Why do communist countries sign bilateral investment treaties (BITs)? This article explores this question through the case of Yugoslavia, the first communist state to do so. In 1974, Yugoslavia signed a BIT with France, paving the way for further investment treaties – both in Yugoslavia and, soon after, in other communist countries. These developments sparked intense debate within the Yugoslav Communist Party, with some factions viewing them as a betrayal of Marxist–Leninist principles. While Western powers welcomed the move, it was strongly criticized by Eastern Bloc countries, particularly the Soviet Union, as ideological heresy. This paper analyses the complex motivations behind Yugoslavia’s foreign investment policy in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that it was driven by domestic political, geopolitical, and ideological factors – not just economic considerations. Domestically, BITs were linked to the Communist Party’s efforts to maintain political power and stability. Geopolitically, they served as tools to secure international allies. Ideologically, the policy sought to promote a distinct Yugoslav model of socialism – one that blended socialist principles, workers’ self-management, market economics, and coexistence with both capitalist and socialist states. This ideological dimension, overlooked in the literature, highlights how BITs were not merely economic instruments but also tools for advancing a hybrid economic and foreign policy that challenged both capitalist and Soviet orthodoxies.

In considering the charges brought against Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, the ICC has been forced to address the question of Islamic criminal law. Following the reasoning of the Prosecution, Trial Chamber X considered Sharia punishments mandated by the Islamic court and implemented by the Islamic police to be evidence of the existence of an organizational policy to commit a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population with the aim of denigrating and subjugating the community in Timbuktu. Trial Chamber X also accepted the Prosecution’s conclusion that applying different forms of Sharia punishments amounted to the crime of torture. Such an expansive view of core international crimes has the potential to send an alienating message to Muslim communities around the world and particularly those countries that apply Sharia criminal law. The overriding narrative of the article does not diminish the harm caused by Ansar Eddine but rather presents an alternative to the Trial Chamber’s and the Prosecution’s reasoning, campaigning for more active engagement with the principles of Sharia. As discussed at length, the duty of an international court is to adapt a multicultural and diverse interpretative guidelines by considering more traditional systems of justice. In that regard, the ICC has yielded to the universalists and Eurocentric agenda by deciding to dismiss Islamic traditions in their entirety. While Sharia based punishments remain shocking for the Western societies, their spiritual, religious, and exonerating value remains poignant for the Muslim majority states and communities. The practices cannot be therefore dismissed, and if looked at in line with the Third World Approaches to International Law could enrich the legal reasoning for future investigations and trials.

The widespread rise of renting unaffordability and gentrification across European cities has drawn attention to the social unsustainability of heavily financialized and privatized housing markets. Indeed, contemporary patterns of standardization and depoliticization of housing crises collide with the increasingly pronounced functional equivalence between tenancies and home-owning, as well as with future urbanization prospects. The Article departs from an understanding of housing crises as by-products of inter alia property relations to examine two distinct clusters of constitutional tension that define the European housing landscape. It then details the recalibration of renting profitability and the regulatory or “soft” asymmetrization of housing governance as defining features of a post- or counter-neoliberal movement within property’s constitutional politics. While profitability relativism readily aligns with the basic tenets of European social constitutionalism, the plural resistances of constitutional governance structures to the localist repoliticization of housing crises urges fresh thinking around the shifting geographies of urban homeownership politics.

Private equity (PE) firms are increasingly investing in healthcare, seeking short-term returns through market consolidation, price increases, asset sales, and financial engineering. Although PE is transforming the healthcare sector, many countries lack systematic data to determine whether a regulatory response is warranted. Using data from PitchBook, we document substantial and growing PE investment in health care across 25 of 38 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, totalling over 8,400 reported deals and $1.4 trillion in capital between 2013 and 2023. Outpatient clinics represent the dominant target of investment, while hospital and elder care sectors have attracted investments in select countries. Exploratory regression analyses suggest that PE firms are less likely to invest in countries with a social health insurance system and that PE deal volume is positively associated with health expenditures. Country-specific deviations from model predictions underscore the importance of unmeasured country-specific factors such as regulation, payment policy, and market competition. Eight case studies illustrate the operational, financial, and social implications of PE investments, as well as diverse regulatory contexts. Given the lack of disclosure requirements, a key policy priority for governments is to enhance transparency to enable effective monitoring of the financialisation of health care delivery.

In fragile contexts, the state is sometimes unable to effectively perform some of its fundamental functions, such as the provision of public services, law-making, or territorial governance. Multinational corporations sometimes step in to perform these functions by leveraging their political power. On the one hand, this facilitates the enjoyment of fundamental rights for the affected citizens; on the other hand, it risks undermining the relationship between citizens and the state itself, further weakening its foundations. This paper aims to identify a normative criterion to navigate this phenomenon, drawing on theory of positive constitutionalism to do so.

This article critically examines the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear decision-making processes and its implications for deterrence strategies in the Third Nuclear Age. While realist deterrence logic assumes that the threat of mutual destruction compels rational actors to act cautiously, AI disrupts this by adding speed, opacity and algorithmic biases to decision-making processes. The article focuses on the case of Russia to explore how different understandings of deterrence among nuclear powers could increase the risk of misperceptions and inadvertent escalation in an AI-influenced strategic environment. I argue that AI does not operate in a conceptual vacuum: the effects of its integration depend on the strategic assumptions guiding its use. As such, divergent interpretations of deterrence may render AI-supported decision making more unpredictable, particularly in high-stakes nuclear contexts. I also consider how these risks intersect with broader arms race dynamics. Specifically, the pursuit of AI-enabled capabilities by global powers is not only accelerating military modernisation but also intensifying the security dilemma, as each side fears falling behind. In light of these challenges, this article calls for greater attention to conceptual divergence in deterrence thinking, alongside transparency protocols and confidence-building measures aimed at mitigating misunderstandings and promoting stability in an increasingly automated military landscape.

The second Trump administration has shaken the foundations of US leadership in global health, with this column assessing rapid shifts in global health governance. By analyzing how the administration’s anti-science ethos, foreign assistance cuts, and multilateral disengagement have undermined global solidarity, the column considers the destabilizing impacts on global health and examines how other states, regional bodies, and international organizations are responding to this US decline. This examination reveals both strains for global health promotion and resilience within a changed governance landscape.

Military decision-making institutions face new challenges and opportunities from increasing artificial intelligence (AI) integration. Military AI adoption is incentivized by competitive pressures and expanding national security needs; thus, we can expect increased complexity due to AI proliferation. Governing this complexity is urgent but lacks clear precedents. This discussion critically re-examines key concerns that AI integration into resort-to-force decision-making organizations introduces. Beside concerns, this article draws attention to new, positive affordances that AI proliferation may introduce. I then propose a minimal AI governance standard framework, adapting private sector insights to the defence context. I argue that adopting AI governance standards (e.g., based on this framework) can foster an organizational culture of accountability, combining technical know-how with the cultivated judgment needed to navigate contested governance concepts. Finally, I hypothesize some strategic implications of the adoption of AI governance programmes by military institutions.

Integrating AI into military decision processes on the resort to force raises new moral challenges. A key question is: How can we assign responsibility in cases where AI systems shape the decision-making process on the resort to force? AI systems do not qualify as moral agents, and due to their opaqueness and the “problem of many hands,” responsibility for decisions made by a machine cannot be attributed to any one individual. To address this socio-technical responsibility gap, I suggest establishing “proxy responsibility” relations. Proxy responsibility means that an actor takes responsibility for the decisions made by another actor or synthetic agent who cannot be attributed with responsibility for their decisions. This article discusses the option to integrate an AI oversight body to establish proxy responsibility relations within decision-making processes regarding the resort to force. I argue that integrating an AI oversight body creates the preconditions necessary for attributing proxy responsibility to individuals.

The integration of AI systems into the military domain is changing the way war-related decisions are made. It binds together three disparate groups of actors – developers, integrators, and users – and creates a relationship between these groups and the machine, embedded in the (pre-)existing organisational and system structures. In this article, we focus on the important, but often neglected, group of integrators within such a socio-technical system. In complex human–machine configurations, integrators carry responsibility for linking the disparate groups of developers and users in the political and military system. To act as the mediating group requires a deep understanding of the other groups’ activities, perspectives and norms. We thus ask which challenges and shortcomings emerge from integrating AI systems into resort-to-force (RtF) decision-making processes, and how to address them. To answer this, we proceed in three steps. First, we conceptualise the relationship between different groups of actors and AI systems as a socio-technical system. Second, we identify challenges within such systems for human–machine teaming in RtF decisions. We focus on challenges that arise (a) from the technology itself, (b) from the integrators’ role in the socio-technical system and (c) from the human–machine interaction. Third, we provide policy recommendations to address these shortcomings when integrating AI systems into RtF decision-making structures.

What shapes military attitudes of trust in artificial intelligence (AI) used for strategic-level decision-making? When used in concert with humans, AI is thought to help militaries maintain lethal overmatch of adversaries on the battlefield as well as optimize leaders’ decision-making in the war room. Yet it is unclear what shapes servicemembers’ trust in AI used for strategic-level decision-making. In October 2023, I administered a conjoint survey experiment among an elite sample of officers attending the US Army and Naval War Colleges to assess what shapes servicemembers’ trust in AI used for strategic-level deliberations. I find that their trust in AI used for strategic-level deliberations is shaped by a tightly calibrated set of technical, operational, and oversight considerations. These results provide the first experimental evidence for military attitudes of trust toward AI during crisis escalation, which have important research, policy, and modernization implications.

In this article, I consider the potential integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into resort-to-force decision-making from a Just War perspective. I evaluate two principles from this tradition: (1) the jus ad bellum principle of “reasonable prospect of success” and (2) the more recent jus ad vim principle of “the probability of escalation.” More than any other principles of Just War, these prudential standards seem amenable to the probabilistic reasoning of AI-driven systems. I argue, however, that this optimism in the potential of AI-optimized decision-making is largely misplaced. We need to cultivate a tragic sensibility in war – a recognition of the inescapable limits of foresight, the permanence of uncertainty and the dangers of unconstrained ambition. False confidence in the efficacy of these systems will blind us to their technical limits. It will also, more seriously, obscure the deleterious impact of AI on the process of resort-to-force decision-making; its potential to suffocate the moral and political wisdom so essential to the responsible exercise of violence on the international stage.