Outline Chambers Briefings | International Legal News
14 September 2026
Each week, Outline Chambers provides a concise overview of key developments across international law, arbitration and global governance.
This week: the ICJ opens hearings on Germany's arms transfers to Israel, a Jamaican petition to the King revives the slavery reparations debate, a UN expert warns Gaza rubble-clearing could erase atrocity evidence, Lesotho is pressed over a journalist's abduction, and Malta's Caruana Galizia family renews its reform push after Yorgen Fenech's acquittal.
International Court of Justice: Judges hear Germany's bid to throw out Gaza arms case The ICJ opened hearings on Germany's preliminary objections in Nicaragua v. Germany, where Nicaragua alleges Berlin's political, financial and military support for Israel, including funding cuts to UNRWA, makes it complicit in genocide in Gaza. Germany's counsel argued the Court cannot rule on Berlin's conduct without first assessing Israel's, though Israel is not a party to the case. A ruling on jurisdiction is expected within six months. For more on this story, see here. Blog Corner: EJIL:Talk! on Jamaica's slavery reparations petition to the King As Jamaica formally presented a petition to King Charles III raising three questions on the legality of transatlantic chattel slavery and the UK's responsibility to make reparations, Britta Redwood examines the petition's legal basis and its place in CARICOM's decade-long reparations campaign, including why Jamaica is using the Privy Council route at all. For more on this story, see here.
Human Rights: UN expert warns Gaza rubble-clearing may be erasing atrocity evidence
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, warned that Israel's rubble-clearing operations in Gaza removing, relocating and crushing debris risk destroying evidence of potential atrocity crimes, urging caution in large-scale clearance efforts.
For more on this story, see here.
Rule of Law: Lesotho pressed to investigate journalist's abduction and torture
Amnesty International called on Lesotho to investigate the abduction of investigative journalist Kananelo Boloetse, taken from his Maseru home on 5 September and allegedly tortured and severely beaten over his reporting.
For more on this story, see here.
Rule of Law: Malta's Caruana Galizia family renews reform push after Fenech acquittal
Businessman Yorgen Fenech was acquitted by a Maltese jury on all counts of complicity in the 2017 car-bomb murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, a verdict her family called "a denial of the justice she deserves," with an appeal expected.
The family's lawyer, who appeared as partie civile at trial, used the case to press Malta to add UK-style offences, misconduct in public office, perverting the course of justice and assisting an offender to its criminal code, arguing that post-murder conduct which shocked the public still falls outside what Maltese law criminalises.
For more on this story, see here.
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