1,303 articles
Sixth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly
The sixth emergency special session (ESS-6, Afghanistan) was a 1980 UN General Assembly session on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, convened via Uniting for Peace after USSR veto; it adopted resolution ES-6/2 calling for withdrawal.
Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952
ILO Convention No. 102, adopted 28 June 1952 and in force 27 April 1955, is the flagship international treaty setting minimum social security standards across nine branches, with ratification of at least three branches required.
Soft-point bullet
Soft-point bullet: jacketed rifle or pistol projectile with exposed lead tip that mushrooms on impact; variants RSP, PSP, JSP; Hague 1899, hunting use.
Somalia sanctions regime and monitoring
The Somalia sanctions regime is the set of UN Security Council measures on Somalia beginning with the 1992 arms embargo, monitored by a Panel of Experts and Monitoring Group in Nairobi.
Sources of international law
Sources of international law: the processes generating binding rules, listed in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute as treaties, custom, general principles of law, and subsidiary means, with jus cogens and Article 103 as conflict rules.
South Africa's genocide case against Israel
South Africa v. Israel, ICJ case 192, filed 29 December 2023, alleges Israel violated the Genocide Convention in Gaza; the Court issued three binding provisional measures orders (January, March, May 2024) without ordering a ceasefire; merits proceedings continue.
South Seas Mandate (南洋群島)
The South Seas Mandate (Nanyo-Gunto) was the League of Nations Class C mandate over former German Pacific islands north of the equator, granted to Japan in 1920, administered by the Nanyo-cho from 1922, retained after Japan's 1935 League withdrawal, and succeeded in 1947 by the US-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty
The Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, or Bangkok Treaty, is a multilateral agreement signed in 1995 by ten states. It binds them not to develop or use nuclear weapons.
Sovereign immunity in the United States
Sovereign immunity in the United States bars suits against the federal government, states, and foreign states without consent, shaped by the Eleventh Amendment, Hans, Seminole Tribe, Alden, and the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Sovereign state
Sovereign state: a political entity exercising complete sovereignty over internal and external affairs. Defined by the 1933 Montevideo criteria, declaratory versus constitutive recognition theories, and contested cases like Taiwan, Kosovo, and Palestine.
Sovereignty and recognition in colonial and decolonizing international law
Sovereignty and recognition in colonial and decolonizing international law is a historical critique arguing that sovereignty doctrine was forged in the colonial confrontation between European and non-European worlds.
Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty
Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty (Bases Treaty), signed 28 September 1939 in Moscow by Karl Selter and Vyacheslav Molotov; leased Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, and Paldiski bases to the USSR, capped Soviet troops at 25,000, and preceded Estonia's 1940 occupation.
Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty
The Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty (Savstarpējās palīdzības pakts), signed October 5, 1939, forced Latvia to lease Soviet naval and air bases at Liepāja and Ventspils for 25,000 troops; the USSR used alleged breach of the pact to occupy Latvia in June 1940.
Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty
The Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty, signed in Moscow in 1939, transferred the Vilnius region to Lithuania in exchange for Soviet bases, a pact that restricted Lithuanian sovereignty.
Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty
Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty, also called the Moscow Peace Treaty (Lietuvos–Sovietų Rusijos taika), signed 12 July 1920: Soviet Russia recognized Lithuanian independence, fixed borders including Vilnius, promised 3 million gold rubles, but the secret Red Army passage annex and Poland's 1920 seizure of Vilnius undermined it.
Space law
Space law governs activities in outer space, centered on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and later UN treaties plus national licensing regimes; key rules bar national appropriation and orbiting WMD, while debris, megaconstellations, and lunar resources expose gaps.
Space Liability Convention
The Space Liability Convention (1972) is a UN treaty elaborating Outer Space Treaty Article VII: launching States are absolutely liable for surface and aircraft damage, fault-based in space. Its only known claim, Cosmos 954, settled for C$3 million in 1981.
Spanish Match
The Spanish Match was the proposed early-17th-century marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Spanish Infanta María, negotiated on and off from 1603 until its collapse in 1624.
Special Committee on Decolonization
The Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24, Committee of 24) is a UN General Assembly subsidiary organ, established 1961 by resolution 1654 (XVI), monitoring implementation of the 1960 Declaration on decolonization across the 17 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories.
Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) was a UN–Sierra Leone treaty-based hybrid tribunal, signed 16 January 2002, trying those bearing greatest responsibility for civil war crimes since 30 November 1996; four cases, nine convictions, closed December 2013.
Specialized international law journals
Specialized international law journals are scholarly periodicals covering the law of the sea, environmental and climate law, and space law, including the Journal of Space Law, founded in 1973.
Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Stabilisation Force (SFOR), NATO-led peace enforcement force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 20 December 1996 to 2 December 2004, under UNSCR 1088; succeeded IFOR, about 31,000 troops shrinking to 7,000, handed over to EUFOR Operation Althea.
START I
START I, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of July 31, 1991, was the first US-Soviet treaty requiring actual strategic nuclear reductions: 1,600 delivery vehicles, 6,000 warheads, sublimits on heavy ICBMs, and 12 on-site inspection types. In force 1994-2009.
Starvation (crime)
Starvation (crime): the criminalization of depriving civilians of food and water as a method of warfare, codified in Additional Protocol I Article 54, Additional Protocol II Article 14, and Rome Statute Article 8(2)(b)(xxv), extended to non-international armed conflict by the 2019 amendment; first ICC warrants issued November 2024.
State of Anjouan
State of Anjouan (Nzwani): separatist state declared on the Comorian island of Anjouan on 3 August 1997, reunified in 2002 under Mohamed Bacar, and ended by the AU-backed military intervention of 24 March 2008.
State practice (international law)
State practice is the conduct of a State, through its executive, legislative, judicial, or other organs, that serves as the objective element of a rule of customary international law.
State responsibility
State responsibility is the international law regime governing when states incur responsibility for internationally wrongful acts, codified in the ILC's 2001 ARSIWA (59 articles, non-binding but treated as customary), covering attribution, breach, reparation, and countermeasures.
State succession of newly independent states
State succession of newly independent states is the branch of international law governing how a former colony takes over or rejects the treaties, debts, and property of the departing colonial power.
Statelessness
Statelessness: the condition of having no nationality under any state's law, defined by the 1954 Convention. At least 4.5 million people are affected worldwide; causes include discriminatory nationality laws, state succession, and missing birth registration.
States parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The states parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court are the states bound by the 1998 treaty that established the ICC, numbering 125.