Abstract As well as adopting a new Pandemic Agreement in 2025, the “legal reaction” of the international community to the COVID-19 pandemic also included the adoption in 2024 of a substantial set of amendments to the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations, which had already been practically overhauled in 2005 from the previous model. The process was set in motion by the United States and ran in parallel with the negotiation of the Pandemic Agreement, thus creating evident political complexities but also laying the foundations for a synergistic and complementary relationship. The amendments entered into force on September 19, 2025, but their universality and effectiveness are still a work in progress.
Abstract This introductory note provides an overview of the amendments brought by the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR), which will apply from June 2026 as part of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It outlines the main changes introduced by the new framework, including developments relating to procedural guarantees, special procedures, remedies, and ‘safe country’ concepts.
Abstract On July 25, 2025, the French Court of Cassation handed down an important decision concerning the existence in international law of possible exceptions to the functional immunity of agents of a foreign state. The Court of Cassation reached the conclusion that the “principle of functional immunity from jurisdiction in criminal matters” recognized for foreign agents acting in the exercise of their functions cannot be invoked in cases of prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. However, the Court’s internationalist approach, which sought to identify the evolution of custom on the issue by examining relevant state practice, remains exclusively Eurocentric, by examining the practice of only five states, all from the same region of the world.
Abstract In the Confirmation of Charges decision concerning Joseph Kony, a Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed thirty-nine charges against Kony, the leader of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army. The charges covered a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity, many related to sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against girls and young women. This decision was further notable as resulting from the ICC’s first confirmation of charges process conducted in absentia because, despite an arrest warrant dating to 2005, Kony has never been brought into custody. As a result, the process leading to this decision addressed novel questions of law for the ICC.
Abstract The Agreement between the Council of Europe and Ukraine establishes a Special Tribunal to prosecute individuals bearing the greatest responsibility for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Adopted in June 2025, the treaty-based tribunal responds to Russia’s use of force beginning in 2014 and escalating in 2022. The Tribunal’s Statute explicitly removes head of state immunity, ensuring that senior leaders may face prosecution. Jurisdiction is limited to aggression as defined by UN General Assembly Resolution 3314. The institutional framework includes chambers, a prosecutor’s office, and a registry, with robust fair trial guarantees. This represents a significant development in international criminal justice and accountability for leadership crimes.
In Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States , the Supreme Court held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not apply to criminal prosecutions of foreign state instrumentalities. The Court found that FSIA’s text and structure address only civil actions. On remand, the Second Circuit ruled that Halkbank lacked common-law immunity from criminal prosecution, deferring to the Executive Branch’s decision to prosecute and concluding that state-owned corporations enjoy no immunity for commercial activity under common law. The court’s analysis relied primarily on pre-1976 U.S. cases rather than international law. The Supreme Court denied certiorari in October 2025, ending the immunity dispute.
In the judgment Lameck Bazil v. United Republic of Tanzania , the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR) dealt with the application of the death penalty in Tanzania. 1
While the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques offers great promise to society, there is growing public concern about AI's impact on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.1 As a consequence, many international organizations have developed legal frameworks for AI governance. These began with the Universal Guidelines for AI (2018), the OECD AI Principles (2019), later adopted by the G20 nations, the UNESCO Recommendation on AI Ethics, and most notably, the EU Artificial Act, a comprehensive framework for the regulation of AI.
On March 5, 2024, the “Best Practices for the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art” were introduced in Washington, DC.1 Prepared by the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) and diplomats from various countries, they are presented as legally non-binding but morally important standards to clarify and improve the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.2 As such, they reinforce earlier calls on states to identify artifacts lost due to Nazi persecution and support “just and fair” solutions for title issues. Nevertheless, they go beyond these earlier instruments by proposing further action and widening key elements of the material norm.
On December 24, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted unanimously in support of resolution 79/23, adopting the “United Nations Convention against Cybercrime; Strengthening International Cooperation for Combating Certain Crimes Committed by Means of Information and Communications Technology Systems and for the Sharing of Evidence in Electronic Form of Serious Crimes” (UNCC). 1 This Christmas Eve consensus marked the end of a multilateral journey that formally began in 2019, and signaled the beginning of a new chapter in the much longer history of international cooperation on cybercrime.
On December 14, 2023, the Appeals Panel of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) delivered its judgment in its first war crimes case against Salih Mustafa, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), charged with leading a guerrilla unit known as the “BIA” unit Zllash, in the Gollak region of Kosovo. Mustafa was charged by the Specialist Prosecutor's Office (SPO) with war crimes, including arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture, and murder, in connection with the mistreatment of prisoners at a makeshift detention facility in Zllash in April 1999. The Appeals Judgment affirmed Mustafa's convictions for arbitrary detention, torture, and murder as war crimes, but granted his appeal, in part, against his sentence. The Appeals Panel lowered Mustafa's single sentence from twenty-six to twenty-two years of imprisonment, concluding that this reflected the totality of Mustafa's criminal conduct in this case. The sentence was subject to further review and determination by the Appeals Panel pursuant to the Supreme Court Panel's subsequent decision on protection of legality, wherein that Panel granted Grounds 1 and 3 of the Mustafa's Protection of Legality Request. The Supreme Court Panel annulled the Appeals Judgment with respect to Mustafa's sentence, and it remanded the Appeals Judgment to the Appeals Panel for a new determination thereon. Accordingly, the Appeals Chambers Panel made a new determination of the sentence, by imposing a single sentence of fifteen years of imprisonment on Mustafa. These Trial and Appeals judgments mark a milestone for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), as they represent the first ruling by this tribunal in a war crimes case.
On February 28, 2024, the International Criminal Court's Trial Chamber IX issued the largest reparations order in the Court's history against Dominic Ongwen, a former commander in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), for crimes Ongwen committed in Uganda between 2002 and 2005. Ongwen had been convicted of 62 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murders, crimes of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and abducting children and forcing them to fight in Uganda's civil war. After the Appeals Chamber affirmed Ongwen's convictions, Trial Chamber IX awarded €52,429,000 in reparations to 49,772 victims of his crimes. Ongwen has appealed. His appeal remains pending as of this writing.
