In a prior post on this blog, I examined whether the existing framework of international crimes—namely, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide—could be mobilized to address the systemic exploitation and killing of animals. I concluded that the relevance of these crimes to such conducts is, at best, incidental. Primarily designed to protect human beings, international crimes offer legal safeguards to animals only indirectly, namely when the harm inflicted also affects human welfare. More fundamentally, such crimes were crafted to target exceptional human crises: armed conflict (war crimes), widespread or systematic attacks against civilian populations (crimes against humanity), and acts of extermination against specific human groups (genocide). They were never intended to confront the “normalized” structural violence routinely inflicted upon animals through practices like industrial farming, scientific experimentation, and habitat destruction. Yet, such forms of violence produce immense suffering and the mass death of animals on a global scale.
International Criminal Law
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Myths around the review process of the Kampala amendments on the crime of aggression
The Special Session of the Assembly of States Parties on the review of the amendments on the crime of aggression is approaching (it is scheduled for 7-9 July 2025 in New York, despite the attempts to postpone it and move to the Hague for various reasons, incl. potential problems of delegates with the entry to the USA).
The First Ecocide Treaty?
Culminating in Vanuatu’s long-anticipated proposal to amend Article 5 of the Rome Statute with a new international crime last September, the burgeoning ecocide conversation has recently reached new heights. Various jurisdictions, including Belgium and the European Union, have passed ecocide-inspired environmental criminal laws in past months. A freshly launched Ecocide Law Advisory,…
The Sudan Genocide Case and the Legal Effect of Reservations to Compromissory Clauses in Disputes Concerning Obligations Erga Omnes Partes
Introduction On 5 May, the International Court of Justice (‘Court’ or ‘ICJ’) issued an order in the case brought by Sudan against the United Arab Emirates (‘UAE’) (see commentaries here and here). The dispute concerned alleged violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention (‘the Convention’) arising from acts attributed to the UAE in its…
Lex Mitior “on trial” before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers: Whither Legality
On 17 April 2025, the Kosovo Specialist Chamber of the Constitutional Court (Chamber) issued a worrying judgment regarding the more lenient punishment – the lex mitior principle under Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) and Article 33 of the Kosovo Constitution. The reasoning relies on the legal status…
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