Law and Practice of the United Nations (3rd edition)
A new edition of Law and Practice of the United Nations for a new and troubling age. When I first spoke with the late, great Thomas M. Franck about turning his famous course on the constitutional law of the UN into a textbook, he said he was wary because he regarded such books as boomerangs: […] more…
Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Crisis of Trust in Public Institutions
[United Nations University] Misinformation and disinformation are not simply problems of false content or content moderation. They are multilevel governance failure. Data practices and platform architectures shape how manipulation spreads. Governments regulate, sometimes crudely. Researchers often lack the access needed to understand systemic risks. And the consequences are felt across climate action, public health, elections, […] more…
We Can’t Wait for an AI Crisis Before Taking Action
[Straits Times] Technology is outpacing regulatory efforts. The UN meetings in Geneva this week are a chance to begin building a global agency for AI governance. Simon Chesterman and Dame Wendy Hall On July 2, OpenAI’s Sam Altman called for a “simple framework” for governing advanced artificial intelligence. His proposal is not nothing. […] more…
Building AI the World Can Actually Trust
At the recent ATxSummit here in Singapore, I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Yoshua Bengio — Turing Award-winning scientist and the first living scholar to pass one million Google Scholar citations. (I gather this tally is beaten only by Michel Foucault, but what has he written lately?) As AI systems become more capable, autonomous, […] more…
Should We Take Trump’s Board of Peace Literally — or Seriously?
[Straits Times] When the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803 in late 2025, it welcomed the proposed Board of Peace as a transitional mechanism to help implement a plan to end the horrific Gaza conflict. At the time, it appeared to be another pragmatic, time-limited device in the long tradition of ad hoc arrangements endorsed […] more…
Untied Nations? Saving the UN Security Council
[EJIL] The United Nations Security Council is often criticized for being unrepresentative, paralysed by the veto, and impotent in the face of major conflicts. Yet beneath these familiar complaints lies a more profound dilemma: whether international society still believes in the desirability, let alone the possibility, of a global legal order anchored in the Council. […] more…
Lawful but Awful: Evolving Legislative Responses to Address Online Misinformation, Disinformation, and Mal-Information in the Age of Generative AI
[AJCL] “Fake news” is an old problem. In recent years, however, increasing usage of social media as a source of information, the spread of unverified medical advice during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of generative artificial intelligence have seen a rush of legislative proposals seeking to minimize or mitigate the impact of false or […] more…
Silicon Sovereigns: Artificial Intelligence, International Law, and the Tech-Industrial Complex
[AJIL] Artificial intelligence is reshaping science, society, and power. Yet many debates over its likely impact remain fixated on extremes: utopian visions of universal benefit and dystopian fears of existential doom, or an arms race between the U.S. and China, or the Global North and Global South. What’s missing is a serious conversation about distribution […] more…
我们,机器人? We, the Robots — in Chinese!
We, the Robots? Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law has been translated into Chinese, with a new preface! (点击此处立即购买！) More than three decades after I lived in Beijing for a year, studying at 北京第二外国语学院 (now the Beijing International Studies University), it’s a thrill to have my first book published in Chinese. Alas […] more…
Truth Decay
[Straits Times] Though Donald Trump would like credit for coining the term, “fake news” was a headline in the New York Times more than a century ago. The history of propaganda is far older. An early example was Egypt’s Rameses the Great, who decorated temples with monuments to his tremendous victory in the 13th century […] more…
The Evolution of AI Governance
[IEEE Computer] Many companies and a growing number of governments now have guides, frameworks, or principles claiming to govern their use of AI. Seven years ago, virtually none did. This article presents original research on documents produced by 193 countries and the top 100 companies by market capitalization. A key shift occurred in 2016 when […] more…
The Tragedy of AI Governance
[Just Security] This should be the golden age of AI governance. But words and actions are running in opposite directions. Beginning around 2016, a proliferation of guides, frameworks, and principles sought to articulate ground rules for AI. The trend began in western technology companies, but quickly spread across sectors and around the world. States soon got in on the […] more…
We, the Robots? Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law
Should we regulate artificial intelligence? Can we? From self-driving cars and high-speed trading to algorithmic decision-making, the way we live, work, and play is increasingly dependent on AI systems that operate with diminishing human intervention. These fast, autonomous, and opaque machines offer great benefits — and pose significant risks. This book examines how our laws […] more…
Scholar, Advocate, Judge: James Crawford 1948–2021
[The Interpreter] James Crawford, who passed away on Monday, was the most influential Australian international lawyer of all time. Many of us in the field hope for some measure of success as scholars, advocates, or perhaps as a judge. Crawford’s greatness in all three areas might have been infuriating had he not retained his humour, […] more…
Weapons of Mass Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and International Law
[Cambridge International Law Journal] The answers each political community finds to the law reform questions posed artificial intelligence (AI) may differ, but a near-term threat is that AI systems capable of causing harm will not be confined to one jurisdiction — indeed, it may be impossible to link them to a specific jurisdiction at all. […] more…
Herding Schrödinger’s Cats: The Limits of the Social Science Approach to International Law
[Chicago Journal of International Law] The struggle to assert the legitimacy and relevance of international law is integral to its story. Among academics, that tale has seen other lawyers question whether it is “really” law, while scholars of international relations have dismissed it in a bemused footnote. Among politicians, the narrative has been one of […] more…
Can International Law Survive a Rising China?
[European Journal of International Law] The founding myth of international law is the sovereign equality of its member states. How, then, can and should it accommodate the rise of one potential hegemon and the decline of another? This review essay discusses an important new book by Cai Congyan, of Xiamen University, that tries to reconcile […] more…
Covid-19 and the Global Legal Disorder
[Straits Times] When the world restarts and the masks are put away, will the global legal order look the same? Should it? A crisis is a terrible time to make predictions about the future. But it’s a great time to rethink dubious assumptions of the past, and address tensions revealed in the present. Just […] more…
The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Asia and the Pacific
The growing economic and political significance of Asia has exposed a tension in the modern international order. Despite expanding power and influence, Asian states have played a minimal role in creating the norms and institutions of international law; today they are the least likely to be parties to international agreements or to be represented in […] more…
The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties
The United Nations is a vital part of the international order. Yet this book argues that the greatest contribution of the UN is not what it has achieved (improvements in health and economic development, for example) or avoided (global war, say, or the use of weapons of mass destruction). It is, instead, the process through […] more…
Kofi Annan: Great Expectations
It says much about the UN Secretary-General that the two men widely regarded as the greatest to hold the office went in with the lowest expectations. Dag Hammarskjöld was an unknown Swedish civil servant who found out he was a candidate for the position when he received the telegram offering it to him. He went […] more…
R2P and Humanitarian Intervention: From Apology to Utopia and Back Again
[Oxford Handbook of the International Law of Global Security] Next year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Kosovo conflict that was the genesis of the responsibility to protect (‘R2P’). This doctrine was developed precisely as an alternative to humanitarian intervention — the notion that unilateral force can be used to protect human rights in another […] more…
International Law and Its Others
If the rule of law means anything, it is that the law is meant to apply equally to all regardless of the vacillations of power. This is the founding myth of law at the national level — famously forbidding the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges of Paris at night. […] more…
How “Public” Is Public International Law? Towards a Typology of NGOs and Civil Society Actors
[Global Governance] How “public” is public international law? Despite its natural law origins, international law has long privileged the role of the state. Today, NGOs and civil society actors play an increasingly important role — offering a voice for the disenfranchised through their advocacy, and a helping hand for the disadvantaged through their operations. Calls […] more…
International Law in the Asian Century
An academic learns most through errors and omissions. Far better to be criticized in text than footnoted in passing — both, of course, are preferable to being ignored. I am therefore enormously grateful that such esteemed scholars and practitioners were willing to take part in this joint Opinio Juris and EJIL:Talk! symposium and offer their responses […] more…
Opinio Juris and EJIL:Talk! Symposium
A decade after moving from New York to Singapore, I began work on this article in the hope of understanding what seemed to me a paradox. Well into the much-vaunted “Asian century”, the states of this region arguably benefit most from the security and economic dividends of a world ordered by international law and institutions […] more…
Dogs of War or Jackals of Terror? Foreign Fighters and Mercenaries in International Law
[International Community Law Review] The threat of “blowback” from foreign fighters, unaffiliated volunteers who join an insurgency in a distant land, has led states to explore a variety of normative mechanisms. Among these is the international legal regime applicable to mercenaries. This short article considers the evolution of mercenarism and the efforts to regulate it. […] more…
Lies, Damned Lies, and the International Rule of Law
Imprecision of meaning in international law is rarely accidental. Diplomacy is an architecture of compromise, with states routinely adopting malleable or self-serving definitions depending on their interests or aspirations. So it is with the international rule of law. A decade ago, every member state of the United Nations recognized the need for “universal adherence to […] more…
Law and Practice of the United Nations
The first edition of this book appeared in 2008, based heavily on the material underpinning the New York University School of Law seminar class “UN Constitutional Law,” taught for half a century by the late, great Thomas M. Franck. His co-authors, Simon Chesterman and David M. Malone, each taught this course with him over a […] more…
The UN Secretary-General in His or Her Labyrinth
[Straits Times] The race to find the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations is on. Whoever the new leader is, one of his or her challenges will be managing the all-powerful Security Council. The Secretary-General of the United Nations depends on the Security Council, especially its five permanent members, to get elected and to get […] more…
Asia’s Ambivalence About International Law & Institutions: Past, Present, and Futures
[European Journal of International Law] Asian states are the least likely of any regional grouping to be party to most international obligations or to have representation reflecting their number and size in international organizations. This is despite the fact that Asian states have arguably benefited the most from the security and economic dividends provided by […] more…
The Secretary-General We Deserve?
[Global Governance] The Charter of the United Nations frequently maps out a chasm between its aspirations and the means to achieve them. War is to be renounced, human rights are to be advanced, and development to be a priority. Yet peace is beholden to the five permanent members of the Security Council, human rights obligations […] more…
Who Wants to Rule the World?
How should we choose the next Secretary-General of the United Nations? Carefully, one might think. The first of the eight people who have held the office described it to the second as “the most impossible job on this earth”. Head of an international civil service, nominal commander in chief of 100,000 peacekeepers, and lackey of […] more…
Responsibility to Protect, Responsibility to Whom?
[International Studies Review] In the natural sciences it is customary for theories and concepts to be tested and retested, falsifiability being one of the touchstones of academic rigour. In the social sciences, by contrast, it is common for ideas to simplify and ossify, with acceptance and repetition degrading them into clichés. So it is with […] more…
Why Not Torture?
Revelations in December 2014 that the CIA engaged in torture following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States should have surprised no one. But they may yet help to dispel the longstanding myth that torture works. The release of the long-awaited Senate report has filled in gruesome details of sleep deprivation, forced standing […] more…
From Community to Compliance?
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been transformed from a periodic meeting of ministers to become the most important regional organisation in Asia’s history. An important tension in this transformation is the question of whether the ‘ASEAN way’ — defined by consultation and consensus, rather than enforceable obligations — is consistent with the […] more…
Crimean War 2.0: Ukraine and International Law
Tomorrow, the people of Crimea will vote in a referendum on whether the peninsula should secede from Ukraine and unite with Russia. No one seriously doubts what the result will be. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach to democracy is much like Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts: he prefers verdicts to be known in advance. […] more…
The International Court of Justice in Asia: Interpreting the Temple of Preah Vihear Case
[Asian Journal of International Law] This article examines the 2013 decision by the International Court of Justice interpreting its 1962 judgment in the Temple of Preah Vihear case between Cambodia and Thailand. The more recent decision is situated in relation to the Court’s evolving role in Asia. Only eight Asian states have accepted the compulsory […] more…
Who Rules the World?
[Oxford Handbook of International Organizations] Have you ever wondered how the leaders of international organizations are chosen? The methods range from quasi-democracy through unilateralism to the random progression of alphabetical order by member state. This essay surveys the different procedures by which international organizations appoint their executive heads — whether designated president, secretary-general, managing director, […] more…
International Law and the Rise of Asia
The judgment by the International Court of Justice earlier this month on a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia demonstrated the importance of international law to Asia. But how important is Asia to international law? Asian countries are significantly under-represented in the institutions of global governance. Historically, the countries of the region have also played […] more…
International Criminal Law with Asian Characteristics?
[Columbia Journal of Asian Law] The history of international criminal law has been, for the most part, a European tale. Though it was American insistence that prevented the summary execution of hundreds or thousands of German officers after the Second World War — an approach favoured by Churchill and seriously contemplated by Stalin — the […] more…
Syria Deal No Utopia for International Law
Two cheers for international law! A month ago, when I first contemplated writing a piece for The Straits Times on Syria and international law, I was preparing for war. As someone who teaches international law, I must periodically explain to my students why countries like the United States occasionally break the law. Until a few […] more…
Taking ASEAN Seriously
If ASEAN is ever going to play a meaningful role in dealing with regional crises like haze, its members need to agree to carry out their obligations — and show that they have done so. THIS FRIDAY, Singapore celebrates its 48th National Day with the traditional parade and grumbling over songs. The day before, Singapore […] more…
Climate Change: What Do We Owe the Future?
The bushfires that continue to ravage Victoria and New South Wales this Australia Day have added another nail in the climate change sceptics’ coffin: the temperature on the ground was literally off the charts. Previously capped at 50 degrees centigrade, Australia’s meteorologists recently had to add two new colours — deep purple and pink — […] more…
Lawyers, Guns, and Money: The Governance of Business Activities in Conflict Zones
[Chicago Journal of International Law] This paper argues that the norms governing businesses in conflict zones are both understudied and undervalued. Understudied because the focus is generally on human rights of universal application, rather than the narrower regime of international humanitarian law (IHL). Undervalued because IHL may provide a more certain foundation for real norms […] more…
Private Security, Public Order: The Outsourcing of Public Services and Its Limits
Private actors are increasingly taking on roles traditionally arrogated to the state. Both in the industrialized North and the developing South, functions essential to external and internal security and to the satisfaction of basic human needs are routinely contracted out to non-state agents. In the area of privatization of security functions, attention by academics and […] more…
Does ASEAN Exist? The Association of Southeast Asian Nations as an International Legal Person
[Singapore Year Book of International Law] The ASEAN Charter, which entered into force on 15 December 2008, asserts in Article 3 that ASEAN “as an inter-governmental organisation, is hereby conferred legal personality”. This essay examines the legal status of the Association, as well as the political question of whether the whole is greater than (or […] more…
Globalization Rules: Accountability, Power, and the Prospects for Global Administrative Law
[Global Governance] From urban protesters against the World Trade Organization to African nations barred from importing generic HIV drugs, globalization is seen as either capitalism red in tooth and claw or a new and more efficient form of colonialism. But a body of rules is emerging that may both constrain and improve the decisions of […] more…
Law and Practice of the United Nations
A unique new course book demonstrating the interaction of law and politics in United Nations practice. Law and Practice of the United Nations: Documents and Commentary presents primary materials with expert commentary, demonstrating the interaction between law and practice in the UN organization, and also discusses the possibilities and limitations of multilateral institutions in general. […] more…
From Mercenaries to Market
Frequently characterized as either mercenaries in modern guise or the market’s response to a security vacuum, private military companies are commercial firms offering military services ranging from combat and military training and advice to logistical support. They play an increasingly important role in armed conflicts, UN peace operations, and providing security in unstable states. Executive […] more…
Secretary or General?
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is a unique figure in world politics. At once civil servant and the world’s diplomat, lackey of the UN Security Council and commander-in-chief of up to a hundred thousand peacekeepers, he or she depends on states for both the legitimacy and resources that enable the United Nations to function. […] more…
After Mass Crime
International interventions in the aftermath of mass violence tend to focus on justice and reconciliation processes, elections and institution-building. The frame of reference is at the level of the state, although the experience of mass crime by a population is also at the level of the community and individuals. Insufficient attention has been paid to […] more…
Making States Work
In the wealth of literature on state failure, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question of what constitutes state success and what enables a state to succeed. This book – a joint project of the International Peace Academy and the United Nations University – examines the strategies and tactics of international actors, local […] more…
You, The People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-Building
Transitional administrations represent the most complex operations attempted by the United Nations. The missions in Kosovo (1999-) and East Timor (1999-2002) are commonly seen as unique in the history of the United Nations. But they may also be seen as the latest in a series of operations that have involved the United Nations in ‘state-building’ […] more…
Are Sanctions Meant to Work?
[Global Governance] Do sanctions work? The jury remains out on this question, but two preliminary issues bear further examination also. What are sanctions intended to achieve? And do states actually want sanctions to work? These essentially political questions depend on two discrete dynamics that are the subject of this article, which focuses on sanctions imposed […] more…
Just War or Just Peace?
The question of the legality of humanitarian intervention is, at first blush, a simple one. The Charter of the United Nations clearly prohibits the use of force, with the only exceptions being self-defence and enforcement actions authorized by the Security Council. There are, however, long-standing arguments that a right of unilateral intervention pre-existed the Charter. […] more…
