Two Weeks in Review: 13—24 July 2026

The last fortnight has seen commentators focus primarily on conflict, climate, and immigration. A mini-symposium has ranged over a number of legal questions raised by a potential Russia-Ukraine peace treaty: from  VCLT rules on treaty validity and security guarantees, to free economic zones and the question of the reconstruction of Ukraine through seized assets of the Russian Central Bank. The Iran War continues to provoke deep reflection: while US attacks on neutral commercial vessels expose a fundamental tension between the Law of Naval Warfare and the UN Charter; the uneven international reaction to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and Iran’s response, force us to think about what state silence can—and cannot—tell us about the law. Climate obligations for states and corporations continue apace, as Paris Judicial Court’s judgment against TotalEnergies marks a significant advance in corporate climate litigation, and advisory opinions by the ICJ and IACtHR potentially open the way for a customary obligation on states to “actively pursue” climate science. The sharpening of EU immigration policy through the Return Directive and the Chișinău Declaration remain the focus of critical commentary, while analysis of China’s (self-declared) campaign against economic coercion draws instructive parallels with the EU’s use of unilateral economic measures. Not to mention questions about the relationship between international law and popular culture raised by Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey—and a new issue of EJIL.  

Climate

Jasper Teulings and Alexandre Bonnier argue that the Paris Judicial Court’s judgment in NAAT et al. v. TotalEnergies marks a significant advance in corporate climate litigation. It required TotalEnergies to revise its vigilance plan under the French Duty of Vigilance Law to address Scope 3 emissions, while retaining judicial oversight of the adequacy of those measures. The judgment interprets both the French Duty of Vigilance Law and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) as imposing substantive obligations to assess and mitigate climate-related risks—notwithstanding the removal of former Article 22 CS3D—and draws on the Paris Agreement, OECD Guidelines, Milieudefensie v. Shell, the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion, and Klimaseniorinnen to reinforce a converging body of corporate climate obligations. The Court’s findings on causation and the carbon budget substantially narrow the range of legally adequate compliance measures, potentially requiring limits on new fossil fuel projects and reduced production, while establishing a precedent likely to influence corporate climate litigation across Europe.

Anna Saunders examines how recent climate advisory opinions by the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have begun to recognise obligations concerning the production and maintenance of climate science, in response to growing attacks on scientific infrastructures. Focusing on the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, she argues that the customary duty of prevention now encompasses an obligation for states to “actively pursue” the scientific information necessary to assess climate risks, potentially engaging questions of state responsibility where governments dismantle or undermine scientific capacity. The ICJ’s approach contrasts with the Inter-American Court’s more expansive recognition of plural knowledge systems, including Indigenous and traditional knowledge, and highlights unresolved questions concerning epistemic inequality and the dominance of Global North scientific infrastructures. Climate science obligations must be understood not merely as duties to produce knowledge, but as requiring more inclusive and decolonised forms of scientific cooperation and co-production. 

Mini-symposium on a potential Russia-Ukraine peace treaty

Asli Ozcelik examines how the rules on treaty validity in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Arts. 46, 52 and 53 VCLT) would constrain a potential Russia–Ukraine peace treaty, arguing that international law requires respect for Ukraine’s constitutional requirements, genuine freedom of consent, and compliance with jus cogens, while still leaving scope for a negotiated settlement. Article 46 may invalidate a treaty concluded in manifest breach of Ukraine’s constitutional amendment procedures, whereas Articles 52 and 53 should be interpreted narrowly, so that concessions—including territorial ones—are not automatically invalid absent coercion that deprives Ukraine of meaningful choice or treaty terms directly conflicting with peremptory norms. Peacemaking practice often mitigates validity concerns through ambiguity, provisional arrangements, or deferring contentious issues, illustrating how international law accommodates negotiated conflict resolution without abandoning its core constraints.

Carolyn Moser suggests that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived the concept of security guarantees while exposing the limits of formal legal commitments, using the failure of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum as a starting point for a new typology of security guarantees based on their legal nature (positive and negative commitments) and functions (deterrent, supportive, and restorative). The credibility of security guarantees depends less on their legal form than on political, military, and institutional factors, such as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, Article 42(7) TEU, and contemporary arrangements for Ukraine. The emerging architecture of security guarantees, particularly through EU defence-industrial integration and modular regional agreements, reflects a shift towards pragmatic, multidimensional, and regionally anchored security arrangements suited to a multipolar international order.

Iryna Bogdanova examines the legal and political controversy surrounding the possible use of immobilised Russian Central Bank (RCB) assets to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction, situating the debate within the broader framework of state responsibility, reparations, and sovereign immunity. While Ukraine’s entitlement to reparation is grounded in customary international law and reflected in UNGA Resolution ES-11/5 and the ILC Articles on State Responsibility (Art. 31 ARSIWA), the legality of transferring RCB assets remains contested under the law of State immunity and the rules on countermeasures (ARSIWA Arts. 49–52). There are competing arguments on whether a tailored exception to immunity or collective countermeasures could justify asset use, not to mention policy tensions between accountability for Russia’s aggression, concerns over reserve currency stability and sovereign asset protection, and the practical urgency of financing Ukraine’s recovery.

Helmut Philipp Aust examines proposals to establish a “free economic zone” in eastern Ukraine as part of a future peace settlement, arguing that such arrangements raise profound legal and political concerns beyond their apparent economic rationale. Drawing on historical examples of internationalised territories (Port of Shanghai, Tangiers, Memel Territory, Free City of Danzig, Trieste, Jerusalem, to name a few), he cautions that these largely unsuccessful precedents offer little support for contemporary territorial experimentation. Instead they smack of great-power governance and contested sovereignty. Situating the proposal within the transactional logic of recent US peace initiatives, including the US-Ukraine Strategic Minerals Partnership and analogous proposals for Gaza, he argues that these arrangements prioritise economic exploitation over self-determination and risk rewarding aggression while raising difficult questions under the jus ad bellum and the law of treaties. A Ukrainian “free economic zone” would create a legally dubious territorial regime and could signal a broader shift towards a transactional model of international peacemaking that undermines established principles of international law.

EU immigration

Federico Teli puts the case that the EU’s new Return Regulation, replacing the Return Directive (Directive 2008/115/EC), marks a decisive shift towards a more coercive migration regime by extending detention, broadening the grounds for detention and removal, and facilitating transfers to third-country “Return Hubs.” Key provisions—particularly on prolonged detention, expanded definitions of absconding and security risk, and externalised returns—sit uneasily with the European Convention on Human Rights (Art. 5 and Art. 8), the principle of non-refoulement, and the case law of the ECtHR (Saadi v. United Kingdom, Chahal v. United Kingdom) and the CJEU (Adrar, Pham). The Regulation completes the European Pact on Migration and Asylum by entrenching a “crimmigration” model that prioritises enforcement and security over fundamental rights, while leaving courts to determine the limits of its compatibility with European human rights law.

Birgit Hollaus examines the legal significance of the Chișinău Declaration within the European human rights system, arguing that its importance lies less in directly altering Convention doctrine than in reshaping the interpretative environment in which the ECHR operates. Under Articles 31 and 32 VCLT, it is unlikely to constitute subsequent agreement or practice but may operate as a supplementary means of interpretation capable of influencing the ECtHR’s reasoning. The declaration is also novel in its engagement with domestic courts and its potential relevance beyond Strasbourg, particularly for EU fundamental rights law through Articles 52(3) and 53 of the EU Charter. Ultimately, the declaration’s main consequence may be to increase expectations on courts to justify their interpretative choices within an increasingly contested, multi-level European human rights architecture.

International law and popular culture

Sebastian von Massow turns to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, parts of which were filmed in occupied Western Sahara, to examine how popular culture can contribute to the normalisation of unlawful situations such as the denial of the Saharawi right to self-determination. Cultural productions increasingly intersect with and sometimes reinforce long-standing violations of international law, such as Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest or Saudi ‘sportswashing’. From this point of view, The Odyssey forms an unwitting part of a wider Moroccan annexation strategy that embeds contemporary popular culture within infrastructure development, tourism, and cultural branding at a time when formal diplomatic condemnation of these situations is waning. While this normalises these situations, these moments of cultural visibility can also expose, rather than conceal them—provided that civil society succeeds in reconnecting popular culture with the underlying legal and political realities.

China and economic coercion

Ryan Mitchell argues that China’s campaign against economic coercion is undermined by its own expanding use of unilateral economic pressure, highlighting the tension between Beijing’s criticism of US secondary sanctions and its development of counter-sanctions, blocking measures, and informal trade restrictions. Situating these developments alongside similar trends in the EU, he contends that major powers are converging on increasingly unilateral forms of economic statecraft, weakening efforts to develop coherent international rules on economic coercion. China could instead advance a multilateral legal framework—potentially through the UN General Assembly and the International Law Commission—by promoting clearer procedural safeguards, greater restraint in its own practice, and a vision of “geoeconomic non-alignment” that protects weaker states from coercive exploitation of economic asymmetries.

Iran War

Himanil Raina argues that the US attacks on neutral commercial vessels enforcing its blockade of Iran expose a fundamental tension between the Law of Naval Warfare (LNW) and the UN Charter. While acknowledging debates over whether attacks on merchant shipping amount to a prohibited use of force or an armed attack under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, UNGA Resolution 3314 (Art. 3(d)), and the ICJ’s Oil Platforms judgment, he contends that these questions are secondary to a deeper problem. Because relations between belligerents and neutral states remain governed by the law of peace, the LNW cannot independently authorise force against third-state vessels where the Charter provides no legal basis. The assumptions underpinning the San Remo and Newport manuals are problematic: accepting traditional belligerent rights over neutral shipping would effectively create a parallel legal order operating outside the Charter framework.s

Gal Cohen examines the uneven international reaction to the 2026 US–Israeli strikes on Iran, and Iran’s subsequent use of force, arguing that state silence should not readily be treated as evidence of evolving jus ad bellum. Drawing on Article 31(3)(b)–(c) VCLT, the ICJ’s Nicaragua judgment, and scholarship on the legal significance of silence, he contends that diplomatic, political and strategic considerations often explain the absence of condemnation better than legal acquiescence. Selective or muted reactions do not support expanded doctrines of self-defence, nor weaken the continuing application of necessity and proportionality under Article 51 of the UN Charter: over-reading silence risks eroding the prohibition on the use of force.

New Issue: EJIL Vol. 37 (2026) No. 1

The latest issue of EJIL will be published this week: an overview of articles, book reviews, and debates can be found here  here. 

And as ever, events and announcements can be found here.