The international system currently faces a number of situations which test the legal frameworks governing the use of force. In this talk, Sir Michael Wood KC will summarise the existing law, address present controversies, and discuss new developments in the prohibition on the use of force.

Speaker: Sir Michael Wood KCMG, KC

Sir Michael Wood KCMG, KC is a barrister at Twenty Essex, London, where he practises in the field of public international law, including before international courts and tribunals. He was Legal Adviser to the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office between 1999 and 2006, having joined as an Assistant Legal Adviser in 1970. He was a member of the UN International Law Commission from 2008 to 2022, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge.

Chair: Dr Maria Varaki

Dr Maria Varaki is a Lecturer in International Law in the War Studies Department at King's College London. Before moving to London, she held research positions at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights in Helsinki and at the Law Faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was also an Assistant Professor of International Law at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.

Maria holds a PhD in International Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway, Ireland, and two LLM degrees in International and Comparative Law from Tulane University and New York University School of Law. She is currently a Research Associate on the Three Generations of Digital Human Rights ERC project (2023-2028) at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law.