Articles for category: Focus

From Sidelines to Center Stage

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The trilogy of climate advisory opinions from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the International Court of Justice marks a watershed moment not only for climate litigation but also for understanding the evolving role of Conferences of the Parties (COPs) in international law. This post analyses the courts' engagement with COPs and argues that it represents another step in clarifying their institutional role in global governance – one that elevates these treaty bodies from largely diplomatic forums to authoritative interpreters and potentially norm-creators within treaty regimes.

12. September 2025

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International Law’s Administrative Law Turn and the Paris Agreement

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In the recent Advisory Opinion on States’ Obligations in respect of Climate Change, various remarks by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) lean into an increasingly “administrative” law turn in international law. In this blog post, we investigate this phenomenon by looking at the ways in which States’ preparation, communication, and maintenance of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement are coming to be characterised by requirements or standards with a domestic administrative law tone.

11. September 2025

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Epistemic Authority and the Right to Science in AO-32/25

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Traditionally, the right to science as occupied a marginal place within the contentious and advisory architecture of the Inter-American system. However, in its Advisory Opinion–AO-32/25, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights changes this framework by shifting the right to science from a peripheral tool of knowledge dissemination to a central axis of disputes over epistemic authority in public policy formation. This repositioning is not merely about expanding the scope of an undervalued right but about redefining its legal status based on the structural transformations imposed by the climate crisis on the normative production forms and institutional recognition of knowledge.

5. September 2025

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The Evasion of Historical Responsibility?

The International Court Advisory’s advisory opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change has been celebrated as marking the start of a “new era of climate reparations.” In my contribution, I want to draw attention to how, even as the ICJ opened the door to climate reparations, it was evasive on the key temporal questions that are central to any future claims about reparations owed by individual countries for their historical greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the advisory opinion avoided addressing how colonial histories continue to shape present day climate injustices and the need to decolonize international law. 

4. September 2025

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“Doing the Utmost”

The ICJ found that some norms, previously thought not binding and falling under the unfettered discretion of States (e.g. the content of NDCs) are in fact binding obligations of conduct based on a due diligence standard, and their breach gives rise to state responsibility. In this blog post, I address some pertinent issues regarding due diligence as addressed by the ICJ, as well as ITLOS and the IACtHR. In particular, I focus on the relationship between obligations of result and obligations of conduct, the nature of due diligence, factors to determine its content, and the legal consequences of not acting with the required diligence.

3. September 2025

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Hanan Ashrawi

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Few advocates of Palestinian liberation have become as familiar a name as Dr. Hanan Ashrawi. A principled activist and gifted speaker with a formidable academic background, she rose to international prominence during the First Intifada in 1988. Later, with the start of the Madrid Conference in 1991, she caught the world’s attention as the official representative of the Palestinian delegation.

1. September 2025

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Can Africa Still Drill?

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While the ICJ found that any State suffering from climate change can bring charges against others for their contribution to climate change, the opinion does not distinguish between the obligations of developed and developing States (except where treaty law already imposes different obligations).  African States and the African Union have continued to support fossil fuel development on the continent. In light of this advisory opinion, what obligations are imposed on developing States, like African States, to protect the climate, particularly regarding the further development of fossil fuel industries? 

28. August 2025

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Closing the Silences

At COP 30 in Belém, ministers will wrangle over how “sufficient” the new climate-finance goal must be, and whether “phase-down” of coal is a slogan or a legal trigger. In Brussels, the 2040 climate target faces the same test, while in Geneva, the WTO’s fossil-subsidy reform stalls over which tax breaks to cut. Read through a strict consent-only lens, and these are political choices. Read through the ICJ’s frame – science, equity, no-harm, precaution – they become legal ones: finance must be capable of delivering 1.5°C and repairing loss and damage, coal and subsidy policies must be plausibly 1.5°C-compatible, and the burden falls on governments to prove it. 

26. August 2025

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Ehre, wem Kritik gebührt?

Das Beleidigungsstrafrecht zeigt sich als ambivalentes Instrument: Es kann vor digitalem Hass schützen, birgt aber zugleich das Risiko, freie Kritik zu unterdrücken. Der Künast-Fall lenkte den Blick auf diese Spannung und veränderte das Verständnis von Ehrschutz und Meinungsfreiheit. Mit § 188 StGB verschob der Gesetzgeber das Verhältnis weiter zugunsten eines verstärkten Schutzes von Politikern. Nötig ist eine Reform, die demokratische Machtkritik wieder ins Zentrum rückt.

22. August 2025

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„Hass und Hetze bekämpfen“

Äußerungsdelikte rücken zunehmend ins Zentrum von Politik und Justiz, getragen vom Ruf nach härterem Vorgehen gegen „Hass und Hetze“. Die Strafbarkeit wird stetig ausgeweitet – von Volksverhetzung bis zu satirischen Memes mit NS-Bezug. Kritiker sehen darin moralische Tabuisierung und eine Erosion des ultima-ratio-Prinzips. Gefordert sind klare Grenzen strafbarer Rede und stärkere nichtstrafrechtliche Mittel zur Zivilisierung von Kommunikation.

22. August 2025

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