1st Christ Law Alumni International Moot Court Competition 2026

The post-1945 international legal order, built around the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and a growing body of treaty and customary law, is under unusual strain. Armed conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have reopened debates on the jus ad bellum prohibition on the use of force, the scope of self-defence under Article 51, the law of occupation, and the obligations of third states under the Genocide Convention — questions that have been actively litigated before the International Court of Justice in cases such as Ukraine v. Russian Federation (2022) and South Africa v. Israel (2023). At the same time, the International Criminal Court's issuance of arrest warrants against sitting heads of state has reignited disputes over head-of-state immunity, complementarity, and the Court's relationship with non-party states. Parallel pressures are coming from outside the traditional security domain. The ICJ's 2024 advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change, the ITLOS advisory opinion on marine pollution and greenhouse gases, and ongoing negotiations on a UN treaty on business and human rights and on a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution all signal an expansion of state responsibility into environmental and economic spheres. Technology is producing its own legal frontier: the EU AI Act, the GGE discussions on lethal autonomous weapons systems, transnational data-protection regimes, and disputes over cross-border cyber operations are forcing a rethink of sovereignty, attribution, and due diligence in cyberspace. Running through all of these debates is a deeper structural question: whether the existing multilateral system can adapt to a more multipolar order. Reform proposals concerning the UN Security Council veto, the WTO Appellate Body deadlock, sanctions regimes and their humanitarian carve-outs, and the legitimacy of universal jurisdiction prosecutions reflect competing visions of international law — as a rules-based constraint on power, as an instrument of contested geopolitics, or as a vehicle for Global South claims around reparations, debt, and historical injustice.