Called to the Bar: International Law over Drinks

Imogen Saunders is joined by Professor Aoife O'Donoghue (Queen's University Belfast), Professor Colin Murray (Newcastle University) and Dr Sylvia de Mars (Newcastle University) to discuss the distinctive constitutional and international legal position of Northern Ireland.

The conversation explores the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, including self-determination, power-sharing, rights and equality, and the complex relationships between Northern Ireland, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The discussion then turns to Brexit, considering the Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor Framework, the Irish Sea border, and the challenge of reconciling Brexit with the commitments made in 1998.

The guests also examine Northern Ireland's post-Brexit human rights architecture, including the European Convention on Human Rights, EU law, and the Agreement's non-diminution commitment. Finally, Colin Murray and Sylvia de Mars discuss their work on governance and the politics of scale, and what Northern Ireland reveals about the relationship between international law, regional integration and local institutions.

As always, the episode ends with discussion of the guests' current research - and whether anyone ever really escapes Northern Ireland and international law.

Art: Kat Weir (www.instagram.com/katweir/)

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au Lait

In this episode, Tamsin Philippa Paige is joined by Olivera Simić and Caitlin Biddolph to explore the international criminal courtroom as a site not only of justice, but also of punishment, power and violence.

Drawing on their work on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the conversation asks what international criminal law is actually trying to achieve when it punishes perpetrators, and what may be lost when punishment is privileged over rehabilitation and accountability. It also considers the courtroom itself as a potentially violent institutional space, and examines feminist approaches to women who participate in atrocities, including the difficulties that can arise when assumptions about gender, victimhood and agency collide.

The discussion also reflects on the very different personal and intellectual paths that brought Olivera and Caitlin to these questions, including Olivera's experiences of war and displacement in the former Yugoslavia and the relationship between lived experience, scholarship and the pursuit of justice.

Recommendations

Olivera Simić, Madam War Criminal

https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/madam-war-criminal/

Caitlin Biddolph, Queering Governance and International Law: The Case of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

https://academic.oup.com/book/59490

Art: Kat Weir (www.instagram.com/katweir/)

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au Lait

In this episode, Douglas Guilfoyle speaks with Dr Aline Jaeckel and Dr Daiana Seabra Venancio about recent developments in deep seabed mining before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the International Seabed Authority.

The conversation revisits the origins of the seabed mining regime, the “common heritage of humankind” idea, and the changing politics around exploitation and moratorium calls. It then turns to the ISA’s current work on the mining code, environmental governance, and contractor compliance.

A major focus is the Nori/TOML proceedings and the wider questions they raise about due process, enforcement, and the capacity of the international legal framework to regulate seabed mining effectively.

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au Lait

In this episode, Juliette McIntyre and Douglas Guilfoyle examine the unprecedented removal from office of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan by the Assembly of States Parties.

The discussion explains the legal basis for removal under Article 46 of the Rome Statute, the investigation and disciplinary process that preceded the decision, and the principal procedural objections raised by critics. It considers the appropriate standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings, the respective roles of investigators, judicial experts and States Parties, and the tension between prosecutorial independence and institutional accountability.

Juliette and Douglas also place the decision within the ICC’s longer-standing problems of workplace culture, including previous findings concerning bullying, harassment, discrimination and perceived impunity among senior officials. They conclude by considering what Khan’s removal means for the Court’s continuing investigations, the election of a new Prosecutor, threatened US sanctions and the withdrawal of several States Parties.

Content warning: This episode discusses allegations of workplace sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, abuse of power and retaliation. Although the discussion avoids unnecessary detail, listeners who may find this material distressing should exercise care.

Recommended Reading:

CNN, Lawyer goes public with sexual misconduct claims against ICC chief prosecutor (2026) https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/16/europe/icc-prosecutor-allegations-interview-un-investigation-amanpour-intl

Rebecca Hamilton and Nema Milaninia, Before the Assembly: The Removal Vote and the Question of Fitness for Office (2026)

https://www.justsecurity.org/148713/icc-prosecutor-removal-vote/

Kevin John Heller, The Bureau’s “Serious Misconduct” Bait and Switch (2026), https://opiniojuris.org/2026/07/03/the-bureaus-serious-misconduct-bait-and-switch/

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au lait

In this episode of Called to the Bar, Tamsin Philippa Page is joined by Karen Scott (University of Canterbury) and Camille Goodman (ANCORS, University of Wollongong), editors of Ocean Development & International Law, to discuss the challenges that generative AI poses for legal scholarship and academic publishing.

Drawing on their experience managing one of the leading specialist journals in the law of the sea, they explain why the journal has adopted a restrictive policy on the use of generative AI in research and writing. The conversation explores the risks of AI-generated scholarship, including fabricated citations, questions of academic integrity, the responsibilities of editors and reviewers, and the practical challenges of enforcing editorial policies.

The episode also considers broader issues facing legal academia, including the impact of AI on non-native English-speaking scholars, tensions between publishers' AI policies and journal ethics, and how the academic community might preserve originality, trust, and scholarly standards in an era of rapidly evolving AI technologies.

Recommendations:

Episode 60. Publishing, Peer Review and What Editors Wish You Knew, https://soundcloud.com/calledtothebar/60-publishing-peer-review-and-what-editors-wish-you-knew

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au Lait.

Across the UK - and increasingly around the world - governments, courts and public institutions are adopting policies with profound consequences for transgender and non-binary people. In this episode of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, Associate Professor Tamsin Phillipa Paige (Deakin University) is joined by Dr Sandra Duffy (University of Bristol), Dr Senthorun Raj (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Adrienne Ringin (PhD scholar, La Trobe University) to discuss the rapid escalation of anti-trans policies in the UK and their implications for international human rights.

Following on from Esipode 41 about For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, the panel explores the erosion of legal protections, the growth of organised anti-trans advocacy, the role of media narratives, and the connections between anti-trans politics, authoritarianism and broader attacks on marginalised communities. They also reflect on the role of international human rights law, activism and academic critique in responding to these developments.

Recommended Reading

Like a Snowball: The Growth and Impact of the Gender Critical Movement in the UK (Amnesty International UK)

https://media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Like_a_snowball_final_.pdf

Episode 41 on the Scottish Ministers Case

https://soundcloud.com/calledtothebar/41-the-scottish-ministers-case-and-trans-rights-as-human-rights

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au lait

In this episode, Douglas Guilfoyle speaks with Ntina Tzouvala about her new article "Dollar Hegemony as International Law-making Power".

The conversation explores a provocative claim: that the dominance of the US dollar does more than confer economic and geopolitical influence - it also gives the United States exceptional power to shape the development of some aspects of international law. Ntina explains how dollar hegemony affects doctrines of jurisdiction and sovereign immunity, why material power matters to the making of customary international law, and how the legal authority generated by the dollar has been used both to support global financial capitalism and to pursue US strategic interests.

Along the way, they discuss the article's historical materialist methodology, its engagement with law and political economy scholarship, and what the argument suggests about sanctions, de-dollarisation, and the changing international legal order.

Recommendations:

"Dollar Hegemony as International Law-making Power", https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article/25/2/jmag011/8670048

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of au Lait.

In this roadshow episode, recorded at the workshop Australia’s Relationship with the UN Security Council: Eighty Years and Counting at the Australian National University, Douglas Guilfoyle, Imogen Saunders and Juliette McIntyre are joined by Jeremy Farrall, William Maley, Richard Rowe, Susan Harris Rimmer, Shirley Scott, and Devika Hovell.

The conversation reflects on Australia’s relationship with the Security Council across eight decades, from the early UN imagination of San Francisco and Evatt to Australia’s role as a middle power, elected member, and US ally. It also explores key episodes and themes in Australia’s Council practice, and the broader questions of Council diplomacy, accountability, deadlock, and institutional memory. The discussion closes by looking ahead to the future of collective security, including climate change and other emerging security challenges.

Is there a right to strike in international law? And how did a century-old debate within the International Labour Organization (ILO) end up before the International Court of Justice?

In this episode, host Ntina Tzouvala is joined by Professor Tonia Novitz of the University of Bristol, one of the leading scholars of international labour law and a member of the legal team that advised the International Trade Union Confederation during the recent ICJ proceedings on the right to strike.

The conversation traces the origins of the ILO’s unique tripartite structure, the development of international protections for freedom of association, and the long-running dispute over whether the right to strike is protected under ILO Convention No. 87. Tonia explains how tensions between employers, workers, and governments ultimately led to a landmark advisory opinion from the ICJ, and unpacks the Court’s reasoning on treaty interpretation, subsequent practice, and the relationship between freedom of association and collective action.

The discussion also explores the political implications of the decision for the ILO, international human rights law, and domestic labour litigation around the world.

Recommendations:

The Right to Strike Reimagined (open access!) https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/right-to-strike-reimagined-9781509979165/

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

In this episode of Call to the Bar, International Law Over Drinks, Tamsin Phillipa Page speaks with Sanam Amin (Doctoral candidate, University of Melbourne) and Dr Sophie Rigney (RMIT School of Law) about criminal law abolitionism in the context of international criminal law. They unpack why abolition is not just about ending prisons and police, but about building better systems of care, accountability, and public investment instead.

Recommended reading from the episode includes Veronica Gorrie’s Black and Blue and When Cops Are Criminals; Haunani-Kay Trask’s From a Native Daughter; Santilla Chingaipe’s Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia; and foundational abolitionist and critical ICL work by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, Mariana Maceda, Dorothy Roberts, Karen Engle, Maxine Kamari-Clark, and Malik Drumbull.

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait