Most Read Posts in 2019

Happy New Year to our readers! We wish you a wonderful 2020 and thank you for reading the blog in 2019. Below is a list of the 20 posts that received the most views in 2019. An interesting observation is that most of these posts relate to developments in international tribunals: the International Court of Justice; the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights, and also the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Human Rights Committee. Some of these post focus on specific cases (eg, Chagos and Gambia v Myanmar at the ICJ, Bashir at the ICC, the Burqa Ban cases at the ECtHR/ HRC, Detention of Three Ukranian Naval Vessels at ITLOS), while others focus on broader institutional issues at these courts. The list highlights the attention that was given to the brilliant series of posts by our Contributing Editor, Douglas Guilfoyle, on the problems faced by the ICC, with no less than three of those posts making the top 20 most read posts. From several conversations with key court watchers and officials, I had the sense that those posts were highly influential in crystallising the sense that something needs to be done about what seemed to be impending crisis of confidence with regard to the Court. Google Analytics confirms that the breadth of influence in terms of numbers of readers. 

We would like to thank all those who contributed posts in 2019!

1. Marko Milanovic, ICJ Delivers Chagos Advisory Opinion, UK Loses Badly (February 2019)
2. Dapo Akande, ICC Appeals Chamber Holds that Heads of State Have No Immunity Under Customary International Law Before International Tribunals (May 2019)
3. Douglas Guilfoyle, Part I- This is not fine: The International Criminal Court in Trouble (March 2019)
4. Claus Kress, A Collective Failure to Prevent Turkey’s Operation ‘Peace Spring’ and NATO’s Silence on International Law (October 2019)
5. Thomas Van Poecke, Marta Hermez & Jonas Vernimmen, The Gambia’s gamble, and how jurisdictional limits may keep the ICJ from ruling on Myanmar’s alleged genocide against Rohingya (November 2019)
6. Michael Becker, The Situation of the Rohingya: Is there a role for the International Court of Justice? (November 2018)
7. Stephanie Berry, The UN Human Rights Committee Disagrees with the European Court of Human Rights Again: The Right to Manifest Religion by Wearing a Burqa (January 2019)
8. Marko Milanovic, Palestine Sues the United States in the ICJ re Jerusalem Embassy (November 2018)
9. Dan Joyner, Legal Bindingness of Security Council Resolutions Generally, and Resolution 2334 on the Israeli Settlements in Particular (January 2017)
10. Patryk Labuda, A Neo-Colonial Court for Weak States? Not Quite. Making Sense of the International Criminal Court’s Afghanistan Decision (April 2019) 
11. Dapo Akande & Talita De Souza Dias, Does the ICC Statute Remove Immunities of State Officials in National Proceedings? Some Observations from the Drafting History of Article 27(2) of the Rome Statute (November 2018)
12. Farhaan Uddin, Shamima Begum may be a Bangladeshi Citizen After All (March 2019)
13. James Kraska, The Kerch Strait Incident: Law of the Sea or Law of Naval Warfare? (December 2018) 
14. Douglas Guilfoyle, So, you want to do a PhD in international law? (August 2012)
15.  Christian Henderson, Tit-for-Tat-for-Tit: The Indian and Pakistani Airstrikes and the Jus ad Bellum (February 2019)
16. Douglas Guilfoyle, The Future of International Law in an Authoritarian World (June 2019)
17. Douglas Guilfoyle, Part II- This is not fine: The International Criminal Court in Trouble (March 2019)
18. Douglas Guifoyle, Reforming the International Criminal Court: Is it Time for the Assembly of State Parties to be the adults in the room? (May 2019)
19. James Kraska, Did ITLOS Just Kill the Military Activities Exemption in Article 298? (May 2019)
20. George Stafford, The Implementation of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights: Worse Than You Think – Part 2: The Hole in the Roof (October 2019)