This comment argues for the recognition of ecocide as an international crime, focusing on its contemporary legal relevance and the growing momentum for its codification. Originally coined in 1970 to describe wartime environmental destruction, the term ecocide was framed in parallel to genocide and grounded in the post–World War II development of international criminal law. Although initial legal efforts to formalize ecocide, including proposed conventions and debates during the drafting of the Rome Statute, failed to secure sufficient political support, these early shortcomings have been re-energized by rising environmental consciousness and sustained legal advocacy, particularly by the Stop Ecocide Foundation. Recent developments, including the 2021 legal definition proposed by the Independent Expert Panel and the 2024 amendment proposal to the Rome Statute advanced by Pacific Island nations, reflect a renewed and increasingly actionable international consensus. By examining the conceptual genealogy of ecocide and its doctrinal links to international humanitarian and criminal law, this comment contends that recognizing ecocide as a core international crime is not only a normative necessity but also a legally coherent and pragmatic step. It directly responds to the scale and urgency of present environmental crises and addresses a longstanding gap in the enforcement architecture of international criminal law.

The Cape Town Convention is widely regarded as the most successful international convention in terms of ratifications. This essay aims to explore the fundamental reasons behind this success. While it is undeniable that the Cape Town Convention receives substantial industrial support in response to urgent market demands and the innovative protocols it established, this essay argues that this alone does not fundamentally explain its success.

Instead, the underlying reason lies in the Convention’s ability to avoid the trap of a false dichotomy – where one side seeks to convince the other to agree with its viewpoint. Rather, the key is to strive for a viable compromise that accommodates the perspectives of both, or even multiple stakeholders. This proposition will be illustrated by drawing on the social science concept of coordination, through a comparative analysis of the drafting processes of the Cape Town Convention and the Hague Securities Convention.

The rules-based international order faces an existential paradox. Eight decades after its founding, international law has never been more vital to human flourishing, yet it has also never been more imperilled. Developments in recent years such as the invasion of Ukraine and the erosion of the multilateral trading system represent more than institutional failures – they expose critical fault lines that, if left unaddressed, threaten to fracture the foundational architecture of international law. This article explores what these trends reveal about the future of the international rule of law and contends that the way forward requires a spirit of sober optimism – one that neither abandons hope nor ignores hard realities about the existing legal order. It suggests that this approach represents our best hope for securing humanity’s shared future.

This note critically examines the tendency of some international human rights treaty bodies to uncritically conflate sex tourism with human trafficking. Through analysis of concluding observations from the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the note reveals a troubling pattern of equating these phenomena without adequate conceptual differentiation. While acknowledging that sex tourism can involve trafficking when the constitutive elements of the Palermo Protocol’s definition are satisfied – namely the act, means, and purpose requirements – this note argues that the wholesale characterization of sex tourism as trafficking is both conceptually inaccurate and potentially harmful. This conflation risks eliding the agency of individuals who make difficult but deliberate choices to participate in sex tourism, particularly women from the Global South.

International law has been predominantly shaped by the West. Despite decolonization, insufficient attention has been paid to non-Western civilizations’ practices, including Asian civilizations. This article examines this insufficiency in relation to treaty interpretation and customary international law identification. To do so, it uses the notion of conscientious objection to military service as a case study. Despite particularly adverse state practice, chiefly in Asia, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) treaty body and UN organs began affirming in the 1990s that the Covenant includes a right to conscientious objection to military service. The first part analyzes whether such a right can be implied from the ICCPR, inter alia, by assessing the practice of Asian states. The second part endeavours to explain the gap between the international human rights machinery’s pronouncements and non-Western practice by discussing the Western-centrism and individual-centrism of interpretations adopted by human rights bodies and organs.

This article critically examines the claim that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has acquired “legislative powers”, as suggested by the practices over the last two decades. This purported “legislative” role derives from Resolutions 1373, 1540, and 1422. However, an expansive interpretation of Chapter VII powers or viewing the UNSC as a legislative body within a “World Government” does not hold. Additionally, shifts in the international political landscape have made the expansion of UNSC’s legislative powers impossible, and the UNSC has largely refrained from adopting legislative resolutions in the past decade as they have learned the lessons from Resolution 1540. Finally, this article proposes a solution that although these resolutions do not qualify as a direct source of law under Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), their binding nature remains as acts détournement de pouvoir and shall not be regarded as ultra vires.

This article examines the Philippines’ engagement with international law and institutions under Duterte’s populist presidency. While populism is often associated with hostility toward multilateralism, this case study reveals a more nuanced dynamic. The article argues that state engagement under populist administrations is more complex than assumed, and populist rhetoric does not uniformly dictate international behaviour. Using a novel conceptual framework and empirical data, it analyzes the Philippines’ multilateral interactions in human rights, trade, and health. Duterte’s government displayed ritualistic engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), constructive engagement with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization (WHO), and destructive disengagement from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Key themes include the divergence between rhetoric and action, instrumental use of institutions for domestic priorities, and the critical filtering role of domestic institutions. These findings offer broader insights as to how populist states balance domestic imperatives with international commitments, offering broader insights into the interplay between populism, foreign policy, and multilateralism.

The interaction between international law and constitutional law has been increasingly recognized as salient to understanding the functioning of both and hence as worthy of academic attention. This Introduction to a special issue on how a selection of five Asian courts engage with international law when adjudicating constitutional cases explains the significance of studying such judicial behaviours, outlines the conceptual framework to be used in this regard, and identifies and reflects on some of the key findings from the case studies, including by highlighting domestic constitutional factors that help account for observed divergencies in judicial approach. This contribution also points to the value of examining courts’ attitudes towards international law for a variety of scholarly debates.

On what basis may the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) exercise its jurisdiction over States that have withdrawn from the Rome Statute? Is it enough that the alleged crimes occurred before the State withdrew from the treaty? When acting proprio motu, does the Prosecutor have to seek authorization from a Pre-Trial Chamber before they are allowed to proceed with the criminal investigation post-State withdrawal? This issue has received only cursory attention from the ICC and the academic community but the lack of clarity around the Court’s post-withdrawal jurisdiction is a serious concern, and not only for States that have withdrawn their membership (such as the Philippines). It is important because, as things stand, and given what the Court has said so far, States parties cannot be sure of the parameters of the Court’s temporal jurisdiction, nor of the legal effects of a State’s withdrawal.

This article explores the role of international law in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (CFA). The CFA makes extensive use of international and comparative materials, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). However, it avoids issuing judgments that would clash with Beijing’s core interests and accepts its broad definition of “national security”. This arguably facilitates authoritarian interpretations of the ICCPR and undermines the authority of the Human Rights Committee. Yet, in March of 2025, the CFA granted an appeal and upheld the right to fair trial, emphasizing that the ICCPR continues to enjoy constitutional status in Hong Kong. Moreover, the CFA continues to advance the rights of vulnerable groups, including the LGBT community. The CFA’s contributions to comparative jurisprudence on international human rights law are decidedly mixed. But this is arguably inevitable, given its unusual status as an “apex court” operating in the shadow of Beijing.

Mauro Cappelletti’s waves of domestic and transnational constitutionalism have reached Asia where courts exercise constitutional review and engage with international law in the process. Institutional and sociological legal scholars celebrate this as the inexorable global constitutionalization of international law through the liberal structures of judicial review and dialogue. A previous article cast doubt on the inevitability of global constitutionalization in view of material inconsistencies in interactions with international law by Asian courts, even those with rule of law and liberal democratic traditions. The present article on the Philippine Supreme Court sheds light on an underlying cause: arbitrary and contradictory selection and application of secondary rules for identifying international law by its source. The consequent degradation of international law and delegitimization of judicial engagement with it are the makings of the third wave of judicial review that Doreen Lustig and Joseph Weiler warned will reverse the gains of transnational constitutionalism.

The new collective quantitative target (NCQG) of at least $300 billion per year by 2035 was adopted at COP29 held in Baku in 2024. Given that criteria for allocating climate finance have not been specified, will the current trend of economic-based climate finance continue, or will it gradually shift towards human rights-based? Since the current economic-based trend has created a fossil fuel future for fossil-fuel-producing developing countries (FFPDCs), there is a need to rethink the criteria for allocating finance based on Human Rights-Based discourse. Such a trend is applicable in compensation for leaving fossil fuel underground. The Human Rights-Based approach ensures the human rights of poor and indigenous people in the sacrifice zones in the FFPDCs in line with the Paris Agreement. In this regard, a tool for allocation of climate finance could be the Human Rights Impact Assessment of fossil fuel extraction projects, alongside the Human Development Index of FFPDCs.

The rules of international law gently transcend the physical boundaries of our world and extend their influence into the mysterious realm of cyberspace. State practice confirms digital sovereignty, yet rival camps offer divergent approaches. Non-Western states, such as Russia and China, advocate for strict national control, asserting cyber sovereignty to safeguard their digital infrastructures. In contrast, Western countries like the USA and EU Member States support an open, global internet governed by cooperative principles. Further, this article examines the challenges of applying the traditional notion of territorial sovereignty in cyberspace, where clear borders are absent, and evaluates potential solutions. Among these, the competence/function theory and the Functional Equivalent of the Border are explored as means to reconcile competing interests and advance a balanced framework for regulating digital activities while protecting national sovereignty and individual rights.

This article examines the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s use of international law in its decisions between 2003 and 2023, when it referred to international legal instruments in approximately 10% of its constitutional review cases. However, it has not clearly explained why or how it uses international law. The article develops a typology of the Court’s use of international law, categorising it into four areas: bolstering domestic law, interpreting domestic law, rejecting international law, and misconstruing international law. The Court primarily uses international law to support or confirm domestic constitutional and statutory provisions, especially when they are similar (or universal, as the Court sometimes observes). However, the Court sometimes uses international law to interpret domestic law, and occasionally, it even appears to misconstrue international law to reach a desired outcome. We conclude that, if anything, the Court practices pragmatic dualism, rather than pragmatic monism, as Palguna and Wardana argued in this Journal in 2024.

This paper argues that, while the famous “first shot formula” represents the dominant interpretation for the application of common Article 2(1) of the Geneva Conventions, its application in the case of unilateral use of lethal force for the targeted killing of military personnel in the territory of a third state is not compatible with the requirements of humanity and the object and purpose of these treaties. The paper contends such an operation will not ipso facto trigger an international armed conflict between targeting state and the state of the targeted person. By examining the elements that constitute an international armed conflict, the paper proposes a new criterion for determining the beginning of such a conflict in cases of targeted killing of military personnel in the territory of a third state.

Despite Taiwan’s exclusion from many treaty regimes, Taiwan’s Constitutional Court (TCC) has at times cited international law, particularly international human rights norms. To analyse the authority and influence of these citations, this article proposes a typology along two dimensions: legal effect (whether the Court treats international norms as legally binding or merely advisory) and impact level (whether international norms are used to reaffirm or alter existing constitutional jurisprudence, or to guide future developments). Applying this framework reveals that the TCC’s traditional tendency to treat international norms as non-binding and reaffirming is evolving. In recent years, the TCC has increasingly invoked international law to articulate new rights protections and has begun to recognise its legal authority, suggesting a deeper engagement. Beyond the case study of Taiwan, this typology offers an analytical tool for distinguishing varying degrees of judicial engagement with international law and for underscoring the evolving nature of such engagement.

This paper explores how unrecognised separatist entities in Eurasia – de facto regimes such as Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – engage with international law. It examines whether, and to what extent, these regimes comply with international law, analysing court decisions and legislation to move beyond simplistic views of non-recognition or assumed legality. The findings reveal that de facto regimes tend to mirror the international law approaches of the states they are most closely connected to – whether the territorial state (e.g. Ukraine) or an outside state exercising effective control over the entity (e.g. Russia or Armenia). This pattern is explained by the theory of “acculturation to statehood”: through sustained legal and institutional interaction, these regimes internalise and replicate the legal systems of their reference states. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of de facto regimes in the international legal order.

In line with Singapore’s vision of the separation of powers, the courts’ duty is primarily to give effect to domestic law; the political branches take the lead in engaging with international law. A study of Singapore’s interface with international law would therefore be incomplete were it to consider only the courts’ role and not the political branches’ model of international law as primarily a guarantor of Singapore’s sovereignty and standing as a participant on the international stage. The political branches have been circumspect in engaging with international law in other areas, such as human rights, preferring a specifically Singaporean vision of rights. A symmetry emerges: the courts and political branches engage strongly with sovereignty-related norms; take other areas of international law as inspiration for developing domestic law; and take human rights law seriously even as their fidelity is ultimately to a specifically Singaporean legal framework for rights protection.

Transitional justice’s nature has continued to evolve and, consequently, its scope has significantly widened, raising various unsettled issues. As this review essay observes, transitional justice itself has become conceptually “transitional”, undergoing profound transitions and doing so within an also increasingly and profoundly changing context. Also, as this essay contends, the orientation of those transitions lies at the core of competing visions for transitional justice as a whole. In this vein, as this essay further argues, two major trends seem to be emerging and giving shape to transitional justice’s ongoing transitions: firstly, a trend towards focusing on the (infra)structural dimension of transitional justice processes and thus aiming to reorient transitional justice towards addressing “(infra)structural” factors of (societal) change; and, secondly, a trend towards increasingly relying on public law, in both international and internal legal orders, as a framework to conceptually articulate and implement (infra)structural processes of change.

The steadily growing reliance on international dispute settlement as environmental protection means is not uncontroversial, raising three sets of issues regarding: (i) the nature of adjudicative fora (ontological issues); (ii) wider assumptions and frameworks (methodological issues); and (iii) processes for creating and implementing environmental obligations (processual issues). Accordingly, this review essay is threefold. Despite a trend towards greater reliance on international dispute settlement fora, Part I discusses whether their presumably inherent ‘anthropocentric’ orientation hinders their suitability and assesses the feasibility of solutions advocated in judicial discourses. Having observed inconsistencies between the law-ascertainment methods deployed by adjudicative fora and the general regimes on law-ascertainment, Part II contends, international law-based environmental protection risks becoming overly “judge-centric”, despite international law-making’s state-centric nature. Part III concludes considering various reversals of perspective, potentially countering the shortcomings of overly “judge-centric” environmental protection, in addition to factors such as enforceability, plausibly justifying greater reliance on arbitral fora.