The article explores the current stagnation in multilateral law-making based on an analysis of recent treaty attempts across various subfields of international law. It further examines why the law of the sea has continued to evolve despite this trend. The article demonstrates that states still regularly seek multilateral treaties to address new challenges. While there is some evidence of general treaty saturation, it is the current inability of traditional great powers to negotiate new binding norms which is the most constraining factor on multilateral law-making. This in turn is related to deeper geopolitical shifts by which traditional great powers, notably the United States and its allies, have seen their relative influence decline. Until the current great power competition ends or settles into a new mode of international co-operation, new multilateral treaties with actual regulatory effect will rarely emerge. The law of the sea has avoided the current trend of stagnation for primarily three reasons (i) a global commitment to the basic tenets of the law of the sea; (ii) a legal framework that affords rights and obligations somewhat evenly disbursed, allowing less powerful states to use their collective leverage to advance multilateral negotiations, despite intermittent great power opposition; and (iii) the avoidance of entrenched multilateral forums where decisions are reached by consensus only.

As a reaction to the killing and beheading of two soldiers in the Syrian Civil War, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) set a milestone in the interpretation of § 8(1) no. 9 of the German Code of Crimes against International Law (VStGB). The judges confirmed the conviction of a young German citizen with Syrian roots, Aria L., who had been tried and convicted before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (Oberlandesgericht (OLG) Frankfurt am Main). Within the certiorari, the BGH reviewed whether the statute conformed with the principle of legality found within the Grundgesetz (GG), Germany’s constitution. The Court held that the corpse of a person killed is protected from desecration under humanitarian law pursuant to § 8(1) no. 9 VStGB, the equivalent to Article 8(2)(b)(xxi) and (3)(ii) of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC). Reviewing this particular decision, it was determined that under the circumstances of a non-international armed conflict, beheading someone, placing the head on a metal rod, and taking pictures afterward in order to upload them onto social media is gravely humiliating and degrading. The head is incomparably the part of the body that identifies a person. Furthermore, it is irrelevant whether the perpetrator had any physical influence over the person. In addition, war crimes can be committed in a non-international conflict, which should, however, be treated equally as an international conflict. This outcome triggered diverse reactions amongst legal scholars, especially due to the extension of the understanding of a “person” who is to be protected under humanitarian law.

This article examines the different types of mechanisms which can contribute to addressing the issue of the missing, including providing answers on the fate and whereabouts of missing persons. It looks in detail at one approach that the authors have observed in the field. It argues that an approach based on humanitarian objectives which does not look into who is responsible for the disappearance, with proper management of confidential information, could be a powerful instrument for searching for and collecting relevant information on the missing in certain contexts. The article also proposes avenues for further research, with a view to enhancing the global capacity to provide meaningful answers for the missing and their families.

In this article, I aim to reorient debates, in International Relations and Law, about the relationship between law and war. In the last decade, writers have challenged common understandings of law as a limit on, or moderator of, warfare. They have instead claimed that law is often used as a ‘weapon of warfare’, describing such uses as ‘lawfare’. Below, rather than arguing that law is either a constraint on or an enabler of warfare, I examine how law comes to be represented as such. Specifically, I examine representations, primarily by US military and other governmental lawyers, of ‘non-Western’ invocations of the laws of war, which seek to constrain the policies or practices of the US or Israeli governments. I show how these authors cast such invocations as not law at all, but as tools of war. I suggest that this move rests on, and reproduces, colonial discourses of ‘non-Western’ legal inadequacy or excess, which serve to render ‘non-Western’ law ‘violent’ or ‘war-like’. I show that the referents and boundaries of law and war are stabilised by notions of civilisational difference, which serve to give meaning to what law is, what war is, and whether particular claims or practices are understood as martial or legal.

How does the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) discharge its mandate of “promoting and protecting the effective enjoyment by all of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights”, especially in armed conflicts and other situations of violence? What are its concrete responsibilities, and how does it work to generate respect for the rule of law on the ground? This article aims to provide an overview of OHCHR's activities, and point to some of the challenges associated with its work to generate respect for the rule of law, in particular in violent contexts. It begins with an overview of the unique mandate of OHCHR and situates it within the broader United Nations human rights machinery. It then gives an account of OHCHR's experience and approach in building respect for the rule of law, including in armed conflicts and post-conflict situations, outlining how this informs OHCHR's field setup. Finally, the article summarizes the main challenges that OHCHR faces in the discharge of its mandate. It highlights the need for more concerted action on the part of human rights/humanitarian protection organizations on the ground, despite differences in mandates and constituencies.

This article responds to the two articles published in this journal that criticise the approach taken by the International Group of Experts (IGE) who prepared the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare. Their authors took issue with the approach of the majority of the IGE over the question of whether data qualifies as an ‘object’ under international humanitarian law such that, for instance, cyber operations that target civilian data violate the prohibition on attacking civilian objects. The majority of the experts took the position that the law had not advanced that far and that pre-existing law could not be definitively interpreted to encompass data within the meaning of ‘objects’. In this article, the Director of the Tallinn Manual Project responds to the authors' criticism of the majority view by explaining and clarifying its reasoning.

The benefits of a ‘holistic’ approach to transitional justice are enhanced by considering how synergies between different transitional mechanisms may be optimized. Drawing upon multiple examples, this article explores the potential contribution of truth seeking to reparation efforts at a normative, institutional and operational level. The article emphasizes the importance of an awareness of the reparative potential of truth seeking on the part of those implicated in its design and implementation, as well as an appreciation of the influence of contextual factors on a delicate process. It cannot be conceived of simply as a technocratic exercise, but as an inherent part of empowering victims.

Attacks on health workers, clinics, hospitals, ambulances and patients during periods of armed conflict or civil disturbance pose enormous challenges to humanitarian response and constitute affronts to the imperatives of human rights and civilian protection. Violence inflicted on humanitarian aid workers is gaining the global attention it warrants. While the number of attacks on aid workers has decreased in recent years, in a handful of places, notably Sudan, Afghanistan, and Somalia, they have become more spectacular and frightening, with aid agencies targeted for kidnapping and subjected to use of explosives because of their perceived affiliation with Western governments. The assaults have galvanised the humanitarian aid community to track attacks and to engage in intensive and sophisticated discussion of means to increase operational security. After worldwide consultation, in 2011 the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a report that summarised the fruits of experience and stimulated consideration of security strategies for aid providers. By contrast, however, until very recently the far larger number of incidents of violence inflicted on and interference with indigenous health services and on international and local development agencies by state and armed groups has received comparatively little attention.

In the 2007 Government Memorandum to Parliament entitled Human dignity for all. A human rights strategy for foreign policy, the Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs, Maxime Verhagen, examined the interrelationship between human rights, peace and security. In this context, the Minister also addressed the relationship between counter-terrorism strategies and international law, specifically human rights instruments and international humanitarian law. The Minister referred to the Oud-Poelgeest seminar of April 2007 and announced further initiatives in this field. In a subsequent Plan of Action, Minister Verhagen specified the ways in which the Dutch government sought to implement the Human Rights Strategy in the field of combating terrorism. Among the concrete policy measures to be taken featured the initiation of a Follow-up Process to the Oud-Poelgeest project.

Necessity plays a significant role in any legal system as unpredictable or extraordinary situations can require the adoption of measures departing from the normally applicable law in order to protect basic values and fundamental interests. International law is not an exception. The admissibility of the adoption of measures on grounds of necessity has been accepted by international courts and tribunals, in state practice, including international conventions, as well as in doctrine.