The American people have spoken: Donald Trump won the presidential election in a landslide, securing himself a second term in the White House that is due to begin on January 20th next year. The Republican nominee’s resounding victory comes with major implications for the war in Ukraine: Shortly after the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that a peace plan that would allow Russia to keep the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies was circulating within Trump’s transition team. Regardless of its political feasibility, this plan raises important legal questions: Does international law allow aggressor states to walk away with territorial gains after starting a war? And would a peace agreement along these lines affect the obligations of third parties? By answering these and other questions, this post seeks to shed light on some aspects of the jus post bellum that might emerge in Ukraine under the incoming Trump administration.
Treaty Law
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To Future-Proof the WHO Pandemic Agreement, Rethink the Amendment Clauses
Recent negotiations on the proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement suggest that the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) will need more time to reach consensus on critical issues within the international legal framework for pandemic preparedness and response. Key topics, including one health and pathogen access and benefit-sharing, remain under discussion. One approach…
On the Linkage Between Indigenous Rights and Democracy
We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are (anonymous) Introduction I wish to acknowledge the mana and scholarship of my colleague Prof Claire Charters and wish to thank her as one of Aotearoa’s leading Māori scholars for making the time and effort to read and comment…
In with the old? The calls for scrapping the ship-scrapping convention
The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 is set to enter into force in June 2025 and deals with the responsible dismantling of shipping vessels. The Convention’s low standards at the time of drafting in 2009 were the result of states’ unwillingness to seriously address planetary and…
ECOWAS Withdrawal and the law of treaty withdrawal
On 28 January 2024, the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger issued a coordinated joint communiqué on national television in their respective countries announcing their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). All three countries had been under political and economic sanctions from ECOWAS following coup d’états and unconstitutional changes of government. …