Two Weeks in Review: 27 July—7 August 2026

‘We like lists, because we don’t want to die.’ At least according to Umberto Eco. He had in mind our love of all things limitless when confronted with our own very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. But it applies equally to editorial introductions. The last two weeks have ranged wider than sensible categorisation can enclose—leaving the list as the only resort. Posts have included: EJIL’s first AI policy, an interview with Judge Theodor Meron, the EU borders regime in Ceuta and Mellila, enforced disappearances in Mexico, the possibility of an EU ban on Israeli imports from the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the nationalisation of British Steel and its pending arbitration, the hopeful future of international drug control, and state immunity for remotely conducted cyber operations. Not to mention an overview of the latest issue of the European Journal of International Law. 

EJIL’s first policy on generative AI

Sarah Nouwen and Michael Waibel set out EJIL’s first Policy on Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, adopted across its journal, blog, and wider editorial ecosystem. It is built around three core principles: disclosure, human authorship, and accountability. AI-assisted research and writing are permitted only where the human author’s intellectual contribution remains predominant, drawing on established academic norms of authorship and acknowledgement to distinguish permissible from impermissible. Authors must disclose an use of AI that goes beyond de minimis and remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and legality of their work. Undisclosed or prohibited AI use may lead to rejection or retraction. By contrast, peer reviewers remain prohibited from using AI under any circumstances, reflecting EJIL’s emphasis on preserving the integrity and accountability of scholarly evaluation.

Interview with Judge Theodor Meron 

Kate Hamilton sat down with Judge Theodor Meron to reflect on the extraordinary experiences that shaped his commitment to justice, the discipline of applying the law free from politics, and his hope for the future of international justice. Looking back on a remarkable career spanning government service, academia, and international criminal adjudication, Meron argues that international lawyers and judges must remain faithful to legal principle even when it conflicts with political expediency. Drawing on his legal advice that Israeli civilian settlements in occupied territory violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, and his experience at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, he defends judicial restraint, due process, and the rule of law as the primary functions of international courts—rather than reconciliation or historical truth-telling. Discussing landmark cases including Krstić, Kunarac, and the Appeals Chamber judgment in Gotovina, he argues that the legitimacy of international criminal justice ultimately depends on principled and independent adjudication, even in the face of intense political criticism.

EU borders: Ceuta and Mellila

Analysing the Spanish Supreme Court’s judgment of 29 June 2026, Desislava Dimitrova examines the scope of the rechazo en frontera regime governing summary returns at the borders of Ceuta and Melilla. The Court held that the regime created by Spain’s Organic Law on Public Security does not apply to migrants intercepted while attempting to reach Spanish territory by sea, distinguishing physical ‘containment elements’ from surveillance technologies; but it left unresolved broader questions under the principle of non-refoulement, Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 to the ECHR, and the Grand Chamber’s judgment in N.D. and N.T. v Spain. The Court’s narrow statutory interpretation fails to engage with Spain’s positive obligations to protect life under the ECHR and search-and-rescue duties arising under UNCLOS, SOLAS, and the SAR Convention, and relies on a questionable categorisation of the relevant waters around the enclave as “high seas. Technological developments can play an important role in ensuring the effective protection of fundamental rights, while fully complying with the law of the sea. Rather than being conceived solely as instruments of border enforcement, they should also be recognized for their potential to protect human life at sea. But this requires the prevailing securitarian approach to give way to one centred on the protection of life.

Enforced disappearances in Mexico

Salvador Leyva Morelos-Zaragoza analyses the Committee on Enforced Disappearances’ first use of Article 34 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in relation to Mexico, focusing on its recognition that enforced disappearances committed solely by non-State actors may constitute crimes against humanity under Article 5 of the Convention when read alongside Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. While this interpretation strengthens international responses to disappearances carried out by organised criminal groups, it risks conflating State responsibility under international human rights law with individual criminal responsibility under international criminal law. The Committee did not need to rely on this novel interpretation in the Mexican context, given the substantial evidence of direct and indirect State involvement: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights offers a more coherent approach by maintaining a clear distinction between the two legal frameworks.

EU ban on Israeli imports from the OPT

Nicolas Angelet argues that an EU ban on imports from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory should be adopted as a common commercial policy measure under Article 207 TFEU, rather than as a Common Foreign and Security Policy sanction requiring unanimity under Article 31 TEU. Drawing on the European Court of Justice’s case law on the choice of legal basis—including Titanium Dioxide, Agreement with Kazakhstan, and Armenia CEPA—he contends that the ‘centre of gravity’ of such a ban lies in trade regulation and should therefore be decided by qualified majority. In light of the ICJ’s 2024 OPT Advisory Opinion, the EU’s failure to act reflects not only political deadlock but also a failure to give effect to its foundational commitments to the rule of law and respect for international law under Articles 2 and 21 TEU.

Arbitration and the nationalisation of British Steel

Yin Wei examines the UK’s nationalisation of British Steel under the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 and the resulting investment dispute initiated by Jingye Group under the 1986 UK–China Bilateral Investment Treaty. While the expropriation raises substantive questions concerning public purpose, national security, necessity, and compensation under Article 5 of the BIT, the decisive issue turn out to be jurisdiction: whether Article 7, which limits arbitration to disputes ‘concerning an amount of compensation’, permits a tribunal to review the lawfulness of the expropriation itself. Contrasting competing arbitral approaches in Tza Yap Shum v Peru, Beijing Urban Construction v Yemen, Beijing Shougang v Mongolia, and AsiaPhos v China, Yin suggests that the case will test both the effectiveness of the UK–China BIT and the UK’s willingness to accept the same level of investment treaty scrutiny it has long promoted abroad.

A new future for international drug control?

Elīna Šteinerte and Khalid Tinasti look to the establishment of an independent Expert Panel by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs to review implementation of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic. Arguing that the century-old international drug control regime has failed to curb illicit markets while generating serious public health and human rights consequences, Šteinerte and Tinasti highlight growing scrutiny from the Human Rights Council and UN Special Procedures concerning the rights to health, liberty, and freedom from torture. Although the Panel’s mandate is limited to strengthening rather than reforming the existing treaty framework, this is a rare opportunity to rethink the governance of international drug control and better align it with contemporary challenges, sustainable development, and international human rights law.

State immunity for remotely conducted cyber operations

Daisy Peterson analyses the UK Supreme Court’s decision in Bahrain v Shehabi which held that Bahrain could not invoke State immunity under section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978 in proceedings arising from the alleged use of FinSpy spyware against UK-based dissidents. The judgment interprets the territorial tort exception as extending to remotely conducted cyber operations where the legally causative conduct manifests in the forum State, while also suggesting that customary international law increasingly permits exceptions to immunity for tortious acts jure imperii committed in another State’s territory. Beyond its implications for State immunity, the decision makes an important contribution to broader debates on sovereignty, jurisdiction, and accountability for malicious State cyber operations under international law.

EJIL: Vol. 37 (2026) No. 1

Abhimanyu George Jain walks us through the next issue of the European Journal of International Law. Negar Mansouri examines the origins of geographical indications through the French ‘wine laws’, arguing that their development reflected state capitalism and colonial economic interests rather than a commitment to free trade or economic integration. Bernhard Knoll-Tudor and Marko Prelec analyse the legality of the appointment of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, contending that the absence of UN Security Council approval undermines both the current office-holder’s mandate and the broader system of international territorial administration. In the Focus section on the history of international investment law, Alexis Galán and Nicolás M. Perrone revisit the 1967 OECD Draft Convention on the Protection of Foreign Property as a formative influence on modern investment treaties, while Wiebe Hommes and Laurens Ankersmit trace Shell’s role in shaping international investment law and investor-State dispute settlement. Salvatore Fabian Nicolosi and Türkan Ertuna Lagrand examine recent European Court of Justice case law on gender-related asylum claims, arguing that it strengthens refugee protection through a gender-sensitive interpretation of EU asylum law.

The issue also features a Debate! exchange in which Christiane Ahlborn critiques Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis’ account of the legal personality of international organisations, alongside the ESIL Corner, with reflections from the Society’s 2025 conference on ‘Reconstructing International Law’: including Heike Krieger’s opening remarks at the 20th annual conference, Qin (Sky) Ma on ‘fragile ambition’ as a productive site for reconstruction, Soheil Ghasemi on the disciplinary ambivalence of reconstruction, Marina Aksenova on the scale and potential of uncertainty that frames the current reconstructive effort, and Kyra Wigard on where to start with reconstruction. It concludes with a reflection on institutional neutrality and academic freedom from outgoing ESIL President Gleider I. Hernández.

Anne Lagerwall and Doreen Lustig give an overview of the Book Review section. This issue features Lorenzo Gradoni’s review of The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Europe (edited by Anne van Aaken, Pierre d’Argent, Lauri Mälksoo and Johann Justus Vasel), examining its account of Europe’s place in international law and its treatment of colonialism, Russia, and critical approaches. Olivier Corten reviews Terry D. Gill and Kinga Tiber-Szabó’s The Use of Force and the International Legal System, questioning whether its claimed positivist methodology can be sustained in contentious areas such as preventive self-defence. Eliana Cusato discusses Jonathan White’s In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea, exploring its implications for international law’s temporal imagination, while Sergio Puig reviews Natalie Jones’s Self-Determination as Voice, highlighting its account of Indigenous participation in international governance and the gradual development of self-determination through international institutions.

As ever, events and announcements can be found here.