraine is Not Crimea (March 2022) 
8. Ilya Nuzov, Mercenary or Combatant? Ukraine’s International Legion of Territorial Defense under International Humanitarian Law (March 2022) 
9. Sergey Vasiliev, Aggression against Ukraine: Avenues for Accountability for Core Crimes (March 2022) 
10. Kai Ambos, Will a state supplying weapons to Ukraine become a party to the conflict and thus be exposed to countermeasures? (March 2022) 
11. Devika Hovell, Council at War: Russia, Ukraine and the UN Security Council (March 2022)
12. Emily Crawford, Armed Ukrainian Citizens: Direct Participation in Hostilities, Levée en Masse, or Something Else? (March 2022) 
13. Patryk Labuda, On Eastern Europe, ‘Whataboutism’ and ‘West(s)plaining’: Some Thoughts on International Lawyers’ Responses to Ukraine (April 2022) 
14. Marko Milanovic,  Russia’s Submission to the ICJ in the Genocide Case; Russia’s Withdrawal from the Council of Europe (March 2022)
15. Melanie O’Brien & Noelle Quenivet, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Women in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict (June 2022)
16. Silvia Behrendt & Amrei Müller, The far-reaching US proposals to amend the International Health Regulations at the upcoming 75th World Health Assembly: A call for attention (May 2022)

17. M. Emre Hayyar, Can Turkey Close the Turkish Straits to Russian Warships? (February 2022)
18. Alexander Wentker, At War: When Do States Supporting Ukraine or Russia become Parties to the Conflict and What Would that Mean? (March 2022)
19. Nico Krisch, After Hegemony: The Law on the Use of Force and the Ukraine Crisis (March 2022) 
20. Mary Ellen O’Connell, Russia-Ukraine: Resolving the World’s Most Dangerous Conflict (February 2022)