Arpita Goswami Sachdeva  (This piece was written as part of a Symposium to celebrate the life and works of Prof. Rahmatullah Khan. It’s being published only now since we waited for his family’s consent to publish it. The other pieces from the symposium can be read here, here and here.) My first meeting with Prof Khan was on the staircase of the ISIL building when he was the Secretary General, and I was a fourth year law student. He was climbing downstairs and I was singing and bouncing my way up to the 4th floor of the building, where the Legal and Treaties Department of Ministry of Exter ..read more

Swati Singh Parmar Teaching Public International Law (IL) in a law degree course can be as exasperating as liberating it is. I say this because of the immense adoration and awe that I find while reading IL texts and the frustration that simmers beneath my failures to wheedle my students for IL, let alone reproduce the same adoration amongst them. When I was (I still am) a student of law, I firmly believed that to learn law one must unlearn her caste, gender, religion, region and class. [My belief was only strengthened more when I saw superficial (non) claims against reservations (affirmative a ..read more

Aman Kumar On 01 March 2024, Nicaragua filed a case against Germany, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ/Court) for ‘facilitating the commission of genocide’ and failing ‘to prevent the commission of genocide’. It has requested the court to also issue five provisional measures. On Jurisdiction Nicaragua claims that the Court has jurisdiction under Article 36 of the ICJ’s statute. It notes that although both the parties have made reservations against this provision, none of those reservations are applicable in this scenario. The second basis of its jurisdiction is Article IX of the Genoc ..read more

Chathurya Srinivasan and Calvert Nazareth  This the the second part of our discussion on the International Court of Justice’s judgement in the case concerning the application of the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism (“ICSFT”) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (“CERD”) delivered on the 31st of January 2024. JUDGEMENT – ICERD A. Existence of a dispute The Russian Federation invoked the “clean hands“ doctrine, arguing that Ukraine’s mistreatment of ethnic minorities barred ..read more

Chathurya Srinivasan and Calvert Nazareth  INTRODUCTION The International Court of Justice (“ICJ” or simply “Court”) delivered its judgement on the case concerning the application of the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism (“ICSFT”) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (“CERD”) on the 31st of January 2024. Apart from the two Conventions, Ukraine also alleged that Russia violated the Provisional Measures of 19th April 2017 delivered by the Court. This article is the first part of a two-part series. The au ..read more

Aman Kumar Continuing with the analysis of the ICJ’s Provisional Measures Order in South Africa v Israel case, I will discuss the order on obligations Erga Omnes Partes and Plausibility in this post. In the previous post of this series, I had discussed court’s observation on ‘Dispute’. On obligation Erga Omnes partes A dispute can be brought before the ICJ by a state, who is a member of the UN. Article 93 of the UN Charter states: All Members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice. The ongoing war in Palestine is between Israel, a stat ..read more

Aman Kumar The ICJ’s Order in Provisional Measures request submitted by South Africa in its case against Israel was delivered on 26 January 2024. Since then, various aspects of the Order have been analyzed by many international lawyers. In a series of posts, I am going to engage with them, while presenting a wholesome analysis of not just the Order, but also of the Dissenting Opinion of Judge Sebutinde, Separate Opinion of Judge Ad Hoc Barak, and the Declarations by Judge Xue, Judge Bhandari and Judge Nolte. I will begin by discussing the court’s order on determination of ‘Dispute’. In the sub ..read more

Aparna Bhatnagar Introduction Greta Garbo’s widely anticipated film ‘Barbie’ released in July 2023 amidst a whirlwind of controversy and debate. The source of contention lies in one of its scenes which encompassed a subtle yet significant depiction of the disputed ‘nine-dash line’, a cartographic symbol emblematic of China’s assertion of sovereignty in the South China Sea. This depiction sparked tensions among the countries bordering the region, promoting an examination of the geopolitical ramifications of such a representation. Drawing inspiration from the fervor surrounding this recent contr ..read more

The year 2023 was a productive year for the IBIL. While I could post relatively fewer pieces, the readership increased by 64% compared to 2022. India, USA and UK continued to be the top-3 countries in terms of readership, while regulars like Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland remained in top 10. The blog was able to penetrate into new areas like North Macedonia, Cayman Islands, Tanzania, Latvia, Senegal, etc. In 2023, I also ventured into hosting a few symposiums. In the beginning of the year, I collaborated with Shantanu Singh to bring out India’s works at the International Law Comm ..read more

Atul Alexander The recent proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) involving South Africa and Israel have attracted widespread media attention unlike any other dispute.  It is estimated that the overall death exceeded 20,000 civilians with 52, 000 people injured. Scholars’ support for South Africa’s application is extensive; however, Israel alleges that the entire exercise by South Africa is to politicize and engage in ‘genocidefare.’ Although the ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations that focuses fundamentally on legal claims, the arguments by both Stat ..read more