Aman Kumar
It has been eight years since I started blogging on this space. My own understanding of international law has evolved so much throughout these eight years. Prof. B S Chimni (International Institutions Today, EJIL-2004) was introduced to us by Dr. Gitanjali Ghosh (NLU Assam/Tezpur University) when this blog was started, and it went over my head. I could understand half of it when I read it for the second time during my masters at the South Asian University. Cut to today when TWAIL is my framework for the PhD thesis I am writing. Most of my journey of understanding and critiquing international law has happened through this space. The subject matter of my PhD thesis – Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar – also came to me while I was working on the Immunity of Heads of State series for the blog. While the PhD work has made it difficult for me to devote much time to blogging, it had given me an opportunity to work with some younger scholars who are committed towards broadening the discourse of international law in India. The Invitation to join to the blog was received very well – the Invitation itself became the most-read post from 2024! Through the process, Arunava Banerjee and Sarthak Sahoo have joined the IBIL.
Citations of the Blog
In 2025, the blog also got cited in the Oxford Reports on International Law courtesy an analysis by Abhijeet Shrivastava of the Ashok Kumar Sharma decision of the Supreme Court of India. The case pertained to supply of weapons to Israel by India. Abhijeet referred to this post from the blog.
Another post, linked below and published in 2022, was referred in an article by Vijay Kishor Tiwari and Madhav Pooviah, published in the Volume 10, Issue 2 of the RGNUL Student Research Review.
Focus Areas – South Asia, Populism etc.
The blog has also given me opportunity to connect with scholars from all over the world, which has helped me create a space for discussions about south-Asia. South-Asia has remained a important region for me personally (see here and here, co-authored with Antarnihita Mishra), and for the blog in terms of generating a discussion around it. 4 out of the the top-10 countries, in terms of readership, are south-Asians (India (1), Bangladesh (7), Nepal (9) and Pakistan (10)). In the last year, the blog has hosted three Symposiums focused on South-Asia. The first one was on South-Asian Approaches to Palestine-Israel Conflict where we presented analysis of Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and China’s submission before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the proceedings regarding the Advisory Opinion Request on Israel’s Occupation of Palestine.
In our next Symposium on South-Asia, Chhaya Bhardwaj led a discussion on the South-Asian and other Perspectives on the Advisory Opinion proceedings at the ICJ on Climate Change. We discussed submissions by Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Maldives, along with submissions by the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In the third symposium, tangentially focused on South-Asia, Chhaya returned to lead a discussion on the Advisory Opinion given on these submissions. Some of the authors of the previous symposium were joined by others to present a comprehensive analysis of the AO on various aspects, and included special discussion on the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) too.
Two other themes which have captured our attention in the last couple of years – Populism, and disenchantment with international law – were engaged with at the blog . I had published a reader on both these themes and they have been well received.
Outside of the symposiums, the two pieces which have been widely read are the ones by Sarthak Sahoo about the disruptive nature of oral observations and lack of understanding amongst senior judges in India about international law; and by Arunava Banerjee, about the ILC’s works on ‘teachings’ as a source of international law.
Some of the other most read pieces from 2024-2025 were this piece from Swati Singh Parmar (DNLU, Jabalpur) about Teaching International Law. Listen to her piece, discussed on my Podcast here. Chhaya Bhardwaj and Daniel Stein‘s piece on was also widely read, and so was this reflective personal piece from Arpita Goswami Sachdeva.
Overall, the blog continues to have strong readership in the USA, the UK, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Estonia, who along with the above-mentioned countries from south-Asia make the top-10 readership.
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