LCIL International Law Centre Podcast

Based on his experience, but speaking in his personal capacity, Ambassador Tomohiro Mikanagi will discuss the current state of the rules of international law against attempts to acquire territory by force. When powerful States are not satisfied with the territorial status quo and are unwilling to give up their interests for the sake of international peace, there is an inherent difficulty in stopping their attempts to acquire territory by force. In the past 100 years, efforts have been made to stop such attempts. Based on the recognition of the efforts made so far, Ambassador Mikanagi will examine the current state of the rules of international law against such attempts. He will examine the relationship between the prohibition on the use of force and the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and will discuss the scope of these prohibitions. He will also discuss whether States can acquire territory by the use of force in self-defence and examine obligations for third States arising from the violation of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force.
Ambassador Tomohiro Mikanagi is the Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations and was the Japanese Legal Advisor from 2022 to 2024. He also holds the title of Ambassador-at-Large for Cooperation on International Law.
He was a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre of International Law and is currently an LCIL Partner Fellow. He participated in the proceedings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the Advisory Opinion issued on July 19, 2024. Japan's oral statement in February 2024 was unique as it focused exclusively on the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force.
Chair: Prof Sandesh Sivakumaran

Lecture summary: In 1963, Stanley Hoffmann told the American Society of International Law: “Since every Power wants to turn its interests, ideas and gains into law, a study of the ‘legal strategies’ of the various units, i.e., of what kinds of norms they try to promote, and through what techniques, may be as fruitful for the political scientist as a study of more purely diplomatic, military or economic strategies.” In this lecture, Michael Byers outlines his two-decade long project to expose and explain how a class of highly sophisticated international lawyers, often referred to as ‘legal advisers’, strategically seek to manipulate law-making processes to make or change rules to favour their state.
Michael Byers (PhD Cantab) is Professor of Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He also co-directs the Outer Space Institute, a global network of space experts united by their commitment to highly innovative, transdisciplinary research that addresses grand challenges facing the continued use and exploration of space. Dr. Byers has been a Junior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University; Professor of Law at Duke University; and a Visiting Professor at the universities of Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Nord (Norway), Novosibirsk (Russia), St Andrews, and the Geneva Graduate Institute. His two most recent books, both published by Cambridge University Press, are International Law and the Arctic and Who Owns Outer Space?
Chair: Prof Lorand Bartels, Centre Fellow
The Friday Lunchtime Lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Lecture summary: Early March 1946 marked a rough midpoint in proceedings before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The prosecution had closed its case, with France and the USSR just having presented most of the trial’s eyewitnesses – two of them women. The defense opened just as Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech. Elsewhere in Palace of Justice, personnel were going home even as others arrived, to prepare subsequent proceedings. These new ‘Nurembergers’ included more women, more people of colour, and more people who had not served in the world war then on trial. By centring such developments, this talk will offer a less-travelled account of the first international criminal trial.
An expert in international law and its subfields, including legal history and international criminal law, Diane Marie Amann has served as Regents’ Professor, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, and is an Academic Affiliate at University College London Faculty of Laws. She was Special Adviser to International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has held leadership posts in the American and European societies of international law. Amann is writing an Oxford University Press book about lawyers and other women professionals at the first Nuremberg trial.

Lecture summary: The regulation of submarines has rarely been an issue of focus in international law. Their military utility has influenced states’ willingness to develop rules that restrict their operations, both historically and in contemporary settings. So much is evident in examining current controversies over navigational rights of warships. Yet the types and uses of submarines are continually evolving and are regulated—to varying extents—by a myriad of international law. With the development of autonomous submarines, we again need to think carefully about the existing rules, their gaps and ambiguities. Have we reached the point that these evasive underwater vehicles cannot and should not elude the reach of international law?
Dr Natalie Klein is Associate Dean (Academic) and a Professor at UNSW Sydney’s Faculty of Law & Justice, Australia. Professor Klein teaches and researches in different areas of international law, focusing on law of the sea. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre in 2008 when she was working on Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea (OUP). She is co-author, with Kate Purcell and Jack McNally, of a forthcoming monograph, Submarines in International Law (CUP).
There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome.
Chair: Prof Markus Gehring
The Friday Lunchtime Lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Speaker: Prof Tamsin Paige, Deakin Law School
Lecture summary: Stories serve an integral role in society as, among other things, a meaning making tool. As a method of meaning making, stories are relational and allow the storyteller to assist their audience in understanding ideas, concepts, and experiences that lie beyond their lived experiences. Using this understanding and starting point, I ask what happens if we read international law as an iterative archive of stories about global society? I will start by exploring the meaning making function that storytelling serves in society, and then consider how international law, be it treaties, custom, case law or other legal instruments, can be read as official stories of the society that produced them.
Tamsin Phillipa Paige is an Associate Professor with Deakin Law School. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, using qualitative sociological methods to analyse international law (with a focus on application of law and the impact it has on society). She also does law and literature research using popular fiction to understand social perceptions of the law. Her work has examined (among other things) Somali piracy, UN Security Council decision making, the impact of international law on queer lives, and conflict based sexual violence. In a former life, she was a French trained, fine dining pâtissière.
Chair: Dr Lena Holzer, Centre Fellow
This lecture was delivered on 20 February 2026 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series.