LCIL International Law Centre Podcast

LCIL, University of Cambridge

The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law is the scholarly home of International law at the University of Cambridge. The Centre, founded by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht QC in 1983, serves as a forum for the discussion and development of international law and is one of the specialist law centres of the Faculty of Law. The Centre holds weekly lectures on topical issues of international law by leading practitioners and academics. For more information see the LCIL website at http://www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/

  1. 4d ago

    The Global Housing Crisis and International Law: A Critical Assessment

    In this talk, I’ll focus on multiple dimension of the global housing crisis - affordability, homelessness, loss of homes due to climate crisis, mass destruction of homes or domicide during conflict, migration and the idea of a home, the contestation over land, and the persistence of forced evictions, discrimination and increasing segregation - from an international legal perspective. Drawing on my work as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to adequate housing, the key focus will be to ask how much international law matters to bring solutions to these aspects of the global housing crisis and how much international law itself is part of the root causes of these dimension of the housing crisis. Speaker: Balakrishnan Rajagopal is Associate Professor of Law and Development at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing. He founded the Program on Human Rights and Justice at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the Displacement Research and Action Network. He is recognized as a leading participant in the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Network of scholars and is one of its founders, and is recognized as a leading global commentator on issues concerning the global South.Prof Rajagopal is visiting the University of Cambridge this term as the Leverhulme Professor. Chair: Dr Joanna Gomula This lecture was delivered on 22 May 2026 as part of the Centre's Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.

    41 min

  2. May 1

    'Implications of U.S. Foreign Aid Cuts and Reciprocal Tariffs for African Countries - A View from the Global South' - Prof Olabisi D Akinkugbe, University of Dalhousie

    Lecture summary: President Trump’s decisive attack on foreign aid and USAID, leading to the restructuring of the latter and the closure of ongoing and future development aid work across the world, has left many vulnerable regions of the world in potential crisis. With some of the funds hitherto allocated to development aid in vulnerable Global South countries reallocated to national economic projects or redirected to support programs that deepen U.S. foreign policy objectives of America First abroad, one thing is clear: economic nationalism, power-based relations, and opposition to the rules-based order is back. Calculated, unfair, and transactional politics is the name of the game for President Trump’s return to office so far. Whether it is in relation to a developed, developing, or least-developed country, the Trump administration has unapologetically proven that it does not care whose ox is gored. Despite the US Supreme Court ruling, the “Reciprocal Tariff Policy” has disrupted and entrenched the uncertainty in the multilateral trading system that was already confronted with crisis about its own existence, especially the World Trade Organization, and the resulting fragmentation in international trade has further exacerbated the socio-economic and fragile status of developing countries. Olabisi Delebayo Akinkugbe is the Purdy Crawford Chair in Business Law and Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Prof Akinkugbe obtained a Ph.D. in law from the University of Ottawa, an LL.M. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.B. from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He previously served as the Viscount Bennett Professor of Law at the Schulich School of Law and was convenor of the annual Viscount Bennett Roundtable on International Economic Law. In 2024, he was the recipient of the Hannah and Harold Barnett Excellence in Teaching Award. In this paper, I analyse the multiple implications for developing countries in the African continent. Chair: Prof Lorand Bartels This lecture was delivered on 1 May 2026 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.

    38 min

  3. Mar 19

    The Current State of the Rules of International Law against Attempts to Acquire Territory by Force: A Practitioner's View

    Based on his experience, but speaking in his personal capacity, Ambassador Tomohiro Mikanagi will discuss the current state of the rules of international law against attempts to acquire territory by force. When powerful States are not satisfied with the territorial status quo and are unwilling to give up their interests for the sake of international peace, there is an inherent difficulty in stopping their attempts to acquire territory by force. In the past 100 years, efforts have been made to stop such attempts. Based on the recognition of the efforts made so far, Ambassador Mikanagi will examine the current state of the rules of international law against such attempts. He will examine the relationship between the prohibition on the use of force and the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and will discuss the scope of these prohibitions. He will also discuss whether States can acquire territory by the use of force in self-defence and examine obligations for third States arising from the violation of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force. Ambassador Tomohiro Mikanagi is the Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations and was the Japanese Legal Advisor from 2022 to 2024. He also holds the title of Ambassador-at-Large for Cooperation on International Law. He was a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre of International Law and is currently an LCIL Partner Fellow. He participated in the proceedings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the Advisory Opinion issued on July 19, 2024. Japan's oral statement in February 2024 was unique as it focused exclusively on the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force. Chair: Prof Sandesh Sivakumaran

    1h 3m

  4. Mar 16

    The Secret Life of the Legal Adviser: Strategies of International Law-Making

    Lecture summary: In 1963, Stanley Hoffmann told the American Society of International Law: “Since every Power wants to turn its interests, ideas and gains into law, a study of the ‘legal strategies’ of the various units, i.e., of what kinds of norms they try to promote, and through what techniques, may be as fruitful for the political scientist as a study of more purely diplomatic, military or economic strategies.” In this lecture, Michael Byers outlines his two-decade long project to expose and explain how a class of highly sophisticated international lawyers, often referred to as ‘legal advisers’, strategically seek to manipulate law-making processes to make or change rules to favour their state. Michael Byers (PhD Cantab) is Professor of Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He also co-directs the Outer Space Institute, a global network of space experts united by their commitment to highly innovative, transdisciplinary research that addresses grand challenges facing the continued use and exploration of space. Dr. Byers has been a Junior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University; Professor of Law at Duke University; and a Visiting Professor at the universities of Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Nord (Norway), Novosibirsk (Russia), St Andrews, and the Geneva Graduate Institute. His two most recent books, both published by Cambridge University Press, are International Law and the Arctic and Who Owns Outer Space? Chair: Prof Lorand Bartels, Centre Fellow The Friday Lunchtime Lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

    30 min

  5. Mar 9

    Athenia, or the Nuremberg Trial at Midpoint

    Lecture summary: Early March 1946 marked a rough midpoint in proceedings before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The prosecution had closed its case, with France and the USSR just having presented most of the trial’s eyewitnesses – two of them women. The defense opened just as Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech. Elsewhere in Palace of Justice, personnel were going home even as others arrived, to prepare subsequent proceedings. These new ‘Nurembergers’ included more women, more people of colour, and more people who had not served in the world war then on trial. By centring such developments, this talk will offer a less-travelled account of the first international criminal trial. An expert in international law and its subfields, including legal history and international criminal law, Diane Marie Amann has served as Regents’ Professor, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, and is an Academic Affiliate at University College London Faculty of Laws. She was Special Adviser to International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has held leadership posts in the American and European societies of international law. Amann is writing an Oxford University Press book about lawyers and other women professionals at the first Nuremberg trial.

    44 min

  6. Mar 3

    Submarines and Underwater Maritime Autonomous Vehicles: New Wine in Old Bottles?

    Lecture summary: The regulation of submarines has rarely been an issue of focus in international law. Their military utility has influenced states’ willingness to develop rules that restrict their operations, both historically and in contemporary settings. So much is evident in examining current controversies over navigational rights of warships. Yet the types and uses of submarines are continually evolving and are regulated—to varying extents—by a myriad of international law. With the development of autonomous submarines, we again need to think carefully about the existing rules, their gaps and ambiguities. Have we reached the point that these evasive underwater vehicles cannot and should not elude the reach of international law? Dr Natalie Klein is Associate Dean (Academic) and a Professor at UNSW Sydney’s Faculty of Law & Justice, Australia. Professor Klein teaches and researches in different areas of international law, focusing on law of the sea. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre in 2008 when she was working on Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea (OUP). She is co-author, with Kate Purcell and Jack McNally, of a forthcoming monograph, Submarines in International Law (CUP). There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome. Chair: Prof Markus Gehring The Friday Lunchtime Lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

    30 min

  7. Feb 24

    Reading International Law as Stories

    Speaker: Prof Tamsin Paige, Deakin Law School Lecture summary: Stories serve an integral role in society as, among other things, a meaning making tool. As a method of meaning making, stories are relational and allow the storyteller to assist their audience in understanding ideas, concepts, and experiences that lie beyond their lived experiences. Using this understanding and starting point, I ask what happens if we read international law as an iterative archive of stories about global society? I will start by exploring the meaning making function that storytelling serves in society, and then consider how international law, be it treaties, custom, case law or other legal instruments, can be read as official stories of the society that produced them. Tamsin Phillipa Paige is an Associate Professor with Deakin Law School. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, using qualitative sociological methods to analyse international law (with a focus on application of law and the impact it has on society). She also does law and literature research using popular fiction to understand social perceptions of the law. Her work has examined (among other things) Somali piracy, UN Security Council decision making, the impact of international law on queer lives, and conflict based sexual violence. In a former life, she was a French trained, fine dining pâtissière. Chair: Dr Lena Holzer, Centre Fellow This lecture was delivered on 20 February 2026 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.

    34 min

  8. Feb 13

    Due Diligence at a Crossroads: The Old Road, the New Road, and the Bridge Between

    Speaker: Dr Penelope Ridings, International Law Commission Lecture summary: In the last several decades, scholarly views of due diligence in international law have shifted from due diligence as a primary obligation under customary international law, to due diligence as a standard of conduct attached to a primary obligation. Thus, for example, due diligence is required to meet a State’s obligation of protection (of the environment) or of prevention (of genocide). The International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion on Climate Change adopted such an articulation and stated that due diligence is a standard of conduct and States have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment by acting with due diligence. The Court not only reinforced the importance of the customary international law obligation not to cause significant harm to the environment but placed this within the ‘no harm’ principle, as expressed in the Corfu Channel case. However, the Court did not expressly articulate whether there was a broader obligation of due diligence that applies not only to the prevention of environmental harm, but also to the prevention of other harms to the rights and interests of States. Due diligence is thus as a crossroads. Has the ICJ essentially sought to bridge the gap between on the one hand the notion of due diligence as an obligation on a State not to permit activities subject to its jurisdiction or control which causes harm to the rights and interests of other States, and on the other hand the notion of due diligence as a standard of conduct attached to a primary obligation? Has the Court opened the door to finding a general customary international law obligation not to cause harm to the rights and interests of other States? Or has it confined due diligence to its status as a standard of conduct attached to a primary obligation? This lecture will discuss this pivotal point which is central to the elucidation of the foundation and scope of the due diligence obligation under international law. Dr Penelope Ridings is a Member of the International Law Commission and New Zealand Barrister practising in the field of public international law. In 2025 she was appointed the ILC Special Rapporteur for the topic ‘Due Diligence in International Law’. She was formerly New Zealand’s Chief International Legal Adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and a New Zealand diplomat. She was Agent for New Zealand before the International Court of Justice in Whaling in the Antarctic: Australia v Japan, New Zealand Intervening and before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in the Request for an Advisory Opinion submitted by the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission. After moving to the New Zealand Bar, she has advised governments and international organisations on public international law including law of the sea, fisheries, environmental law, trade and investment, international security and international dispute settlement. She was Chair of the 2025 arbitration under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (UK-Sandeel) and Chair of the WTO appeal arbitration China – Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights under the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement. She has served on several ICSID ad hoc Annulment Committees, including as Chair, and as an independent panellist in disputes before the WTO. She has lectured in international law and contributed to several books and written articles on various aspects of international law. This lecture was delivered on 13 February 2026 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.

    39 min
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The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law is the scholarly home of International law at the University of Cambridge. The Centre, founded by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht QC in 1983, serves as a forum for the discussion and development of international law and is one of the specialist law centres of the Faculty of Law. The Centre holds weekly lectures on topical issues of international law by leading practitioners and academics. For more information see the LCIL website at http://www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/

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