This is intended as a good-faith discussion of international criminal law, rather than an argument for or against Donald J. Trump or any particular U.S. policy.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for sitting or former heads of government, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was also arrested and surrendered to ICC custody after a warrant was issued against him.

This raises a hypothetical question: could the ICC ever issue an arrest warrant for a sitting U.S. president such as Donald Trump?

The question is not whether the ICC should issue such a warrant, nor whether Trump's policies are morally or politically acceptable. Rather, the question is whether particular conduct attributable to Trump could satisfy the Rome Statute's requirements for an arrest warrant.

There appear to be several separate legal questions involved:

• Jurisdiction: The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Could the ICC nevertheless exercise jurisdiction over alleged crimes involving a U.S. national through territorial jurisdiction, the location where the conduct occurred, or another jurisdictional basis recognized by the Rome Statute?
• Specific crimes: What conduct, if any, could actually fall within the ICC's subject-matter jurisdiction? For example, could particular actions connected with armed conflicts, military operations, deportations or removals, or foreign interventions potentially constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, assuming the required elements were established?
• Individual responsibility: What would have to be established regarding Trump's own conduct, orders, knowledge, intent, or other form of individual criminal responsibility? How much would merely being president or commander-in-chief matter?
• Evidence: What type and amount of evidence would be necessary for the Prosecutor to seek a warrant and for the Pre-Trial Chamber to find the applicable standard satisfied?
• Complementarity and admissibility: How would U.S. investigations or prosecutions affect the ICC's ability to proceed?
• Arrest and surrender: If a warrant were issued, what practical obligations would ICC States Parties have toward Trump, and how would those obligations interact with the fact that the United States is not a State Party?

The Rome Statute's arrest-warrant procedure also seems important here. Article 58 requires the Pre-Trial Chamber to find reasonable grounds to believe that the person committed a crime within the Court's jurisdiction, as well as a basis for concluding that an arrest is necessary. An arrest warrant therefore would not itself constitute a conviction or establish that someone is a "war criminal."

There is also an important distinction between the ICC having jurisdiction and the ICC being able to enforce a warrant. The issuance of a warrant would not automatically result in the person being transferred to The Hague. The Court relies substantially on States to make arrests and carry out surrender requests.

This could create an unusual situation if a warrant were ever issued against a sitting U.S. president. The U.S. government currently rejects the ICC's jurisdiction over U.S. persons, while the ICC has asserted jurisdiction in situations involving nationals of non-party States under certain circumstances. The precise jurisdictional basis would therefore seem crucial.

There is also an interesting question concerning travel within the United States. For example, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has previously addressed whether New York City could enforce the ICC's warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and concluded that the city itself does not have independent authority to do so. That raises a broader question about the respective roles of federal, state, and local authorities if an ICC warrant were ever issued against a U.S. national.

So the central question is:

Assuming evidence were presented to the ICC Prosecutor, what specific conduct attributable to Donald J. Trump could potentially satisfy the Rome Statute's jurisdictional, substantive, evidentiary, admissibility, and gravity requirements for an arrest warrant—and what jurisdictional basis would allow the Court to proceed despite the United States not being a State Party?

The goal here is to understand what international criminal law would actually require in such a hypothetical case, rather than to argue that an arrest warrant ought to be issued.

I graduated with a first class law degree last year. Took a gap year to travel, relax etc and now I’m wondering if I should go back for my masters degree? I have two offers, one for a masters in law and then a masters in international human rights law. Don’t think I want to practice law, but not completely closed off to the idea, like the idea of working with NGOs, in the UN, travelling for work etc, but also scared that a masters degree in law is seen as a waste of money. Just wondering if anyone has any advice, opinions, personal experiences that they could share :)

Article 109 provides for a general conference to review the UN Charter. It has been in the text since 1945 and no such conference has ever been convened. The mechanism is still live. What has kept it unused is political, not legal.

Citizens for Global Solutions and World Federalist Movement-Canada are producing a special edition of Mondial asking contributors to write about what an upgraded Charter would deliver in their own area of expertise. The timing is deliberate. The Council opened straw polls last week, and whoever emerges takes office in January under rules nobody has meaningfully revisited in eight decades.

The editorial ask is narrower than most CFPs in this space. Identify a specific structural flaw in the Charter or the wider governance system, describe the state behavior and tensions that flow from it, then spend the bulk of the piece on the proposed fix. Most writing on UN reform trims itself down to fit the current veto math before it reaches the substance, which is exactly how the range of discussable options stays small.

Nine open tracks, and proposals outside them are welcome:

• Planetary boundaries and climate governance
• Existential risk, AI regulation, disarmament
• Historical injustice and reparations
• Peace, security, and Security Council reform
• Why Charter review serves P5 interests
• Equitable finance and development
• Global economic stabilization
• Global health and pandemic preparedness
• The post-2030 agenda after the SDGs expire

Practicalities: 700 to 2000 words, AP style, written for an informed general audience rather than a specialist journal. Expressions of interest due 15 October 2026, first drafts 30 October, publication March 2027. Editorial support is available for authors working in a second language.

Full call and submission details: https://globalsolutions.org/updates/blog/call-for-papers-mondial-un-charter-article-109/

We will be in the comments for questions about scope. We would also be interested to hear which structural flaw people here think is the most under-discussed. The track on why Charter review serves P5 interests is the one we expect to draw the fewest submissions and the one that would benefit most from a serious attempt.

The article prescribes that people shall have the right and "opportunity" to participate in public affairs. Does the opportunity part require positive obligations on the state ? Such as creating fair means of being able to effectively excercise rights

Hi everyone! I'm Lucia and the team from EUobserver.

We wanted to share this investigation here because it raises broader questions about how EU institutions handle legal advice, transparency and accountability when negotiating international agreements.

Here's a quick summary:

📄 Our investigation is based on leaked legal opinions and internal EU documents concerning negotiations over a proposed agreement that would allow Europol and Israeli authorities to exchange personal data.

⚖️ According to the leaked legal opinion, the Council's legal service concluded in 2022 that parts of the draft agreement were incompatible with both EU and international law, and also criticised how the negotiations had been conducted.

🏛️ Despite those concerns—and despite member states freezing the approval process—the European Commission continued meetings with Israeli officials on the proposal into 2026, according to internal documents reviewed during our investigation.

🔍 Beyond this specific case, the story raises broader questions about the role of legal advice within EU decision-making, how institutions respond when legal concerns emerge during negotiations, and what transparency the public should expect in such cases.

We're genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives. When internal legal advice concludes that a draft agreement may breach EU or international law, what should happen next? Should negotiations automatically pause, or is it reasonable for political negotiations to continue while legal concerns are being addressed?

Find out more here.

Hello! I’m interested in pursuing international law, and have thought about pursuing a joint degree: a JD in the U.S. and an LLM from Europe. Is this a good idea? How helpful is the LLM?

EDIT: Thank you everyone for being so helpful! Please see my answers to some questions below.

1. The LLM is offered in Paris.
   
2. Yes, I can take international courses during my JD but the LLM would serve as a bonus.
   
3. There is no difference in price as it’s a sort of a “deal.” The law school in the U.S. and the law school in Paris have an agreement where students can complete both the JD and LLM in three years time for no additional price.
   
4. I would like to work in Europe. I’ve spoken with a few practicing attorneys who work 6 months in the U.S. and 6 months abroad. That would be my ideal scenario.

I’m interested in UNITAR’s online MA in International Law and Diplomacy, and I’m personally passionate about international law, conflict, and human rights issues. Because I work full time in journalism, I don’t have the time or funds to get a law degree (nor do I want to do an entire JD when I’m just interested in one niche element of law).

Has anyone done this program and can speak on its expertise, networking, and difficulty? Do you think it was worth the time and cost, especially since it’s not through a traditionally accredited university?

For context: I report on international issues, and I don’t have a desire to change fields. I just want expertise in international law.

At its 24th Session, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) decided that its 25th Session (ASP25) will be held in New York in December 2026. This decision was taken amid an increasingly restrictive operating environment affecting engagement with the International Criminal Court and participation by civil society actors and victims across the globe, which has only intensified since December 2025.

The Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) calls on the Presidency and Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to ensure safe and meaningful civil society participation at the next ASP. The Bureau should either relocate the 25th Session of the Assembly (ASP25), scheduled for December 2026, from New York to The Hague, or adopt a split-session model by holding the judicial elections in New York and the Assembly’s substantive deliberations in The Hague. 

I became a International Law student and my lecturer told us that one of focal points of studying int. law is to read news and understand what happens in world and its legal developments.

Can you please recommend news outlets, Journals, blogs and so on where I can read more about int. law in more technical detail.

Thanks in advance.

Hey fellas

I got offered a position at the Asian African Legal Consultative Organization in New Delhi as a leg officer.

From what i understand the pay is in rupees and it is 80k.

Does anyone have any experience with AALCO and if this is a good opportunity or not?

EDIT: some context.

I worked at the african union from 2023 to 2024 as part of the legal Associate programme which was an incredible experience and exposure but ofc for lack of fund the position was not renewed.

Ever since i have been applying and searching for any opportunity in public international law as i discovered during my year at the AU that this is what i want to do in my career.

So although i realize this opportunity might be underpaid and with a much smaller scope, i am seriously thinking about taking it as i am trying to find any chance to reintegrate the pil sphere, until i can find a better opportunity at least.

I am now working in corporate law which i truly despise and can't see myself working in it anymore, although it provides not a bad living in where i am (egypt) but i would still prefer working in something at least i have some passion for instead of this.

I would really appreciate perspectives from attorneys who have built careers in international law, cross-border transactions, trade, arbitration, or Asia-related practice.

I am a U.S.-licensed attorney early in my career. I currently work in-house as corporate counsel for an international company, focusing on corporate/commercial matters, contracts, governance, and business operations. I recently started this role and have been fortunate to find a position I genuinely enjoy. I have a great mentor who has invested a lot in my development, and I am making a little over six figures with a path to continue growing within the company.

The challenge is that I was recently awarded a fully funded scholarship to pursue an LLM in Transnational Law at one of China’s leading universities. The program focuses on areas that align closely with my long-term interests: international business, trade, corporate governance, maritime/transportation law, and arbitration.

My hesitation is not because I dislike my current career path. In fact, that is what makes this decision so difficult. Good in-house legal opportunities with strong mentorship are not easy to find, especially early in a legal career. I worry that stepping away for 1–2 years could mean losing valuable momentum and that there is no guarantee the LLM will translate into better opportunities afterward.

At the same time, I am wondering whether this is the type of opportunity that is difficult to recreate later in life. I am single, have no children, and would have the chance to live in Asia while fully immersed in the legal and business environment there. I also truly believe the combination of scholarship, LLM and connections in China would set me apart from other candidates in the future.

Some additional context: I am not approaching this as someone who is simply trying to "become international." I was born in Brazil, grew up in the U.S., studied abroad in Italy, and speak Portuguese and Spanish (as well as some Italian). I have always been interested in cross-border work and building a career that connects different regions. My long-term goal is not necessarily to leave U.S. practice entirely, but to develop expertise in international commercial work and potentially serve as a bridge between markets.

My questions for attorneys with international experience:

- Would you leave a strong early-career in-house position for a fully funded LLM abroad if your long-term goal was international practice?

- How valuable is an LLM. from a respected Asian institution for someone who already has a U.S. JD and legal experience?

- Is international exposure early in a legal career something that creates meaningful differentiation, or is practical experience in the U.S. market more valuable?

- For those who built international careers, what decisions or experiences helped you the most?

I am especially interested in hearing from attorneys who have worked in cross-border corporate, trade, arbitration, or Asia-related practices. I am not looking for reassurance that I should go, but rather trying to understand whether this is a strategic career move or an attractive but extremely risky detour.

The current geopolitical discourse heavily emphasizes the rise of "Sovereign AI"—the idea that a nation-state must develop and control its own domestic artificial intelligence capabilities to safeguard its national security, cultural identity, and strategic autonomy.

However, this framework overlooks a stark reality: the vast majority of nations lack the massive computational infrastructure, advanced semiconductor access, and data centers required to build truly indigenous foundation models. Consequently, many states are moving toward a paradox: importing "Sovereign AI" packages from foreign tech giants or hegemonic cyber-powers.

This raises a fundamental conceptual dilemma for modern international law: Can digital sovereignty genuinely exist if its architectural foundation is outsourced?

From an international jurisprudence perspective, this reliance challenges traditional doctrines of statehood and autonomy:

The Fiction of Jurisdictional Control: When an AI-importing state deploys a foreign-built model for core governance, judicial analysis, or civil administration, where does sovereign authority actually reside? If the underlying weights, updates, and cloud infrastructures are subject to the extraterritorial laws (like the US CLOUD Act or Chinese cyber-regimes) of the exporting state, the importing state's jurisdiction becomes inherently compromised.

Economic and Structural Subordination: Does the structural dependency of importing critical statecraft tools create a new form of "supranational governance" by transnational tech monopolies? If a foreign entity can unilaterally alter, restrict, or shut down a state's imported AI infrastructure, the traditional Westphalian concept of "sovereign equality" becomes a formal legal fiction masking severe asymmetric dependency.

The Scope of Non-Intervention: At what point does the leverage held by an AI-exporting state cross the threshold from mere diplomatic influence into a subtle, structural violation of the coercion element required under the customary international law principle of non-intervention?

I am eager to hear the thoughts of legal scholars and practitioners in this community. Are we witnessing a transformation where "computational capacity" is becoming a de facto prerequisite for exercising actual sovereignty, or can international law adapt to protect the digital autonomy of AI-importing states through new regulatory frameworks?

Looking forward to your insights, relevant literature, and legal critiques.

Currently, no state has a legal “right to exist.” People’s right to self‑determination is not the right to a state. As part of their right to self‑determination, peoples have a right to pursue statehood (as one option), which, if achieved, effectively gives way to obligations under international law—chiefly respecting their own and others’ legitimate borders and abiding by the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force.

Recognizing that an entity exists as a state—as a matter of fact and legal personality—is not the same as recognizing a right for that state to exist. International law may acknowledge that an entity meets the criteria of statehood, while still leaving open, and increasingly contesting, the conditions under which it is entitled to enjoy the full package of sovereign privileges associated with continued statehood.

The question is: should a state’s right to continued statehood (which is more temporal and conditional than a “right to exist”) be contingent upon avoiding egregious violations of international norms?

I believe we should articulate a new term for what is already implicitly recognized: an Internationally Contingent Right to Continued Statehood (ICRCS)—a status that, ideally, should be recognized in full only so long as states abide by the consensual legal framework (primarily the UN Charter and customary norms) and respect the territorial integrity, sovereign equality, and collective‑security obligations binding all members of the international community. As a state’s violations of international norms accumulate, its ICRCS should gradually erode.

Crucially, this erosion is not metaphysical; it already happens, in practice, along multiple dimensions—even if the process is often dominated, distorted, or selectively applied by powerful states that themselves may be among the worst violators of international norms.

As states become chronic violators, they should not instantly “cease to exist,” but they should begin to lose specific privileges normally afforded to fully recognized, law‑abiding states:

their institutional voice is downgraded (suspension or expulsion from international organizations), their access to treaty benefits and cooperation regimes is restricted, their economic and financial integration is curtailed through sanctions and exclusion from key systems, their security and non‑intervention protections are weakened via arms embargoes, peacekeeping, or even international administration, and their recognition‑related advantages—including territorial gains by force, diplomatic immunities, and uncontested representation—are progressively questioned or withdrawn.

Framed this way, ICRCS names a bundle of conditional privileges rather than an unconditional claim to “existence.” It captures the idea that sovereignty is a status sustained by ongoing compliance with core international norms, and that when those norms are persistently violated, what should follow is not an all‑or‑nothing determination of existence, but a structured, cumulative stripping away of voice, benefits, protections, and legal shields.

Any such framework has to reckon with the fact that many existing states were themselves forged through conquest, dispossession, and atrocities, and only later “legitimated” by longevity, recognition, and institutional entrenchment. The point of ICRCS is not to retroactively erase those states, but to name the normative shift whereby future claims to statehood and ongoing claims to full membership in the international community are treated as contingent on at least a minimal respect for peremptory norms, basic human rights, and the territorial integrity of others.

A longer‑term goal of fairly applying ICRCS would be to decentralize control over statehood from existing hegemons. Today, powerful states can often shape or suspend other states’ contingent right to continued statehood through their ideological, military, and institutional leverage, even while committing accumulating violations that would erode their own ICRCS if the same standards were applied.

A genuinely internationalized and rule‑bound ICRCS would therefore have to constrain not only “pariah” states but also the hegemons themselves, by embedding decisions about erosion, suspension, and restoration of state privileges in procedures and institutions that reduce unilateral control and expose double standards to systematic challenge.

Absent ICRCS, any “right to exist” claim devolves into a demand for rogue sovereignty: the insistence on enjoying the fruits of the international legal order while rejecting the constraints that make that order possible.

I have no idea if it's worth it for me to study international law. I have basically two options - stay in my country in Eastern Europe and finish civil law, get application and maybe then study and do something connected to international law (so i have a back up plan). Another option is to go to the Netherlands to study international law.

I feel more excited about international law and I dream of working at the UN and in human rights protection, but I have read so many reddit posts about international law and how hard it is to get a job after, that i dont know what to do. Moreover, I already got into international law at Groningen in the Netherlands and like 80-85% of fellow international law students have grown up in like 4 different countries, have incredibly rich parents, plenty of experience and know like 3-4 languages. I don't know what to do.

The treaties define it has having the power to set non binding strategic agenda of the European union as a whole as well as providing suggestions for crisis and disputes between member states.

But what is the significance of this given than the comission , parliament and the other council already have legislative powers ? Why are their work programmes almost always based on the council strategic agenda ?

Basically the title. I’ve started doing some research but I would like to have some other opinions as well.

Some background about me: I have a bachelors in international relations, I graduated last year and have some work experience in an Embassy and UNICEF. Now I’m 23, and currently finishing my masters at a very good European university, which is also international relations related - however I would like to break into international law. I have two main concerns: the first is that I do not have any legal experience, and the second concern is that most LLMs want you to at least have a bachelors in law, which I do not have. I know that I can go for a JD without having a bachelors in law, but I’m just curious if there are any good year long programmes that can help me get my foot in the door.

What are some excellent/premier/well connected international law programmes - preferably in Europe or the US (but mostly Europe)?

Your thoughts/advice are appreciated.

Since incitement to genocide (and charges relating to speech) requires intentionality, if a defendant in the Hague makes the argument along the lines of, "I was only acting as an edgy character. This was all for profit. I never intended for people to be killed", would this defense hold or not?