Disclaimer: Asymmetrical Haircuts is produced as a podcast, meaning it is meant to be listened to and not read. Because of this, we recommend that you listen to the episode while reading, because the written word does not do justice to the emotion or tone used by our speakers. However, because we recognise there might be bandwidth issues or you might be using a hearing aid, we have provided written transcripts for all our available episodes.

Shadi Sadr: 00:00  I am afraid we may have to wait another 125 years for The Hague institutions to meet the victims’ expectations. 

Leila Sadat:  00:10  I think a lot of the stress in the system is coming from state non-compliance rather than institutional failure. 

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 00:16  Truly, the PCA today is definitely an institution that is fit for purpose. 

Benjamin Duerr: 00:22  With the institutions that will be created, I’m not so sure if and to what extent they will be able to function in the long run. 

[INTRO MUSIC]

00:42  This is Asymmetrical Haircuts, your international justice podcast, with Janet Anderson and Stephanie van den Berg. All rise.

Audience: 00:51  [Applause]

Janet: 00:55  Hi, Steph.

Stephanie: 00:56  Hi, Janet.

Janet: 00:58  Well, welcome to our live podcast, being recorded on June 3rd here at The Hague Humanity Hub. 

Stephanie: 01:04  I shall introduce myself. I’m Stephanie van den Berg. I’m the co-host of Asymmetrical Haircuts, and I’m sorry about the haircuts. I traded the asymmetrical haircut for secondary-trauma bangs a while ago.

Janet: 01:14  And I’m Janet Anderson. I’m also a co-host, and I have retained the headmark of this haircut that we’re meant to have. And we have a great collection of people here on the stage with us. We’re going to introduce them in just a moment. But who else is here in the room?

Stephanie: 01:30  Well, there’s got to be about 30 people here, so if you can let yourself be heard a little bit. We will ask questions of you soon enough.

Janet: 1:37  Yes. Claps up.

Audience: 01:38  [Applause]

Stephanie: 01:39  Yes. Thank you.

Stephanie: 01:43  Now, on to today’s subject. The official title of this podcast is “125 Years of Peace and Justice: A Live Dialogue on International Law.”

Janet: 01:52  But our unofficial title is: “The Hague, so-called city of peace and justice — what use is it?” 

Stephanie: 1:58  And we have a great group of commentators lined up to help us answer just that question. 

Jane: 02:02  So, to start with, let’s welcome Shadi Sadr. She’s a human rights lawyer and she’s a PhD candidate just down the road at Leiden University. She ran Raahi, a legal centre defending women facing death by stoning or affected by Iran’s gender-discriminatory laws. She was arrested herself in 2007 and 2009 for her activism. She’s got lots of awards, been a jury member on several international people’s tribunals, and co-organised the 2020–2022 Iran Atrocities Aban Tribunal. Welcome, Shadi.

Shadi Sadr: 02:39  Thank you so much.

Audience: 02:40  [Applause]

Stephanie: 02:44  And we also have Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli. Andrea is the legal counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the big international court in The Hague that nobody knows a lot about. She is acting as registrar and administrative secretary in arbitration and other forms of dispute-resolution proceedings, and she assists the PCA Secretary-General with procedural rules. Andrea was previously based in Mauritius, where she acted as a PCA representative in that country. Hi, Andrea.

Audience: 03:15  [Applause]

Janet: 03:19  Also, we have Benjamin Duerr. He’s a German-Dutch international lawyer, diplomat, writer on law, war and peace, and he’s the author of a new book, which I’m going to struggle just a moment to show you. For the podcast, I am now showing De Droom van Den Haag by Benjamin. Please buy. 

Audience: 03:36  [Applause]

Janet: 3:39  And just to mention, Benjamin is also a former journalist. He used to be one of us, but has grown up. Welcome, Benjamin.

Benjamin Duerr: 03:46  Thank you.

Stephanie: 03:47  And finally, we have Leila Sadat. Leila is an award-winning international-law, international-criminal-law and human-rights academic from the US. She is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University in St. Louis and a visiting fellow at the Schell Center for Human Rights at Yale. She was a special adviser on crimes against humanity to the ICC prosecutor from 2012 to 2023, and she is the founder and director of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative, which wrote the world’s first global model treaty on crimes against humanity. Hi, Leila.

Audience: 04:42  [Applause]

Janet: 04:26  So, let’s get going. Our first question to all of you is: are the current institutions, the way that international law is kind of set up here in The Hague, is it all fit for purpose? Do you think that it’s a healthy setup that we have? Andrea, I know you’re in an official role. I’m sure you have to say yes, the PCA is doing a great job.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 04:49  Of course I have to, and the fact is that I can say it knowing it and feeling it earnestly, because if you look at it, the PCA is actually the first court to have been created here in The Hague. It is the one that actually launched The Hague in its current situation of being the city of justice and peace. It’s the one that justified the creation of the Peace Palace.

Janet: 05:09  What’s your little way of describing the PCA? If you meet somebody in a bar, at a party, what do you say you do?

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 05:16  That’s actually a hard question because arbitration is a little bit remote as a subject, but basically I assist in the resolution of disputes that are not potentially resolved, or that can’t be resolved, in front of state courts. They have to be in front of other jurisdictions than state courts, so it would have to be international arbitrators who are appointed by the parties participating to those disputes. And that’s what the PCA does on a daily basis. That’s what it’s been doing for 125 years. We provide the services that allow the peaceful resolution of disputes that involve, in particular, states and state-related entities. So, truly, the PCA today is definitely an institution that is fit for purpose. That’s actually the theme of our congress that will be taking place next week with the members of the Court for the 125th anniversary of the PCA. And it’s definitely something that we’ve adapted over time. One hundred and twenty-five years and still present — you can’t do that if you’re not, on a daily basis, actually adapting yourself to meet with the expectations of states and also, of course, persons in general who request the services of the PCA.

Stephanie: 06:27  Well, we heard from the PCA that the PCA is still fit for purpose. Let’s now get an outside view of of somebody. Leila, do you think all the institutions that are in The Hague are fit for purpose? Where is there room for improvement?

Leila Sadat: 06:44  I think the institutions are doing a great job. They are under stress because they’re getting heavy caseloads, and in many cases more than they were intended to have. I think sometimes states aren’t as compliant with the institutions as we would like, and I think a lot of the stress in the system is coming from state non-compliance rather than institutional failure. That might mean we need some better institutional design, but I think certainly the institutions are busy. They’re working. I don’t know the PCA as well as the ICJ and the ICC and some of the others, but I would say every court in The Hague, and the other institutions, are working quite effectively.

Janet: 07:22  Okay. Shadi, another outsider’s view: is it fit for purpose as it’s set up at the moment?

Shadi Sadr: 07:27  I think The Hague and its institutions symbolise the international formal justice system, and it has generated a perception to countless victims of atrocities across the globe. “The Hague court,” often being mentioned without specifying which court, is perceived as an ultimate place for their sufferings to be heard and their right to justice to be realised. But we all know that the reality is far removed from that. And this distance between the real Hague and the utopian Hague, as it’s perceived by the victims, I think is on three levels: the laws, the application of the laws and the enforcement of the laws that’s being applied. In some cases, the victims cannot believe that the victims of grave human-rights violations cannot believe that their situation is not recognised as a crime or a wrongful act, so neither the individual liability nor the state responsibility is involved. The lack of codification, for example, for gender apartheid is just an example. In other cases, the laws cannot be applied because of the lack of jurisdiction or the lack of states’ political will. There are so many examples. For example, the situation of Uyghurs in China is one example. China is the member party of the Genocide Convention, but you cannot see any other state fulfilling the obligation of prevention of the commission of genocide bringing the case of China before the ICJ. And also the challenges with enforcement, as we see that even binding rulings of the ICJ is not being implemented if the state doesn’t comply.

Janet: 09:20  So, a bit similar to Leila’s point. I mean, the problem is more with the states than it is with the institutions, or a combination?

Shadi Sadr: 09:28  A combination of states, institutions and laws — the international law.

Stephanie: 09:33  And on the podcast, I always go through the alphabet soup, so I’ll do that for everybody who is maybe not so into the international law and the acronyms. The PCA, of course, we said Permanent Court of Arbitration; ICC – International Criminal Court; and the ICJ is the International Court of Justice, the highest UN court. 

Janet: 9:50  And we may well have some others come up as they go along. 

Stephanie: 9:53  I’m certainly, more acronyms will come by as we talk. But Benjamin, you are the one that literally wrote the book on The Hague institutions, so what does the book say? Is it fit for purpose?

Benjamin Duerr: 10:04  Well, so the book is very much about the history and the development, the evolution of The Hague and the ideas that underpin the idea of the city of peace and justice. So I would make a distinction between the values and the norms and the institutions. I think that the values and the norms, like international humanitarian law — so the idea that conflicts, or state behaviour in conflict, needs to be limited — I think that is something that’s still very much relevant and will remain relevant. If you look back in history, even in ancient India, for example, there were rules that the enemy had to be killed directly rather than from a distance; in Islamic history and Christianity. So I think these kinds of ideas, they are still, and will remain, relevant. With the institutions that have been created, I’m not so sure if, and to what extent, they will be able to function in the long run, because what we see is that multilateralism and international cooperation, but also democracies at a national level, are under pressure. And I think that will have certain influence on the ability of institutions to deliver.

Janet: 11:17  I see some nods around you. Nodding, Leila?

Leila Sadat: 11:19  Well, what I was thinking is The Hague is a small city. These are small institutions. The world’s a big place, and we’re getting, again, non-compliance in the world. But these are small, relatively fragile institutions, so if states don’t support them, it’s hard for them to do their work, for sure.

Janet: 11:37  But, you know, your book is the dream, Benjamin, and you’re talking about the utopia, utopian idea. The reality is not the same as the dream, is it, Benjamin?

Benjamin Duerr: 11:49  No. A dream is a dream. It’s an aspiration. I think that is important, and that will remain important, that we stick to that idea that conflicts need to be solved in a peaceful way and that war needs to have limits. And I think that is the dream of The Hague that I also describe in the book. I think we would all agree that we haven’t achieved it yet, but it doesn’t make the dream as such irrelevant, I think.

Stephanie: 12:14  If we’re talking about a dream, we’re going to do some magic thinking. If you could change anything, what would you change of the institution in The Hague? And I’m going to go to Shadi first. You know, if you could wave the magic wand, if you could have your pink champagne unicorn, what would it be?

Shadi Sadr: 12:34  Yeah, I don’t think that we are talking about the dreams. We are talking about the expectations of the victims, that are very real. And I think that what The Hague institutions are doing, and then the lawyers, journalists, all the people who are engaging with the real Hague have been doing, is just managing expectations of the victims. I think, instead of that, The Hague as a city and its institution, as the symbols of the international formal justice system, needs to humbly embrace and understand the ways that victims have organised themselves in order to realise their right to justice. What I’m talking about is the lack of recognition by The Hague institutions of the informal justice mechanism, the victim-centred justice initiatives, such as people’s tribunals. I think, in order to narrow distance and the gap between the real Hague and the utopian Hague, the international formal justice system needs to learn from the victim-centred justice initiatives, the people’s tribunal, and recognise their contribution to international law and to justice. Otherwise, I am afraid we may have to wait another 125 years for The Hague institutions to meet the victims’ expectations.

Stephanie: 13:557  Well, anybody else have some, maybe not dreams, but aspirations? I see somebody here dying to have the one thing you would change.

Leila Sadat: 14:03  No, that’s the one thing I would change. I would just say the institutions of The Hague handle a lot of different kinds of disputes. And when I teach my international law class, 90% of what I teach has nothing to do with atrocity crimes or human-rights violations. It’s border disputes. It’s who has control of the dam. It’s things that are much more mundane. And so I think when we think about whether The Hague institutions are succeeding or not, the idea that we have so many cases proceeding to peaceful settlement, outside the war and peace, outside the most egregious human-rights situations — I feel like our eyes are drawn to atrocities because we have so much pain when we see that. But when I think about the international system as a whole, it’s doing pretty well on, you know, Oppenheim’s book is – volume one is peace and volume two is war. And we want to make everything in volume one. We want to make volume two very small. And that’s the part that we’re having trouble with. It is very challenging. But volume one’s doing pretty well. So I think that’s maybe where I have a slightly different perspective, in that a lot of the business that just has to be done — of who owns these islands, who owns these rocks, where’s the border, where’s this — The Hague does pretty well with that. It’s when it gets to these really challenging situations where they can’t access the jurisdictional mechanisms that I think we feel very frustrated.

Janet: 15:33  Andrea, this is your wheelhouse, isn’t it? You’re involved in these peaceful mechanisms to solve disputes.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 15:41  Well, yes, the PCA does do that. And it’s perhaps more on those mundane cases that perhaps nowadays don’t seem to be as key to the keeping of peace as they could have been in the past, in history. But certainly, that’s typically the sort of case that we are dealing with on pretty much a daily basis at the PCA. And it’s funny because, when you put this question to us of, if we had a magic wand, what we would change, and when I was hearing you, it’s funny because the answers really all meant the same thing, which is states actually have the strength to make the institutions stronger. And they are the ones that can actually contribute to making the institutions, their institutional message, actual reality, not just a dream, an aspiration, a philosophical principle. So, in this, it’s really something that the PCA as an institution is striving for, which is universal membership. We don’t have that at the moment, but-

Janet: 16:36  So that’s your, your wand: get them all to sign up.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 16:40  Yes, absolutely, and sign up to the 1899 and 1907 Conventions on Settlement of International Disputes. Show the commitment towards peace through dispute resolution — peaceful dispute resolution.

Janet: 16:53  And you also get a really nice chair. If you’ve ever visited the Peace Palace, then each of the states has the most brilliant embroidered chair. Yeah, really. They are absolutely lovely. So encourage your states. Clap

Audience: 17:05  [Applause]

Stephanie: 17:10  Benjamin, you have so many different roles. You’ve been a journalist. Now you’re a diplomat and a legal thinker. Is there one thing you can tease out? As a journalist, I know what my magic wand would be: that all the courts tell me everything, all the time, and ahead of my rivals. But in your current role, what would your one thing be that you would like to see changed?

Benjamin Duerr: 17:30  Well, I would actually build on what the others just said about the behaviour of states, because in my view we need to take one step further.

Janet: 17:38  Benjamin, you represent a state. I know you don’t here, you’re not speaking on behalf of the Dutch government or anything, but still, you’re working for a state. Come on.

Benjamin Duerr: 17:46  I do work for a state indeed, but I’m, I’m not representing the government, so everything I’m saying now today is in my personal capacity. I think I have to mention that. And that’s also why I think that states are important actors, but populations might be even more important, especially in democratic societies. So what I would like to change would be perhaps the language, the way in which we talk about international law. If I compare it to music, music for a very long time was classical music. You went to a concert every once in a while, but it was quite elitist. And only in very recent times, with the rise of pop music, it became something that became part of ordinary life of people. People started to understand it and started to enjoy it and started to appreciate it. And maybe we need something similar for for law. How, how do we talk about law? How do we engage? 

Janet: 18:41  So we need the Beatles. We need the Beatles for international law.

Benjamin Duerr: 18:44  We need the Beatles of international law.

Leila Sadat: 18:46  We have Amal Clooney.

Stephanie: 18:48  We have Amal Clooney. And there’s now like international-law TikTok, apparently, with the ICJ case — the rise of that. That’s what the youths are doing, apparently.

Janet: 18:57  I’m, I’m not sure international-law TikTok is the solution, but yeah.

Benjamin Duerr: : 19:01  You know, you need to take it out of the ivory towers. 

Janet: 19:04  But what I’m surprised by, Leila, is that you didn’t mention your pet project as the big intervention that you want to see.

Leila Sadat: 19:10  Oh, well, if, can I have two pink unicorns? I was just thinking I would like the ICC to be a United Nations organ, as opposed to a freestanding treaty court. That would be number one, for universality purposes. But number two would be the new treaty on crimes against humanity. And that really does go to the Hague Convention of 1899 because there is a clause that was written by a Russian diplomat in that treaty, the Martens Clause. And it talks about the laws of humanity and the dictates of the public conscience. And it shows up in the 1907 treaty in different language. It shows up in all the different treaties. And the more I’ve been thinking about it, what crimes against humanity really are is its our agreement, as a society, that some things are beyond the pale. Some things are so barbaric that they can’t be tolerated and that exist under international law. And that’s never been codified in an international convention. We have the International Criminal Court Statute, which has a provision on crimes against humanity, but that doesn’t bind states that aren’t parties to the Rome Statute, and it doesn’t provide for any possibility of preventing crimes against humanity. But it does come very much from the origins of 1899 and this idea of these laws of humanity and the international community coming together. There were only 26 states that came to The Hague in 1899, and I believe that 20 of them were Western European. Is that right? Benjamin would know best. And represented about 75% of the world because of colonialism. And, of course, it’s quite a different situation now, with 200-some countries and so much more diversity. But there are these still these fundamental ideas that need to be codified, enshrined and protected, and violations of them prevented.

Stephanie: 21:03  I see a lot of nodding from Benjamin. Do you want to jump in here?

Benjamin Duerr: 21:06 Yeah. No, I, I fully agree. And, by the way, Martens is one of the four main characters of the book.

Janet: 21:12  Is he one of these guys with the top hats on the front?

Benjamin Duerr: 21:14  No, unfortunately not.

Janet: 21:16  That’s what you had to wear to be an international lawyer, apparently, in the day — the top hat.

Stephanie: 21:21  I think we should bring that back. I would appreciate that.

Janet: 21:24  Ok.

Benjamin Duerr: 21:25  What I actually wanted to say was that I think enforcement would perhaps be the most crucial step for international law.

Janet: 21:33  I was going to say, this is one of the questions that I’m sure Steph gets and I get is: so what happens then, when there’s a decision? Who enforces?

Stephanie: 21:42  There is the classic Reuters blurb of “The court’s decisions are final and without appeal, but it has no means to enforce them.” And I repeat that for possible arrest warrants and everything. And I always get editors like, “Yeah, so, so why are we reporting on this?”

Benjamin Duerr: 21:57  If you look back again in history, you had laws that were unwritten, then they become written, then courts were established to enforce them. And now you would actually need the means to enforce the decisions of the court, or the courts. So I think it would be a very logical development of creating mechanisms to enforce them, even though it might seem unrealistic at the moment, at least.

Janet: 22:19  Shadi, do you want to pick up Leila’s point about who was actually there in 1899? I mean, it’s it’s only very- Iran wasn’t there, I assume.

Shadi Sadr: 22:28  I think it was there.

Benjamin Duerr: 22:29  It was.

Shadi Sadr: 22:30  Yeah, it was there. So Iran used to be a very active member of the international community. Iran was there, but then I think the international community, as Leila said, was not as developed as it is and was not as complex as it is now. So the complexity of the international community, I think, is an issue, because the lack of enforcement is one thing, but also before that, I think many victims of atrocities have been feeling that they are all behind a very, very tall wall. Their situation is not being recognised in the laws, and then, if it’s recognised, there is no jurisdiction and there is no mechanisms to address their issues. And then, if it’s addressed, there is no enforcement. I would a little bit disagree with putting so much importance on the role of states, because the past experience shows that even mechanisms that have been sanctioned by states couldn’t deliver justice to the victims, whilst other mechanisms that are less formal or even unofficial create a sense of justice and remedy and generated genuine change on the ground. So I think the line between the state and official mechanisms of justice, and unofficial mechanisms and initiatives of justice, now is too blurred to focus too much on the role of states. And, and I think we should be more open to recognise the role of informal justice mechanisms in the global justice ecosystem.

Janet: 24:10  Okay. Should we go to the last question?

Stephanie: 24:12  Yes. And the last question is — well, it’s not really a tricky one — but is there any institutional law that should never have been created or conceived? And you are not allowed to all mention the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Janet: 24:26  Where would you like to start?

Stephanie: 24:28  I think it’s interesting to see what Andrea has to say about it, because she’s been so praiseworthy of all the tribunals and laws. I’m kind of curious what the pick would be for the one that would drop off.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 24:38  Well, certainly it’s not for the PCA to give that sort of point of view. It’s of course, it’s if states are creating institutions, they have a reason for that, and we can’t rejudge that. However, that being said, to answer your question a bit more fully and not leave you with that sort of reserved reply, maybe one thing that has to be borne in mind as time goes on, and as institutions are further and further created, perhaps one thing to bear in mind is for for states in particular is to consider whether existing institutions might actually respond to what they identify as new needs, or as new potentially relevant causes for creation of institutions. So, not judging on what occurs and is present at the moment, but looking forward, I’m going to add immediately an acronym, and I’m going to explain it now. You have the UNCITRAL reform, though.

Janet: 25:32  Wow, I’ve not heard of that.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 25:34  The United Nations Commercial and International Trade Law, Commission on International Commerce and Trade law, which is looking at the moment at the reform of the investor-state dispute-settlement system. So this is something that you can hear a lot about in the press about investor-states disputes and the short name of that is ISDS. A lot of things are going on at the moment at UNCITRAL. They’re considering various elements, like creating a new court. Well, there’s perhaps reason, or a good consideration, for states to consider there to that perhaps there are existing institutions that can take care of that sort of thing. And in that regard, that is typically what the Permanent Court of Arbitration actually does on a daily basis, again, in dispute resolution. So, sorry, I can’t really provide a strict answer to your question, but looking forward.

Stephanie: 26:24  You thought about how to do it, and you thought about to still have a personal answer and not have the institutional face of that. It’s good. I’m going to turn to Leila and see if we can wiggle a more personal pet hate from you.

Leila Sadat: 26:35  Well, I’m afraid I have to leave The Hague for this one, because it would be the veto power in the Security Council. That would be one thing I think the world would be better off without.

Janet: 26:48  We gotta clap.

Audience: 26:50  [Applause]

Leila Sadat: 26:55  And, and can I just add one little tag? I have to push back against that Reuters line about the judgments not being enforceable. Every time I read that, like, steam just comes out of my ears.

Janet: 27:05  It’s Stephanie. It’s all her.

Leila Sadat: 27:08   It is Stephanie. No, but honestly, they are enforceable. The Security Council can enforce, and you will see some national systems enforcing the judgments of the International Court of Justice, complying with ICC arrest warrants. It’s not a completely desolate and bleak landscape. In the Jurisdictional Immunities case between Italy and Germany, Italy’s courts said, “We have to implement the judgment of the International Court of Justice in that case.” So that is a very state-dependent thing. States could choose to comply with orders, even when they don’t like them. And most of the time, states actually do comply. But there is always the Security Council, which could enforce. That’s why we need to get rid of the veto, so that the Council is a little bit more effective.

Stephanie: 27:52  I agree with you that is what maybe the stories should say, but that would mean all my stories would be 2,000 words, and Reuters likes to have it 300, 600, maybe 800 words. And so that is why I do the very, very broad brushstrokes. 

Janet: 28:10  So, Benjamin, what do you think? Which institution is your pet hate?

Benjamin Duerr: 28:14  Well, so I agree with the Security Council. As a student and as a practitioner, I’ve learned that you should not create laws that cannot be enforced, or that don’t function in practice, because they undermine the credibility of the law and the institutions and create disappointments. And now I’m saying something that might sound controversial, but I wonder if, for example, a treaty like the Genocide Convention lives up to the expectations, or undermines actually the credibility in international-law institutions. I’m not saying it should not have been created — that can be clear — but it perhaps should have been conceived differently.

Janet: 28:54  My response to that would be that the way people use the term genocide generally is where you’ve got the problem, because they don’t actually understand what the difficulties are in the Convention because it was negotiated by states in order to be as it is — a very high bar in order to get over the edge and to be usable.

Benjamin Duerr: 29:16  Exactly. But that makes it difficult in practice and creates a lot of confusion and disappointment.

Stephanie: 29:22  And Shadi?

Shadi Sadr: 29:22  I cannot think of any. Putting the veto aside and the Security Council, I think because often the laws and mechanisms that had seemed dormant or irrelevant have been utilised in a very creative ways by victims’ communities, by civil society and by lawyers. So I think the need to generate more mechanisms, more new laws is more dire than getting rid of the existing laws or mechanisms.

Janet: 29:52  Stephanie, because we’re bound to get some blowback, particularly from some friends of ours, on your throwaway Special tribunal for Lebanon, maybe you should explain why you found it such a disappointing court.

Stephanie: 30:04  I am not a great fan of having in absentia trials and making states pay a lot of money to have in absentia trials again, and then also cutting them off before they can do all their work, and creating lots and lots of expectations from all kinds of victim communities and not being able to live up to them. As I’m sitting here and listening to everybody’s pet hate, I think my pet hate is probably less the STL as an institution, but the atrocity Olympics, that everything has to be genocide to matter. And I think it would be much better if everybody realised that persecution and things like extermination and just general crimes against humanity is atrocious and horrific, and we shouldn’t all be trying to prove that everything is genocide, even if some things may be. But that should not be that we should not report on it or care about it only if it’s genocide, because it doesn’t really matter if you’re killed in a mass killing or just individually. It’s horrible in any case it happens.

Janet: 31:04  And just to say- oh, clap.

Audience: 31:08  [Applause]

Stephanie: 31:09  I know my audience.

Janet: 31:12  And just to say, in case you’re interested in any of our back archive, we did do an episode on ISDS, International Investor Settlement Dispute System, and the questions around it, and maybe some of the things that some of your critics would say need to be reformed. Because it’s such, it’s a bit of a hidden subject for somebody like me. I don’t really cover it, so I found it really interesting to delve into it. So, I look forward to doing some more on that. So, what we’re going to do now is throw it open to you guys. Does anybody have a question or a comment, as long as it’s not a five-minute comment? And we have Margarita to circle around the room.

Audience Member: 31:51  Well, thank you so much for coming. I am a lawyer and an LLM candidate for public international law, and my question is more regarding to journalism. So, as much as I know that, as a member of the public, it is our obligation to be very critical with everything that we read, to what extent would you say it is also the obligation of journalists and the media to use correct terminology, and not just misinform the public and to throw buzzwords around, causing more chaos and eventually, like, a more chaotic response from the public?

Janet: 32:23  We take from the gentleman on on that side.

Palestinian Diplomat: 32:26  Hi. Good day. Thank you so much for the dialogue. I just have two comments more than questions. I’ve heard it was said today that states have the ability to make international law and institutions stronger. But what we’re seeing right now is a group of powerful states trying to do the complete opposite by undermining international law and those institutions. We have the same power who is infamous for abusing the veto power in the Security Council actually questioning the binding power of the Security Council resolutions when it felt compelled not to veto a specific resolution. We also have certain states who are trying to undermine the jurisdiction and the binding power of decisions taken by international courts like the ICJ, as we’ve seen many states who like to boast of themselves as beacons of international law, democracy and human rights, and et cetera, questioning whether the ICJ has the jurisdiction to determine something or not, and trying to even pre-empt decisions to be taken by the ICJ, because the ICJ itself decides on whether it has jurisdiction or not. And I’m speaking about a specific case related to the Genocide Convention. And on another matter—

Janet: 33:40  We’ll just cut- we’ll just take that one for the moment. We’ll come back to you- 

Palestinian Diplomat: 33:43  Can I just finish that, please? I’ll make that short. I’m a Palestinian diplomat and legal adviser to our representation to the ICC and the ICJ. For a very long time, colonised nations felt excluded from the protection of international law, and this is exactly how we feel about international law right now. So, to Benjamin, I would say that no one is abusing the word genocide at this point. It’s up to the Court to decide whether there’s a genocide going on or not. And there’s no one, there’s no authority, that can determine that the term genocide and its suffering, or the suffering that would result of it, could be monopolised by certain group of people who could determine whether other people could be eligible to be victims of such a tragic event or not. Thank you.

Janet: 34:32  Thank you for attending. And the third question is from this gentleman in the corner.

Michael Cooper: 34:39  Michael Cooper, the American Society of International Law. I have a quick comment and then a question. The comment is to build on what Leila said. I, too, have been troubled by this refrain in the press that the International Court of Justice can’t enforce its own rules. And adding to the enforcement mechanisms that Leila mentioned, I would also mention the simple force of law. Law itself has an innate force. And if you think about the ICJ, the whole purpose of the ICJ was to avoid the use of physical force, right? It was to rely on the force of law. So that’s a quick comment. For Andrea, our friend from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, yesterday a small group of us had the pleasure of touring the Peace Palace, and we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to see the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s chambers because there was a hearing going on. So my first question is: can you tell us anything about the hearing itself, the nature of the dispute and the parties? And my second question is: why can’t you answer my first question?

Janet: 35:39  [Laughter] Exactly. Ok, Steph.

Stephanie: 35:42  Well, let’s see. I think I will give Benjamin first a right of reply, because I think our friend, the Palestinian diplomat, suggested that you were suggesting there was an abuse of the Genocide Convention, and I’m not sure I caught that so.

Benjamin Duerr: 35:57  No, no, indeed. I didn’t mean to say that there is an abuse of the Genocide Convention or the word of genocide, and I also didn’t talk about specific incidents or specific situations.

Stephanie: 36:08  And I want to say for when we talk about what terminology we use as journalists and what responsibility we have, I think it’s very important to explain what will happen, but for some of those things I can’t use the legal terminology. And I know lawyers dislike me very much, because I get a lot of lawyers who are like, ‘Well, you say that it’s this, but actually, you know, very specifically, it’s Article 5.4 and it’s this word.’ And then I kind of have to say, ‘Yes, but nobody understands this. De facto, what’s going to happen is this, so I’m going to write that.’ But that’s the number one complaint of lawyers, that I’m not specific enough. And then I always have to say I try to be as specific as I can. I do think that it’s incredibly difficult to write about these international-law decisions when you don’t know the ins and outs. So, to write the way I do, very generally, like the de facto that this is going to happen, I need to know all those ins and outs. But I also am kind of rolling my eyes and just aghast at some of the stuff that comes out of, like, reputable news organisations talking about the ICC or the ICJ and what it can and can’t do. And I’m like, ‘Hello, this is not, this is not what’s going to happen.’ I got a call from my editors when we had the ICJ South Africa-Israel case, and they’re like, ‘When are the witnesses going to show up?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, you know, did you not read every, every explainer I did?’ So I’m wondering now, Benjamin, you have been a journalist and you are now on the diplomatic side. Do you get to write in clear language, or are you now fallen, trapped in the lawyer part of it?

Benjamin Duerr: 37:51  No, I think it remains a struggle in every profession. Unless you’re really writing for lawyers, I think you need to find a way of balancing information and, like, the correct use of terminology with the need to inform your reader. And I think that’s that’s always a balance you need to, to strike. So I don’t have a better answer than that, I’m afraid.

Janet: 38:17  Andrea?

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 38:17  I don’t have much to say on the part of ethics of journalism, but one thing that I would bounce back upon is what you were saying about the duty of the general public to take things with a grain of salt. And perhaps one way to build on what journalists do, and what they cannot do with regards to using very specific vocabulary, especially in an era where we have social media and very large efforts toward communication by the institutions, is: once you read an article, go back to the institution’s social media. Most of the time—and this at the PCA, we have to give a big shout-out to Camille Dagher, who’s been really working on that—there are massive efforts being made today to make accessible very legalistic terminology and to deconstruct it as much as possible and make it accessible to everyone. Which takes a little bit more time than an article that you have to get out to go ahead with the headlines and with the news and the rhythm of a news cycle, right? So

Janet: 39:16  Can I just press you before I go to the next person? Pick up this point: why are you so secretive? Why don’t we know what’s going on behind your closed doors?

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 39:25  We do. We do. At the PCA, there are cases that are transparent, the way that we use the terminology, or that are open and well known to the public. The way that arbitration works is that of course there is confidentiality of arbitration in some cases, but there is other, other cases are public. That publicity, that accessibility to the public, can be done in multiple ways. You can find either, from the lowest point, just information on a case on the website, but it can go all the way up to you, can actually see what is going on in the hearing with actually a transmission and a streaming of the hearing being held. So, one of the major cases that comes to my mind when I think of this is the Abyei arbitration, where a lot of the proceedings were streamed and are still available today still on the PCA’s website. That’s an international case that opposed Eritrea and Ethiopia with regards to a border dispute. So, typically the sort of situation that we were talking about earlier. And yes, some cases are secretive—some in the sense, and ‘secret’ is actually a very derogatory term here. It’s confidential, and it’s, there’s a reason for that confidentiality. It’s what gives strength to the consent of the parties to proceed through arbitration. And, to be honest with the reply, I actually don’t know what hearing is going on at the moment. I do know the colleagues who are taking care of it, but I actually don’t know who is actually in the case. That’s simply my misinformation, to be honest. There is certainly a lot of communication being done, and I really invite you all to look at the PCA’s social media at the moment, because we are communicating more and more, and better and better, essentially, about what the PCA has done in the past and what it is doing today.

Janet: 41:09  Shadi, what did you want to pick up?

Shadi Sadr: 41:10  I just wanted to add a very quick point to journalism and communication issue, because I think the lawyers are not the greatest communicators outside their own bubble. And I think the burden of explaining laws, to a great extent, is on our shoulders, not on the victims’ shoulders or members of the public. So, especially in the cases of atrocities or strategic litigation, communication is vital. And I think, and I would advise lawyers to take communication courses because it’s, I think, as important as talking about the law is talking about the law in a way that the public understands it.

Janet: 41:52  Leila, what did you want to pick up?

Leila Sadat: 41:54  I am going to try to communicate an idea very simply, picking up on what Michael said. When we talk about enforcement, I completely agree that law is a state of mind, right? Being law-abiding. And the way I think about that is, you know, the old saying: thought leads to action, your actions become your habits, your habits become your character. So if you have the character of a law-abiding state, you will very predictably comply with court judgments and the international legal system fairly easily. If you have the habit of thinking of yourself as above the law—and I think there are states that perhaps think of themselves as above the law—they develop a character of exceptionalism. And I think we are seeing right now a certain degree of exceptionalism. But most states, most of the time, I think because of what happened in 1899 and its reinforcement in 1907, we’re trying to reinforce this habit of mind. It shouldn’t take a court or the Security Council to order a state to behave lawfully or to give recompense. And this really goes to what Shadi was saying, too. This is a way of thinking. This is a way of thinking and being with respect to the law, with respect to legal rules. Not always looking for the way out, not always looking for the exception, but actually just getting into habit, because that habit builds good character. And so we’re trying to make states, in a way, good citizens. And I completely agree with the comment earlier that there are some states right now that are not behaving like good international citizens.

Janet: 43:38  Should we go for another round? So, yeah, we’ve got a few. Oh, a forest of hands.

Thomas Verfuss: 43:35  Thomas Verfuss, Journalist for Justice. The question I wanted to ask in the first round has already been asked and answered in part, in part. My question was: at the International Court of Justice, we see the principle of the publicity of proceedings fully applied. As far as I know, all hearings about contentious cases and hearings about advisory opinions are always public. At the PCA, the complication arises, according to my observation, that there are not only state-versus-state cases but also state-versus-company cases. And sometimes parties involved, which may be a private company—for example, Shell versus Nigeria, to name a fictitious case—may have some interest of that the case should not be public. And even if there are opponents in the case, that common interest, that interest may be common: not to let the public know about the very existence of the case. And that has made me wonder, over the decades I’ve followed the Permanent Court of Arbitration, what the ratio is. Of course, we know about the cases that are completely public, like Ireland versus United Kingdom about nuclear waste in the Irish Sea, cases that are partly public, like when you know only about the result when the arbitration is over. But how many cases are there we don’t know of? What’s the ratio? Fifty-fifty? Twenty-eighty? Forty-sixty?

Stephanie: 45:23  Thomas wants to know about the unknown unknowns. 

Janet: 45:26  But we’ve got two more questions yet. I think we have one down here.

Audience Member: 45:30  Well, this question might be a little outside everyone’s profession here, but my question was: I heard you talk about maybe trying to bring law, and law talk a bit more to the average citizen. What media and methods would you propose be used to that end? 

Janet: 45:49  Thank you. And this gentleman here, yeah.

Peter: 45:53  Hello, my name is Peter. I work in housing law in the UK, so I’m in The Hague for the ICC Moot. And in the first round of the ICC Moot, my team was facing off against a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And we got talking last night and went for a drink, and all of the team members described themselves as leftists, which was interesting. One of them said that he wanted to see Netanyahu locked away for life for what he’s done. Quite a strong statement. So then I said, ‘Okay, so you must approve of the application for an arrest warrant from the ICC.’ No, he doesn’t approve of it. And there’s an incredible dissonance there. His take was that there’s absolutely no equivalence between Hamas leaders and Israeli leaders and, as such, the ICC is not an appropriate forum. But I want to hear from the panel: how do you think such a dissonance could exist amongst even leftist Israelis, that the ICC is a court they will just not even contemplate holding their leaders to account for what’s going on?

Janet: 47:00  Maybe we can widen that one to just, you know: why is it that the ICC is just seen so differently in different countries, but if you don’t want to answer specifically on that. But should we start with you, Leila, on any of those questions that you want to pick up?

Leila Sadat: 47:16  Nice light question there.

Stephanie: 47:19  You can go with the medium question first.

Janet: 47:23  Leila will say TikTok.

Leila Sadat: 47:25  I’ll just say podcasts. No, film. I use film, a lot of film. My students—I noticed on my last exam, where I had shown little movies—I showed a beautiful, I taught the Chagos Islands case and I’d shown a little video about that, and they did so well on that issue. So I think film, you know, short videos, maybe not TikTok, but shorter things on the ICC arrest warrants, you know, I just think it’s very hard to hear your own state criticised. Even if you can—like, I can criticise my state—but sometimes I can get defensive if I hear other peoples attacking the United States, because that’s my state. So to have an international organisation come out, or the leader of the prosecution, right, come out, with this very strong statement saying that we believe that we have a reasonable basis and reasonable grounds to proceed with arrest warrants, I think there’s a shock, even for somebody who might think that would be a good thing if it happened in their own system. Again, this is about building the habit. It hasn’t happened very often. This is the first time the ICC has ever potentially indicted and or arrested somebody from a country in the group of Western countries. And so I think there’s that little bit of a shock value. But I think, if we build the habit to understand that international justice, this isn’t about equivalence. That’s a nice talking point. I heard President Biden say the same thing. It’s just not true, right? There’s no equivalence between defendants at the ICC. You just look at the evidence. You see what the charges are. You bring the arrest warrant, or you don’t bring the arrest warrant. There’s no such thing as an equivalence between two specific individuals.

Stephanie: 49:02  I think the spin doctor who came up with the equivalence argument is, like, probably paid top dollar to do that, because it was immediate. It was obvious that was the talking point.  And then I’m also, as a journalist, going, ‘Why are we talking about this? This isn’t equivalent. There’s the Rome Statute and what you do.’

Janet: 49:20  They knew what was coming, Steph. They knew what was coming. They prepared it.

Stephanie: 49:22  Well, they worked very hard on it, and apparently that’s the media spin. And I’m amazed to see that spin out of control in the way it does, which makes me maybe possibly a little naive, but it’s, that’s the thing now. It’s the equivalence thing.

Janet: 49:35  And Andrea?

Shadi Sadr: 49:37  Trust it had something to do with the Karim Khan’s statements on everyone is equal before the law—equal and equivalent so.

Stephanie: 49:46  Well, but that seems such a basic thing. Everybody should be equal before the law. 

Janet: 49:51  What about you, Andrea? What’s your answer to Thomas? Can you tell us your percentage of—and I am going to use the word—secret cases?

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 49:59  No, I can’t, because there are no secret cases. There are confidential cases, which is different. 

Audience: 50:04  [Laughter]

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 50:06  We don’t hide things. We’re simply not allowed, because of the arbitral rules that apply or because the parties have not agreed to the case being transparent or publicised. We cannot communicate on absolutely everything. Now, our annual report for 2023 will come out next week. You’ll have a whole lot of statistics there. If I’m correct, we have more than 200 cases on the roll at the moment. You can’t have all of them listed there, but quite a few are indicated. Some of them, for some of them, you just have snippets of information, and for some of them you actually have the whole briefs of the parties just listed there. Now, I appreciate that it’s not satisfactory for a lot of people to hear about this way that arbitration works. This is how it was created, or how it grew to become, on the basis of existing arbitration rules. Now, it has evolved. So, I talked earlier about UNCITRAL, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. They had rules that they created in 1976, and because it was a commercial, international-trade-focused entity, they had created arbitration rules that answered more to the needs, perhaps, of private disputes of private corporation disputes. And then that was slowly incorporated into treaties, for example, for ISDS. Now, since 2014, you actually have a second set of rules, which is the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in investor-state dispute settlements. Now, those rules can apply in two cases: first, when the treaties actually incorporate those rules or have been signed after the rules became into force in 2014; or they can apply when the parties have accepted to apply those rules. So sometimes a case that could have been confidential, in full compliance with what was applicable rules to the dispute, actually becomes transparent because there is an effort to do that. Now, as an institution, we are bound by the disputing parties’ agreement. Arbitration, I said earlier, when I tried to describe arbitration to people who don’t know what it is, is about cases that cannot go before the state. It’s not a ‘cannot’ simply because the nature of the dispute is not available, or cannot be put before the courts, or something of the sort. It’s a ‘cannot’ that is also because the parties have consented to go to arbitration. That’s the keystone. So the parties have agreed to go to arbitration. The parties have agreed to the conditions in which that arbitration will take place. We can’t do any more on that.

Stephanie: 52:55  I’m going to still be a very journalist and ask a yes-or-no question. Is there a way to know the total number of cases for arbitration, even the ones we that don’t know about? Where you have an actual number, or are there always going to be cases that are so confidential that you won’t even know that it’s not even counted?

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 53:15  I would hate to say absolutely yes in case I’m mistaken, but I, yes, I do believe so.

Janet: 53:25  Okay, well, we’ll do a count-up then.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 53:27  Yes. Well, you can follow up with me, and if I did make a mistake, well, I apologise in advance.

Janet: 53:33  We’re going to finish with Benjamin, but Shadi, did you want to pick up any of the other questions of mediumsyou would use to explain things?

Shadi Sadr: 53:40  I would say Instagram videos.

Stephanie: 53:41  Instagram videos. 

Janet: 53:43  And Benjamin, what would you like to pick up on?

Benjamin Duerr: 53:46  I just wanted to pick up, actually, on what Andrea just said, because the idea behind the PCA was to create a mechanism that allowed states to solve their disputes peacefully rather than going to war. And that required sometimes proceedings behind closed doors, because otherwise the states would not have consented to resolve their disputes in that way; otherwise, they would have gone to war. And so, in that sense, going back to the idea, the issue of confidentiality can actually be something positive. At least, that was the idea behind the PCA. So just.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 54:25  And it’s not only in arbitration, if I may. It’s also all the other ways of finding solutions to disputes, whether it’s mediation, or conciliation or fact-finding. It’s having that dose of tranquillity that is provided by the confidentiality aspect. Yes, it does contribute to ensuring the attainment of that solution. You’re right.

Janet: 54:47  Unfortunately, we only have a limited amount of time on any podcast, so we have to proceed towards what we always do at the end.

Stephanie: 54:55  Yes. And that is that we ask for recommendations. And we’re going to flip it around a little and ask for recommendations from the room. And what we do usually is ask what’s on your nightstand, who has a good documentary or a good film, and what are you listening to? But I’m going to flip it around because I’m asking the room, so I’ll ask very specifically: who wants to raise their hand if they have a good book that they recommend? It can be on what we’re talking about, or, and of course, we all recommend Benjamin’s book and you should all read it. And if you don’t-

Janet: 55:26  In the Netherlands, you must read it in Dutch.

Stephanie: 55:28  You must read it in Dutch, or either influence some publisher to translate it into English so that you can read it in English. But any other book that you recommend that’s a great read?

Audience Member: 55:38  So, actually, the book I would recommend is not so much about international law. It’s more about, like, political science, I would guess. It’s by this author, German author that I really like, whose called Hannah Arendt. She’s no longer alive. She wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism, and it’s a book that I would really recommend.

Stephanie: 55:53  The Origins of Totalitarianism. It goes on the list. Andrea, do you have a book that you would like to recommend? You look like you might want to say something.

Andrea Lapunzina Veronelli: 56:02  No, it made me smile, the reference to past lives. No, something actually Leila was saying earlier about Chagos made me think of a book that I enjoyed quite a bit. I actually lived in Mauritius for a while, so this is a case that I’ve seen the repercussions in real life. But one book that is really interesting, and goes to the question of medium and interest, is the book by Philippe Sands, who’s actually a lawyer for Mauritius in this, in this matter. It’s called The Last Colony. It’s not really a legal book. It mixes journalistic, legalistic and personal-memoir ways of drafting, so it’s quite short and it actually is very enjoyable. So if you’re looking into how international law works, it’s also nice because it delves into ICJ, PCA, ITLOS—so International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea—disputes, and all of that is mixed together in something that is accessible, I think, to even non-lawyers.

Stephanie: 57:04  And if you wanted in the podcast version, we also have an episode talking specifically about that book.

Janet: 57:07  Talking specifically about that book. 

Stephanie: 57:10  Talking specifically about that book.

Janet: 57:12  Do you have any recommendations, Benjamin?

Benjamin Duerr: 57:15  Sure. I actually created a full list because I was hoping that you would ask that question, but I’ll limit it- 

Janet: 57:20  You could give, give the list.

Benjamin Duerr: 57:22  No, I’ll limit it to two. One I got last week, actually, so I haven’t read it yet because it’s a thousand pages. It’s by Gary Bass, Judgment at Tokyo. It tells the story of the Tokyo Tribunal after the Second World War in a very, I think, nice, nice way, interesting way, with—I think—a prosecutor who was an alcoholic and embarrassed everyone. So I think quite an interesting book. And the other one I would mention is by Tara Zahra, Against the World, which is not so much about international law but about politics more generally. It’s about the decline of internationalism between the two world wars, when suddenly societies turned inwards, created new restrictions for visas, but also started to produce their food domestically. And she tells these developments between the two world wars, which eventually then led to, well, nationalism in its very extreme way. I think it’s an interesting book, especially considering what’s going on in the world right now.

Stephanie: 58:29  And Leila, you talked about the medium of film. We always love a good documentary or film recommendation. What would you, what do you think people have to see, should see?

Leila Sadat: 58:39  Oh, goodness. I haven’t really had time to read books or watch films recently. I just finished marking exams. I’m trying—I’m drawing a total blank still. Sorry.

Stephanie: 58:52  What do you do to get away from marking exams, when you have a glass of wine on the couch?

Leila Sadat: 58:58  I don’t. I do yoga.

Stephanie: 58:59  You do yoga. That’s also a good recommendation. 

Janet: 59:02  We’ll have another from the, from Shadi.

Shadi Sadr: 59:05  Yeah. I just recently read a memoir by Hisham Matar. The book is called The Return, and it captures his and his family’s ordeal after the forced disappearance of his father, who was one of the prominent opposition leaders against the former Libyan regime. And I strongly recommend reading it because it just explains the state of mind of the families of forcibly disappeared people and those who are living in exile. And I think it’s very important to, and it resonated with the pain and suffering of so many people around the world. And it’s a great piece of literature.

Stephanie: 59:44  I am going to still try and get somebody to shout out a documentary or movie to me. 

Janet: 59:50  Oh, there’s—there’s back at the back.

Linda: 59:54  I’m Linda, so I’m on the production team of the podcast. I recently watched a movie in the cinema called Civil War and basically a conception of what a civil war in the USA would look like today. And it was surprisingly moving to me because it really shocked me. And then I wondered why it was so shocking to see a war take place in the US when there’s wars like that taking place in so many places all the time. So I would really recommend watching it. It’s like, a really cool perspective. And also it’s about war, war journalists. So for the journalists in the room.

Stephanie: 01:00:34  Yeah, I think there’s a Reuters photographer there. So I think one of the the next office outings with the Reuters team in Amsterdam is to go see Civil War if it’s still in the movies. But we just need to find time, so people need to stop committing more crimes and filing indictments so I could actually see this stuff.

Irma: 01:00:51  So thank you everyone. My name is Irma, I’m a researcher and also Feminist Economics, and attending this event really reminded me of one of my all favourite books. It’s called The Law and Caring by Jonathan Herring, if I’m not mistaken. I think it was published in 2013. Why? I think it is very relevant because, from my observation, international law or law in general should bring peace and justice in community. But there is, when you talk about peace and justice, it’s pretty much related to the act of care, which I find lacking, to be honest, in our, the implementation of law, the discussion, discourses, about law. So, yeah, I think it is very important to bring back the act of care in the heart of our democracy. In the heart of our law conversion. So yeah, that’s it. 

Stephanie: 01:01:43  Thank you.

Audience Member: 01:01:46  A book and a movie. There’s a great book about this sort of founding period, the late 1800s, early 1900s, called The Internationalists by Oona Hathaway and her co-author – thank you – Scott Shapiro. As for a film, this is a little bit self-serving, but the American Society of International Law just recently produced a documentary called Stand Tall for the Rule of Law. Seventy-five of our members went to Ukraine to meet with 75 Ukrainians on the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention and the UDHR to help sort out some international legal issues and it hasn’t been released yet, but we’d be happy to bring the film over here to The Hague and show it at some point in the future. 

Janet: 01:02:27  Looking at Jill, the Humanity Hub—maybe you want to watch it? There you go.

Jill Wilkinson: 01:02:31  Hi, I’m Jill Wilkinson. I’m the director of The Hague Humanity Hub. I have another type of book to share with you that I, that is actually linked to the whole topic of law. It’s called Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke. It’s a small-town crime-investigation story taking place in Texas, and it’s a very interesting story about race relations, but also about preconceived notions when you’re investigating a crime, and how you think society works and find out that it doesn’t work the way you thought it did and leads to all kinds of interesting insights.

Stephanie: 01:03:00  Oh, we love a good mystery book on the podcast. So, thank you, Jill. 

Janet: 01:03:06  More recommendations? 

Stephanie: 01:03:06  Have we recommended that? No, I see Leila has more.

Leila Sadat: 01:03:09  Well, does anybody watch Netflix?

Audience: 01:03:11  Yes.

Stephanie: 01:02:12  Tell us what’s in the Netflix queue.

Leila Sadat: 01:02:14  Bridgerton.

Stephanie: 01:02:15  Yes. I watched a lot of Bridgerton. I needed to calm down from all the genocides and reporting. I mean, my family here will attest that they have been forced to watch a lot of period costumes while I kind of wind down from work. So, they are long-suffering, but very supportive.

Janet: 01:03:36  And I think it’s just time. I’m sorry that we haven’t had a chance for you all to ask all of your questions. If you are interested in following our podcast, you can sign up to our newsletter, and then we’ll let you know what we’ve been doing so that you can catch up, or just put us in your queue for podcasts. We also have a Patreon page if anybody feels like buying us a cup of coffee occasionally.

Stephanie: 01:03:59  And we have to say that the Patreon money goes directly to Margarita and our interns, so that we don’t use that for ourselves. We give that to the people who help. 

Janet: 01:04:07  So, thank you all very much. Final clap.

Stephanie: 01:04:09 Thank you all for coming. Bye.

Audience: 01:04:10  [Applause]

Janet: 01:04:16  Let’s give a special thanks for managing to survive on these very tall stools for an hour to our panellists: Andrea, Shadi, Benjamin and Leila. Thank you all very, very much.

Stephanie: 01:04:28 Thank you so much.

Audience: 01:04:29  [Applause]

[OUTRO TUNE]

Narrator: 49:35  This was asymmetrical haircuts, your international justice podcast created and presented by Janet Anderson and Stephanie van den Bergh. This episode was recorded at The Hague Humanity Hub, home to a community of innovators in the fields of peace, justice, development and humanitarian action. Music is by Audionautix.com. You can find show notes and everything about the podcast on asymmetricalhaircuts.com. This show is available on every major podcast service, so please subscribe, give us a rating, and spread the word.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Stay safe and enjoy your day.