International Law Archive

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Europe Decoder, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about Europe. Subscribe to receive it by email every Thursday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. Six years after the peak of the 2015 migrant crisis, which upended European politics, the European Union is faced with the prospect of another wave of refugees and asylum-seekers, as the continent braces itself for the fallout from the rapid departure of the U.S. and its NATO allies from […]

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations Refugee Convention, one of the signal moral advances in human history. Negotiated in the wake of World War II and initially limited to Europe, the treaty established the first binding legal protections for individuals forced to flee their countries. These rights and responsibilities, which were made universal in the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1967, remain a cornerstone of the global humanitarian regime. The convention is, however, showing its age. Many governments are failing to fulfil their legal obligations under it, and the convention does little to […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Africa Watch, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about the African continent. Subscribe to receive it by email every Friday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. Last month, the African Union granted observer status to Israel, after nearly 20 years of Israeli diplomatic efforts to that effect. Israel had previously held observer status in the Organization of African Unity, or OAU, the AU’s predecessor. But it lapsed after the OAU was disbanded in 2002 […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Europe Decoder, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about Europe. Subscribe to receive it by email every Thursday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. As is usual for August in Brussels, many issues are now parked for European Union officials to deal with upon la rentrée—or the return from vacation in early September. One of those thorny files is Brexit. In the seven months since the U.K.’s formal departure […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Richard Gowan is filling in for Stewart Patrick, who will return Aug. 9. At the end of this week, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield will be in Tokyo, leading the U.S. delegation at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics. At first glance, Olympic sports and U.N. committee meetings may not seem to have much in common. But the ambassador may see some parallels between the Games and the political developments in Turtle Bay. U.N. officials like to praise the Olympics as a model of international cooperation. Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon […]