1,303 articles
René Cassin
René Cassin was a French jurist who drafted Free France's legal texts in 1940, presided over the European Court of Human Rights, and won the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize.
Reparation Commission
The Reparation Commission, or Inter-Allied Reparations Commission, was the Allied body created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 to set and administer Germany's reparations.
Rescue Agreement
The Rescue Agreement (1968) is the UN space treaty obliging states to notify, rescue, and return astronauts in distress and return space objects; opened for signature April 22, 1968, in force December 3, 1968, elaborating Outer Space Treaty Articles V and VIII.
Research Society of International Law
Research Society of International Law (RSIL), Pakistani international-law think tank founded 1993 by Ahmer Bilal Soofi, based in Lahore and Islamabad; publishes the peer-reviewed RSIL Law Review and the 2021 FATF compliance report.
Resolute Support Mission
Resolute Support Mission (RSM), NATO's non-combat train-advise-assist mission in Afghanistan, 2015-2021, successor to ISAF under UN Resolution 2189; hub-and-spoke structure, about 16,000 troops at peak, terminated after the 2021 withdrawal and Afghan government collapse.
Responsibility to protect
Responsibility to protect (R2P): UN norm adopted unanimously at the 2005 World Summit covering genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; three pillars; first military use in Libya 2011 (Resolution 1973), while Syria exposed selectivity and veto paralysis.
Restoule v Canada
Restoule v Canada: Anishinaabe litigation under the 1850 Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior Treaties over unincreased $4 annuities; the Supreme Court of Canada (2024 SCC 27) found dishonourable Crown breach and ordered compensation negotiations.
Return of the Chinese Eastern Railway
Return of the Chinese Eastern Railway (中国长春铁路): the gratis Soviet transfer of the jointly administered Chinese Changchun Railway and all its property to the PRC, completed in Harbin on December 31, 1952 under the February 14, 1950 Sino-Soviet agreement.
Right of asylum
Right of asylum: the human right to seek protection in another country from persecution, grounded in UDHR Article 14 and the 1951 Refugee Convention, non-refoulement, and regional instruments like the OAU Convention and Cartagena Declaration.
Right of conquest
Right of conquest: the classical international-law principle that a victorious state could claim sovereignty over conquered territory without the loser's consent, later displaced by the UN Charter-era prohibition on acquiring territory by force.
Right to Work
Right to work: the human right to gain a living by freely chosen work (ICESCR article 6, ILO Convention 122), not a guaranteed job; distinct from US anti-union right-to-work laws and UK immigration right-to-work checks.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development: 27-principle non-binding UN text adopted 14 June 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, building on the 1972 Stockholm Declaration; key texts include anthropocentric Principle 1, sovereignty-tempering Principle 2, and participation Principle 10.
Rio Protocol
The Rio Protocol is a 1942 treaty signed by Peru and Ecuador in Rio de Janeiro that defined their land border after the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War of 1941.
Robert Wilson Shufeldt (naval officer)
Rear Admiral Robert Wilson Shufeldt (1822–1895) was a United States Navy officer who negotiated the 1882 treaty between Korea and the United States, Korea's first with a Western power.
Robinson Treaties
Robinson Treaties: two 1850 agreements at Sault Ste. Marie between William B. Robinson and the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) of Lakes Superior and Huron; precursors of the Numbered Treaties, with annuities frozen at $4 since 1875, litigated in Restoule (SCC 2024).
Roman–Persian Wars
The Roman–Persian Wars, also known as the Perso-Byzantine wars, were fought over seven centuries (92 BCE–628 CE) between Rome and the Parthian and Sasanian empires.
Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations
Rome Convention (1961), formally the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations: WIPO/ILO/UNESCO treaty on neighbouring rights, adopted October 26, 1961, in force May 18, 1964, 100 parties.
Rome Statute
The Rome Statute, adopted in Rome in 1998, created the International Criminal Court, the first permanent international criminal court, effective in 2002 with 125 states parties.
Root–Takahira Agreement
The Root–Takahira Agreement (高平・ルート協定) was a 1908 exchange of notes between Elihu Root and Ambassador Kogoro Takahira affirming the Pacific status quo and the Open Door principle in China.
Rosalyn Higgins
Dame Rosalyn Higgins is a British barrister and scholar who served on the International Court of Justice from 1995 to 2009, the first woman judge and President.
Rotterdam Rules
Rotterdam Rules (UN Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, New York 2008): door-to-door sea cargo regime succeeding Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules; 25 signatories, 5 parties, not in force.
Ruanda-Urundi
Ruanda-Urundi was the Belgian League of Nations mandate (1922) and UN trust territory (1946) covering Rwanda and Burundi, united with the Belgian Congo in 1925 and ending in their separate independence on 1 July 1962.
Rule of the shorter term
Rule of the shorter term: Berne Convention Article 7(8) rule letting a country cap a foreign work's copyright at the country-of-origin term; optional, an exception to national treatment; applied by the EU, not by the United States.
Rump state
Rump state: the reduced remnant of a once larger state after secession, annexation, occupation, decolonization, or revolution, retaining the predecessor's legal identity; distinct from dissolution, exile governments, and breakaway states.
Rus'–Byzantine treaties
Rus'–Byzantine treaties: 10th-century peace and trade agreements of 907, 911, 944, and 971 between Kievan rulers Oleg, Igor, and Sviatoslav and Byzantine emperors, preserved in Slavonic translation in the Primary Chronicle.
Russia and the United Nations
Russia and the United Nations: the Russian Federation, continuing the USSR's founding membership of 24 October 1945, holds a permanent Security Council seat under Charter Articles 23 and 27, with 120 Soviet and 43 Russian vetoes since 1946.
SA8000
SA8000, or Social Accountability 8000, is a voluntary, auditable international certification standard for decent work, established by Social Accountability International in 1997 and covering over 2.8 million workers.
Sanctioning Russia Act
Sanctioning Russia Act: US sanctions legislation, first the 2025 Graham-Blumenthal bill (S.1241) and then the enacted Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 (Public Law 119-111), imposing sanctions on Russian officials, banks, and energy buyers, 500 percent tariffs on Russian goods, and 100 percent tariffs on top purchasers of Russian oil and gas, largely waived by executive order in October 2026.
Sanctions against Rhodesia
Sanctions against Rhodesia were UN economic sanctions imposed on Southern Rhodesia after Ian Smith's white minority government unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965, remaining in force until 1979.
Scholarship and jurisprudence on state succession
Scholarship and jurisprudence on state succession is the body of doctrine and case law on how one state's legal position passes to another, centered on consent versus continuity of treaties.