Opinio Juris

[Ezequiel Jimenez Martinez has a PhD in International Law, is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Law Research and Policy and an Associated Senior Lecturer at the Pompeu Fabra Law Faculty. He is the author of Governing the International Criminal Court: the History and Practice of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute (Brill, 2025). All...

[Akila Radhakrishnan is an independent human rights lawyer and gender justice expert. She is the former President and Legal Director of the Global Justice Center. Payal Shah is an international legal expert on gender, health, and conflict. She serves as the Director of Research, Legal, and Advocacy at Physicians for Human Rights.] In this post, we delve into how reproductive violence can...

[Akila Radhakrishnan is an independent human rights lawyer and gender justice expert. She is the former President and Legal Director of the Global Justice Center. Payal Shah is an international legal expert on gender, health, and conflict. She serves as the Director of Research, Legal, and Advocacy at Physicians for Human Rights.] Today marks the International Day for the Elimination of…

[Geoff Gilbert is a Professor at the School of Law and Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, Senior Adviser to PPLA, DIPS, UNHCR and Head of Research for the Criteria Volume of the new Handbook] The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is celebrating its 75th birthday. In the same way as if it were a human being,...

[The Honourable Russel W. Zinn is a retired Justice of the Federal Court of Canada and President of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges] The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees [the Convention] was adopted on July 28, 1951.  It is the foundational international treaty defining who a refugee is and their rights.  Originally limited to European...

There is a rumour circulating in ICC circles that the Bureau is having buyer’s remorse about a paper it drafted and adopted earlier this year concerning the procedure that would apply to the investigation of the Prosecutor. I’ve been told by various journalists that the procedures paper says the ASP must hold two votes, not one, over the Bureau’s recent...

[Dr. Vincent Chetail is Professor of International Law and Director of the Global MIgration Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and development Studies] Anniversaries invite reflection, but they can also induce complacency. The seventy-fifth anniversary of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees falls in a moment of acute tension: never have so many people needed it…

[Matthew Gillett is the Chair of the Platform of Independence Experts on Refugee Rights, a member of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and a Senior Lecturer at Essex Law School (UK)] Introduction This year we commemorate 75 years since the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its...

[Karolína Babická is a Senior Legal Adviser with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). Rosa Tibbetts is a Legal Intern with the ICJ. Stavros Papageorgopoulos is a Senior Legal Officer with the European Council on Refugees and Exiles.] Across Europe, some political actors are nowadays questioning the ability of the international legal order, including instruments such as the 1951 Refugee.…

[Liliana Lyra Jubilut and James Milner are Co-Chairs of the Global Academic Interdisciplinary Network from the Global Compact on Refugees] The global refugee regime is experiencing two relevant 75th anniversaries: first of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last year; and, second, of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in July 2026....

[Guy S. Goodwin-Gill is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Emeritus Professor of International Refugee Law, University of Oxford, and Honorary Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice and Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Jane McAdam is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Law at the Kaldor C…

[Mustafa Alio is co-Manager of R-SEAT] I do not write about the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (‘the Convention’) as an abstract legal document. I write as someone who was forcibly displaced. My life was shaped by the fact that, at a critical moment, refugee protection was not only charity or sympathy. It was a matter of...

[Elizabeth Tan is the Director of UNHCR’s Division of International Protection and Solutions] In 1951, in the aftermath of one of the most devastating wars the world had ever known, the international community recognized the need for international cooperation, grounded in law and humanity, for people who had fled their countries in need of safety and protection. In response, States...

[Massimo Frigo is a Senior Policy Officer in the Protection Policy and Legal Advice Section (DIPS) at the UNHCR. Cornelis (Kees) Wouters is a Senior Refugee Law Adviser in the Protection Policy and Legal Advice Section (DIPS) at the UNHCR.] Seventy-five years is a veteran age for everyone; even for a multilateral treaty. It is sufficient time to live through...

To have your event or announcement featured in next week’s post, please send a link and a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com. Call for Papers Conference and PGR Roundtable – Theorising the New Age of Environmental Human Rights Law Conference + PGR Roundtable: The conference will examine how recent developments in environmental human rights law should be…

[Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law; Zena Assaad is an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, Australian National University; Elke Schwarz is a Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London; Ingvild Bode is a Professor of International Relations, University of Southern Denmark. The authors are all members of…

[Pearce Clancy is a Research Fellow in Trinity College Dublin, funded by Research Ireland’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme] 2026 has not been a peaceful year. Armed conflicts continue to wage across the world, with a number of the most high-profile conflicts plunging the global economy into a state of crisis or otherwise posing direct threats to the rights of states not...

[Frederik Rogiers is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant at the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute and Ghent Maritime Institute, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University] On 12 April 2026, following the collapse of the Islamabad talks, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States Navy would impose a “naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz”....

[Lavinia Stoppani is a recent graduate of the LL.B. programme in International and European Law at the University of Groningen, with research interests in environmental law and treaty interpretation] Introduction In 1997, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its landmark judgment in the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros case. Judge Herczegh appended a dissenting opinion in which he argued that wh…

[Dr. Nafees Ahmad holds a Ph.D. in International Refugee Law and Human Right), and is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Legal Studies, South Asian University, New Delhi. Saif Ali is an advocate at the Delhi High Court, New Delhi and holds a BALLB, and LL.M (International Law).] The expression “gendered starvation” illustrates how intentional or methodical denial of...