It has been a fortnight of announcements, awards, and anniversaries. International criminal law has provided much of the music: from the latest announcement of US sanctions on the ICC, to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to one of its former judges, to the fraught vetting procedures of its future judges. And all this against the backdrop of the eightieth anniversary of the Nuremberg judgment, and the chequered career of the crime of aggression. Also in focus have been the exorbitant awards produced by investment arbitration, from two very different but complementary vantage points: the calculation of interest that contributes to producing them, and the uses and abuses they can be put to as political ransom and pressure. While the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance might offer an important if imperfect institutional forum, ambiguous attempts to regulate autonomous lethal weapons systems continue to prove unsatisfying. And last but not least, the Malvinas/Falklands dispute goes to the ITLOS—but might trip at the first hurdle if Argentina doesn’t get its jurisdictional framing right. Not to mention the latest episode of the EJIL Podcast on the crisis of civilian protection in contemporary armed conflicts.

Award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay

In response to this week’s announcement from the White House, Marc Weller provides an overview of the escalating US sanctions against the ICC, culminating in this week’s measures directed against the institution itself, situating them within a fundamental disagreement over the Court’s jurisdiction over nationals of non-States Parties. Drawing on Article 12(2) of the Rome Statute and the principles of territorial and universal jurisdiction, he argues that States may collectively delegate their existing criminal jurisdiction to the ICC without requiring the consent of an accused person’s State of nationality. The recent sanctions are an unprecedented assault on international judicial independence that requires a coordinated response by States Parties, potentially including measures to counteract the extraterritorial effects of US sanctions.

High moral character at the ICC

Vetting at the ICC has remained in focus, as Ezequiel Jimenez Martinez examines the institutional failures that prevented the ICC’s Advisory Committee on Nominations from conclusively assessing judicial candidates’ “high moral character” under Article 36(3)(a) of the Rome Statute ahead of the December 2026 elections. He traces the problem to structural defects in the Assembly of States Parties’ due diligence procedure, particularly the failure to coordinate nomination deadlines with investigations by the Independent Oversight Mechanism, compounded by inadequate investigative resources. The ASP and its Bureau must reform the procedure through binding timelines, supplementary assessments where reports arrive late, and adequate funding, lest the same shortcomings undermine future judicial and prosecutorial elections.

80 years after Nuremberg: the crime of aggression

Last week, Claus Kreß gave a lecture in Court Room 600 to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Nuremberg Judgment. His words trace the development of the crime of aggression from the interwar prohibition of aggressive warfare to its criminalisation at Nuremberg and its subsequent marginalisation in international criminal justice. He makes the case that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has renewed recognition of aggression as a crime—not only against State sovereignty, but also against human life, as reflected in the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 ICCPR. Against the limitations of the ICC’s jurisdiction over aggression, we should welcome progress towards a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine as an opportunity to overcome Nuremberg’s legacy of selective accountability and revitalise the prosecution of aggression.

Calculation of interest in ISDS

Toni Marzal criticises the increasingly expansive award of interest in investor-State dispute settlement, arguing that the widespread preference for compound interest and commercially determined rates has contributed significantly to inflated compensation awards.The principle of full reparation does not justify disregarding domestic legal restrictions, compensating investors for hypothetical risk premiums, or presuming compound losses without evidence; instead, interest must be grounded in compensable harm, causation, and applicable law. Emerging reforms in UNCITRAL Working Group III throw a welcome shape on the horizon, in particular proposals favouring risk-free interest rates and requiring specific justification for compounding as a return to legally disciplined compensation.

Investment arbitration as ransom?

Güneş Ünüvar examines Mikhail Fridman’s investment arbitration against Luxembourg under the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union–Russia BIT, questioning whether the threat of a multibillion-dollar award influenced Luxembourg’s support for his removal from the EU sanctions list. He argues that investment arbitration can produce a form of “administrative chill,” whereby the prospect of substantial financial liability influences how governments implement and negotiate sanctions, even without a final arbitral award. More broadly, beware the supposed depoliticising function of investor-State arbitration: coordinated investment claims may become instruments of geopolitical bargaining capable of undermining the EU’s collective sanctions regime.

UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance

Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew, José-Miguel Bello y Villarino and Fleur Johns examine the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance, established by General Assembly Resolution 79/325, as a potentially important institutional forum for overcoming the fragmentation of international AI governance. They identify significant obstacles to a genuinely inclusive and rights-based approach, including disagreements over the centrality of human rights, the influence of private technology companies and the International Telecommunication Union, and competing national preferences over global regulation. The Dialogue represents an institutional opening rather than a regulatory settlement, whose significance will depend on whether it can translate broad participation into meaningful cooperation while giving marginalised communities a stronger voice.

Lethal autonomous weapons systems

Aurel Sari takes a critical look the definition of lethal autonomous weapon systems adopted by consensus in the September 2026 report of the Group of Governmental Experts under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3). He argues that the agreed formulation leaves a number of fundamental questions unresolved: concerning the integration of technological components, the distinction between identifying and selecting targets, the degree of human intervention required, and the meaning of a system’s capacity to cause loss of life. These ambiguities permit competing broad and narrow interpretations, potentially producing markedly different regulatory outcomes, including for weapons reviews under Article 36 of Additional Protocol I.

Abhijeet Shrivastava and Constantinos Yiallourides assesses Argentina’s proposed Annex VII UNCLOS arbitration against the United Kingdom over project Sea Lion’s proposed hydrocarbon exploitation around the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas. Drawing on the Chagos Marine Protected Area arbitration and Article 288(1) UNCLOS, they argue that Argentina faces substantial jurisdictional obstacles because its claims concerning continental shelf rights and non-aggravation of the dispute are inseparable from the underlying territorial sovereignty dispute, which an UNCLOS tribunal cannot determine. Claims concerning marine environmental protection may offer a more promising jurisdictional route, since these obligations can potentially be adjudicated without resolving sovereignty over the Islands.

As ever, events and announcements can be found here.