The UNRWA Opinion: The ICJ, the future of the UN system and ... K-Pop Demon Hunters?

In this episode of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, host Dr Juliette McIntyre (University of South Australia) is joined by Dr Tamer Morris (University of Sydney) for a dive into the International Court of Justice’s recent advisory opinion on the Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory — better known as the UNRWA Opinion.

The conversation explores what the Court actually said about the legal consequences of Israel’s ongoing occupation and the corresponding duties of third states and international organizations. Juliette and Tamer unpack how the ICJ approached questions of sovereignty, occupation, and self-determination, and how this opinion builds upon—or departs from—the Court’s earlier 2004 Wall Advisory Opinion.

Along the way, they discuss:

- The Court’s reaffirmation of the illegality of prolonged occupation and annexation;

- The obligations of non-recognition and non-assistance for third states;

- The implications for UN agencies such as UNRWA;

- The future of international law, regionalism and the UN system; and

- K-Pop Demon Hunters.

As always, these are informal conversations over drinks, reflecting the personal views of the participants and not those of their institutions.

Recommendations:

Marco Longobardo, The Use of Armed Force in Occupied Territory, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/use-of-armed-force-in-occupied-territory/E3BFD67926CE0BF856E08277D6218C7C

Strong Girl Bong-soon (K-drama) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6263222/

Goblin (or Guardian: The Lonely and Great God) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5994364/

When Life Gives You Tangerines (extreme sad feelings warning) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26471411/

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

In this episode of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, host Dr Ntina Tzouvala (UNSW Sydney) is joined by Dr Julia Dehm (La Trobe Law School) and Dr Cristy Clark (University of Canberra) to unpack Australia’s newly announced 2035 emissions reduction target - a pledge to cut national emissions by 62–70% below 2005 levels - as well as the international legal framework within which it sits.

The conversation examines how the government’s language of a “credible contribution” to global climate efforts contrasts with the more stringent standards articulated in the International Court of Justice’s recent Advisory Opinion on Climate Change. The panel asks whether Australia’s approach treats the 1.5°C goal as truly binding or merely aspirational -something “within reach” but politically optional.

Drawing on insights from climate justice, environmental law, and human rights, the discussion explores broader questions of legal accountability, temporal justice, and equity in global climate governance. What does it mean for states to align their domestic targets with evolving international obligations? And can the law meaningfully bridge the gap between ambition and action?

As always, these are informal conversations over drinks, reflecting the personal views of the participants and not those of their institutions.

Recommendations:

Julia Dehm, Reconsidering REDD+ Authority, Power and Law in the Green Economy, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/reconsidering-redd/5D54EFE59BBA35999FEEBD9ACA8EA449

Julia Dehm, Becoming a Climate Conscious Lawyer: Climate Change and the Australian Legal System, https://www.latrobe.edu.au/library/ebureau/publications/featured/becoming-a-climate-conscious-lawyer

Cristy Clark, The Lawful Forest: A Critical History of Property, Protest and Spatial Justice, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/lawful-forest/102FDDD9544740A8ADE16461AAFB1BCE

Cristy Clark, Legal Geographies of Water: The Spaces, Places and Narratives of Human-Water Relations, https://www.routledge.com/Legal-Geographies-of-Water-The-Spaces-Places-and-Narratives-of-Human-Water-Relations/Clark/p/book/9781032225968

Law at the End of the World Podcast: https://lawattheendoftheworld.buzzsprout.com/

In this episode of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, host Dr Juliette McIntyre (University of South Australia) is joined by A/Prof Tamsin Phillipa Paige (Deakin Law School) and special guest Kate Gibson, an international criminal defence lawyer with nearly two decades of experience before the world’s most prominent tribunals.

From the ICTR to the ICC, Kate has represented accused persons in cases arising from conflicts in Rwanda, the DRC, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and the former Yugoslavia. A former President of the Association of Defence Counsel Practising before International Courts and Tribunals, she brings a candid, insider’s view of what it means to uphold the rights of the accused in complex international prosecutions.

Together, the panel explores the conditions facing defence lawyers - including underfunding, structural inequities, and the challenge of maintaining fairness in systems requiring the support of states. They also consider the ethical and procedural dilemmas of defending clients tried in absentia.

As always, these are informal conversations over drinks, reflecting the personal views of the participants and not those of their institutions.

Recommendations

ICC proceedings livestream, https://www.icc-cpi.int/streaming-all-displays

Yvonne McDermott Rees, Fairness in International Criminal Trials, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/fairness-in-international-criminal-trials-9780198739814

Yvonne McDermott Rees, Proving International Crimes, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/proving-international-crimes-9780198842972?cc=au&lang=en&

In this episode, host Dr Ntina Tzouvala is joined by Professor Ardi Imseis (Queen’s Law School, Canada) for a timely conversation about international law, the United Nations, and the long struggle for Palestinian statehood.

As Western states — including Australia — formally recognize the State of Palestine at the current UN General Assembly, Professor Imseis brings a unique perspective as both scholar and practitioner. A former UN official with UNRWA and UNHCR, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Yemen (2019–2021), and legal counsel in recent ICJ advisory proceedings on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Imseis combines deep practical experience with rigorous scholarship.

Drawing on his highly regarded 2023 book, "The United Nations and the Question of Palestine: Rule by Law and the Structure of International Legal Subalternity", Ardi and Ntina explore how the UN’s management of the “Palestine question” has reflected a persistent gap between international law’s promises and its political application. Their discussion considers whether the UN has upheld the rule of law - or merely rule by law —in sustaining what Ardi calls the*international legal subalternity of Palestine and its people.

As always, these are informal conversations, reflecting the personal views of the participants and not those of their institutions or any other bodies with which they may have worked or with which they may currently be affiliated.

Recommendations:

Ardi Imseis, The United Nations and the Question of Palestine

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/united-nations-and-the-question-of-palestine/E8241B33B6C07028765E5E6785AF5CDE

Edward Said, The Question of Palestine, https://www.amazon.com.au/Question-Palestine-Edward-W-Said/dp/0679739882

Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War on Palestine, https://www.amazon.com.au/Hundred-Years-War-Palestine-Colonialism/dp/1250787653

Victor Kattan, From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949, http://plutobooks.com/product/from-coexistence-to-conquest/

Noura Erakat, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/justice-some

Ardi Imseis, Partition for Palestine Revisited: On the Origins of Palestine’s International Legal Subalternity, https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-united-nations-plan-of-partition-for-palestine-revisited-on-the-origins-of-palestines-international-legal-subalternity/

Following Australia's expulsion of the ambassador of Iran for Iran's complicity in anti-semitic attacks, Dr Tamsin Phillipa Paige (Deakin Univeristy) sits down with former ambassador, and honorary ANU professor of international law, Matthew Neuhaus to talk through the legal implications. As usual, we begin with some background on Matthew's career path through international law (and favoured drink).

In this episode of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, host Associate Professor Ntina Tzouvala (UNSW Sydney) is joined by Dr Juliette McIntyre (University of South Australia) and guest Dr Victor Kattan (University of Nottingham) to explore the fraught question of judicial impartiality and recusal at the International Court of Justice.

Prompted by Judge Julia Sebutinde’s controversial remarks in August 2025—suggesting she was “counting on the Lord to stand on the side of Israel” while sitting on the South Africa v. Israel genocide case – the panel dives into the rules of the ICJ Statute on recusals, impartiality, and whether judges can ever be removed from a case against their will.

Drawing on Juliette’s procedure goblin insights and Victor’s expertise in ICJ history, the discussion revisits the South West Africa cases of the 1960s, where judicial ideology and political pressure collided in one of the Court’s most notorious recusal controversies. Alongside this, the conversation probes the tension between law, politics, and personal conviction in shaping the legitimacy of the world court.

As always, these are informal conversations over drinks, reflecting the personal views of the participants and not those of their institutions.

Recommendations:

1. On Spender: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/there-was-an-elephant-in-the-court-room-reflections-on-the-role-of-judge-sir-percy-spender-18971985-in-the-south-west-africa-cases-19601966-after-half-a-century/0F8164A4630662420062B787999C6AF1

2. On Khan: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/asian-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/decolonizing-the-international-court-of-justice-the-experience-of-judge-sir-muhammad-zafrulla-khan-in-the-south-west-africa-cases/21CEB7D6DFE3E72CDEB7EA293D37A570

3. On the UK and judge elections at the ICJ: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/4019478/14Kattan-unpaginated.pdf

4. On judicial independence at the international level: https://find.library.unisa.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay/alma9916026974801831/61USOUTHAUS_INST:ROR

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

In this episode of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, host Dr Tamsin Phillipa Paige is joined by Professor Rob McLaughlin and Dr Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg to unpack a troubling event: the U.S. military’s kinetic strike on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean resulting in the deaths of 11 people. The strike, ordered under President Trump for “deterrent” effect, has drawn widespread criticism and bizarre denials from the Venezuelan Government, which has gone so far as to claim video evidence of the incident is a deep fake.

Together, the panel explores the (entirely lacking) legal basis for the strike, the blurring lines between the “war on terror” and the “war on drugs,” and the troubling precedent such an action sets. With U.S. rhetoric shifting from hypothetical strikes on cartels to lethal real-world operations, the conversation asks whether international law—and the frameworks of necessity, proportionality, and state sovereignty—have been left in the rear view mirror.

As always, these are informal conversations, reflecting the personal views of the participants rather than their institutions.

Recommendations:

Firefly - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/

Nimona - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19500164/

Fifty episodes in, and we’re still going strong (and still without footnotes). In this special milestone edition of Called to the Bar: International Law Over Drinks, host Douglas Guilfoyle (Professor of International Law and Security, UNSW Canberra) is joined by the full crew: Dr Juliette McIntyre (University of South Australia), A/Prof Imogen Saunders (ANU Law School), A/Prof Tamsin Phillipa Paige (Deakin Law School), and A/Prof Ntina Tzouvala (UNSW Sydney).

To mark our 50th outing, we flipped the format and handed the reigns to you, our listeners, who supplied the questions. From “How would you found your own State?” to “What procedural rule would you change at the ICJ?”, from fixing international law to picking our favourite PCIJ judges, the crew fields questions that are thoughtful, fun, and sometimes downright hard to answer without more coffee.

Along the way we debate national animals, missing voices in international law, and even who should play us in the clearly inevitable Netflix series.

Pour yourself a glass, join the conversation, and celebrate with us as Called to the Bar hits its half-century.

Recommendations:

On Australian treaty law: https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases-and-judgments/judgments/judgments-2000-current/minister-immigration-and-multicultural-and-indigenous-affairs-v-b

On Greek poetry: https://wordscene.wordpress.com/2019/08/12/the-last-stop-by-seferis/

What Douglas was wearing: https://bsky.app/profile/djag2.bsky.social/post/3ltjl5shjuc2x

What are the consequences of the International Court of Justice's recent Advisory Opinion on climate change, especially for the small island developing States who spearheaded this initiative?

Associate Professor Ntina Tzouvala talks through the opinion and its consequences with two practitioner academics with deep knowledge of the proceedings: Associate Professor Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh of the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam who represented the Government of Vanuatu, and Dylan Asafo, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, who represented the Government of the Cook Islands.

David Bowie once asked, is there life on Mars? Today we ask, is there life 3,000 metres or more below sea level – and what should international law do to protect it and regulate its exploitation?

In this episode we are joined by Professor Joanna Mossop of the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington to discuss the 2023 Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction – known as the BBNJ Agreement or High Seas Treaty for short.

Recommendations:

D Bodansky, "Four Treaties in One: The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement", https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/four-treaties-in-one-the-biodiversity-beyond-national-jurisdiction-agreement/9AAFCE1E5F60EF1ABF83AC8DB3829605

Fran Humphries (ed), "Decoding Marine Genetic Resource Governance Under the BBNJ Agreement", https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-72100-7

Joanna Mossop and David Freestone, "The Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Commentary and Analysis" https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-agreement-on-marine-biodiversity-of-areas-beyond-national-jurisdiction-9780198918578?cc=au&lang=en&

Elizabeth Moon, Paksenarrion Series, https://www.goodreads.com/series/49608-paksenarrion