The Work of the International Law Commission in Its Seventy-First and Seventy-Second Sessions: COVID, Cancellations and Much More

This contribution describes the work of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) during its seventy-first and seventy-second sessions. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the work of the Commission over the last three years has been severely hampered, yet the Commission was still able to produce significant work. In the seventy-first session, the Commission adopted, on first reading, the Articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity. It also adopted two instruments on first reading, namely the Draft Conclusions on Peremptory Norms of General International Law and the Draft Principles on the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict. In the seventy-second session, the ILC adopted two first-reading texts, namely the guidelines on the protection of the atmosphere and the Guide to Provisional Application of Treaties. The Commission was also active in the relation to new topics. In the seventy-first session it placed on its current agenda, the topic sea-level rise in relation to international law. On its long-term programme of work, it placed two topics, namely piracy and robbery at sea under international law and reparation to individuals for gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law. In the seventy-second session it placed on its agenda the topic subsidiary means for the determination of rules of international law.