The latest issue of the Revue de droit international, de sciences diplomatiques et politiques (Vol. 86, no. 3, 2008) is out. Contents include:
Jan Wouters (Leuven Univ. - Law), Edith Drieskens (Clingendael’s Diplomatic Studies Programme), & Sven Biscop (Egmont – The Royal Institute for International Relations) have published Belgium in the UN Security Council: Reflections on the 2007-2008 Membership (Intersentia 2009). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:In 2007 and 2008, Belgium was once again a privileged observer of the international community’s approach to peace and security, serving as non-permanent member at the UN Security Council. Participating in this ‘global core cabinet’ for the fifth time, it would build upon its historical expertise, especially in relation to Central Africa. Yet its role would not be limited to the region of the Great Lakes only: the government aimed to contribute in a substantial way to all major issues, ‘from North Korea to Haiti’, taking the role of ‘bridge builder’. Now that the Belgian delegation has exchanged its blue front row seats for regular red ones again, it seems a good time to look back and forward, assessing its recent performance and putting it into perspective.
This volume contains a variety of essays in light of Belgium’s 2007-2008 membership of the UN Security Council, covering issues that were high on the international agenda in addition to more horizontal ones. Contributions from policy officials and academics give a comprehensive overview of these two years and provide an insight into the limits and opportunities of a smaller EU Member State in global politics.
The latest issue of the Revue belge de droit international (Vol. 40, no. 2, 2007) is out. Contents include:
This article deals with state obligations under the UN Torture Convention, specifically the criminal prosecution of individuals for torture and complicity in torture incidental to ‘extraordinary renditions’, by focusing on Italy's obligations arising from the abduction of Mr Abu Omar. After addressing what ‘extraordinary renditions’ are and the wider context in which they occurred, the article considers the obligation to criminalize complicity in torture and its implementation in Italy. It then analyzes the ongoing Italian criminal proceedings concerning the abduction of Mr Abu Omar and concludes that they are not an adequate implementation of Italy’s obligation to prosecute complicity in torture under the Convention for a variety of reasons. In particular, it addresses the issue of ‘state secrecy’ which emerged during the proceedings and was decided upon by the Constitutional Court, and argues that it cannot be used to avoid international obligations under the Convention.
Nigel D. White (Univ. of Sheffield - Law) has published Democracy Goes to War: British Military Deployments under International Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:With the end of the Second World War a new world order arose based on the prohibition of military force in international relations, and yet since 1945 British troops have been regularly deployed around the globe: most notably to Korea, Suez, Cyprus, and the Falklands during the Cold War; and Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq since the fall of the Berlin Wall. British forces have been involved in many different capacities: as military observers, peacekeepers, peace-enforcers, state-builders and war-fighters. The decisions to deploy forces are political ones made within several constitutional frameworks, national, regional and international. After considering the various legal and institutional regimes, this book examines the decision to deploy troops from the perspective of international law.
In its military interventions Britain has consistently tried to utilize international law to justify its actions, though often it argues against orthodox interpretation of the laws. In gauging whether its actions are in breach of international law we can again make judgments at different levels using various forms of accountability - from judicial fora (for example the International Court of Justice in The Hague or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg), to political ones (the UN General Assembly in New York or the House of Commons in Westminster). While this book examines international and regional mechanisms, tumultuous debates on the Suez crisis, Afghanistan, Iraq and others in the House of Commons and its Committees are highlighted to show how international law impacts upon domestic politics. In considering whether democratic accountability is effective in upholding the principles of international law, this book throws new light on an old democracy, and thereby makes a contribution to the current reform proposals that are aimed at improving democratic decision-making.
The importance of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), concluded in Geneva on 30 October 1947, applied on a provisional basis from January 1948 until December 1994 and reincarnated since the establishment of the WTO in 1995 in the GATT 1994, cannot be overstated. As it functioned as the major international ‘agreement’ and ‘institution’ at the heart of the multilateral trading system, the GATT accomplished much of its original mandate: the substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international commerce.
Scholars have described the GATT 1994 as an ‘incomplete contract’ for at least three sets of reasons. First, the GATT 1994 directly binds only certain trade policies, leaving WTO Members significant discretion over domestic regulatory and fiscal policies with a potentially high trade impact. Second, the GATT 1994 employs vaguely worded provisions, leaving the determination of the actual meaning of the agreement subject to adjudication or to further treaty negotiations. Third, the GATT 1994 includes more or less explicitly an ambitious built-in agenda with regard to the liberalisation of Members’ trade policies, conditioning the success of this agenda to Members’ ability to reach a consensus in future negotiating rounds. In this sense, the GATT 1994 is no different from most other international treaties, which suffer from similar ‘birth defects’.
The present Chapter addresses a few selected key issues stemming out of the ‘incomplete’ character of the GATT 1994, and which remain controversial. The Chapter is structured in three parts, along the lines of Mavroidis’ subdivision of GATT 1994 disciplines: (i) disciplines on ‘trade instruments’ (measures affecting importation or exportation), (ii) disciplines on ‘domestic instruments’ (measures affecting production or consumption) and (iii) disciplines on ‘state contingencies’ (specific emergencies dealing, for example, with balance of payments, currency exchange and dumping). The Chapter advances that while the GATT has, so far, accomplished a lot in terms of establishing the key principles and approaches to the regulation of trade in goods, it has still further challenges to meet in its not-too-distant future.
The latest issue of the European Constitutional Law Review (Vol. 5, no. 2, June 2009) contains a number of articles that are of interest to international law scholars. They include:
The latest issue of Mealey's International Arbitration Report (Vol. 24, no. 8, August 2009) is out.
Previous studies of WTO dispute settlement have sought to evaluate whether a Member’s legal capacity influences its odds of bringing litigation before the multilateral trade regime. Because direct measures of legal capacity are elusive, these studies have had to use indirect proxies, such as per capita income or number of delegates in Geneva. Yet, the reliability of these measures is questionable. To gauge legal capacity more directly, we surveyed all WTO Members, posing questions concerning their professional staff; bureaucratic organization at home; bureaucratic organization in Geneva; experience handling general WTO matters; and involvement in WTO litigation. Using responses from this survey, we constructed an index of Members’ WTO legal capacity that speaks more fully to the challenges of dispute settlement than do commonly used proxies, none of which are strongly correlated with our measure. We supplemented this survey with over three dozen semi-structured interviews with Members’ representatives in Geneva, the results of which bear out the importance of properly measuring legal capacity.
Here's the schedule for the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law's Michaelmas Term 2009 Friday Lunchtime Lectures:
The American Society of International Law's International Organizations Interest Group has issued its latest Reports on International Organizations. Current reports highlight legal developments in the African Union (AU); Mercado Común del Sur/Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR); North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO); The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF); The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); The Secretariat of the Basel Convention; and The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).
Stephan W. Schill (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) has published The Multilaterization of International Investment Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:Attempts at developing a theory of international investment law are complicated by the fact that this field of international law is based on numerous, largely bilateral treaties and is implemented by arbitral panels established on a case-by-case basis. This suggests a fragmented and chaotic state of the law, with different levels of protection depending on the sources and targets of foreign investment flows. This book, however, forwards the thesis that international investment law develops, despite its bilateral form, into a multilateral system of law that backs up the functioning of a global market economy based on converging principles of investment protection. In discussing the function of most-favored-nation clauses, the possibilities of treaty-shopping and the impact of investor-State arbitration with its intensive reliance on precedent and other genuinely multilateral approaches to treaty interpretation, it offers a conceptual framework for understanding the nature and functioning of international investment law as a genuinely multilateral system.
Magali A. Delmas (Univ. of California, Los Angeles - Anderson School of Management) & Oran R. Young (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara - Bren School of Environmental Science & Management) have published Governance for the Environment: New Perspectives (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Contents include:
This brief essay is the edited transcript of the author’s opening remarks for a panel on jurisprudence in international law at the conference entitled Realistic Idealism in International Law, held at Yale Law School on April 24, 2009, in honor of W. Michael Reisman. It canvasses some of the animating factors and features of the New Haven School of jurisprudence with which Reisman is identified, and it seeks to explain and clarify some of his signature contributions to the School’s methodology.
The latest volume of the Hague Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 21, 2008) is out. Contents include:
The latest issue of the Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 9, no. 3, 2009) is out. Contents include:
The latest volume of the German Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 51, 2008) is out. Contents include:
September 4, 2009 - David Attard (Univ. of Malta), “New Approaches to Maritime Jurisdiction: The Mediterranean Experience”
September 8, 2009 - Francesco Munari (Univ. of Genoa), “Competition in Liner Shipping”
September 18, 2009 - “Advisory proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea” - Roundtable Discussion with Judge Jose Luis Jesus (President, ITLOS); Judge T. M. Ndiaye (ITLOS); Judge Judge Z. Gao (ITLOS); Judge J. L. Kateka (ITLOS); Judge S. Yanai (ITLOS); and Doris König (Bucerius Law School/IMPRS)
September 28, 2009 - Lars Gorton (Univ. of Lund/Copenhagen Business School), “Regional Harmonisation of Maritime Law in Scandinavia”
October 5, 2009 - “The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Prompt Release of Vessels and Crew” - Roundtable Discussion with Judge Jose Luis Jesus (President, ITLOS); Judge J. Akl (ITLOS); Judge D. Nelson (ITLOS); Judge V. Golitsyn (ITLOS); Philippe Gautier (Registrar, ITLOS); and Lance Fleischer (LKF Conseil)
October 21, 2009 - Charles Debattista (Univ. of Southampton), “The Rotterdam Rules and their Impact on Sellers, Buyers and Banks”
The Journal of International Law and International Relations, a peer-reviewed journal at the University of Toronto, has issued a call for papers for its forthcoming issue. Here's the call:The Journal of International Law and International Relations (JILIR) invites submissions from scholars of both International Law and International Relations for its Fall 2009 issue. The JILIR is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that seeks to develop interdisciplinary discourse at the nexus of two dynamic and relevant disciplines.
The JILIR recently celebrated its fifth anniversary with an issue guest-edited by Antje Wiener, and with a thematic issue focused on secession. The Journal is now returning to its general mandate, and is welcoming submissions on the wide variety of topics located in the intellectual space jointly occupied by International Law and International Relations.
A joint venture of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the Munk Centre for International Studies, the Journal’s advisory board is comprised of scholars from both International Law and International Relations, including Kenneth Abbott, Jose Alvarez, Upendra Baxi, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Jutta Brunnée, Michael Byers, Martha Finnemore, Robert Keohane, Benedict Kingsbury, Karen Knop, Martti Koskenniemi, Stephen Krasner, Friedrich Kratochwil, Oona Hathaway, Réné Provost, Philippe Sands, Shirley Scott, Gerry Simpson, Janice Gross Stein, Stephen Toope, and Rob Walker.
Please send submissions via e-mail to submissions@jilir.org as attachments in Microsoft Word or Rich Text format. Please include the author’s full contact information (name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone number(s), and e-mail address) in the body of the e-mail.
The deadline for submissions is September 21, 2009.
The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) is the flagship journal of one of India's premier law institutions, the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The NLSIR is a peer-reviewed journal, and is published twice a year. The latest issue - Volume 21(1) - included contributions from Justice S.B. Sinha, Judge, Supreme Court of India; Prof. Hans Koechler, Professor of Philosophy and International Observer at the Lockerbie trials; Mr. Arvind Datar, Senior Counsel; Mr. Geoffrey Loomer, Said Business School, Oxford and others. Details are available at http://www.nlsir.in/. Volume 21(2) - a symposium issue focusing on arbitration - is scheduled for publication in the coming month.
The NLSIR is now accepting submissions for Volume 22(1). The issue will be published in early 2010. Submissions may be made as Long Articles, Essays or Comments; on any legal topic of interest to an international readership. Submissions may be made to mail.nlsir@gmail.com and queries regarding submission or subscription information may be made at the same email address.
