d'Aspremont: International Law in Asia: The Limits to the Western Constitutionalist and Liberal Doctrines

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Leiden - Law) has posted the abstract of International Law in Asia: The Limits to the Western Constitutionalist and Liberal Doctrines (Asian Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This paper submits that the Asian international legal scholarship provides a cogent alternative to the Western constitutionalist and liberal approaches as many prominent Asian scholars base international lawmaking on interests rather than values.

Bowring: The Degradation of the International Legal Order? The Rehabilitation of Law and the Possibility of Politics

Bill Bowring (Birkbeck College, Univ. of London - Law) has published The Degradation of the International Legal Order? The Rehabilitation of Law and the Possibility of Politics (Routledge-Cavendish 2008). Here's the abstract:

Providing the basis for critical engagement with the pessimism of the contemporary age, The Degradation of the International Legal Order? argues passionately for a rehabilitation of the honour of historic events and processes, and of their role in generating legal concepts. Drawing primarily from the Marxian tradition, but also engaging with a range of contemporary work in critical theory and critical legal and human rights scholarship, this book analyses historical and recent international events and processes in order to challenge their orthodox interpretation. What is thus proposed is a new evaluation of international legal principles and human rights norms, the revolutionary content of which, it is argued, turns them from mere rhetoric into powerful weapons of struggle.

Conference: Ruling the World: Generating International Legal Norms

Brooklyn Law School's Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law and the Brooklyn Journal of International Law will host a conference on "Ruling the World: Generating International Legal Norms," October 24, 2008, in Brooklyn. The program is not yet available online. Why attend?

Ruling the World will bring together a geographically and substantively diverse group of experts to examine the development of international economic law norms. The participants will explore the formation of international norms through the lens of three issue areas: commercial law, taxation and financial regulation. Those norms may assume the form of soft or hard law. At the same time, they may be the product of institutional regulation, private legislators, model treaties, legislative guides or transnational harmonization. Regardless of their form or origin they consistently display a maddening combination of frailty and power.

Ruling the World presents an opportunity for those curious about the challenges of international norm creation to share insights and raise questions about when international norms take root, how they can be cultivated and the unique challenges they raise for policymakers.

Workshop: Sornarajah

M. Sornarajah (National Univ. of Singapore - Law) will give a talk today at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies Faculty Transnational Law Colloquium on "The Resurgence of the Right to Development and the International Law of Greed: The Resulting Tension in the International Law on Foreign Investment." The colloquium will be held at Birkbeck College at 11AM.

Anderson: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations: A Comment on Paul Kennedy and the Parliament of Man

Kenneth Anderson (American Univ. - Law) has posted The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations: A Comment on Paul Kennedy and the Parliament of Man (Revista de Libros (Madrid), forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This is the English language version of an essay (10,000 words) appearing in the Revista de Libros (Madrid), considering the history and future of the United Nations and global governance through the lens of Paul Kennedy's recent work, The Parliament of Man. The essay is highly skeptical of what it describes as "platonism" about the future of the UN as the seat of global governance. It offers an alternative view of how to consider the work of the UN, in three areas: security, economic development, and values. The essay argues that, particularly with the rise of new great power tensions and multipolarity, the fantastic dream of the UN as the seat of a gradually arising global government, as Kennedy imagines things, should be given up in favor a UN devoted to a modest set of quotidian tasks and the place for the great powers to engage in multilateral discussion, argument, and negotiation. (This essay will also be posted in Spanish on SSRN in its final published form in the Revista de Libros.)

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 52, no. 5, October 2008) is out. Contents include:

• Benjamin O. Fordham, Economic Interests and Congressional Voting on Security Issues
• Jaroslav Tir & Michael Jasinski, Domestic-Level Diversionary Theory of War: Targeting Ethnic Minorities
• Massimiliano Landi & Domenico Colucci, Rational and Boundedly Rational Behavior in a Binary Choice Sender-Receiver Game
• Jonathan W. Keller & Yi Edward Yang, Leadership Style, Decision Context, and the Poliheuristic Theory of Decision Making: An Experimental Analysis
• Eran Halperin, Group-based Hatred in Intractable Conflict in Israel
• Benjamin L. Read and Ethan Michelson, Mediating the Mediation Debate: Conflict Resolution and the Local State in China

Osagiede v. United States

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided Osagiede v. United States (opinion here). The issue in this habeas filing was whether the petitioner-appellant, a Nigerian national who had pled guilty to one count of heroin distribution and was sentenced to more than eight years imprisonment, was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The ineffectiveness claim centered on "whether Osagiede’s counsel was ineffective for failing to seek a remedy for the [uncontested Vienna Convention on Consular Relations] Article 36 violation." Judge Cudahy, writing for a panel that also included Judges Ripple and Rovner, reversed the district court and found that an ineffectiveness claim based on counsel's failure to seek a remedy for a VCCR Article 36 violation is cognizable. A hearing, therefore, was warranted. The petitioner's case was argued by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; the Government was represented by the Office of the Solicitor General.

ICJ: Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russia) (Conclusion of Hearings)

Yesterday, the International Court of Justice concluded its public hearings on Georgia's request for the indication of provisional measures in the case concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation). Case documents, including the application, written proceedings, the verbatim record of the hearings, and press releases, are available here.

At the conclusion of the hearings, Georgia set out its request for provisional measures as follows:

Georgia respectfully requests the Court, as a matter of urgency, to order the following provisional measures, pending its determination of this case on the merits, in order to prevent irreparable harm to the rights of ethnic Georgians under Articles 2 and 5 of the Convention on Racial Discrimination:

(a) The Russian Federation shall take all necessary measures to ensure that no ethnic Georgians or any other persons are subject to violent or coercive acts of racial discrimination, including but not limited to the threat or infliction of death or bodily harm, hostage-taking and unlawful detention, the destruction or pillage of property, and other acts intended to expel them from
their homes or villages in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and/or adjacent regions within Georgia;

(b) The Russian Federation shall take all necessary measures to prevent groups or individuals from subjecting ethnic Georgians to coercive acts of racial discrimination, including but not limited to the threat or infliction of death or bodily harm, hostage-taking and unlawful detention, the destruction or theft of property, and other acts intended to expel them from their homes or villages in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and/or adjacent regions within Georgia;

(c) The Russian Federation shall refrain from adopting any measures that would prejudice the right of ethnic Georgians to participate fully and equally in the public affairs of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and/or adjacent regions of Georgia.

Georgia further requests the Court as a matter of urgency to order the following provisional measures to prevent irreparable injury to the right of return of ethnic Georgians under Article 5 of the Convention on Racial Discrimination pending the Court’s determination of this case on the merits:

(d) The Russian Federation shall refrain from taking any actions or supporting any measures that would have the effect of denying the exercise by ethnic Georgians and any other persons who have been expelled from South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and adjacent regions on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality, their right of return to their homes of origin;

(e) The Russian Federation shall refrain from taking any actions or supporting any measures by any group or individual that obstructs or hinders the exercise of the right of return to South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and adjacent regions by ethnic Georgians and any other persons who have been expelled from those regions on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality;

(f) The Russian Federation shall refrain from adopting any measures that would prejudice the right of ethnic Georgians to participate fully and equally in public affairs upon their return to South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and adjacent regions.

[Additionally,] The Russian Federation shall refrain from obstructing, and shall permit and facilitate, the delivery of humanitarian assistance to all individuals in the territory under its control, regardless of their ethnicity.

Russia countered that provisional measures should not be indicated and that, indeed, the case should be removed from the Court's list. The Agent for the Russian Federation explained:

First: The dispute that the Applicant has tried to plead before this Court is evidently not a dispute under the 1965 Convention. If there were a dispute, it would relate to the use of force, humanitarian law, territorial integrity, but in any case not to racial discrimination.

Second: Even if this dispute were under the 1965 Convention, the alleged breaches of the Convention are not capable of falling under the provisions of the said Convention, not the least because Articles 2 and 5 of the Convention are not applicable extraterritorially.

Third: Even if such breaches occurred, they could not, even prima facie, be attributable to Russia that never did and does not now exercise, in the territories concerned, the extent of control required to overcome the set threshold.

Fourth: Even if the 1965 Convention could be applicable, which, I repeat, is not the case, the procedural requirements of Article 22 of 1965 Convention have not been met. No evidence that the Applicant proposed to negotiate or employ the mechanism of the Committee on Racial Discrimination prior to reference to this Court, has been nor could have been produced.

Fifth: With these arguments in mind, the Court manifestly lacks jurisdiction to entertain the case.

Sixth: Should the Court, against all odds, find itself prima facie competent over the dispute, we submit that the Applicant has failed to demonstrate the criteria essential for provisional measures to be indicated. No credible evidence has been produced to attest to the existence of imminent risk of irreparable harm, and urgency. The circumstances of the case definitely do not require measures, in particular, in the light of the ongoing process of post-conflict settlement. And the measures sought failed to take account of the key factor going to discretion: the fact that the events of August 2008 were born out of Georgia’s use of force.

Finally: Provisional measures as they were formulated by the Applicant in the Requests cannot be granted since they would impose on Russia obligations that it is not able to fulfil. The Russian Federation is not exercising effective control vis-à-vis South Ossetia and Abkhazia or any adjacent parts of Georgia. Acts of organs of South Ossetia and Abkhazia or private groups and individuals are not attributable to the Russian Federation. These measures if granted would prejudge the outcome of the case.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 34, no. 4, October 2008) is out. Contents include:

• John Williams, Space, scale and Just War: meeting the challenge of humanitarian intervention and trans-national terrorism
• Alex J. Bellamy, The responsibilities of victory: Jus Post Bellum and the Just War
• Corneliu Bjola, Legitimacy and the use of force: bridging the analytical-normative divide
• Reed Davis, An uncertain trumpet: reason, anarchy and Cold War diplomacy in the thought of Raymond Aron
• Halvard Leira, Justus Lipsius, political humanism and the disciplining of 17th century statecraft
• Ersel Aydinli & Julie Mathews, Periphery theorising for a truly internationalised discipline: spinning IR theory out of Anatolia
• Carl Knight, A pluralistic approach to global poverty
• Valentine M. Moghadam & Dilek Elveren, The making of an international Convention: culture and free trade in a global era
• Raymond Duvall & Jonathan Havercroft, Taking sovereignty out of this world: space weapons and empire of the future
• Paul Roe, The ‘value’ of positive security

Workshops: Boyle & Kim, Eckstein

Elizabeth Boyle & Minzee Kim (both Univ. of Minnesota - Sociology) will give a talk today at the University of Minnesota Faculty Works in Progress Workshop on "International Law, State Action, and Outcomes for Individuals: The Case of Child Rights."

Gabriel Eckstein (Texas Tech Univ. - Law & Univ. of Oregon - Law, visiting) will give a talk today at the University of Oregon's workshop series Seeking Sustainable Solutions: A Series of Fireside Conversations on Global Warming on "Climate Change Implications for Negotiating International Transboundary Water Agreements."

New Issue: International Relations

The latest issue of International Relations (Vol. 22, no. 3, September 2008) is out. Contents include:

• Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come . . . and Gone?
• Raymond Kuo, Occupation and the Just War
• Dan Plesch, Introducing the Concept of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone
• Jan Prawitz, A Brief Sketch of the Proposed Zone
• Michael Crowley, Verification and National Implementation Measures for a WMDFZ in the Middle East
• Jonathan Spyer, Israel in the Middle East: Threats and Countermeasures
• Merav Datan, Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East: Conditions for Disarmament
• Mustafa Alani, The Gulf NW and WMD Free Zone: A Track II Initiative
• Hugh Beach, Is There a Future for Arms Control?
• Anatol Lieven, Confidence-Building Measures: Lessons for the Middle East
• Alyson J. K. Bailes, WMD in the Greater Middle East: Any Lessons from NATO and European Arms Control and Disarmament Structures?
• Mark Fitzpatrick, Will Nuclear Energy Plans in the Middle East Become Nuclear Weapons Strategies?
• Bennett Ramberg, The Promise of a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
• Dan Plesch & Poul-Erik Christiansen, A Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East: Reflections on a Project of Academic Applied International Relations

SFRC: Hearing on Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty

This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the following treaties:

• Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 on the Accession of the Republic of Albania and the Republic of Croatia (Treaty Doc. 110-20)

Witnesses included: Daniel Fried (Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, Department of State) and Daniel P. Fata (Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and NATO Policy, Department of Defense). Links are to the witnesses' written statements.

Conference: Expanding Foreign Relations Law: Constitutional and International Perspectives

Later this week, on September 12th and 13th, the Vanderbilt International Legal Studies Program will host its Fall 2008 Roundtable. The topic is "Expanding Foreign Relations Law: Constitutional and International Perspectives." Here are the papers and commentators:

• Paul Stephan (Univ. of Virginia - Law), Privatizing International Law
• Comment: Laurence R. Helfer (Vanderbilt Univ. - Law)
• David J. Bederman (Emory Univ. - Law), Medellin’s New Paradigm for Treaty Interpretation
• Comment: Daniel Abebe (Univ. of Chicago - Law)
• Michael Ramsey (Univ. of San Diego - Law), International Law Limits on Investor Liability in Human Rights Litigation
• Comment: Christiana Ochoa (Indiana Univ., Bloomington - Law)
• Chimène Keitner (Univ. of California - Hastings College of Law), Constitutions Beyond Borders: Recourse for Extraterritorial Rights Violations in Comparative Perspective
• Comment: Evan J. Criddle (Syracuse Univ. - Law)
• Carlos Vázquez, Treaties as Law of the Land: The Supremacy Clause and The Judicial Enforcement of Treaties
• Comment: Andreas L. Paulus (Univ. of Göttingen - Law)
• Ingrid Wuerth (Vanderbilt Univ. - Law), The Enigmatic Captures Clause
• Comment: David J. Bederman (Emory Univ. - Law)
• Oona Hathaway (Univ. of California, Berkeley - Law), Imbalance of Power: The Growth of Presidential Power over U.S. International Lawmaking
• Comment: Jide Nzelibe (Northwestern Univ. - Law)
• Sean Murphy (George Washington Univ. - Law), The President's Understated Power to Send and Receive Ambassadors
• Comment: Harlan Cohen (Univ. of Georgia - Law)

Ohlin: The Co-Perpetrator Model of Joint Criminal Enterprise

Jens David Ohlin (Cornell Univ. - Law) has posted The Co-Perpetrator Model of Joint Criminal Enterprise (Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The doctrine of Joint Criminal Enterprise has provoked scholarly debate among international criminal lawyers falling into two camps. The first camp argues that the doctrine should be abandoned as fundamentally incompatible with basic principles of individualized criminal law, while a second camp defends the doctrine as first elucidated in the ICTY's Tadic case with few or only minor amendments. The following commentary on the ICTY Trial Chamber's decision in Prosecutor v. Stakic takes a third route: fundamental alterations to the doctrine are required to bring it in line with the culpability principle. Specifically, by invoking the control theory of participation, this commentary argues that international tribunals should adopt a "co-perpetrator model of joint criminal enterprise". This new model differentiates between different levels of participation in criminal plans by creating two entirely new modes of liability: (i) co-perpetrating a joint criminal enterprise, and (ii) aiding and abetting a joint criminal enterprise. The former mode of liability would be reserved for individuals at the top of the hierarchy in a joint criminal plan whose participation is essential to the plan's fruition and intend to further the criminal purpose of the group, while the later liability would be reserved for lower-rung individuals who knowingly make a contribution to the plan but do not necessarily share the intent of furthering the criminal purpose of the overall conspiracy.

d'Aspremont: Softness in International Law: A Self-Serving Quest for New Legal Materials

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Leiden - Law) has posted Softness in International Law: A Self-Serving Quest for New Legal Materials (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The concept of soft law which rests on the idea that the binary nature of law is ill-suited to accommodate the growing complexity of contemporary international relations has been endorsed by a large number of scholars. It has however remained under the attack of those that are commonly portrayed as positivists. Although it does not seek to rehabilitate positivism as a whole, this paper will try to offer a refreshed and modernized account of the positivist objection to soft law. It will accordingly distinguish several types of softness. Such a dichotomy will help unravel the underlying agenda of some of the staunchest supporters of the concept of soft law. The paper will ultimately expound on the proneness of international legal scholars to stretch the limit of their object of study by constantly seizing materials outside the realm of international law in order to alleviate the strain inherent to the contemporary proliferation of international legal thinking.

Guiora: Anticipatory Self-Defence and International Law - A Re-Evaluation

Amos N. Guiora (University of Utah - Law) has posted Anticipatory Self-Defence and International Law - A Re-Evaluation (Journal of Conflict and Security Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Traditional state v. state war is largely a relic. How then does a nation-state protect itself - preemptively - against the unseen enemy? Existing international law - the Caroline Doctrine, UN Charter Article 51, Security Council Resolutions 1368 and 1373 - do not provide sufficiently clear guidelines regarding when a state may take preemptive or anticipatory action against a non-state actor. This article proposes rearticulating international law to allow a state to act earlier provided sufficient intelligence is available. After examining international law, this article proposes a process-based "strict-scrutiny" approach to self-defense. Under this approach, the executive will have to convince a court, based on relevant, reliable, viable, and corroborated intelligence, that preemptive action is appropriate. This process leads to a check on the power of the executive by placing a judicial check on preemptive action, consequently establishing objective legal criteria for operational counterterrorism.

Provost: Judging in Splendid Isolation

René Provost (McGill Univ. - Law) has posted Judging in Splendid Isolation (American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2008). Here's the abstract:

The article, taking the reception of international law in Canadian law as a case study, argues that the paradigmatic picture of the judicial function has been evolving as a result of the increased reliance on international legal norms by domestic judges. The place given to customary international law and the constitutional process for consenting to the ratification of treaties signal a dual layer of perceived lack of legitimacy on the part of judges. The first relates to the issue of bindingness of international norms on the state, and the concern of judges that they are not in a position to introduce into domestic law legal standards which have not received acceptance by a more representative branch of Government. The second touches on bindingness of international norms in the state, and the desire of judges to protect the integrity of the constitutional balance of power among the executive, legislative and judiciary. Both perceived shortcomings of judicial legitimacy are evolving, however, as reflected in doctrinal and judicial discussions of a 'constitutional dialogue' among the three branches of Government (internal dialogue) as well as a 'transjudicial dialogue' involving judges and other actors belonging to different states (external dialogue). A look at the presumption of conformity of domestic law with international law, the doctrine of legitimate expectations as flowing from treaty ratification, and the usefulness of declarations of incompatibility of national law with binding international obligations highlights a shifting paradigm: judges are moving from a self-conception grounded in splendid isolation to one which projects the judicial function as more proactive and necessarily collaborative.

Workshops: Dyzenhaus, Gathii

David Dyzenhaus (Univ. of Toronto) will give a talk today at the New York University School of Law Hauser Globalization Colloquium on Global Governance and Legal Theory on "The Concept of (Global) Administrative Law."

James Gathii (Albany Law School) will give a talk today at the Harvard Law School International Law Workshop on "Slippages of the Public/Private in Resource Wars."

Harvard International Law Workshop

Here's the schedule for Harvard Law School's Fall 2008 International Law Workshop:

• September 10, 2008 - James Gathii (Albany Law School), Slippages of the Public/Private in Resource Wars
• September 17, 2008 - Jide Nzelibe (Northwestern Univ. - Law), Courting Genocide: The Unintended Effects of Humanitarian Interventions
• September 24, 2008 - Jeff Dunoff (Temple Univ. - Law), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance
• Friday, October 10, 2008 - Benedict Kingsbury (New York Univ. - Law), Punishment of States and Peoples in International Law: History and Policy
• October 15, 2008 - Gráinne de Búrca (Fordham Univ. - Law), Stumbling into Experimentalism: The EU Anti-Discrimination Regime
• October 29, 2008 - John Witt (Columbia Univ. - Law), The Law of War in America - A Preliminary History
• November 5, 2008 - Karen Knop (Univ. of Toronto - Law), TBA
• November 12, 2008 - Adelle Blackett (McGill Univ. - Law), The Paradox of OHADA's Transnational, Hard Law, Labour Harmonization Initiative
• November 14, 2008 - Paolo Carozza (Notre Dame Univ. - Law), Amnesty Laws, Democracy and International Human Rights
• November 19, 2008 - Philip Alston (New York Univ. - Law), Hobbling the Monitors? The UN Code of Conduct for Human Rights Special Procedures

New Issue: International Journal of Transitional Justice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice (Vol. 2, no. 2, July 2008) is out. Contents include:

• Catherine Turner, Delivering Lasting Peace, Democracy and Human Rights in Times of Transition: The Role of International Law
• Laura Arriaza & Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Social Reconstruction as a Local Process
• Emilio Crenzel, Contributions to Transitional Justice
• Colleen Duggan, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, & Julie Guillerot, Reparations for Sexual and Reproductive Violence: Prospects for Achieving Gender Justice in Guatemala and Peru
• Magdalena Zolkos, The Time That Was Broken, the Home That Was Razed: Deconstructing Slavenka Drakulic's Storytelling About Yugoslav War Crimes
• Melanie Klinkner, Forensic Science for Cambodian Justice

Treaty Transmittal: Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support

Yesterday, the President transmitted to the Senate, for its advice and consent to ratification, the Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, adopted at The Hague on November 23, 2007. The United States signed the Convention upon its adoption. The transmittal package (Treaty Doc. 110-21) is here.

David: Principes de droits des conflits armés (Fourth Edition)

Eric David (l’Université libre de Bruxelles - Law) has published the fourth edition of his Principes de droits des conflits armés (Bruylant 2008). Here's the abstract:

Matière classique entre toutes du droit international, le droit des conflits armés a déjà donné lieu à beaucoup d’ouvrages, mais le temps passe, l’histoire s’accélère et le droit évolue. Il était donc tentant de revoir une présentation de la matière à la lumière de ses plus récents développements.

Parmi les problèmes généralement peu abordés et particulièrement sensibles aujourd’hui figurent le champ d’application du droit des conflits armés et la responsabilité de ses violations. Deux chapitres sont donc entièrement consacrés à ces points et répondent notamment à des questions telles que : quand y a-t-il conflit armé? Quand ce conflit est-il réputé international ? Quid d’une guerre de libération nationale, d’une guerre de sécession, d’un conflit interne émaillé d’interventions étrangères? Quels sont les destinataires du droit des conflits armés? Comment s’applique-t-il à des forces multinationales telles que les forces de l’ONU? Qui porte la responsabilité des violations de ce droit ? Quelles en sont les implications pénales ? Quelles sont les incidences sur le droit des conflits armés de la jurisprudence des Tribunaux pénaux internationaux et du Statut de la Cour pénale internationale ? Etc.

Les principales règles de substance du droit des conflits armés sont bien entendu exposées. On a suivi la division traditionnelle droit de La Haye (règles régissant la conduite des hostilités) - droit de Genève (règles régissant la situation des personnes au pouvoir de l’ennemi) en tenant compte des dernières avancées de la matière (emploi de certaines méthodes de combat et de types particuliers d’armes, statut de prisonnier de guerre, assistance humanitaire …).

Les formes et principes de mise en oeuvre et de contrôle du droit des conflits armés sont abordés notamment à travers d’un côté, le rôle des Etats, des Puissances protectrices, du mouvement de la Croix-Rouge dans l’application de ce droit, d’un autre côté, diverses modalités de l’enquête internationale.

Enfin, de manière générale, l’ouvrage s’efforce de concilier la rigueur froide de la technique juridique avec une approche humaniste de problèmes fondamentalement inhumains. Destiné à un public qui n’est pas nécessairement familier des réalités guerrières, l’ouvrage veut rappeler au lecteur ce que cache l’exposé clinique des règles du droit des conflits armés. Tel est l’objet des témoignages et extraits littéraires insérés à titre de lecture cursive au fil des chapitres en contrepoint de l’analyse juridique.

C’est dans cette perspective qu’un dernier chapitre, plus inattendu dans ce type d’ouvrage, étudie sur un plan socio-psychologique les causes des violations du droit des conflits armés, et tente de proposer certains remèdes à un phénomène, hélas, trop fréquent.

Hiéramente: La Cour pénale internationale et les Etats-Unis - Une analyse juridique du différend

Mayeul Hiéramente has published La Cour pénale internationale et les Etats-Unis - Une analyse juridique du différend (L'Harmattan 2008). Here's the abstract:

"Les Etats-Unis envahissent-ils La Haye?" Ce n'est certainement pas à craindre. Mais comment s'expliquer alors qu'un proche allié de l'Union européenne puisse adopter une loi qui prévoit - certes, comme dernier recours - une intervention militaire pour le cas où ses ressortissants seraient interpellés par la Cour pénale internationale qui siège à La Haye (CPI)? Cette ferme opposition de la part des États-Unis à un projet de consolidation du droit international pénal s'avère d'autant plus inexplicable que ceux-ci étaient, dans le passé, plutôt favorables à une répression pénale internationale, en appuyant notamment les Tribunaux pénaux internationaux pour l'ex-Yougoslavie et le Rwanda. Les opposants à la CPI invoquent notamment trois arguments juridiques pour justifier leur refus: premièrement, ils craignent une politisation de la Cour dont pourraient résulter des inculpations abusives et anti-américaines. Deuxièmement, ils n'acceptent pas la compétence de la Cour à poursuivre des auteurs présumés n'ayant pas la nationalité d'un pays signataire du Statut de Rome. Troisièmement, ils s'attaquent à l'absence de toute forme d'immunité devant la Cour. Cet ouvrage se penche sur ces trois questions de droit et montre que l'opposition du gouvernement de George W. Bush à la CPI n'est motivée que par de seules raisons politiques et suit une logique unilatéraliste.

New Issue: Columbia Journal of Transnational Law

The latest issue of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law (Vol. 46, no. 3, 2008) is out. Contents include:

• Patrick J. Keenan, Financial Globalization and Human Rights
• David Zaring, Rulemaking and Adjudication in International Law
• Katharina Pistor, Who Tolls the Bells for Firms? Tales from Transition Economics
• Michael W. Doyle & Geoffrey S. Carlson, Silence of the Laws? Conceptions of International Relations and International Law in Hobbes, Kant, and Locke

Tomuschat: Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism (Second Edition)

Christian Tomuschat (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Law) has published the second edition of Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism (Oxford Univ. Press 2008). Here's the abstract:

Human Rights between Idealism and Realism presents human rights in action, focusing on their effectiveness as legal tools designed to benefit human beings. By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this volume provides a multidimensional overview of human rights.

After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyzes the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy. In particular, he covers the concept of universality and the widely used model that classifies human rights into clusters of different 'generations'.

The volume then moves on to analyze of the activities of the political institutions of the United Nations, the expert bodies established by the relevant treaties, and the international tribunals specifically entrusted at the regional level with protecting human rights. The author explains how and why the classical array of politically inspired informal devices has been enriched by the addition of international criminal procedures and by endeavors to introduce civil suits against alleged individual violators of human rights. Finally, the volume is rounded off by a consideration of the importance of humanitarian law as an instrument for the protection of human life and dignity and an exploration of the future of human rights.

ICJ: Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russia) (Hearings)

The International Court of Justice is holding public hearings today through Wednesday on Georgia's request for the indication of provisional measures in the case concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v. Russian Federation). Case documents, including the application, written proceedings, and the verbatim record of the current hearings, are available here.

Lord Bingham to Deliver Annual Grotius Lecture

Lord Bingham of Cornhill will deliver the Annual Grotius Lecture of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, on November 17, 2008. His topic is "The Rule of Law in the International Order."

HRC: Draft General Comment 33

The Human Rights Committee has posted the current draft of its General Comment 33 and is seeking comments, in particular from States parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN specialised agencies, and non-governmental organizations. Details concerning the submission of comments can be found here.

Michaels: The True Lex Mercatoria: Law Beyond the State

Ralf Michaels (Duke Univ. - Law) has posted The True Lex Mercatoria: Law Beyond the State (Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Is there an anational lex mercatoria, a "global law without a state?" The debate seems infinite. Some argue that the rules, institutions, and procedures of international arbitration have now achieved a sufficient degree both of autonomy from the state and of legal character that they represent such an anational law. Others respond that whatever law merchant may exist is really state law -- dependent on national norms and the freedom of contract they provide, and on the enforceability of abitral awards by national courts.

This paper suggests that the dichotomy of anational law and state law is false. Although an anational law merchant would be theoretically possible, the true lex mercatoria we are currently observing is not such an anational law. Rather, it is an emerging global commercial law that freely combines elements from national and non-national law. This transnational law presents a far more radical challenge to traditional state-based conceptions of law than the idea of an anational law. It makes the distinction between anational law and state law that permeates the debate over law merchant simply irrelevant by transcending it. The true lex mercatoria marks the shift in global law from segmentary differentiation in different national laws to a functional differentiation. It a law beyond, not without, the state.

Folsom: Bilateral Free Trade Agreements: A Critical Assessment and WTO Regulatory Reform Proposal

Ralph Folsom (Univ. of San Diego - Law) has posted Bilateral Free Trade Agreements: A Critical Assessment and WTO Regulatory Reform Proposal. Here's the abstract:

At this writing, most-favored-nation (MFN) principles notwithstanding, every nation save Mongolia has entered into at least one bilateral or regional free trade agreement. The European Union, for example, is so heavily engaged in bilateral deals that it has MFN trade relations with only seven countries. Hundreds of bilaterals have been negotiated since the early 1990s. The apparent failure of the Doha Round virtually guarantees their dominance of international trade law and policy. This article reviews the history of bilateral and regional free trade agreements ("bilaterals"), failed attempts at their regulation under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and critically assesses the significance of their proliferation for international trade law and policy. Reform of WTO jurisdiction over bilaterals concentrated in the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) is proposed. Specifically, abandonment of all WTO regulation except for a Revised Transparency Mechanism (text attached) operating in conjunction with expanded DSU opportunities is suggested. A word on nomenclature: This article utilizes the term "bilateral(s)" because it best characterizes the free trade agreements that are presently sweeping the seas. Generally in GATT/WTO parlance, "regional trade agreements" (RTA) has been and continues to be employed. Those words, in my opinion, are not the best descriptors of what is happening when, for example, China and Chile, Japan and Mexico, the United States and Oman, and the European Union and South Africa agree on free trade. A variety of factors help explain why bilaterals have become the leading edge of international trade law and policy. Difficulties encountered in the Uruguay, "Seattle" and Doha Rounds of multilateral trade negotiations are certainly crucial. GATT/WTO regulatory failures regarding bilaterals have also fueled this reality. Yet these "negatives" do not fully explain the feeding frenzy of bilaterals. A range of attractions to bilaterals are also at work. For example, bilaterals often extend to subject matters beyond WTO competence. Foreign investment law is a prime example, and many bilaterals serve as investment magnets. Government procurement, optional at the WTO level, is often included in bilaterals. Competition policy and labor and environmental matters absent from the WTO are sometimes covered in bilaterals. In addition, bilaterals can reach beyond the scope of existing WTO agreements. Services is one "WTO-plus" area where this is clearly true. Intellectual property rights are also being "WTO-plussed" in bilateral free trade agreements. Whether this amounts to competitive trade liberalization or competitive trade imperialism has been provocatively explored by Prof. Bhala. Further, bilaterals are politically and economically selective. In other words they avoid not only global most-favored-nation principles, but also domestically "sensitive" areas of national politics and economics. For example, Singapore's absence of farm exports helped make it an ideal U.S. and Japanese free trade partner. The micro-sized economy of Chile contributed to its attraction as a free trade partner with Mexico, China, the European Union, the United States and others. U.S. free trade deals with Jordan, Bahrain and Oman fit economically in a similar fashion, not to mention national security objectives. Like it or not, the "spaghetti-bowl" maze of bilaterals is driven by powerful negative and positive forces. It is not only the preferred trade medium of today, but very likely the future. Already more than half of world trade is conducted under bilaterals. While international trade lawyers may celebrate full employment, it bears remembering that bilaterals are discriminatory. They could render MFN the least favored status in world trade. Such an outcome would be especially harmful to the world's poorest nations, those with whom few WTO partners seek a bilateral agreement.

New Volume: Yearbook Commercial Arbitration

The latest volume of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration's Yearbook Commercial Arbitration (Vol. 32, 2007) is out. Contents are available here.

Efrat: Governing Guns, Opposing Opium: A Theory of Internationally Regulated Goods

Asif Efrat (Cornell Univ. - Law) has posted Governing Guns, Opposing Opium: A Theory of Internationally Regulated Goods. Here's the abstract:

The paper examines a significant phenomenon overlooked by the trade literature: internationally regulated goods. Contrary to the general trend of trade liberalization, specific goods, such as drugs, small arms, and antiquities, have come under increasing international control in recent decades through a set of global regulatory agreements. I argue that these goods are unique in that they involve transnational negative externalities. Whereas certain countries benefit from the trade in these goods, the trade inflicts negative effects on other countries. Examples of such negative externalities include fatalities and refugee flows resulting from rampant gun violence, high crime rates associated with widespread drug abuse, and archaeological destruction caused by antiquities looting. The paper develops a theory that first explains why national regulation is insufficient and why international regulation is necessary for curbing these negative externalities. The theory then analyzes why certain governments are strongly in favor of international regulation while others wish to maintain the trade uncontrolled. My analysis locates the sources of governments’ conflicting preferences in the domestic political arena and considers how exporters, consumers, and civil society shape governments’ views. The final part of the theory examines how the distribution of state power affects the establishment of the regulatory agreements. The paper makes several theoretical contributions by bridging rationalist and non-rationalist accounts of international law and by focusing on international cooperation in the absence of shared interest.

Koh to Deliver Clarendon Law Lectures

Harold Hongju Koh (Yale Univ. - Law) will deliver the Clarendon Law Lectures at Oxford, October 22-23, 2008. Koh's topic is "On Law and Globalization." His first lecture will be on "Law as Globalization"; the second will be on "Law of Globalization"; and the third will be on "Law in Globalization."

Macklem: Minority Rights in International Law

Patrick Macklem (Univ. of Toronto - Law) has posted Minority Rights in International Law. Here's the abstract:

Why should international human rights law vest members of a minority community - either individually or collectively - with rights that secure a measure of autonomy from the state in which they are located? To the extent that the field offers answers to this question, it does so from its deep commitment to the protection of certain universal attributes of human identity from the exercise of sovereign power. It protects minority rights on the assumption that religious, cultural and linguistic affiliations are essential features of what it means to be human. There exists an alternative account of why minority rights possess international significance, one that trades less on the currency of religion, culture and language and more on the value of international distributive justice. On this account, international minority rights speak to wrongs that that international law itself produces by organizing international political reality into a legal order. This account avoids the normative instabilities of attaching universal value to religious, cultural and linguistic affiliation and instead challenges the international legal order to remedy pathologies of its own making.

Workshop: Kelley

Judith Kelley (Duke Univ. - Political Science) will give a talk today at the Georgetown University Law Center International Legal Theory Colloquium on "Assessing the Complex Evolution of Norms: The Rise of International Election Monitoring."

Corten: Le droit contre la guerre. L'interdiction du recours à la force en droit international contemporain

Olivier Corten (L'Université Libre de Bruxelles - Law) has published Le droit contre la guerre. L'interdiction du recours à la force en droit international contemporain (Pedone 2008). Here's the abstract:

Depuis le 11 septembre 2001, une partie de la doctrine prétend que la règle de l'interdiction du recours à la force a connu des évolutions importantes, nées notamment des nécessités de la « guerre contre le terrorisme ». Plus spécifiquement, plusieurs auteurs estiment que la prohibition de principe énoncée dans la Charte des Nations Unies de 1945 devrait être assouplie dans le contexte actuel des relations internationales, ce qui se traduirait par l'émergence de notions comme l'« intervention humanitaire », la « guerre préventive », ou encore par la possibilité de présumer des autorisations du Conseil de sécurité en certaines circonstances exceptionnelles. Notre hypothèse est que, si des évolutions notables peuvent être observées, surtout depuis les années 1990, le régime juridique établi par la Charte reste fondé sur un véritable jus contra bellum, et non sur jus ad bellum qui caractérisait les périodes antérieures. En ce sens, « le droit contre la guerre », en tant que titre du présent ouvrage, constitue une traduction littérale de cette expression latine bien connue, en même temps qu'il exprime l'esprit d'une règle qui constitue toujours, à n'en pas douter, l'un des fondements du droit international public.

New Issue: International Journal of Transitional Justice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice (Vol. 2, no. 1, March 2008) is out. Contents include:

• Nenad Dimitrijevic, Serbia After the Criminal Past: What Went Wrong and What Should be Done
• Erin Daly, Truth Skepticism: An Inquiry into the Value of Truth in Times of Transition
• Patricia Lundy & Mark McGovern, A Trojan Horse? Unionism, Trust and Truth-telling in Northern Ireland
• Jemima Garcia-Godos, Victim Reparations in the Peruvian Truth Commission and the Challenge of Historical Interpretation
• Michael Humphrey & Estela Valverde, Human Rights Politics and Injustice: Transitional Justice in Argentina and South Africa
• Sebina Sivac-Bryant, Kozarac School: A Window on Transitional Justice for Returnees

New Issue: European Human Rights Law Review

The latest issue of the European Human Rights Law Review (2008, no. 4) is out. Contents include:

• Tim Otty, Honour Bound to Defend Freedom? The Guantanamo Bay Litigation and the Fight for Fundamental Values in the War on Terror
• Hannes Rösler, Caricatures and Satires in Art Law: The German Approach in Comparison with the United States, England and the European Convention on Human Rights
• Niraj Nathwani, Religious Cartoons and Human Rights—a Critical Legal Analysis of the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights on the Protection of Religious Feelings and its Implications in the Danish Affair Concerning Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
• Camilla Parker & Luke Cements, The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: a New Right to Independent Living?

Gardbaum: Human Rights as International Constitutional Rights

Stephen Gardbaum (Univ. of California, Los Angeles - Law) has posted Human Rights as International Constitutional Rights (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The Universal Declaration was, of course, the first of the three global international human rights instruments that have collectively come to be known as the International Bill of Rights. Very often, however, this latter term appears within quotation marks or is prefaced by the qualifying phrase, so-called, signaling that there are serious, although mostly unexplored, questions about the validity of the implied comparison with domestic bills of rights. In this article, I treat the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration as an opportunity to take stock by exploring these questions and making the comparison explicit. I do so by considering the two parts of the term separately. First, regarding bill of rights, what are the similarities and differences between the UDHR, ICCPR and ICESCR on the one hand and domestic bills of rights on the other? In particular, to what extent or in what sense, if any, has international human rights law become constitutionalized and, thereby, similar and closer to most domestic bills of rights? Second, regarding international, do the major international human rights instruments simply duplicate domestic bills of rights or provide a generally inferior substitute for them where unavailable - as a certain strand of human rights skepticism suggests? Or do they perform any distinctive functions over and above domestic bills of rights that make a novel and unique contribution to the historical development of constitutionalism?

Palichleb: Tatsachenermittlung im Streitbeilegungsverfahren der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO)

Maritheres Palichleb has published Tatsachenermittlung im Streitbeilegungsverfahren der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) (Duncker & Humblot 2008). Here's the abstract:

Die Dissertation hat die Tatsachenermittlung im Rahmen eines Handelskonflikts unter dem Streitbeilegungsverfahren der WTO zum Gegenstand. Ziel der Arbeit ist die Darstellung der Konzeption und des Ablaufs des Verfahrens zur Sachverhaltsermittlung. Das Streitbeilegungsübereinkommen (DSU) enthält insoweit nur rudimentäre Regelungen. Gleichwohl stellen diese die rechtliche Grundlage dar und bilden das Grundgerüst für die Anwendungspraxis. Aus ihnen können die Verfahrensgrundsätze und das Verfahren selbst abgeleitet werden.

Aufgrund der wenigen Bestimmungen zur Sachverhaltsermittlung ist es an den Streitbeilegungsorganen, den Panels und dem Appellate Body, die bestehenden Regelungen zu konkretisieren. Aufgabe des Autors ist daher auch die Auswertung der Entscheidungen der Streitbeilegungsorgane. Mit ihr einhergehend erfolgt eine Darstellung der Anwendungspraxis und der Verfahrensgestaltung.

Das WTO-Streitbeilegungsverfahren wird auch in den völkerrechtlichen Kontext eingeordnet. Darüber hinaus steht es zwischen der Verschiedenheit des angloamerikanischen und kontinentaleuropäischen Rechtskreises. Die Streitbeilegungsorgane müssen demnach bei der Konkretisierung der Verfahrensbestimmungen angemessene Entscheidungen zur Tatsachenermittlung treffen. Dies ermöglicht zugleich eine Verknüpfung zum nationalen Zivilverfahrensrecht, so dass der Verfasser die Tatsachenermittlung vor dem Hintergrund des kontinentaleuropäischen Rechts, aber auch der Unterschiede zwischen diesem und dem angloamerikanischen Recht beleuchtet.

Im Ergebnis ist festzuhalten, dass die Aufnahme detaillierterer Verfahrensvorschriften zur Tatsachenermittlung in einem WTO-Streitbeilegungsverfahren in das DSU zu einer weiteren Stärkung des juristischen Systems und der Sicherheit und Vorhersehbarkeit im multilateralen Handelssystem führen würde.

Dupuy: Droit international public (Ninth Edition)

Pierre-Marie Dupuy (European Univ. Institute - Law) has published the ninth edition of Droit international public (Dalloz 2008). Here's the abstract:

Les sujets du droit international public, les modes de formation de ses normes, les conditions d'application, les domaines d'intervention et leurs finalités sont les grands thèmes traités dans cet ouvrage, devenu une référence. Cette nouvelle édition souligne l'évolution subie par le système juridique international ces dernières années.