The globalization of supply chains and the rise of digital technologies have made cross-border data flows central to international trade law. At the same time, growing perceptions of data as a national security concern – commonly referred to as ‘data securitization’ – have led states to adopt restrictive measures, including cross-border data flow regulations and local storage or processing requirements. This article examines how international trade law can and should address such measures and the balance it strikes between facilitating data flows and safeguarding national security. It first surveys national approaches to restricting cross-border transfers, highlighting both divergences and common patterns in the regulation of personal and non-personal data. It then analyses exceptions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs), focusing on Essential Security Interests (ESI) and Legitimate Public Policy Objective (LPPO) exceptions. The analysis shows that while these exceptions take different forms, each faces certain limitations, reflecting an inherent trade-off between respecting states’ discretion to safeguard security interests and ensuring predictability in trade relations. To address these limitations, the article proposes avenues for international cooperation: enhancing regulatory transparency, ensuring legitimacy and effectiveness of government access to privately held data, and developing shared understandings of national security concerns and data governance measures. By combining legal safeguards with cooperative frameworks, international trade law can better reconcile the tension between safeguarding security and enabling cross-border data flows.

A fundamental rethinking of the current global trade architecture is critical to support those who have historically been left behind by globalization – developing and least developed countries (LDCs), small businesses, women and indigenous communities. The rise of digital trade holds the potential to enable developmental leapfrogging and to serve as a transformative tool for addressing existing economic inequalities. However, as international digital trade lawmaking continues to advance primarily through bilateral, regional and plurilateral platforms, the digital divide is only deepening at an alarming pace. This article seeks to revisit international digital trade lawmaking from a development lens and to propose several forward-looking ideas on placing development at the heart of future multilateral digital trade lawmaking. It begins by briefly examining the concept and historical trajectory of the development agenda within the post-World War II international trade law framework. It then provides a comprehensive examination of how and to what extent development priorities are reflected in existing digital trade agreements. By identifying critical shortcomings in the existing international digital trade law regime, this article offers reform proposals and forward-looking strategies to mainstream development into future international digital trade rulemaking, especially within the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This paper examines the interpretation and application of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XXI(b)(ii) in the context of export controls on dual-use items, a topic of increasing importance as international export control regimes grapple with ambiguities in defining the scope of such measures. While export controls are legitimate when addressing genuine security threats, their exploitation for economic advantage undermines World Trade Organization (WTO) principles. By focusing on the underexplored GATT Article XXI(b)(ii), this study provides a foundation for assessing the legality of dual-use export controls and proposes standards of proof that clarify the level of evidence required to establish facts under the burden of proof. The paper advocates for a balanced approach that acknowledges the sensitivity of security exceptions while mitigating the risk of abuse. It further emphasizes the role of multilateralism in maintaining the integrity of international trade law amidst escalating geopolitical tensions.

Ballast water is a major vector for the transport of aquatic non-indigenous species among ecosystems worldwide. To comply with the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, vessels on international voyages commonly rely on Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS) to meet the D-2 performance standard, often using ultraviolet (UV) irradiation as a key disinfection step. UV-light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs) offer a mercury-free UV source with long lifespan and flexibility in wavelength selection; compared to conventional lamps, they are smaller in size and require no warm-up time. Yet, their effects on larger planktonic organisms (≥50μm) remain poorly understood. Here, we tested the effect of UV-C-LED (λ=265nm) on larvae of the invasive European green crab Carcinus maenas, assessing mortality, immobility, and respiration under three UV-C doses (40, 120, and 200mJ·cm-2). All UV-C treatments significantly reduced larval motility and respiration relative to controls, leading to increased mortality over time. Larvae required comparatively high doses (120-200mJ·cm-2) to reach substantial inactivation, relative to doses reported for bacterial and phytoplanktonic fractions. These results provide species- and life stage-specific UV-C thresholds for the ≥50μm size class and demonstrate the value of combining behavioural, lethal and physiological endpoints when validating UV-LED-based BWMS.

The article discusses the legitimacy of military interventions where communicated motives are humanitarian, which is a controversial topic within international politics. The discussion focuses broadly on questions related to state sovereignty, the non-intervention principle, and both national and international responsibilities to protect populations, but also narrower, on insufficient information, mixed motives and selective responses. The chosen analytical tool is the English School theoretical perspective on international relations (IR), with concepts like international society, international order and international justice. This perspective offers a useful framework for informing a discussion about humanitarian-based interventions, since it incorporates both the hostile and the friendly aspects of the international sphere.

All citizens have the right to participate in government, directly or through representatives chosen in genuine democratic elections. The right is guarantee by International and national laws hearing and in Cameroon, it is enshrined in the preamble of the constitution. However, the laws, institutions, and procedures put in place for the procedure established to obtain justice in electoral disputes in Cameroon pose a challenge to guarantee free, fair, and quality justice in the settlement of electoral disputes. This study conducts a critical analysis of the procedure to obtain justice in electoral disputes in Cameroon. Using a doctrinal qualitative methodology, we explored primary and secondary sources. our findings indicate that, the inaction of courts enables incumbents to consistently retain power, thereby negating the principle of consolidation of democracy. Thus, the courts are failing to play a role in promoting democratic consolidation. The research concludes that the procedure to obtain justice in electoral disputes by courts in Cameroon is a serious nightmare with successes. Therefore, the challenges faced in the procedure to obtain justice in electoral disputes by courts in Cameroon brings about the study recommending the following: There should be a total judicial independence by the executive organ, persons with the capacity to petition for electoral disputes be extended, the absence of appeal for national elections be provided, the timeframe to petition and adjudicate matters be extended and finally the constitutional council judges should have a life time mandate.

The question of how to appropriately respond to migration linked to climate change is increasingly being debated in academia, in government and policy circles, and, crucially, in international legal and climate policy forums. These debates often center on data and on understanding the true numbers of people who might migrate in the context of climate change, and how much of this migration can accurately be linked to climate change, or on the security and logistical concerns associated with responding to this “challenge,” or on the appropriate legal box into which people migrating in this context can be shoved. Too often, what gets left out of these debates is the genuine lived experiences of the people whose homes and ways of life are threatened in a changing climate, and the historical and current economic, social, and cultural forces that created that threat. In this Article, I add to the growing body of literature that is remedying this oversight by looking at climate change-related migration through a climate justice lens, and particularly by calling attention to the racialization of the “climate migrant” and the ways that racialized colonial and neocolonial systems have shaped who is subject to migration in the context of climate change and how they are received and perceived. This inquiry unites work on the racialized nature of international migration law and governance with work on the racialized nature of climate change impacts and policy, and particularly those proposing climate change reparations and migration as reparation. I argue that these considerations of the impact of race and colonialism on climate change-related migration, and the related need for a reparative justice approach, have been particularly absent just where they are most needed: in the international community’s efforts, through the United Nations Framework on Convention on Climate Change and related processes, to craft a meaningful global response to the climate crisis. Including a reparatory justice perspective in the international response to climate change-related migration will ensure that that response more effectively addresses the concerns and needs of affected individuals and communities and forges a future that does not perpetuate the injustices of the past.

This article provides a strategic and analytical examination of the militarization of civilian satellite internet in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, using the Starlink system as a case study. Against the backdrop of the vulnerability of traditional military communications systems to cyber and kinetic threats, the study explores the paradigm shift created by Low Earth Orbit (LEO)-based systems within the operational theatre. The methodological framework is grounded in the concepts of Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) and the OODA loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act). The analysis indicates that the adoption of Starlink strengthened the Ukrainian military’s Command and Control (C2) architecture, accelerated the “sensor-to-shooter” chain, and demonstrated high resilience against Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities. At the same time, the article assesses the geopolitical risks arising from the military use of dual-use infrastructures, the influence of private actors on issues of sovereignty, and the “grey zone” challenges within international humanitarian law. Ultimately, it argues that civilian space infrastructure in modern warfare is not merely a technological resource but also a strategic power factor that changes operational tempo.

Abstract The Climate Change Advisory Opinion (AO) by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) demonstrates the growing prominence of general principles of law in international law. The Climate Change AO was handed down at the end of the International Law Commission's project on general principles of law with the adoption of its Draft Conclusions. In the Climate Change AO, the ICJ accords general principles of law particular importance in environmental protection. This article documents how States identified general principles of law as the bedrock of the international climate change regime, and how the ICJ employed a systematic approach to ‘thicken’ climate change law, both in terms of normative content, obligations and consequences of breach. It then examines the general principles of law affirmed by the ICJ, in particular, the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and intergenerational equity, both extracted from the broader general principle of equity. These principles guide the interpretation of ‘how far’ or ‘how much’, operating as balancing tools in relation to other obligations. The broader significance of this development lies in the ICJ's growing recognition of general principles of law as a means of supporting and structuring its legal reasoning. The article further argues that the normative development of these principles has been reinforced by reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and that Article 38(1)(c) of the ICJ Statute provides a broader gateway for taking account of normative contributions by actors such as the IPCC. The identification of customary law and peremptory norms ( jus cogens ) is more narrowly defined than general principles of law. The article concludes by examining the IPCC's role in underpinning the normative character of certain general principles of law, building on the interaction of law and science, and suggests that strengthening these principles may facilitate their more robust incorporation into future treaty‐design mechanisms.

This study examines the protection of international humanitarian law for child victims of sexual violence in Sudan's armed conflict, particularly in the context of the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023. Using normative legal research methods with legislative, conceptual, and comparative approaches, this study analyzes applicable international legal instruments, international criminal tribunal jurisprudence, and available law enforcement mechanisms. The results of the study show two main findings. First, the normative framework of international humanitarian law including the 1998 Rome Statute, the 1949 Geneva Convention, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Security Council Resolutions have provided a juridically adequate legal basis for establishing criminal accountability against RSF perpetrators through the ICC mechanism based on the referral jurisdiction of Resolution 1593 (2005), as reinforced by the precedent of the Ali Kushayb ruling (October 2025). Second, effective protection for child victims of sexual violence faces serious implementation gaps due to four structural barriers: state non-cooperation in the execution of arrest warrants, limitations of UN Security Council mechanisms, barriers to proof on the ground, and the inadequacy of Sudan's national justice system. The study concludes that the continued impunity is not a reflection of the inadequacy of legal norms, but rather a failure of the political will of the international community to implement them consistently.

Background Japan's ongoing discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, approved by the IAEA as consistent with international safety standards, has generated significant scientific and legal controversy. The safety justification relies on assumptions regarding TEPCO's ALPS treatment system effectiveness, monitoring reliability, data transparency, and minimal risks to marine ecosystems and human health. Methods This paper employs an interdisciplinary approach integrating marine science and international law. We categorize Japan and TEPCO's scientific justifications into four core claims and highlight the scientific uncertainties that weaken the strength of such claims. As part of this, we apply fundamental dose-calculation methods to estimate organ-specific absorbed and effective doses for key radionuclides (tritium, cesium-137, strontium-90) and their potential health impacts. We then systematically map identified scientific uncertainties to corresponding structural weaknesses in international legal accountability mechanisms. Results Our analysis reveals substantial uncertainties undermining Japan's safety claims. These empirical gaps systematically expose structural failures in international governance: absence of technology verification standards, lack of binding testing protocols, inadequacies in instantaneous concentration-based compliance frameworks, outdated safety standards, national control preventing independent verification, and weaknesses in the IAEA institutional architecture. Conclusions The systematic pattern where scientific uncertainties map onto legal gaps reflects a fundamental mismatch between current frameworks, which are designed for routine operations, and the unprecedented circumstances of the multi-decade discharges from Fukushima. We provide concrete scientific, legal, and policy recommendations targeting each identified vulnerability to prevent Fukushima from establishing a dangerous precedent for inadequately regulated ocean disposal.

This article will examine forfeiture of cultural property involved in transnational disputes. It will focus on the ever-growing body of civil forfeiture actions, or in rem actions, against objects of cultural heritage in the United States, where there has been a shift away from primarily relying on private litigation of cultural property disputes toward civil forfeiture actions brought by the federal government. It will examine how civil forfeiture has proven to be an effective procedural device for courts to adjudicate competing claims to property and to effectuate return to owners, particularly source nations. It will also explore how private international law elements pertain to these actions, such as the application or rejection of foreign national ownership laws in U.S. courts, as well as the possibility of enforcement of foreign transnational forfeiture orders (for example, Italy’s transnational forfeiture order for the ‘Getty Bronze’ in California, the lawfulness of which was recently upheld by the European Court of Human Rights). It will examine the advantages and the downsides of the use of forfeiture as it relates to returns for international cultural heritage and discuss whether the end – that is, restitution to source nations – justifies the means.

Abstract The Greenland Reconciliation Commission ( GRC , 2013–2017) is one of a series of recent truth and reconciliation processes in stable northern democracies. However, the GRC ’s objectives differed in important respects from those of recent and ongoing truth and reconciliation commissions in Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Reflecting Greenland’s unique position in international law, the GRC was intended to facilitate Greenland’s gradual transition towards sovereignty. To this end, the GRC ’s mandate emphasised internal reconciliation within Greenland, rather than attempting to reconcile the Greenlanders to ongoing coexistence with a colonising Other. The GRC also did not attempt to produce a systematic historic record, though its recommendations identified the need for the Greenlanders to retell their history from their own perspective(s).

ABSTRACT This paper critically and comprehensively examines whether gender equality qualifies as a norm of jus cogens within international law. It utilises the Afghan ‘Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, 2024’ as a case study to contend that the global legal conscience increasingly recognises gender equality as a peremptory norm. The study illustrates how gender equality is both widely recognised and ingrained in customary international law through doctrinal analysis and a synthesis of key international legal instruments, such as the UDHR, ICCPR and CEDAW. Further, the paper examines philosophical foundations derived from Rawls’ theory of justice and emphasises the normative dominance of jus cogens over religious and cultural relativism. It is demonstrated how gender equality represents the fundamental principles of the global community by tracing the development of gender rights in state practice and human rights jurisprudence. Conclusively, it is established that recognising gender equality as an emerging jus cogens norm moves discriminatory legislation toward constitutional incompatibility and places an increasing universal obligation on nations to respect and implement this principle. This development strengthens international commitments to justice, human rights, and dignity, while signalling that states must progressively align their legal systems with this evolving peremptory standard.

Abstract The triple planetary crisis poses a significant threat to the Arctic region, encompassing both marine areas within and beyond national jurisdiction. With the warming effect and the decrease in ice coverage, international shipping in Arctic waters is expected to increase. Due to the sensitivity of the fragile ecosystem, the increased shipping activities in Arctic waters will bring stressors to the marine environment. The international community has responded with laws and policies to regulate international shipping in the Arctic, aiming to prevent negative impacts on the marine environment and local communities. International shipping regulations are developed by States through the International Maritime Organization in the context of the law of the sea and general international law, which are supported by non-binding guidelines and policy recommendations, including those developed by the Arctic Council. With the recently adopted international agreement to conserve and manage marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, the landscape of Arctic shipping governance is expected to be further developed to better respond to the triple planetary crisis. This paper examines the interplay between legal development and international cooperation in the development of Arctic shipping regulations to mitigate adverse environmental impacts.

Abstract This article examines the role of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) in strengthening compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL), a dimension of its mandate that remains largely unexplored in the literature. The article argues that although this mandate is explicit and carries significant normative potential, its implementation remains limited, fragmented and inconsistent. To demonstrate this, the study proceeds in three steps. First, it analyzes the normative foundations of the PSC’s IHL mandate through an interpretative and systemic reading of its constitutive texts. Second, it critically assesses the Council’s concrete practice, highlighting the limits and inconsistencies of its actions and instruments. Third, it identifies avenues for improvement, emphasizing the need to institutionalize compliance monitoring, to structure PSC decisions with greater precision and gradation, and to make fuller use of available legal mechanisms and partnerships. The central argument is that the PSC holds under-utilized legal and institutional tools which, if fully mobilized, could significantly enhance its effectiveness in fulfilling its IHL-related mandate and establish it as a key regional actor in the promotion of respect for IHL and the protection of victims of armed conflict.

Abstract This article critically examines the efficacy of ratifying International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) within the complex relationship between a State’s sovereignty and its pre-existing, non-derogable obligations under international law. Many States may use reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs) to ratify treaties like ICERD while managing substantive obligations. This article analyze ICERD’s the challenges of domestic enforcement, scrutinizing how ratification by States, could be diluted by extensive RUDs, thereby analysing whether formal ratification translates to meaningful compliance. This analysis further interprets enforcement lacunae, including the jurisdictional barriers facing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in adjudicating human rights violations. By contrast, this article uses Malaysia as a critical case study to examine the legal implications of the persistent non-ratification of ICERD, a dimension of the international human rights scholarship that remains insufficiently examined. This article critically examine and analyse the domestic legal context to demonstrate that the State remains legally bound by the international principle of equality and non-discrimination through multiple legal nexus, the UN Charter membership, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as Customary International Law, and the ASEAN Human Rights Framework, which cumulatively reinforce the jus cogens character of racial equality. This analysis advances a novel legal argument by applying the framework of jus cogens norms and constitutional equality principles under Malaysian law, suggesting that non-ratification of ICERD may have implications beyond a neutral exercise of sovereignty. The non-ratification of ICERD constrains the efficacy of the international human rights machinery, avoiding the full scope of external monitoring and legal accountability, and raising questions regarding the alignment of its domestic constitutional integrity. It is submitted that the States that ratify ICERD even with RUDs, demonstrate a foundational commitment to human rights norms despite enforcement complexities. Non-ratification perpetuates structural inequality and directly challenges international mechanisms designed to uphold universal human rights.

Abstract Since the 1980s, the participation of non-state actors in international organizations has brought promises of greater inclusion and efficiency in the promotion and protection of human rights. The institutional inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations system is a clear example of this evolution, thanks to which an Indigenous elite has made great strides in securing the recognition of Indigenous rights. However, in the context of the vigilance policies by which the UN attempts to monitor respect for human rights, criticism from Indigenous activists has brought attention to the violations of international law by states. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, I demonstrate three key dynamics. First, socialization mechanisms create an Indigenous elite while marginalizing less experienced activists. Second, divergent registers of intervention—elite versus activist—reveal tensions between contributing to international law and denouncing rights violations. Third, resource scarcity and intensifying state repression expose the limits of vigilance policies, as informal networks designed to monitor violations inadvertently expose activists to greater danger. These findings challenge optimistic accounts of civil society participation in international organizations and reveal how institutional inclusion can coexist with systematic exclusion from meaningful protection.

ABSTRACT Under international human rights law (IHRL), local governments complement the national government in undertaking their human rights obligations. Regarding the right to food, local authorities in the UK have taken up a pivotal role in addressing food insecurity in a crisis support context. Research that examines such policy responses from a human rights perspective is limited. Drawing upon interview data and policy document analysis in two English cities, this article examines how local authorities should undertake their obligation to fulfill the right to food – as defined in IHRL and by local actors – in a crisis support context, and how their obligations relate to those of the national government. This article argues that while local authorities have obligations to implement rights-based policy responses within their remit, the national government retains its primary obligation to create an enabling environment for local authorities to fully discharge their right to food obligations.

ABSTRACT Urban archaeology is one of the most fragile and non-renewable components of the historic urban landscape. In multi-layered cities such as Istanbul, where successive strata coexist within a dense and dynamic fabric, archaeological heritage is still largely addressed through rescue archaeology – a reactive intervention triggered only when construction exposes remains. This has often led to the isolation, inaccessibility, or reburial of significant sites, with little integration into the living city. This study focuses on eight cases in Istanbul’s Historical Peninsula – a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985—to assess post-discovery conservation and presentation practices, identifying systemic barriers to effective integration. Based on site observations, archival and regulatory documents, and typological categorisation, it analyses legal, administrative, architectural, and educational dimensions, revealing weaknesses including fragmented legislation, institutional incoherence, inadequate spatial integration, and limited public presentation. Framing these findings within international conventions, including Valletta and Faro, the paper proposes policy insights for shifting from reactive rescue practices towards preventive and interpretive conservation. A multi-level, policy-oriented framework is proposed to integrate urban archaeological heritage into urban planning, ensuring both its material preservation and its ongoing role as a living component of Istanbul’s cultural identity.