International Law

Two Irish lawyers have set sail towards Gaza alongside a flotilla which is seeking to break Israel's blockade and bring humanitarian aid directly to starving Palestinians.

The president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been urged to investigate bizarre remarks about Israel attributed by a newspaper to the court's vice-president. Ugandan judge Julia Sebutinde, who has served on the court since 2012 and as vice-president since 2024, is alleged to have spo

Simon Harris has joined 20 other foreign ministers and the EU's foreign policy chief in condemning Israel's E1 settlement plan as "unacceptable and a violation of international law". Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who belongs to the far-right Mafdal–Religious Zionism party, has b

The Trump administration has imposed new sanctions on two judges and two deputy prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, French judge Nicolas Guillou and deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan, from Fiji, and Mame Mandiaye Niang, from Senegal, are the lat

Karim Khan KC, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has been ordered to recuse himself from the court’s investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela due to a conflict of interest arising from a family connection. The ICC’s appeals judges rule

An Irish expert in human rights law who played a role in the unprecedented arrest of two Israeli soldiers in Belgium has urged more countries to carry out criminal investigations into war crimes in Gaza. Two Israeli soldiers were arrested at the Tomorrowland music festival in Belgium last week on th

Legislation allowing members of the Irish Defence Forces to be deployed overseas without a UN mandate requires additional safeguards, an Oireachtas committee has said. The joint committee on defence and national security has made 27 recommendations following pre-legislative scrutiny of the general s

The US has imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, a leading UN expert on Palestine, in connection with her support for the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ms Albanese has served since May 2022 as special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 19

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for the Taliban's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani. Judges yesterday said there were reasonable grounds to suspect both men have committed the crime against humanity of persecution on gend

A local authority has backed calls for "gender apartheid" to be recognised as a crime against humanity under international law. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council this week gave unanimous support to a motion proposed by Fine Gael councillor Maurice Dockrell, who previously practised as a s

Ireland has filed its long-awaited intervention in South Africa's high-profile case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The case, initiated in December 2023, centres on allegations that Israel's conduct in Gaza is in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishm

Human rights experts have welcomed the Irish government's decision to intervene in cases alleging genocide by Israel and Myanmar in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Tánaiste and foreign affairs minister Micheál Martin yesterday confirmed the government will intervene in South

The Irish government has defended the "independence and impartiality" of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders. Judges in The Hague said yesterday they have concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli prime minist

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. In a significant decision announced today, the court's Pre-Trial Chamber I said there were reasonable grounds to believe that the pair were respon

Eoin Jackson considers how Ireland should respond to new proposals to recognise ecocide as an international crime. In September 2024, a group of Pacific Island states proposed that environmental destruction be criminalised under international law as a crime of “ecocide”.