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02 March 2022

The Legal Obligation to Recognize Russian Deserters as Refugees

The European Union (EU) and its member states are reportedly considering offering asylum to Russian deserters. They and other states around the world have a legal obligation to do precisely that. Soldiers who flee punishment for refusing to fight in aggressive wars are properly understood as refugees under international law. Continue reading >>
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25 February 2022

A Terrible Crime

International law, it is often said, has lost its normative power. The opposite is true. Continue reading >>
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16 April 2018

Völkerrechtswidrig­keit benennen: Warum die Bundesregierung ihre Verbündeten für den Syrien-Luftangriff kritisieren sollte

Die Bundesregierung betont gerne, dass Deutschland für eine regelbasierte internationale Ordnung stehe. Das völkerrechtliche Gewaltverbot ist ein zentraler Eckpfeiler dieser Ordnung. Es zu verteidigen sollte Anliegen der deutschen Bundesregierung sein – auch gegenüber den westlichen Verbündeten. Dabei muss sich die Bundesregierung nicht mit Russland gemein machen. Continue reading >>
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14 April 2018

Syria and the Humanitarian Reprisal – President Trump’s Poisonous Gift to International Law?

Among the many unwanted gifts Donald Trump has given international law as of yet, this may very well prove to be the worst: the humanitarian reprisal. Forcible countermeasures, so-called reprisals, were standard practice in order to enforce violations of international obligations at least until World War I and continued to be used and accepted even in the inter-war period. Not infrequently, they led to wider military conflicts. Thus, under the post-1945 international legal order established by the UN Charter, reprisals do not constitute licit countermeasures and in fact are covered by the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Continue reading >>
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