Burmych and ors v Ukraine, Judgment (striking out) (‘Burmych’) is the latest in a series of European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’ or ‘Court’) judgments concerning the systemic non-enforcement of domestic judgments in Ukraine. Between 2004 and 2009, non-enforcement of domestic final judicial decisions accounted for more than 300 violations being found against Ukraine. In the face of these repeat violations, in 2009 the Grand Chamber gave its pilot judgment of Ivanov v Ukraine (‘Ivanov’). At that time some 1400 similar applications were pending before the Court (see Ivanov, paras 83 and 86; see also Appendix to Interim Resolution CM/ResDH(2008)1; and Interim Resolution CM/ResDH(2009)159). Ukraine was one of the states with the highest number of pending cases (see Pending Applications Allocated to a Judicial Formation). The pilot judgement procedure, whereby the Court identifies a case or cases that are thought to be exemplary, was created as a means to tackle the backlog of cases that the Court continues to face.

Research Handbook on the Politics of International Law edited by Wayne Sandholtz and Christopher A Whytock. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78347-397-7. In: Tiittala, T. (ed.) Finnish Yearbook of International Law. Volume 25, 2015. Bloomsbury Publishing: London, pp. 227-240. ISBN 9781509927159 (doi: 10.5040/9781509927180.0012)

The original critique of human rights is well known. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, scholars drew attention to various blind spots in the human rights project. Feminists demonstrated its failure in representing and protecting women, just as parallel limitations were targeted by queer and disabled activists, finding powerful institutional battlegrounds in the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations. TWAIL and post-colonial scholars critiqued the colonial imagery of ‘victims, savages and saviors’ that underpinned the movement, and many critiques intersected multiple communities.

(doi: 10.1093/ejil/chab068) Scholarship has generally represented moot court competitions in one of two ways: either as a beneficial way for students to develop practical skills prior to the Bar, or as a reproducer of hierarchy and exclusion. This review essay attempts to plot a third way of thinking about moots, one that finds critical potential in the exercise of mooting while remaining attentive to its conservative biases. Building out from a critique of the common law focus of Thomas and Cradduck’s The Art of Mooting, the essay reflects on how critical approaches to international law can be used to teach moot skills more effectively. The essay then turns to the limitations such a critical pedagogy must be aware of within the actual practice of the competition, considering how these limits can be navigated and even flipped into teachable moments for critically inclined students. The essay closes with a call for a more nuanced discussion about the use of experiential learning, of which moots are only one example, for fostering critical engagement with international law.