EJIL: The Podcast!

The situation in Sudan is often described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Going by the numbers, it could well be more than 150,000 people have died. More than 12 million people have been displaced. More than 21 million people are in a situation of acute food insecurity. But this framing of a humanitarian crisis, or worse, a humanitarian tragedy, seems to deplete the situation of agency, as if the situation is unfortunate, collateral damage of something that is inevitable. This framing stands in contrast to that of other situations of intense violence, for instance, Ukraine, Palestine, Myanmar and Iran, which are increasingly discussed not merely in terms of the humanitarian situation, but also in the language of international law, self determination, aggression, genocide. What does international law have to say about the situation in Sudan and how could it be used to halt the violence and promote justice, broadly defined? What role is there for the International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice, African Union, local courts or other institutions? How should we think about tensions between peace and justice, after decades of neither? Sarah Nouwen is joined by Kholood Khair (Confluence Advisory, formerly based in Khartoum), Mohaned Elnour (Sudanese human rights lawyer in exile) and Ambassador Namira Negm (Director of the African Migration Observatory). For links to events, materials and institutional mechanisms touched on in the discussion, visit https://www.ejiltalk.org/ejil-the-podcast-page/.

One feature of the turn to history in international law has been the adoption of ‘national’ traditions (here using ‘national’ very loosely) as a lens through which to explore a broader picture. This focus on national traditions has converged with rich work styled as comparative international law, exploring how international law operates as a fragile common language even as governments deploy its grammar and vocabulary in quite different ways. In this episode we take up the question of whether there is a distinctive Russian approach to or use of international law. This takes us to reflections on the terrain from which we judge this, particularly today. What are the comparators and from which perspective are we taking a view? It also takes us to the stakes of thinking in terms of these long-range continuities in national legal styles in the first place. How does that shape our perspective on the broader system and how it might develop in future? Megan Donaldson is joined by Lauri Mälksoo (University of Tartu), Erika de Wet (University of Graz) and the political scientist Gulnaz Sharafutdinova (Director of the Russia Institute, King’s College London).
Scholarship discussed in the episode includes Lauri Mälksoo’s recent book, Russia, the Soviet Union, and Imperial Continuity in International Law (2025); and Gulnaz Sharafutdinova’s The Red Mirror: Putin's Leadership and Russia's Insecure Identity (2020) and The Afterlife of the ‘Soviet Man’: Rethinking Homo Sovieticus (2023). Erika de Wet expands on themes in ‘Is the future for collective security regional? Assessing current challenges to regional and sub-regional security frameworks in Africa’, forthcoming Japanese Yearbook of International Law (2026).

Panelists Michelle Ratton Sanchez and Nicolás M. Perrone share reading recommendations on some of the themes in Ep 41: Thinking through Rupture in International Economic Law: Views from Latin America

In January 2026, the Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney gave a widely noted speech at the World Economic Forum, in which he described the current period we're living through as a rupture in the world order. How should we be thinking about rupture – and continuity – in relation to the contemporary international economic order? What is happening to international law, the purposes to which it is being put, its centrality as a technology of governing over distance, its status as a carrier for aspirations to multilateralism and universalism? Are we in fact living through a period of rupture or merely the loss of faith of a hegemon in its own international legal tools? This episode tackles these questions, and more, focussing particularly on how Latin America is experiencing and reacting to this moment of crisis – or, perhaps, of opportunity. Andrew Lang (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom) is joined by Michelle Ratton Sanchez Badin (FGV Sao Paulo School of Law, Brazil) and Nicolás M. Perrone (Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile). For more on the scholarship and reading recommendations of panelists, see accompanying post on EJIL:Talk!.

Palestine and the Palestinians are often the subjects of conversations in the news, on blogs and in judicial opinions, but not present in conversations themselves. The issues are treated episodically in connection with dramatic events or judicial processes or UN resolutions, and these can entrench an atomization of attention into the atrocities committed in the Israeli-occupied territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, restrict visibility of historical continuities and miss more gradual and pervasive developments. One difficulty with international courts, which have been particularly prominent recently, is that the proceedings are long and often so far removed from the people they affect that they can miss complex human dimensions. Discussions about sovereignty, statehood, security, borders, violations of conventions and the interpretation of UN resolutions might not capture what is happening on the ground. Each of these areas could fill a podcast in its own right, but this episode tries to bring out a sense of the range of legal questions concerning the past, present and future of Palestine. Victor Kattan (Nottingham; also adviser to Britain Owes Palestine campaign) is joined by Mona Rishmawi (inter alia, visiting professor at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights) and Sonia Boulos (Antonio de Nebrija University, Spain). For materials referred to, see EJIL:Talk!