The Pinochet Case remains a defining authority on the collision between torture, extradition, universal jurisdiction, and the immunity of former state leaders. Its importance is often misstated.

The Soering v United Kingdom case is a landmark judgment on extradition, human rights, and State responsibility in public international law. Decided by the European Court of Human Rights in 1989, it established that a State may violate the European Convention on Human Rights when it extradites a person to another country where substantial grounds show a real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The South China Sea Arbitration is one of the most important decisions ever issued under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its legal importance is often misunderstood. The Tribunal did not decide who owns the Spratly Islands, Scarborough Shoal, or any other disputed land feature.

On 28 April 2026, Trial Chamber X of the International Criminal Court delivered its reparations order for victims in Al Hassan, the Mali case formally known as The Prosecutor v. Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud.

The genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice is one of the most important legal proceedings under the Genocide Convention since Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro and The Gambia v Myanmar.

The Netanyahu ICC Arrest Warrant raises a direct legal question: must States Parties to the Rome Statute arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters their territory while the warrant remains in force? The issue is not only political or diplomatic.

The Duterte ICC Trial places one of the most contested questions in modern international criminal law before the International Criminal Court: when can a domestic law-enforcement campaign become a crime against humanity?

DRC v. Uganda stands as one of the most practically consequential judgments ever delivered by the International Court of Justice on armed conflict between States.

Nicaragua v United States of America stands as one of the most consequential judgments ever delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Decided in 1986, the case remains a foundational reference for understanding the prohibition of the use of force, the principle of non-intervention, the relationship between treaty law and customary international law, and the legal limits of indirect or proxy warfare.

Arrest Warrant Case (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Belgium) is one of the few International Court of Justice decisions that still structures day-to-day legal advice on both (i) the criminal reach of national courts and (ii) the operational limits imposed by immunities of senior foreign officials.

The Ireland v. United Kingdom case is the European Court of Human Rights’ most consequential early attempt to draw a legally operational line between “torture” and “inhuman or degrading treatment” under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), while simultaneously adjudicating a security-state’s emergency measures under Article 15 and constructing a durable approach to proof in systemic ill-treatment litigation (European Court of Human Rights, 1978).

answer a prior question of public international law: can the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII, lawfully create a criminal tribunal with authority to try individuals, compel State cooperation, and apply international humanitarian law (IHL) beyond the narrow confines of inter-State war?

The Fisheries Case is not primarily a story about Norwegian fishing enforcement or a bilateral quarrel over maps. It is a foundational decision on how international law constrains the legal construction of the coast—specifically, when a coastal State may replace the normal low-water mark baseline with straight baselines that enclose large maritime spaces as internal waters and, at the same time, generate the baseline from which the territorial sea is measured.

Barcelona Traction Case stands as one of the most structurally important judgments in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, shaping how public international law understands diplomatic protection, corporate nationality, and the limits of State standing in disputes involving private economic interests.

The US v. Iran Hostage Case marks a rare moment in which a rapidly unfolding geopolitical crisis was deliberately reframed as a legal controversy governed by binding norms of public international law.