Since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his support for a plan to recruit fighters from abroad to join the Russian army in early 2022, foreigners have fought in Ukraine as part of Russian forces. Many of these fighters are mercenaries in the commonly understood sense of that term. That is, they are fighters who have gone, intentionally, to fight for Russia in return for significant payment. Although these fighters have often found themselves in Ukraine with little to no training and without their promised salaries, this article is not primarily concerned with them. Instead, it is interested in those fighters who arrived in Russia without knowing that they would be sent to the conflict, or who did not know that they were going to Russia at all. The article argues that such ‘forced fighters’ who are misled or tricked into taking part in an armed conflict should be given protection beyond that given to other combatants, specifically that they should be offered repatriation to their countries of origin. It argues that international humanitarian law is unable to effectively capture the position of these fighters or provide adequate protection to them. It suggests, rather, that the law on modern slavery can provide a way to understand and reconceptualise the position of these fighters—as victims of servitude and human trafficking—and that this body of law can deliver the remedy of repatriation to them.

In its Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled not only that Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territory systematically violated international law, but also that Israel’s ‘continued presence’ (i.e. occupation) as such had become illegal, so that Israel was required to withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories as rapidly as possible. The ICJ’s finding that Israel engaged in a sustained abuse of its position as an occupying power, through annexation of territory and frustration of Palestinian self-determination, was central to its reasoning, as was its holding that the legality of the occupation was to be judged against the jus ad bellum. This article unpacks the concept of an illegal occupation. It argues that, as matter of the jus ad bellum, it is only the right to self-defence that could, in theory, justify Israel’s continued occupation. Curiously, however, the Opinion does not mention self-defence, although it preoccupied many of the judges writing separately. The article argues that two approaches to the occupation’s ad bellum illegality are most persuasive: first, that the occupation could not meet the necessity and proportionality criteria of lawful self-defence; and, second, that even a valid self-defence claim can be vitiated by a predominant ulterior purpose.