On December 9, 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 76/120, “Strengthening and Promoting the International Treaty Framework,” by consensus. The resolution had been forwarded to the General Assembly for consideration after having been adopted by the General Assembly's Sixth (Legal) Committee on November 18, 2021 by consensus, in line with its traditional approach to decision-making. The negotiations of the resolution were coordinated (chaired) by Brazil and Singapore.

On January 13, 2022, the secretariat of the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), an institution established by the UN Security Council in 1991 to process and pay claims resulting from Iraq's unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait from August 2, 1990, to March 2, 1991, issued a press release stating that, with a payment that day of over US$629 million to Kuwait, all claimants awarded compensation by the UNCC had received full payment.

On April 8, 2021, the Grand Chamber of European Court of Human Rights delivered an eagerly awaited judgment in the case of Vavřička and Others v. The Czech Republic. It addressed the question of mandatory vaccination in the light of the right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

On October 6, 2021, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down Opinion 1/19 on the conclusion of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). Based on a request by the European Parliament, the Opinion was rendered under Article 218(11) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which enables the Court to rule on the compatibility with EU law of international agreements envisaged, but not yet concluded, by the Union. The Opinion is about, on the one hand, the legal basis under the EU Treaties and, on the other hand, the procedure pursuant to which the EU and its member states may conclude the Convention.

The issue of how a government comes to power generally falls within the domestic domain and is not a concern of international law. However, the African Union (AU, established 2002), like its predecessor the Organisation for African Unity (OAU, 1963–2002), views coups as significant threats to the peace, security, stability, and development of African states. To shape change, the AU codified the anti-coup policy that the OAU had progressively adopted from 1997, and broadened it into a normative framework.

On October 11, 2021, the Supreme Court of Norway, sitting as a Grand Chamber, had to decide in three interconnected cases (HR-2021-1975-S) whether the construction of certain wind power plants, which will form part of the largest onshore wind power project in Europe, in a particular rural area interfered with (Sami) reindeer herders’ rights to enjoy their own culture according to Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The case, which had been initiated long before Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and concomitant spiking energy prices—which might have added an extra dimension to the underlying, countervailing issues—pits efforts to increasingly produce “green,” renewable energy and the minority rights of a particular cultural group against each other. Taking the peculiar requirements of reindeer husbandry, the need for safe winter pastures, and the specific geographical conditions of the locus delicti into account, the Court concluded that the windfarms would have a substantial negative effect on the reindeer herders’ possibility to enjoy their own culture, which, in the absence of satisfactory remedy measures, threatened the very existence of reindeer husbandry on Fosen, and therefore found a violation of Article 27, ICCPR.

Since Latvia filed in July 2022, 21 additional states have filed declarations of intervention in the case concerning Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation). At the time of writing, declarations have been filed by Lithuania, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Sweden, Romania, France, Poland, Italy, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, Estonia, Spain, Australia, Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg, Greece, and Croatia.