(Trigger warning: any sociologists among us may wish to avert their eyes to avoid spontaneous combustion resulting from exposure to the worst theory of social action I have seen in decades) For the rest of you, beware if you are “unhappy” or “looking for justice” you may be on the road to terrorism

Here are some thoughts on the new Court of Appeal Palestine Action ruling, written with @alangreene.bsky.social and @colinmurray.bsky.social for @verfassungsblog.de verfassungsblog.de/palestine-ac...

🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🚨 Delighted to see our paper published open access in the @eui-law.bsky.social Working Papers series: hdl.handle.net/1814/95303 @martinscheinin.bsky.social and I critically examine the ECtHR's approach to mass surveillance and the future of Article 8 privacy protections.

Here we go: new @eui-law.bsky.social working paper by @sophieduroy.bsky.social and myself on the European Court of Human Rights and mass/bulk surveillance. We critique the ECtHR for its turn to proceduralism and reasonableness over the essence of HR & proper proportionality hdl.handle.net/1814/95303

🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🚨 Delighted to see our paper published open access in the @eui-law.bsky.social Working Papers series: hdl.handle.net/1814/95303 @martinscheinin.bsky.social and I critically examine the ECtHR's approach to mass surveillance and the future of Article 8 privacy protections.

Excellent piece. Two key points, in my view: "The strike manufactured the war whose laws it now invokes for cover." "Whatever is permissible for Israel and the United States in 2026 is available to any state with the reach to attempt it in 2027."

The state of higher education in the UK, in a photo

The list of countries threatened with U.S. military intervention is growing · Venezuela 🇻🇪 · Iran 🇮🇷 · Cuba 🇨🇺 · Greenland 🇬🇱 · Canada 🇨🇦 …just this year! Do they all want "Liberation"? No, I argue in @foreignaffairs.com

Any attempt to fight this storm must start from the "recognition that the task facing a mature society is to adapt its methods of financing universities to sustaining the purposes for which such institutions exist – rather than, as at present, the other way round." Stefan Collini in @lrb.co.uk. 3/

‘The truth is that both ministers and vice-chancellors are locked into a financial model whose premise is misconceived and whose side effects are profoundly damaging for higher education.’ Stefan Collini on the UK’s university problems, online now from the next issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Is it ever acceptable to kill a few to spare the many? Is assassination a powerful tool for the future? Great debate at HowTheLightGetsIn Festival with David Whetham and Roy Allison, hosted by Angie Hobbs and the Forum for European Philosophy.

Always.

Is it ever acceptable to kill a few to spare the many? Is assassination a powerful tool for the future? Great debate at HowTheLightGetsIn Festival with David Whetham and Roy Allison, hosted by Angie Hobbs and the Forum for European Philosophy.

Best thing I've listened to in a while. Great discussion on the current state of the international order, its future, and what we (scholars/states) can and should do.

New essay, forthcoming in the inaugural issue of the Armenian Journal of International Law and already available on SSRN: dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn... Comments welcome!

New essay, forthcoming in the inaugural issue of the Armenian Journal of International Law and already available on SSRN: dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn... Comments welcome!

Available online now - a fantastic roundtable on The Polly Corrigan Book Prize Winner 2024, The Regulation of Intelligence Activities under International Law, by Sophie Duroy. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A roundtable on my book is now out in @intnatsecjournal.bsky.social Grateful for the thoughtful and generous engagements. A great interdisciplinary exchange on law, intelligence, and security, permitted by @kcsi.uk's Polly Corrigan Book Prize. doi.org/10.1080/0268... @elgarpublishing.bsky.social

A roundtable on my book is now out in @intnatsecjournal.bsky.social Grateful for the thoughtful and generous engagements. A great interdisciplinary exchange on law, intelligence, and security, permitted by @kcsi.uk's Polly Corrigan Book Prize. doi.org/10.1080/0268... @elgarpublishing.bsky.social

Trump nicely connecting the lawless boat strikes with his illegal war against Iran. The killing spree at sea was an inflection point as it established that the US military would in fact carry out unlawful orders and conduct patently illegal targeting.

Good morning and goddamn it's a beautiful day iandunt.substack.com/p/orban-defe...

Important remarks on legal advisers' duty to say no @ejiltalk.bsky.social: www.ejiltalk.org/when-governm... I'd also encourage everyone to read David Luban's article on Lösener and von Moltke: scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/2368/ & Lavinia Parsi's excellent article: doi.org/10.1093/jicj...

This is an excellent piece. Beyond the Minab school strike and the very human decisions that led to it, it is a reminder that compressing the kill chain (through tech or otherwise) has always led to targeting errors - in violation of IHL. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ma...

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei signals the end to the US ban on political assassinations, write Luca Trenta and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. And, they say, "it opens the door for other States to embrace the use of force to eliminate foreign adversaries."

Thanks, Martin Sandbu for featuring me in this @financialtimes.com story on decapitation.

International law is increasingly cast as an obstacle to “just wars” against dictators. CHRISTOPHER JANZ shows why this narrative serves as a justification for abandoning the law as a practice to legitimise political actions. verfassungsblog.de/tyrannys-use...

The Minab strike placed squarely before the public a key question: how does the law governing war protect civilians when the intelligence supporting a strike is wrong, and what legal consequences flow from getting it wrong? From Joseph Orenstein: www.justsecurity.org/134350/legal...

Since we now know that the timing of the strikes and broader attack aimed at killing the senior leadership, maybe we can do away with legal sophistry, and call this an assassination? Just a thought. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

‘The Israeli government wasn’t concerned with settling a political arrangement that would emerge on the “day after” – the lawn had to be burned to its roots.’ Online now from the next issue, Amjad Iraqi on the Israeli military playbook. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I have no idea how this war ends. Nothing I have seen suggests to me that anyone else does either.

Had me laughing and crying simultaneously. no01.substack.com/p/march-19-2...

The relationship between regime change and IHL is one of inherent tension, incentivizing battlefields where the law is viewed as an obstacle rather than an essential constraint. Gabor Rona urges the international community to resist this “sliding scale”: #IHL #regimechange #Iran #JusadBellum

Almost as if assassination is becoming normalised.

Not to be that person, but this is what happens when you make assassination a tool of foreign policy. Other states, including and especially those whose officials you targeted, can do the same. @lucatrenta.bsky.social and I wrote about it for @verfassungsblog.de: verfassungsblog.de/is-the-inter...

Nice to appear on @aljazeera.com Inside Story to discuss the war in Iran and the role assassination plays and has played in Israeli and US foreign policy.

An Unserious Justification for an Unnecessary War: Assessing the U.S. “Article 51” Letter to the U.N. on Iran War By @bcfinucane.bsky.social, former State Department attorney #IranWar www.justsecurity.org/134290/us-ar...

🚨 New publication Very happy to share that my article in @globcon.bsky.social has now been published open access. You can read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S204...

#OpenAccess from @globcon.bsky.social - When intelligence accountability backfires: How states’ strategic legal justifications undermine international law - https://cup.org/4cEedPg - @sophieduroy.bsky.social#OpenAccess #FirstView #IntLaw

🚨 New publication Very happy to share that my article in @globcon.bsky.social has now been published open access. You can read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S204...

While not an international lawyer, and I would love to hear from one, I find this analysis obscene. If anyone can start an illegal war and - all of a sudden - kill whomever they want, then what’s the point of international law? @justsecurity.org www.justsecurity.org/133171/ayato...

I do not think we, as lawyers, should engage in doctrinal exercises that end up making a case for the legality of surprise decapitation strikes between states not otherwise engaged in an armed conflict Especially when the strike at stake remains unlawful under jus ad bellum and, therefore, unlawful.

I do not think we, as lawyers, should engage in doctrinal exercises that end up making a case for the legality of surprise decapitation strikes between states not otherwise engaged in an armed conflict Especially when the strike at stake remains unlawful under jus ad bellum and, therefore, unlawful.

What does the assassination of Khamenei tell us about existing international norms against assassination? @lucatrenta.bsky.social and I wrote for @verfassungsblog.de about the erosion of the norm and its likely grim future should other states' protests remain muted.

What does the assassination of Khamenei tell us about existing international norms against assassination? @lucatrenta.bsky.social and I wrote for @verfassungsblog.de about the erosion of the norm and its likely grim future should other states' protests remain muted.

This is an insightful analysis on erosion of international norms. It seems to me that on much of news reporting on international law the point gets lost: the erosion of norms does not only affect the 'bad man' but every one of us.

“Reactions by other states to Khamenei’s assassination will be decisive for the [norm against assassination’s] future trajectory.”

An important article - in an era of asymmetric warfare and dramatic power imbalances on the world stage, Western democratic leaders, so often in public, will likely come to regret the degradation of the norm against Head of State/Govt assassination by other states much more than autocrats will...

@sophieduroy.bsky.social and I have a new piece out in @verfassungsblog.de reflecting on the moribund state of the international norm against assassination. Decades of routisination and legitimation have made assassination an available tool of foreign policy, even against heads of state.

The US and Israel have assassinated a sitting head of state. SOPHIE DUROY and LUCA TRENTA on Khamenei’s killing and the normalisation of assassination as a tool of statecraft. verfassungsblog.de/is-the-inter...