In This Issue

This issue opens with a symposium in our occasional series on The European Tradition in International Law. This instalment focuses on the work of Italian jurist Antonio (‘Nino’) Cassese (1937–2011), a founding Editor of EJIL. Convened by Megan Donaldson, Neha Jain, and Sarah Nouwen, the symposium consists of a framing article by Megan Donaldson and three contributions. Donaldson sets out the symposium’s aims: rather than providing an exhaustive account of Cassese’s contributions, the articles examine his trajectory through the lenses of tradition and innovation, using his work as a foundation for broader reflections on biography and the history of international law.

In the first contribution, Kirsten Sellars examines the 1977 conversation between Cassese and Dutch jurist BVA Röling. Cassese’s interview with Röling culminated in the 1993 publication of a book on the Tokyo Trial. Sellars argues that this book reveals significant insights into the legal thought of two central figures in the history of international criminal law, who, despite their differences, shared a European outlook. In the next article, Lorenzo Gradoni presents an intellectual biography of Cassese, employing archival materials and early writings. Gradoni explores the intersection of Cassese’s approach to legal expertise and his reformist or progressive mindset, shedding light on the innovative potential of his professional engagements. Finally, Adil Hasan Khan turns to Cassese’s influence on the European tradition of international law, focusing on his writing. Cassese’s redescription of the work of earlier Euro-American international lawyers, Khan argues, illustrates how international lawyers can innovate while preserving and actualising received traditions.

In our Articles section, Dilek Kurban analyses the relationship between the European Court of Human Rights and Turkey as a case study to examine how authoritarian regimes resist oversight by international human rights courts. Through a mixed-methods approach, including interviews with diverse actors in Turkey, Kurban argues that authoritarian regimes aim to reduce the scrutiny of international courts without necessarily undermining their authority, and that courts can sometimes be complicit in this resistance.

The second article, by Niccolò Zugliani, addresses the relationship between the customary law of neutrality and the jus ad bellum amidst the ongoing international armed conflict in Ukraine. Zugliani argues that states not participating in the conflict have disregarded norms including the prohibition to supply weapons to belligerents. He proposes that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict constitutes a crucial instance of state practice on the applicability of the law of neutrality when the conflict is initiated by an act of aggression.

Closing the Articles section, Ming-Sung Kuo explores the limits of constitutional analogy in international law by examining responses by constitutional and international lawyers to the dangers of authoritarian co-optation. Kuo contends that international lawyers, unlike their constitutional colleagues, have shown limited interest in militant democracy. The absence of militant democracy on the international plane, Kuo argues, underscores the non-democratic yet representative nature of the international legal order.

In Roaming Charges, we feature a photograph entitled Love and Care.

This issue’s Critical Review of Governance section presents a debate. In his article, Christian Riffel argues that New Zealand’s free trade agreements (FTAs) with the European Union and the United Kingdom are groundbreaking for incorporating participation rights of Māori in government decision-making. Riffel contends that these inclusions have intensified New Zealand’s ‘indigenization’ of its free trade agreements, with democratic implications. In her reply, Claire Charters counters that Riffel misconstrues Māori rights under domestic and international law. Charters explains that under te Tiriti o Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding constitutional document, Indigenous peoples have rights to exercise public and governance power alongside a state, which cannot be conflated with minority rights.

The Last Page in this issue is dedicated to Miners, by English poet and soldier Wilfred Owen. ‘All a poet can do today is warn’, Owen declared in a draft preface to his poems, soon before he was killed in action in the Great War.