Scholarly papers on war, aggression and reparations, argued aloud.
Recorded scholarly talks on public international law, built around papers and articles, some of them still being finished. Subjects range from informal courts in prisoner-of-war camps to forced displacement, immunities for aggression, and whether a commander can be held responsible for an autonomous weapon.
PRESS PLAY
Public International Law Part III is a series of recorded academic talks, and it sounds like one. A presenter thanks the people who issued the invitation, points to slides the listener cannot see and works through a paper from premise to conclusion. Several speakers say outright that the talk comes from an article or paper, sometimes one still being finished. The subjects cluster around war and what follows it. One speaker sets out a method at the start: when a problem is hard, it helps to see how earlier lawyers tried to solve it. That leads back to the Brussels Declaration, which never became binding, and to the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907, which took up its language almost verbatim. The same talk turns to enforcement. States are ultimately the ones who hold each other to the law, the speaker notes, and some, Russia among them, seem unmoved by criticism. A second lecture happened to fall on May 8, the eightieth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, a date that figures in its material. Its central claim runs against intuition. War zones, the speaker contends, are rarely lawless and are more often crowded with competing law, and informal courts in prisoner-of-war camps are part of the evidence. An audience question about child soldiers draws out the story of a camp trial that a Life magazine reporter happened upon. The talk closes on the idea that law is also a register of meanings and a claim of identity, and that good lawyers should not dismiss those dimensions as mere politics. Other talks stay closer to doctrine. Two presenters take aim at lesser-evil reasoning that recasts mass displacement as humanitarian. They draw on tribunal case law that treats coercion, not only physical force, as enough to make a departure forcible. Their verdict on a choice between survival and leaving home is blunt: it is not a genuine choice. Speaking a month into 2025, another presenter looks toward a special tribunal for aggression concerning Ukraine. The argument is that aggression is wrong because of the killing and destruction it brings, not merely because one state has wronged another. In 'A Weapon Is No Subordinate. Autonomous Weapons and the Scope of Superior Responsibility', the usual tests for effective control are called anthropocentric, because they were built for relationships between people. The proposed fix for the responsibility gap is technical specification and human control rather than a new reading of criminal law. Money gets its turn too, in a survey of very large awards across investment arbitration, human rights judgments and claims between states. The vocabulary assumes some grounding in the field. The reward is hearing a full argument assembled, qualified and defended by the person who wrote it.
Made for: Suits a listener at ease with terms like effective control and lex specialis who wants to hear a legal argument laid out in full rather than summarised. It also fits someone drawn to how the history of the laws of war shapes present disputes.
What sets it apart: Rather than hosts trading opinions on the news, each recording is a complete scholarly argument, often from a paper in progress, with slides, case law and the occasional audience question left in. History carries real weight too, from the Brussels Declaration to courts improvised inside wartime camps.
Lectures on international law issues by eminent scholars, practitioners and judges of national and international courts. The lecture series is brought to you by the Public International Law Discussion Group, part of the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford, and is supported by the British Branch of the International Law Association and Oxford University Press. Further details of this series can be found on the Public International Law -https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/graduate-discussion-group-index/public-international-law-discussion-group Oxford website.
A stolen sweater in a POW camp is about to complicate your idea of lawless war.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear legal history of how war's rules formed, adapted to aircraft, and came under renewed pressure.
The episode follows the strain on international humanitarian law by setting today's crisis against the long effort to place limits on war. Its strongest thread is historical and legal: the Brussels Declaration failed as binding law, yet still helped shape customary international…
A stolen sweater in a wartime camp opens a sharp study of law's meanings and authority.
War zones in this episode do not simply slide into lawlessness. They become places where legal authority overlaps, improvises, and sometimes lands in startling hands.
A careful look at how humanitarian claims can both justify and limit civilian displacement under law.
The episode turns humanitarian language back on itself, asking how appeals to the "lesser evil" can end up defending practices that still deepen civilian suffering.
A careful look at why aggression cannot be separated from the human wrongs international criminal law is meant to address.
The special tribunal for the crime of aggression in relation to Ukraine puts immunity questions at the center of the legal debate. The episode looks at whether the case for setting those immunities aside matches the deeper purposes of international criminal law, especially when…
A focused review of why autonomous weapons should remain weapons, not subordinates.
Autonomous weapons press on a familiar legal problem: whether a weapon can ever be treated like a subordinate for superior responsibility. The episode's answer is firm: no.
Books, systems, and the questions that unlock them.
Coastal science, patiently and beautifully reported.
Soil life, climate repair, practical regeneration.
Public International Law Part III's "War Unbound" traces modern international humanitarian law from Hugo Grotius in 1625 to the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907.
May 8, 1945 and the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe frame a talk on the "unruly plurality of law" in wartime camps.
Public International Law Part III examines whether humanitarian language can justify forcible displacement, using Gaza, southern Lebanon, Hiroshima, and West Bank practices as examples.
Aggression is not uniquely different from war crimes and crimes against humanity for immunity purposes.
The speaker, drawing on an article he is finalizing, uses international criminal law and IHL to argue that autonomous weapons are “means of warfare,” not legal subjects.
The talk traces the employment law of international organizations to the 1925 League of Nations commission on Francois Menaud, who was the Secretariat's 'director of the Tracy writing section'.
The speaker, a trustee of the NGO Human Rights at Sea, examines the Geneva Declaration, drafted by about half a dozen lawyers including Stephen Haynes and Irini Papanicolopoulou, and asks whether this soft-law text can become binding.
The talk presents the argument of the book The Ecology of War and Peace, opening with Sir David King's 2004 Science article ranking climate change above terrorism as a threat.
A lecture discussing recent high-value reparations and settlements in international investment, human rights, and interstate law cases.
A lecture discussing the relationship between maritime security and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
A lecture analyzing the evolution and effectiveness of international climate change regimes, from the Framework Convention to the Paris Agreement.
A lecture exploring whether a state's treaty withdrawal that violates domestic law is valid under international law.