On October 22, 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an Advisory Opinion on Obligations of Israel in Relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, and Other International Organizations and Third States in and in Relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.1 It is the ICJ’s third Opinion dealing with the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).2 The Court found, either unanimously or by a 10:1 majority, that Israel, as an occupying power, is required to fulfil its obligations principally relating to humanitarian relief under international humanitarian law and international human rights law with respect to the activities of the United Nations (UN), other international organizations or third states in and in relation to the OPT. The ICJ also found that Israel is obligated to cooperate in good faith with the UN by providing every assistance in any action it takes, and to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the UN, its premises, property, assets, and personnel.

As well as adopting a new Pandemic Agreement in 2025, the “legal reaction” of the international community to the COVID-19 pandemic also included the adoption in 2024 of a substantial set of amendments to the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations, which had already been practically overhauled in 2005 from the previous model. The process was set in motion by the United States and ran in parallel with the negotiation of the Pandemic Agreement, thus creating evident political complexities but also laying the foundations for a synergistic and complementary relationship. The amendments entered into force on September 19, 2025, but their universality and effectiveness are still a work in progress.

This note analyzes Advisory Opinion 32/25 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which characterizes the climate emergency as a human rights issue that is urgent, structural, and a threat to human dignity. It explains the Court’s recognition of an enhanced due diligence standard that requires states to prevent and respond to climate harms, regulate private actors, and align domestic legal frameworks and climate policies with human rights obligations. The note highlights the Court’s acknowledgment of a standalone right to a healthy climate, the recognition of nature as a subject of rights, and the centrality of science in shaping climate action. It further examines the Opinion’s focus on equality and non-discrimination, emphasizing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable groups. Finally, this note explores the Advisory Opinion’s robust guarantees of participation, access to information, and judicial protection, and their implications for global climate jurisprudence.

On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice delivered a unanimous advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, the third opinion on climate change from an international judicial body. Requested by consensus by the UN General Assembly in 2023, the proceedings drew unprecedented participation from ninety-six states and eleven international organizations. In the Opinion, the Court confirmed its advisory jurisdiction over the legal questions posed and found no compelling reason to decline the request. It identified the “most directly relevant applicable law” as the climate change treaties, UNCLOS, other environmental treaties, customary international law, and international human rights law, and held that the climate change treaties are not lex specialis. The Court affirmed obligations under the Paris Agreement to pursue the 1.5°C “primary temperature goal” and that there were limits to parties’ discretion in formulating their nationally determined contributions. Drawing on its prior decisions, the Court held that the customary duty to prevent significant environmental harm applies to the climate system under a stringent due diligence standard, and recognized cooperation as a legal obligation rather than a matter of choice. On sea-level rise, it found no obligation to update maritime baselines that were established in conformity with UNCLOS and concluded that statehood persists despite the loss of a constituent element. On legal consequences, the Court applied the customary law of state responsibility and observed that the entire panoply of legal consequences could apply to breaches, but indicated that particularized remedies would be fact-specific.

In the Confirmation of Charges decision concerning Joseph Kony, a Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed thirty-nine charges against Kony, the leader of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army. The charges covered a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity, many related to sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against girls and young women. This decision was further notable as resulting from the ICC’s first confirmation of charges process conducted in absentia because, despite an arrest warrant dating to 2005, Kony has never been brought into custody. As a result, the process leading to this decision addressed novel questions of law for the ICC.

In Chirinos Salamanca v. Venezuela, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that the 2019 re-ratification of the American Convention on Human Rights by the opposition-controlled 2015 National Assembly of Venezuela retroactively nullified former president Nicolás Maduro’s denunciation of the Convention that had taken effect in 2013. The judgment builds upon the Court’s jurisprudence on the pro persona and democratic principles, opens the door for other cases claiming violations during a particularly repressive period under Maduro, and invites expanded scrutiny by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It also raises complicated questions about government recognition and representation before international organizations and courts, the ability to give retroactive effect to treaty obligations, and the permissibility of human rights treaty denunciations.

The Agreement between the Council of Europe and Ukraine establishes a Special Tribunal to prosecute individuals bearing the greatest responsibility for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Adopted in June 2025, the treaty-based tribunal responds to Russia’s use of force beginning in 2014 and escalating in 2022. The Tribunal’s Statute explicitly removes head of state immunity, ensuring that senior leaders may face prosecution. Jurisdiction is limited to aggression as defined by UN General Assembly Resolution 3314. The institutional framework includes chambers, a prosecutor’s office, and a registry, with robust fair trial guarantees. This represents a significant development in international criminal justice and accountability for leadership crimes.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a landmark merits decision in 2025 holding the United States internationally responsible for the torture and death of Mexican national Anastasio Hernández Rojas, and for denying his family justice. The Commission found violations of the protections of life, humane treatment during arrest, health, and access to justice in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (American Declaration) and ordered the United States to reopen the criminal investigation, impose sanctions, provide legal remedies and adopt non-repetition measures, including aligning use-of-force standards with international law, such as banning electric shock weapons, after specific legal findings of torture by the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Rapporteur, which both regarded its use as disproportionate, unnecessary, and inhumane.1

This note analyses the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Protection of the Environment Through Criminal Law, adopted in May 2025, which has been open for signature since December 2025. It establishes an international framework that criminalizes environmental harm in peacetime and armed conflict; it introduces twenty distinct offenses, most notably “particularly serious offenses” that address intentional, catastrophic environmental damage as a legal proxy for ecocide. Diverging from traditional pollution-based models, the treaty adopts an ecosystem approach that also protects functional natural processes and services. The twenty environmental crimes are paired with enhanced protections for environmental defenders, NGO participation, and a monitoring mechanism. While closely aligned with EU Directive 2024/1203, the Convention’s “open” nature reflects a universal ambition to harmonize legal standards across legal systems. This note briefly evaluates the Convention’s drafting history, its innovative legal architecture, and its potential to establish a global “common legal space” against environmental destruction.

This introductory note provides an overview of the amendments brought by the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR), which will apply from June 2026 as part of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It outlines the main changes introduced by the new framework, including developments relating to procedural guarantees, special procedures, remedies, and ‘safe country’ concepts.

On July 25, 2025, the French Court of Cassation handed down an important decision concerning the existence in international law of possible exceptions to the functional immunity of agents of a foreign state. The Court of Cassation reached the conclusion that the “principle of functional immunity from jurisdiction in criminal matters” recognized for foreign agents acting in the exercise of their functions cannot be invoked in cases of prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. However, the Court’s internationalist approach, which sought to identify the evolution of custom on the issue by examining relevant state practice, remains exclusively Eurocentric, by examining the practice of only five states, all from the same region of the world.

The Council of Europe Convention, adopted in 2025, is the first treaty exclusively protecting lawyers, with binding obligations and monitoring mechanisms. The Convention covers professional rights, freedom of expression, professional discipline, and protective measures for lawyers and their professional associations, which must operate as independent, self-governing bodies.

In Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not apply to criminal prosecutions of foreign state instrumentalities. The Court found that FSIA’s text and structure address only civil actions. On remand, the Second Circuit ruled that Halkbank lacked common-law immunity from criminal prosecution, deferring to the Executive Branch’s decision to prosecute and concluding that state-owned corporations enjoy no immunity for commercial activity under common law. The court’s analysis relied primarily on pre-1976 U.S. cases rather than international law. The Supreme Court denied certiorari in October 2025, ending the immunity dispute.