Arato: The Institutions of Exceptions

Julian Arato (Univ. of Michigan - Law) has posted The Institutions of Exceptions (Michigan Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

International economic law binds states’ hands in the interest of liberalizing markets in various ways, including cross border trade in goods and services (trade) and capital (investment). The treaty regimes for both trade and investment do this by disciplining states through legal rules, while preserving a modicum of governmental power over policy. Though not always recognized as such, the preservation of policy space in these regimes typically involves exceptions-style reasoning by adjudicators – formally in the case of most trade and some investment treaties, and informally in the investment treaty regime more generally. This "exceptions paradigm" of justification has worked well in the trade regime, where it has been especially key to securing a workable balance between market disciplines and regulatory policy space in the WTO/GATT context. But it has been less successful at striking a reasonable balance in the investment regime – irrespective of whether the paradigm has been formally codified in an exceptions clause. This Article seeks to explain why, by focusing on the institutions within which this mode of justification is embedded. Certain institutional differences between these regimes help explain the varied success of exceptionalism in trade and investment, in particular: the right of action (public vs private); the degree of judicial centralization (ad hoc arbitration vs court system); and the available remedies (retrospective compensation vs prospective injunctive relief). I argue that it is trade law’s public-oriented institutions that have made the exceptions clause workable – not the other way around. By contrast, investment law’s private-oriented institutions make that system particularly inhospitable to exceptions-style justification.

Conference: Cambridge International Law Journal 14th Annual Conference

On April 28-29, 2025, the Cambridge International Law Journal will hold its 14th Annual Conference at the University of Cambridge. The theme is: "Navigating a Multipolar World: Challenges to the Post-WWII Status Quo of International Law." Details are here.

Lecture: Mälksoo on “Russian and Soviet justifications of war and approaches to jus ad bellum: from the Great Nordic War (1700-1721) to Ukraine in 2022”

On April 7, 2025, Lauri Mälksoo (Univ. of Tartu - Law) will give the next lecture of the TwoLaW Lecture Series on the Laws of War. The topic is: “Russian and Soviet justifications of war and approaches to jus ad bellum: from the Great Nordic War (1700-1721) to Ukraine in 2022.” Details are here.

Call for Papers: Asian Cities and the International Legal Order

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on “Asian Cities and the International Legal Order,” to take place July 10-11, 2025, at the Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University. The call is here.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 35, no. 4, November 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Editorial: EJIL: News!; In This Issue; In This Issue – Reviews; EJIL Role of Honour; EJIL Peer Review Prize; Are We Missing Your Peer Review?; On My Way Out – Advice to Early Career Scholars VIII: Best Practice for Workshopping Projected Edited Collections (Books, Symposia) in 10 Not So Easy Steps; My Patria Is The Book: 10 Good Reads 2024
• EJIL Interview
• Sarah M H Nouwen & Joseph H H Weiler, ‘On my way out … for real!’ A Conversation with Joseph H.H. Weiler on the Occasion of His Stepping Down as EJIL Editor in Chief
• Articles
• Radha Ivory, The Concept of International Law Reform and the Case of Negotiated Settlements in Foreign Bribery Matters
• Andreas Buser, Exercising Planetary Jurisdiction: On the Legality and Legitimacy of Unilaterally Mitigating Planetary Ecological Footprints
• Jedidiah J Kroncke & Haimo Li, The Global Scope of Competitive Legalities in the Early 19th-Century South China Sea: The Topaz Incident
• Roaming Charges
• Places with a Soul: A Darkening World
• Book Review Symposium: International Law and Techology
• Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, International Law and Technology as a Critical Project: A Collective Reading
• Abhimanyu George Jain, In/visibilities
• Marie Petersmann, Refusing Algorithmic Recognition
• Christine Schwöbel-Patel, In the Service of Keeping Capital Moving
• André Dao, A Historiography of Amnesia: Beyond Data, Big Tech and the (Re)Turn to Human Rights
• Angelina Fisher, From In(-)formation to Infrastructural Turns: The Digital Futures of Human Rights Law and Practice
• Review Essay
• Vladyslav Lanovoy, Due Diligence in International Law: A Useful Renaissance or ‘All Things to All People’?
• Book Reviews
• Renske Vos, reviewing Deval Desai. Expert Ignorance: The Law and Politics of Rule of Law Reform
• Silvia Steininger, reviewing Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen, The 3 Regional Human Rights Courts in Context: Justice That Cannot Be Taken for Granted
• Book Review Symposium: The Hague Academy
• Phattharaphong Saengkrai, A Transcivilizational Perspective at the Hague Academy: A Critical Review
• Mario J A Oyarzábal, The Hague Academy of International Law and Latin America
• Rodolfo Ribeiro C Marques, Contestation, Emulation, Reformation: Latin American Legal Thought at the Hague Academy of International Law
• Justina Uriburu, Windows to Worlds: Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga’s Teachings at the Hague Academy
• The Last Page
• Thus Spoke JHH Weiler

Call for Papers: Annual Postgraduate Conference in International Law and Human Rights

The International Law and Human Rights Unit of the University of Liverpool's School of Law and Social Justice has issued a call for papers for its Annual Postgraduate Conference in International Law and Human Rights, to take palce July 21-22, 2025, in Liverpool. The call is here.

Workshop: EU Accession to the ECHR: Procedural Hurdles and Prospects Before the ECtHR

On May 15-16, 2025, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki's Faculty of Law and the University of Liverpool's School of Law and Social Justice will co-host a workshop on "EU Accession to the ECHR: Procedural Hurdles and Prospects Before the ECtHR," in Thessaloniki, with the first day held in a hybrid format. Details are here.

Call for Panel Proposals: International Law Weekend 2025

The American Branch of the International Law Association has issued a call for panel proposals for International Law Weekend 2025, which will take place in New York City on October 23-25. The theme is "Crisis as Catalyst in International Law." The call is here. The deadline is April 20, 2025.

New Issue: International Criminal Law Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 25, no. 1, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Matthew Gillett, Georgia Moloney, & Anne-Lise Chaber, Proving Ecocide: The Plight of Pangolins as a Case Study for Fusing Ecological Science with International Law
• Linda Mushoriwa & Windell Nortje, A Failure by African States or a Gap in the Law? An Appraisal of the African and International Legal Framework for the Protection of Child Soldiers
• Ana Martin, Intersectional v. Narrow Approaches to Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes: Contrasting Outcomes and Gleaning Useful Techniques
• Livia Benschu, Gender Persecution and the Sarah O. Case: Strengthening the Rome Statute through Domestic Trials
• Evelyne Owiye Asaala, African Philosophical Contributions to International Criminal Law
• Kamil Sobański, Evolution of Remote Participation of the Accused and Victim in International Criminal Proceedings

Ainley & Kersten: Hybrid Justice: Innovation and Impact in the Prosecution of Atrocity Crimes

Kirsten Ainley (Australian National Univ.) & Mark Kersten (Univ. of the Fraser Valley) have published Hybrid Justice: Innovation and Impact in the Prosecution of Atrocity Crimes (Oxford Univ. Press 2025). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The last decade has seen the unexpected re-emergence of hybrid and internationalised courts - institutions which operate with varying combinations of national and international law, procedure, and staff. Whilst the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court should have made hybrid mechanisms largely obsolete, hybrids have recently been established or proposed for atrocity crimes committed in Chad, South Sudan, Israel/Palestine, the Central African Republic, Kosovo, Syria, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, The Gambia, Liberia, and Ukraine.

Hybrid Justice critically examines the resurgent promise of hybrid courts. Focusing on the fields, practices, innovations, and of hybrid courts, the contributors evaluate hybrids' success, and in doing so, help to clarify the conditions and mechanisms that makes hybrids likely to succeed in their mandates and impacts. The authors focus on hybrid courts and resilience: the resilience of hybrid mechanisms to withstand political and other pressures to deliver justice and accountability, and the potential contribution of hybrids to the resilience of affected communities.

Borne out of a collaboration between lawyers, academics, and activists, this edited volume provides a uniquely comparative account of the development of hybrid courts in recent years.

Hamilton: The Arms Trade and International Criminal Law: Reframing Accountability for Complicit Weapon Suppliers

Tomas Hamilton has published The Arms Trade and International Criminal Law: Reframing Accountability for Complicit Weapon Suppliers (Oxford Univ. Press 2025). Here's the abstract:

Despite the establishment of UN embargoes, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and the EU Common Position, arms export regulation suffers from significant legal and practical limitations. This book critically evaluates the existing body of 'Arms Trade Law', highlighting its inadequacies in preventing weapons from reaching perpetrators of mass violence.

Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and empirical research to assess the perspectives of judges and lawyers, it also explores the International Criminal Court's narrow focus on prosecuting political and military leaders. Arguing that institutional attitudes and commitments contribute to a legal culture that obscures the potential for an arms trader case, the book illustrates these dynamics through a case study of the UN Security Council's response to the Second Congo War and the ICC's investigations in the DRC Situation, elucidating missed opportunities to enforce accountability against the entire spectrum of actors responsible for international crimes.

Through detailed examination of the arms trade's complexities, The Arms Trade and International Criminal Law foregrounds the structural causes of atrocity and argues for broader accountability. It investigates how individuals-including corporate executives, state officials, and arms traffickers-can be held directly accountable for atrocities under international law, even when their actions are geographically or causally distant from the violence itself. Furthermore, by advancing a specific interpretation of the actus reus and mens rea elements of accomplice liability under Article 25 of the Rome Statute, this book argues for a robust legal basis upon which the ICC can prosecute arms traders. It therefore underscores how international criminal law can complement existing regulations by leveraging its expressive function to condemn all those who profit from atrocity.

New Issue: Virginia Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Virginia Journal of International Law (Vol. 65, no. 2, March 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Peter G. Danchin, Jeremy Farrall, Jolyon Ford, Shruti Rana & Imogen Saunders, International Law and the Rise of Populism
• Jens David Ohlin, War’s Rustic Code of Honor
• Ryan Liss, Complementarity and the Normative Structure of International Criminal Law

Seminar: Beyond Disasters: Environmental Chronic Emergencies in International Law

On March 28, 2025, the University of Florence's Department of Legal Sciences will host a seminar on "Beyond Disasters: Environmental Chronic Emergencies in International Law." Remote attendance is available. Details are here.

Lawson & Wessel: Unity in Diversity: Perspectives on the Law of International Organizations – Liber Amicorum for Niels M. Blokker

Rick Lawson (Leiden Univ. - Law) & Ramses A. Wessel (Univ. of Groningen - Law) have published Unity in Diversity: Perspectives on the Law of International Organizations – Liber Amicorum for Niels M. Blokker (Brill | Nijhoff 2025). Contents include:

• Rick Lawson & Ramses A. Wessel, Introduction: Niels Blokker’s Contribution to International Institutional Law
• Roeland Böcker, Restoring Justice Step 1: The Register of Damage for Ukraine
• Thomas Henquet, The UN Liability Rules and General International Law: Lex Specialis?
• Ian Johnstone, Security Council Oversight of Non-UN Operations: Law, Policy and Practice
• Giserd Marqeshi & Nigel D. White, Operational Lawmaking within the UN: The Origins of the Legal: Framework for Peacekeeping
• Michael Ramsden, ‘Uniting against Impunity’ in the New Cold War: Will the UN General Assembly Come of Age?
• Alfred van Staden, The Amazing Resurrection of NATO: Problems and Prospects
• Gian Luca Burci, Regime Complexity in Global Health: The Search for Multilateral Pandemic Governance
• Daniëlla Dam-de Jong, The UN Security Council and a Warming World: Coming to Terms with the Security Implications of Climate Change
• Jan Klabbers, Inter-organizational Collaboration: The World Organization for Animal Health and the One Health Initiative
• Brian McGarry, Weathering a Perfect Storm: Fundamental Questions of Institutional Law in Ocean Governance
• André Nollkaemper, The Quadripartite: Building Alliances between the WHO, the FAO, WOAH and UNEP
• Meagan S. Wong, The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Meeting of States Parties to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: Mare Ignotum for the Law of International Organizations?
• Eric De Brabandere & Jason Rudall, The Contribution of International Organizations to the Settlement of International Disputes
• Mielle Bulterman & Larissa van den Herik, The EU’s Foreign and Security Policy and Legal Remedies: Three Remarkable Cases before the EU Courts
• Jacob Katz Cogan, Statement Decisions as Institutional Authority
• Helen Duffy & Giulia Pinzauti, The International Court of Justice in Conflict: Reflections on the Role and Impact of the Palestine Litigation
• Huw Llewellyn, The United Nations Criminal Tribunals: Terminable Yet Independent?
• Carsten Stahn, When the Whole Becomes More than the Sum of Its Parts: How the ICC Re-Invented Itself through Complementarity
• Sergey Vasiliev, Governing International Justice: Whence the Unified Principles?
• Laurence Boisson de Chazournes and Pieter Jan Kuijper, Relations between ‘European Courts’: Towards Civilized Dialogue?
• Edward Kwakwa & Irina Chicu, The World Intellectual Property Organization’s New Strategic Direction: Serving Underserved Communities and Helping Transform IP into a Tool That Works for Building a More Sustainable Future
• Gabrielle Marceau & Maria George, The New Roles of the WTO
• Pierre Klein, Between Restraint and Enthusiasm: International Organizations’ Participation in Advisory Proceedings before the ICJ and ITLOS
• Liesbeth Lijnzaad, Anticipation, or the People That Make the Law of the Sea Convention Work
• René Urueña, Falling through the Cracks: Exploring the Role of Law in the Interaction between International Organizations
• Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst & Jaap Hoeksma, The European Union as a Democratic International Organization
• Helena Loutas-Paraskeva & Anmol Gulecha, Unity within Diversity: The Continuing Rise of Consensus
• Paolo Palchetti, Attaching Member State’s Financial Contribution to the Organization to Circumvent the Organization’s Immunity from Execution Let the State Pay?
• August Reinisch, The Privileges and Immunities of International Organizations and Equality: Some Reflections on Their Justifications from an Egalitarian Perspective
• Dan Sarooshi, The Personality and Responsibility of International Organizations
• Kirsten Schmalenbach, The Great Unknown General Principles Governing the Law of International Organizations
• Nico Schrijver, We the Peoples in International Organizations: An Unfinished Agenda
• Jean d’Aspremont, International Institutional Lawyers as Masters of Modern Philosophy
• Catherine Brölmann, Reading International Organizations: Between Legal Construction and Social Existence
• Edward Chukwuemeke Okeke, Law and Lawyering in International Organizations

New Issue: Journal of International Dispute Settlement

The latest issue of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement (Vol. 16, no. 1, March 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Charalampos Giannakopoulos, Paradigms of justice and the limits of ISDS reform
• Szilárd Gáspár-Szilágyi, Are the protections offered by EU law adequate alternatives to those offered by international investment law?
• André-Philippe Ouellet, The ICJ and the protection of foreign property under customary international law: quid novi?
• Hailiang Xiong, The Legislative Adjustment of Chinese Enforcement Regulation of the International Commercial Settlement Agreement in the context of the Singapore mediation convention
• Hoon Cho & Changyoul Lee, Compulsory dispute settlement system under the BBNJ agreement: some considerations on future constraints
• Yuliya Chernykh & Mavluda Sattorova, The afterlife of ISDS awards: post-award settlements and the limits of transparency reforms
• Yarik Kryvoi & Aleksander Godhe, Enhancing anti-corruption via investment arbitration: from red flags to due diligence
• Kaijun Pan, International organizations’ practice in the interpretation of their constituent instruments
• Lorenzo Gasbarri, How to write a judgment: creative writing and international adjudication
• Current Developments
• Daniele Musmeci, Reflecting on the interpretation and application of the international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism in light of the Ukraine v Russia case
• Cecily Rose, Evidentiary challenges in the litigation of war reparations: Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (DRC v Uganda)
• Ali Dehdashti, The interplay of Islamic principles of construction in English court: the case of NIOC v Crescent Petroleum

New Issue: Transnational Environmental Law

The latest issue of Transnational Environmental Law (Vol. 14, no. 1, March 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Thijs Etty, Josephine van Zeben, Harro van Asselt, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli, Sébastien Jodoin, & Leonie Reins, Breaking Path Dependencies through Transnational Environmental Law
• Articles
• Paul J. Govind, Evaluating the Ethical Responsibility of Environmental Planning Law in Perpetuating Settler Colonialism Using a Transnational Legal Lens
• Max van Deursen & Aarti Gupta, Is Enhanced Transparency the “Backbone” of the Paris Agreement? A Critical Assessment
• Rebecca Williams, Looking to Livestock: Gauging the Evolution of the EU's Agri-Climate Law and Policy
• Endrius Cocciolo & Leonie Reins, A Critical Review of the Energy Charter Treaty from an Earth System Law Perspective
• Clément Lasselin, Sébastien Barot, & Anouk Barberousse, Value Chains and Environmental Impact Assessments: Lessons from Two French Legal Cases on Bioenergy Facilities
• Zhang Min & Fernando Romero Wimer, Transnational Governance of Soybean Land Use in South America: A Polycentric Approach
• James Hickling, The Role of Science and Historiography in the Development of Transnational Environmental Law: A New History of the 1900 London Convention for the Preservation of African Wildlife
• Aleksandra Čavoški, Robert Lee, & Laura Holden, The Role of Epistemic Communities in Formulating EU Policy: The PrecisionTox Project

New Volume: Japanese Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Japanese Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 67, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• New Frontiers of State Jurisdiction
• Akio Morita & Mari Takeuchi, Introductory Note
• Cedric Ryngaert, Weaponizing Economic Interdependence via Extraterritorial Chokepoint Jurisdiction: An International Law Perspective
• ISHII Yurika, Limits of State Jurisdiction in Cyberspace — The Legality of the Cross-Border Remote Access and the Use of Policeware —
• Makoto Seta, Port State Jurisdiction as Universal Jurisdiction over Fisheries
• Takayo Ando, Changes in the Legal Structure of the Aut Dedere Aut Judicare Principle — Focusing on the Requirements for the Obligation to Exercise Jurisdiction —
• MORITA Akio, Theoretical Analysis of Conflicting Approaches on State Jurisdiction — Focusing on “Liberté” and Conflicting “Basic Positions” —
• Legal Analysis on Sucession Substitutes
• Dai Yokomizo, Introductory Note
• OSHIMA Lisa, The Potential and Limitations of Contracts That Function as Succession Substitutes
• Dai Yokomizo, Succession Substitutes and Japanese Conflict of Laws: Including the Possibility of Introducing Limited Professio Juris to Japanese Choice-of-Law Rule Relating to Succession
• Takami Hayashi, Conflict-of-Law Issues Regarding Succession Substitutes with a Focus on Trusts
• Charlotte Wendland, The Law Applicable to Succession Substitutes: European Perspective
• Takeshi Fujitani, Succession Substitutes and Taxation — An Analysis from the Perspective of Party Autonomy and Tax Neutrality —
• Human Rights Approach to Regulate Armed Conflicts: Beyond the Lex Generalis/Specialis Framework: Part Two
• Megumi Ochi, The Other Side of the Human Rights Approach to the Reparation for Victims of Armed Conflict — The Coalition of the Sword and Shield Function for Transformative Reparation —
• Yaël Ronen, Occupation, the Right to Self-Determination, and the Law
• Yutaka Arai-Takahashi, Digging the Skewed Gendered Surface — The Rights of Female Prisoners of War Under International Humanitarian Law —
• Shuichi Furuya, Conclusion: Why Do We Tend to Apply International Human Rights Law to Armed Conflicts?

AJIL Unbound Symposium: International Criminal Law's Critical Aftermaths

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on “International Criminal Law's Critical Aftermaths.” The symposium includes an introduction by Richard Clements, Christine Schwöbel-Patel, and Leila Ullrich, and contributions by yassin m. brunger and Sophie Rigney, Marina Veličković, Rachel López and Margaret M. deGuzman, Sujith Xavier, and Vasuki Nesiah.

Call for Papers: Regulating Security in Cyberspace

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Regulating Security in Cyberspace," to take place June 5-6, 2025, at the University of Grenada, Spain. The call is here.

Lecture: Milanovic on “The Notion of an Illegal Occupation in the ICJ’s 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion”

On March 24, 2025, Marko Milanovic (Univ. of Reading - Law) will give the next lecture of the TwoLaW Lecture Series on the Laws of War. The topic is: “The Notion of an Illegal Occupation in the ICJ’s 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion.” Details are here.

Bahri: Trade Agreements and Women: Transcending Barriers

Amrita Bahri (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México) has published Trade Agreements and Women: Transcending Barriers (Oxford Univ. Press 2025). Here's the abstract:

With more and more countries including provisions on women's concerns in their trade agreements, Trade Agreements and Women: Transcending Barriers explores how women's empowerment and trade liberalization interact, overlap, and converge.

Tapping into examples from across the globe, and taking into consideration the diverse political, economic, social, and legal contexts of different countries, Amrita Bari poses and answers some key questions: What role can trade agreements play with regard to women's empowerment, and what limitations do they have? Have previous efforts to include women through trade agreements been genuinely responsive to the needs of women, or have they been merely symbolic? What, ultimately, makes a trade agreement responsive to the needs of women, and how can countries achieve this in their own trade agreements?

In answering these questions, Bahri carves out a roadmap, with concrete recommendations, for the future of women-related trade provisions, and offers much-needed guidance for legal scholars, trade negotiators, and policymakers involved in preparing, revising, and inclusively negotiating trade regulations.

Grosescu & Richardson-Little: Socialism and International Law: The Cold War and Its Legacies

Raluca Grosescu (National Univ. of Political Science and Public Administration) & Ned Richardson-Little (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History) have published Socialism and International Law: The Cold War and Its Legacies (Oxford Univ. Press 2024). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The contributions of socialist thinkers and states to the development of international law often go unrecognized. Socialism and International Law: The Cold War and Its Legacies explores how socialist individuals and governments from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia made vital contributions to international law as it is practiced today, and also brought ideas and initiatives that constituted important disruptive moments in its history.

The socialist world of the 20th century was an ambiguous and fragile construct: there were clear divisions between the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, which kept one foot in Western Eurocentric traditions, and the positions of the radical Third World, primarily post-colonial Afro-Asian states, which mounted a more fundamental challenge to the international order. Far from a monolith, the socialist world was an intricate and dynamic space, which still had many shared common understandings of global affairs and the meaning of the law within them.

By examining how different state socialist ideologies, legal principles, and realpolitik affected contemporary international law frameworks, this book contests existing linear and Western-dominated histories. It considers these state socialist engagements in conversation with liberal and Western approaches and underlines the divisions that existed between versions of socialism from different regions and across the North-South divide. The legacies of socialist international law are still with us today, as are the consequences of its failure.

With a focus on the Cold War and its aftermath, Socialist International Law features astute commentary on the history and present-day effects of socialist principles applied to international law, provided by an esteemed and diverse group of contributors from around the world.

Clark: Cooperative Complexity: The Next Level of Global Economic Governance

Richard Clark (Univ. of Notre Dame - Political Science) has published Cooperative Complexity: The Next Level of Global Economic Governance (Cambridge Univ. Press 2025). Here's the abstract:

Over the course of the twentieth century, states engaged in cooperation through international organizations at unprecedented levels. However, the twenty-first century has featured the emergence of next-level forms of cooperation: international organizations working together. This pattern is especially apparent among economic international organizations, which often pool resources and expertise to jointly implement programs in member state territories. Cooperative Complexity argues that such cooperation is politically efficient but not necessarily economically efficient; it helps geopolitically aligned organizations enforce their preferred policies but can drive inefficient economic outcomes. Combining a general theoretical model with quantitative, qualitative, and experimental research designs, this book disentangles the complex ties that connect international organizations. In doing so, it reveals how a deeper understanding of the supply side of international finance is critical for gaining insights about the form, effectiveness, and likely future of global economic governance.

Cohen: The International Order, International Law, and the Definition of Security

Harlan Grant Cohen (Fordham Univ. - Law) has posted The International Order, International Law, and the Definition of Security (Michigan Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

As economic security has seemingly moved to the center of American and European foreign policy, both the United States and the European Union have broadened their interpretation of international law rules governing security, coercion, and intervention. But these interpretations are not exactly new, echoing developing state interpretations of international law that developed states had long ago seemingly rejected. How are these once moribund interpretations of security, force, and coercion being brought back to life?

This essay argues that these interpretative shifts highlight the role of the international order as an interpretative mechanism within international law. Borrowing from the work of Robert Cover, it explains the ways that the international order acts as a jurispathic agent within the system, judging which interpretations live on and which are cast aside. As global power shifts, the international order shifts with it, potentially reopening interpretative fights over international law. Today’s fights over the meaning of security, force, and coercion thus reflect both the realities of a changing order and the battle to shape the one to come.

Landefeld: Individuals in International Humanitarian Law: A Historical Analysis

Sarina Landefeld (Univ. of Leicester - Law) has published Individuals in International Humanitarian Law: A Historical Analysis (Hart Publishing 2025). Here's the abstract:

This book offers a new, more critical perspective on the regulation and protection of individuals under international humanitarian law.

Providing a historical account of the changing conceptualisation of individuals since 1864, the study draws on social constructivism. This approach casts light on the struggle of making sense of, and agreeing on, the position of individuals in armed conflicts during the law-making process, often hidden by international humanitarian law's conventional narratives. This intriguing study grapples with a difficult and disputed area of the law of armed conflict, making a singular and significant contribution which will be welcomed by all scholars in the field.