Giovanni Mantilla
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Giovanni Mantilla
@giofabman.bsky.social
Associate Professor, POLIS, Cambridge University, Fellow Christ’s College & Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. International relations/history/law/diplomacy #IHL. Colombiano 🇨🇴🏳️‍🌈🇬🇧
Pinned
Finally out! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Longer post to come but for now, key take-aways: international pressure matters, domestic pressure matters, international treaty law (however contested) matters, and super importantly these days, civil servants who believe in international law matter!
Stealth Change: How the United States and the United Kingdom Embraced International Humanitarian Limits on Nuclear Use
This article analyzes how American and British policy shifted, from rejecting to accepting the applicability of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) to nuclear use. Through a study of primary and secon...
www.tandfonline.com
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
For an excellent in-depth exploration of the US use of financial sanctions since September 11th onwards, listen to Episode 5 of the @lrb.co.uk Aftershock podcast 'In dollars we trust'
@danielsoar.bsky.social

www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
February 7, 2026 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
Every European citizen should read this piece on the relationship between Steve Bannon and the European far right parties, as detailed by Bannon in his emails to Epstein www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics
Donald Trump’s former adviser told Epstein in 2019 that he was ‘focused on raising money for Le Pen and Salvini’ before European elections
www.theguardian.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
NEW BOOK!

I'm very happy to say that my new book, Utopia, co-written with Douglas Mao, has been published on-line

academic.oup.com/book/62279
Utopia
Abstract. Ideal societies, better worlds, more just and peaceful ways of living: these have long been the stuff of human beings’ social dreaming. In this c
academic.oup.com
February 3, 2026 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
1/ Important read from my friends Charlie Trumbull & @mikeschmitt.bsky.social

Bottom line: A sentence you could easily miss in the Trump DOJ/OLC's Maduro memo concludes a new category of *civilians* can be lawfully killed during armed conflict. It is wrong.

www.justsecurity.org/130603/olc-m...
OLC Maduro Memo: Assisting War vs Participating in Hostilities
A recent OLC memo on U.S. use of force wrongly expands who can be targeted under the law of armed conflict, undermining civilian protections.
www.justsecurity.org
February 6, 2026 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
“The Trump administration appears to believe it can prey on other states forever, and that doing so will make the United States even stronger,” writes @stephenwalt.bsky.social. But “predatory hegemony contains the seeds of its own destruction.”
The Predatory Hegemon
Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political...
www.foreignaffairs.com
February 3, 2026 at 10:18 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
I’m co-organizing this interdisciplinary @europeanisa.bsky.social workshop on the UNSC in gorgeous Izmir this summer July 1-3, alongside Stefano Recchia (SMU). Still a few days left to submit abstracts (Feb 11). Consider sending yours in!
February 6, 2026 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
Finally out! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Longer post to come but for now, key take-aways: international pressure matters, domestic pressure matters, international treaty law (however contested) matters, and super importantly these days, civil servants who believe in international law matter!
Stealth Change: How the United States and the United Kingdom Embraced International Humanitarian Limits on Nuclear Use
This article analyzes how American and British policy shifted, from rejecting to accepting the applicability of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) to nuclear use. Through a study of primary and secon...
www.tandfonline.com
February 6, 2026 at 9:36 AM
I’m co-organizing this interdisciplinary @europeanisa.bsky.social workshop on the UNSC in gorgeous Izmir this summer July 1-3, alongside Stefano Recchia (SMU). Still a few days left to submit abstracts (Feb 11). Consider sending yours in!
February 6, 2026 at 11:22 AM
Finally out! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Longer post to come but for now, key take-aways: international pressure matters, domestic pressure matters, international treaty law (however contested) matters, and super importantly these days, civil servants who believe in international law matter!
Stealth Change: How the United States and the United Kingdom Embraced International Humanitarian Limits on Nuclear Use
This article analyzes how American and British policy shifted, from rejecting to accepting the applicability of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) to nuclear use. Through a study of primary and secon...
www.tandfonline.com
February 6, 2026 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
Thank you @verfassungsblog.de for publishing our thoughts.
With military options reportedly off the table, NATO and the United States are now discussing the creation of sovereign US bases in Greenland.

MARKUS GEHRING & NASIA HADJIGEORGIOU explain why such sovereignty carve-outs would violate international law.

verfassungsblog.de/why-us-sover...
February 4, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
“The strong do what they can" is what Athens said right before destroying itself. New piece on the Carney Doctrine, Vaclav’s grocer, and American hubris.
hegemon.substack.com/p/the-strong...
The Strong Will Suffer What They Must
Vaclav's Grocer and American Hubris
hegemon.substack.com
January 21, 2026 at 4:54 PM
Struggling to redesign my small-group MPhil seminar "norms of humanity" amid so many breathtaking events. It's primarily historical, using IR approaches to int'l legal norms of HR, armed conflict, IHL. Any tips, texts, or class activities for incorporating discussion of our unprecedented present? 🙏
January 20, 2026 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
✨New article out in International Studies Review✨

NGOs are facing backlash, shrinking civic space & increased competition. Here I examine how NGOs can respond by adding new legal entities; or changing funding models.

doi.org/10.1093/isr/...
January 19, 2026 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
🧵 Trump foreign-policy is overwhelmingly reality-television optics. More sound and fury than shock and awe.

It doesn't put in the work. The deals it negotiates? Mostly vaporware. It announces "☮️ in our time" based on ceasefires. I'd bet good 💰 that 🇻🇪 will not be a vassal state for all that long.
A Mercosur-EU shared market is post-American Transatlanticism
January 9, 2026 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the U.N.'s population agency and the U.N. treaty that establishes international climate negotiations, as the U.S. further retreats from global cooperation.
US will exit dozens of international organizations as it further retreats from global cooperation
The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the U.N.’s population agency and the U.N. treaty that establishes international climate negotiations.
bit.ly
January 7, 2026 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1k... if you’re interested in this morning’s emergency security council meeting on Venezuela, it’ll start here at 10am. It was called by Colombia, and can help us get a sense of the public lines coming from a diverse group of countries
Threats to international peace and security - Security Council, 10085th meeting
The situation in Venezuela.
webtv.un.org
January 5, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
you don't need to add caveats agreeing that the head of state abducted is a bad guy before opposing abduction of a head of state by military force. If the rule was any head of government is fair game then the entire world would be a series of decapitation strikes and show trials in foreign courts.
January 3, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
intriguing new chapter by Helen Kinsella and Giovanni Mantilla on historical approaches in IR through a case study on the ICRC in N-Ireland

academic.oup.com/edited-volum...
December 22, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
My new book — Humanitarianism: A Very Short Introduction — is now available as an e-book (paperback in March 2026)! The book offers a concise history of humanitarianism in an international perspective, from the 18th century to the present. More info here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...
December 18, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
🧵Here's a research-backed answer: No.
1/
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
December 15, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
We’ve surveyed ‘Non-Western Visions of International Order’ for Annual Review of Political Science vol 29

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Non-Western Visions of International Order
The scholarship on the concept of order has been expanding within international relations. The continuous upheaval of world politics first triggered a broad debate on the resilience of the liberal int...
www.annualreviews.org
December 1, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
The International History and Politics Section of @apsa.bsky.social is accepting nominations for the Jervis-Schroeder Best Book Award and the Outstanding Article Award. Nominations are due by January 31, 2026. More information here: connect.apsanet.org/s34/nominati...
November 18, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
Cosmos-Politanism: Transhumanist Visions of Global Order from the First World War to the Digital Age

Cosmos-Politanism: Transhumanist Visions of Global Order from the First World War to the Digital Age By Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge and Apolline Taillandier, Newnham College Inspired by…
Cosmos-Politanism: Transhumanist Visions of Global Order from the First World War to the Digital Age
Cosmos-Politanism: Transhumanist Visions of Global Order from the First World War to the Digital Age By Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge and Apolline Taillandier, Newnham College Inspired by developments in artificial intelligence, space engineering, and genetics, discussion of post-human visions of the future is now widespread, especially in the tech world. This reflective essay analyses various ideological configurations of “transhumanism,” a body of thought centred on the pursuit of radical human improvement through technoscientific intervention.
politicalsciencenow.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Giovanni Mantilla
The New York Times quickly sending out Douthat to argue that Mamdani’s victory doesn’t really matter is so predictable it borders on self-parody.

Remember, folks: Every time the Right wins an election, it’s an undeniable expression of the will of the people. If a lefty wins, it’s just a blip.
Opinion | Mamdani’s Victory Is Less Significant Than You Think
www.nytimes.com
November 5, 2025 at 5:27 PM