‘We’re the good guys’: why moral storytelling doesn’t make the war on Iran necessary or legal Once the narrative of a “just war” replaces the rule of law, there is little left to restrain powerful states from dominating weaker ones.

This short piece from @tamermorris.bsky.social is excellent and worth your time to read it: theconversation.com/were-the-goo...

Use of incendiary weapons to target military objectives in civilian populated areas is prohibited given their indiscriminate effects and causing unnecessary suffering even if Israeli hasn't signed up to CCW Protocol III

Maybe this is too international law of me, but you can’t liberate women by slaughtering school girls.

No Senator Wong the legality isn't a matter for the US and Israel to determine, it is the responsibility of the international community to speak up when blatant disregard for international law takes place. So it is absolutely a question for Australia to be addressing unless you support aggression

i’m tired of every paper (even critical ones) on societal impact of AI starting by both-siding the “benefits” and risks/harms of AI

in academia, i would like us to arrive at a collective reckoning that we don’t need to play both sides. it's totally legit to clearly state just the harms. period

Sobs in semester starting today

Ben Saul and Don Rothwell said it better than I could.

I'll also note that in my experience, Don Rothwell (who was a supervisor on my MPhil) is a very cautious speaker so for him to be so emphatic speaks volumes

The American-Israeli Strikes on Iran are (Again) Manifestly Illegal After weeks of threats, the United States, joined by Israel, has launched military strikes against Iran. It remains to be seen whether these strikes will be fairly limited, or are the opening of an ex...

"Whatever happens, though, one thing is clear – that this use of force by the US and Israel is manifestly illegal. It is as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have."

@ejiltalk.bsky.social

www.ejiltalk.org/the-american...

The American-Israeli Strikes on Iran are (Again) Manifestly Illegal After weeks of threats, the United States, joined by Israel, has launched military strikes against Iran. It remains to be seen whether these strikes will be fairly limited, or are the opening of an ex...

You guessed it but the US attack on Iran is manifestly illegal in international law. Thank you Prof Milanovic for such clear analysis in the @ejiltalk.bsky.social blog.

www.ejiltalk.org/the-american...

Preemptive is another word for aggressive.

In 2025, we international lawyers—and the legal system in which we operate—are standing at the precipice. That things are beyond bad should not be in doubt. This is not some run-of-the-mill crisis of the kind that international lawyers revel in, as Hilary Charlesworth warned us against. This is collapse, or something collapse-adjacent. And we are not alone, here at the precipice. Everyone else is here too. Some don’t think things are as catastrophic as they first seem. Some are delighted with how things are going (though there are few international lawyers among them). Some are despairing (and here the international lawyers are legion). Everyone is anxious. I, too, am anxious, standing here at the precipice. I see the looming catastrophe, for our world and for our field. The catastrophe is already here. It is in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine. It is in the global decline of democracy and rising authoritarianism, including in the United States, the linchpin of the current international order. The question is how big this catastrophe is going to get, and what will come after it. And that we just don’t know. We can’t know, standing, as we are, here at the precipice.

Marko Milanovic does not mince words.

Why the looming visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog may backfire on Anthony Albanese - ABC Religion & Ethics The Prime Minister is not known for taking big risks — but the visit of Isaac Herzog risks jeopardising his government’s efforts to address escalating tensions within the Australian community over Gaz...

The folly of inviting Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, to Australia.
My column for the ABC.

I miss the evil billionaires who'd try to buy their way into heaven by funding massive public libraries

Maduro and murky legality of "irregular" extradition Does bringing a defendant before a court by irregular means bar prosecution?

This piece by @irelandpiper.bsky.social on extraterritorial jurisdiction and irregular extradition is worth a read: share.google/s7eeJqGv6cFL...

Blind Imperial Arrogance Vile stereotyping of Arabs by the U.S. ensures years of turmoil

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”

Edward Said’s words are as relevant today as they were a few decades ago.

Now is a time for care and compassion, not racism and retribution #bondibeach

AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.

“Calculators expanded reasoning; the printing press spread knowledge. ChatGPT, by contrast, doesn’t extend cognition—it automates it, turning thinking itself into a service. Rather than democratizing learning, it privatizes the act of thinking under corporate control.”

AI corrupts our learning.

I'll say it again -- I'm on my firm's AI committee: every canned demo has had brutal, malpractice-level errors, and every live trial has required more time and care to vet the output than to just do it, like working with an unteachably incompetent associate you'd need to sit down for a Hard Talk.

THIS 👇

Congratulations!!

UWA Law School is hiring! Lvl B is only open to applicants with working rights in #AUS. Applications close 3 December 2025. Start date negotiable. (I encourage #intLaw people to apply! Ping @anzsil.org) #jobs #jobFairy #academia #lecturer #higherEd external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/cw/en/job/52...

AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.

“While the AI industry claims its models can “think,” “reason,” and “learn,” their supposed achievements rest on marketing hype and stolen intellectual labor. In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests.”

Cuteness overload!

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000

“Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare.”

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Recognition of Palestine in International Law A webinar

Ahead of #UNGA80, where several states are expected to recognise the State of #Palestine, we're co-hosting a webinar on "Recognition of Palestine in International Law: Australian and New Zealand Perspectives", on 18 Aug 2025, 3-4PM AEST (5-6PM NZT). Register now www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/recognitio...

“The clearer position that Australia could take is that if it diplomatically, legally and politically objects to Israel’s occupation of Gaza, then all exports could be suspended for the time being.”

Don Rothwell is spot on here

If you're in the need for some cheering up, or are just starting your day and want to unleash some oxytocin/serotonin in your brain (hormones that make you feel good), then I highly recommend going through this thread.

Lots of folks sharing photos of their animal friends with a focus on snouts. 👇