Associate Professor Madelaine Chiam has co-authored an article examining open letters in international law.
The article, published in the European Journal of International Law, examines around 130 letters that have been written by international lawyers in response to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
“International lawyers regularly use open letters to publicise their views on current events, calling out violations of international law and calling on governments, international organisations or civil society to take action,” explains Associate Professor Chiam.
“We analysed recent letters written about the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Hamas in Gaza. We looked at their content, places of publication, the number and status of their signatories, and evidence of their impact on public debate.”
Associate Professor Chiam says “the frequency and scale of open letter writing means that they can function as a source of international law.”
“That is, open letters can affect the development, meaning and application of international legal principles.”
While open letters have the potential to be a useful medium for conveying international legal knowledge to the public, Associate Professor Chiam says it is important to be aware of their limitations.
“For example, the top-down model of education that was relied upon in many of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza letters was quite narrow and limited their impact.”
“These limitations could be addressed using a broader array of open letter-writing modalities. It is also important for lawyers who write and sign open letters to be much more intentional about when and how they do so.”
