Recognition of Palestine is welcome, but the time has come for more direct measures. States should consider e.g. naval escorts for the Sumud flotilla. Israel has no legal right to block humanitarian aid while committing genocide.

Hiroshima paradigm (popular myth): the greater the violence a government uses, the quicker it is able to end hostilities. Gaza paradigm (hypothesis): the greater the violence a government uses, the longer the hostilities will end up lasting.

Suicidal Cultural Genocide in “Super Sparta”: substack.com/@itamarmann/...

Watch this interview with Dr. Mohammed Saqr. As Israeli tanks push tonight into Gaza City, the South Part of the Strip, where he is located, is projected to become even more crowded with displaced people who have lost everything. www.democracynow.org/2025/9/15/mo...

“The decision to blow up the boat and kill everyone onboard when interdiction and detention was a clearly available option is manifestly illegal and immoral" -- sad have to make such an obvious point, but here we are. Read the whole piece: www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/p...

Reflecting on what it means to research & teach international law in an Israeli university today, while spending time away from my home institution & academic community. Grateful to Völkerrechtsblog for inviting me to share these early thoughts. voelkerrechtsblog.org/who-gets-to-...

"The banality of evil in the Gaza war is not embodied in malicious individuals but in the routine work of jurists who authorized orders for air strikes that have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians while relying on International Humanitarian Law." www.haaretz.com/magazine/202...

Market likes hubris

For a long term we have been observing how the sovereignty of weak states in the global south has been instrumentalized for population management. But this

Recommended reading for anyone thinking about international law. Tooze describes the market as a kind of expected enforcer of global governance. But if the latter has no rules, enforcement too is out of the question. Interesting absence of climate, an alternative candidate for world punisher.

My government is now sanctioning three leading Palestinian human rights groups: (1) Al Haq Law in the Service of Mankind; (2) Al Mezan Center for Human Rights; (3) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Utterly disgraceful.

As a boy, I was told the world would be better when I grew up. Raising kids, I shield them from how much worse it will be when they do.

The next head or “Ra‘is“ (رئيس) to be exact, a term most associated in this context with Arafat after Oslo.

New investigation by @borderforensics.bsky.social out, especially relevant against the backdrop of racist violence in Lausanne. www.borderforensics.org/investigatio...

Carl Schmitt's theory of war is really funny because it amounts to "liberalism leads to moralism which leads to total war in an attempt to outlaw war - unlike my theory of 'invading other countries just because you want to' which has definitely never led to total war or atrocities"

German arms exports to Israel have been the subject of debate for some time. But what about Israeli arms exports to Germany? ALON SAHAR (@alonsahar.bsky.social) and ITAMAR MANN (@itamann.bsky.social) on the political and legal risks of arms imports from Israel. verfassungsblog.de/the-other-si...

Merz recognised the need to limit arms exports to Israel. Less attention is given to arms imports—just as important in policy & legal terms. 🇩🇪 should review and cease illegal arms purchases from a government engaging in genocide. New w/ @alonsahar.bsky.social verfassungsblog.de/the-other-si...

Warm congratulations to Dr. Teresa Quadt, whose work at the intersections of international criminal law and migrant rights is profound and important.

I used to go at enormous lengths debating my fellow Ukrainians (especially pro-Israel ones) telling them that if we lose the war, our situation will be very much like that of Palestine. People laughed at me.

"It is a famine we could have prevented.. food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food.. a preventable famine sustained by complicity" Tom Fletcher from the UN on famine being declared in Gaza City

“So the bad news is that China pushes back on human rights and the good news is that it is interested in a rules-based international order? Heike Krieger: Exactly” Read worthy interview with @heikekrieger.bsky.social @szde.bsky.social, I agree with everything she said

The language of this @asilorg.bsky.social email, describing Singapore, looks like it has been taken directly from a Quinn Slobodian book

Extremely grateful to all the participants in this collection, some of whom I seem to have not managed to convince. Lots to work with in the near future.

Special issue of Public Reason which it is shamelessly immodest of me to post: publicreason.ro/cuprins/29

🧵 The new edition of *Staatsräson Monitor* is now live on substack. Highlishts include: - A special cooperation on German arms imports from Israel with legal expert @itamann.bsky.social staatsraesonmonitor.substack.com/p/staatsraso...

Legal Tribune Online (‪@lto-de.bsky.social‬) hat 11 Völkerrechtsexperten gefragt, ob Israel in #Gaza einen Völkermord begeht. Eindeutig bzgl 🇩🇪's Präventionspflicht. Mit Analysen u.a. von @adhaque.bsky.social, @tomdannenbaum.bsky.social, @mikebecker.bsky.social and @itamann.bsky.social

Legal Tribune Online (@lto-de.bsky.social) asked eleven scholars whether Israel's actions in #Gaza now meet the legal definition of genocide. I am quoted alongside @adhaque.bsky.social, @janinadill.bsky.social, @tomdannenbaum.bsky.social, @itamann.bsky.social and others. www.lto.de/recht/hinter...

Until recently, the term "occupation" in Israel was used to underscore its negative connotations. This is changing. ITAMAR MANN (@itamann.bsky.social‬) on the shifting meaning of the word – and why it now obscures something worse: expulsion and destruction. verfassungsblog.de/occupation-a...

Thank you Prof @itamann.bsky.social for what I never thought we needed as an urgent clarification: “Occupation” as Euphemism, @verfassungsblog.de 2025/8/13, verfassungsblog.de/occupation-a....

Excited to share a new publication by our PhD fellow Leonora Staerfeldt in the special issue of @recieljournal.bsky.social! It reveals how international law’s temporal blind spots enable illegal e-waste to flow from high- to low-income countries – often disguised as legitimate reuse. Link below ⬇️

Fascinating post by Or Bassok @verfassungsblog.de verfassungsblog.de/fraenkel-isr...

With the brilliant Tirza Leibowitz on the Bosnian Hayat TV, speaking about the Gaza genocide. We address the centrality of the destruction of the health system, as well as the issue of special intent. youtu.be/k8O2Oj51Lhg?...

We are completely horrified and sickened by the cynical videos of hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, who are starving and emaciated, that were published this weekend. (1/5)

“This is not a genocide that can still be prevented…What remains is a long trajectory of harm…through illness too late to treat, collapsed public health & the absence of a generation of medical professionals.” Fundraise & spread awareness of the vital work of www.hanoon.org Insta: @fqmspalestine

Our op-ed following the report launched yesterday, on the medical aspect of the genocide prohibition under Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention. The Death of Gaza in Slow Motion www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

The Trump administration is reshaping the legal profession as a tool of executive power – affecting an understudied group: government lawyers. Bolsonaro did the same. FELIPE LUCIANO PIRES draws lesson from Brazil. verfassungsblog.de/the-legal-pr...

1/ Today we launched one of two first reports by Israeli organisations, calling out the genocide in Gaza. The other report was published by B'tselem. Our own report, by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, focuses on the systematic destruction of health system.

In a brief period of time the ideology of the Nazis—and neo-Nazis and other fascists that continued their political project for decades after the Nazi state was toppled—has been repeated by politicians so frequently that it barely registers

📣 Postdoc vacancy! I am looking for a qualitative postdoc (3 years, 100%) to join my ERC project #RESTATE (Refugees’ Political Participation and State-(Re)Making in Displacement, 85%) and my project #SYREALITY (Syrian Imaginations of Europe meet Reality, 15%) starting preferably on 1 January 2026.

🇩🇪 should have joined this

Sharing my draft article, Protecting Wild Animal Abundance, forthcoming in Utah Law Review, @sjquinney.bsky.social. It highlights loss of relatively common wild #animals as distinct from the #biodiversity crisis, and discusses why US #environmental #law failed to stop such losses.

New indictment for crimes committed in #Syria by the former regime. Biggest UJ trial in #Germany since the al-Khatib / Koblenz case, this time concerning #Yarmouk neighborhood. As we are witnessing very worrying escalation of violence in today`s Syria, justice for past crimes remains quite relevant.

MK Ayman Odeh, who is someone I write about here, is currently being attacked.

Man, the kicker on Adam Shatz's latest: "In a world of rising authoritarianism and ethnonationalism, where the rule of law has all but crumbled, the brutal, pitiless state run by Netanyahu looks more like a pioneer than an outlier." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

What should we do when it seems like things are inevitably heading toward authoritarianism? ITAMAR MANN (@itamann.bsky.social) makes a case for resisting “authoritarian determinism” and holding on to our capacity to act. verfassungsblog.de/against-auth...

New essay published today Against Authoritarian Determinism: Contingency and the Capacity to Act verfassungsblog.de/against-auth... Thanks as usual to the editorial team @voelkerrechtsblog.org

Illuminating episode on tropes of the family in international law with Susan Marks www.ejil.org/podcast.php?...

Worth recalling if for no other reason than the US might get drawn back in again to "mow the grass."

Germany has arrested Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri and will surrender him to the ICC. "El Hishri is alleged to have been one of the most senior Mitiga Prison officials ... suspected of having committed directly himself, ordered or overseen crimes against humanity and war crimes" t.co/D5YYLPiFWh

This is happening under a planned “humanitarian” program