International Law questions arising out of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

International Law questions arising out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Post published:March 15, 2022
Post category:Seminar & Webinars
Reading time:7 mins read

Webinar on “International Law questions arising out of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine” by Mr. Sudhir Verma hosted by SPIL, Mumbai.

About the Organisation

Students for the Promotion of International Law (SPIL), Mumbai is a committee of Government Law College. And as the name suggests, it is a student body that cynosures International Law. With an increasing need for awareness in the field of International Law, we maintain that such awareness is put into an impetus through the diverse events we conduct within the versatile subject of International Law. At SPIL, we take a novel approach for Students and Academia alike, to let them be a part of the discourse, to explore the magnificently huge sphere of International Law, while always keeping in mind the grey and equivocal areas of the subject and attempting to abridge the same.

About the Speaker

Mr. Sudhir Verma has a natural zeal to inculcate in fellow colleagues an understanding of Contemporary Global Politics for law students or anyone who is interested in the subject. He is a Doctoral Scholar in International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His doctoral research involves an intellectual inquiry into the work of the International Law Commission’s project titled “Protection of persons in the event of Disasters”. His supervisor Prof. Bharat H. Desai is an authority in International Law and a renowned academician. He completed his M.Phil in International Law from the same Centre under the guidance of Prof. B.S. Chimni whose contribution in the subject of International Law is very well known to the academic circles around the world. Apart from his interest in reading the Emerging International Disaster Laws, his academic interests include International Legal Theory, International Human Rights Law, Law of the Sea, International Environmental Law, and International Economic Law (including global trade and finance regimes). He was part of this year’s National Consultation held by the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN, witnessing the issues associated with Human Rights violations in India. The outcome of these consultations will be presented to the UNHRC by the end of March 2022.

An alumnus of the Government Law College, Mumbai, he is working as an Assistant Professor at the Symbiosis Law School, Noida. Before joining Symbiosis International University, he taught at various institutions in the NCR region as visiting faculty. Considering International Law as a complex phenomenon due to an inherent flux associated with the subject, his efforts are currently focussed on problematizing various aspects of the discipline. This, he believes, at least kick-starts the process of “thinking about International Law”.

Sudhir has started an initiative where he conducts regular online weekly discussions on International Law and the essence of International Law and academic debates around the subject.

Along with being a Research Associate at Dr. Gubbi’s House of Justice, Bengaluru, where he analyses different aspects of International Maritime Law, Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and the most recent Wage Code, he has an inherent desire to keep contributing to the scholarship of International Law, voicing out the concerns of the Third World Nations associated with the discipline.

About the Webinar

Some scholars often brand International Law as a weak law. However, the webinar will discuss this notion upon a premise that such an understanding is marred with a misunderstanding about the basic nature of International Law. Evaluating such nature through the prism of Municipal Law is flawed in the first place, as both International Law and Municipal Law are different systems altogether and are applicable in different dimensions.

This debate is also extended to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The webinar will briefly touch upon some facts arising out the geo-politics between NATO and Russia since 2008 and then discuss certain International Law questions and violations that have taken place in the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine. The talk will critically evaluate the current scholarly debate around the notion of Self-Defense, Reprisals, and the Legality of the Use of Force in International Law.