Symposium: On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic

The New York University Journal of International Law and Politics and the New York University Environmental Law Journal will host a symposium on "On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic," on Friday, October 22, 2010. Here's the idea:

The United States is one of eight nations with territory above the Arctic Circle, a distinction that meant relatively little until the last decade. But melting sea ice has thrust these previously unnavigable and commercially inaccessible waters into a series of legal, political, and environmental disputes, which are expected to intensify in the years ahead. On October 22nd, NYU’s Journal of International Law and Politics and Environmental Law Journal will host “On Thin Ice: International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic.” This multi-disciplinary conference will include leading scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners in order to explore the current and projected impacts on the natural environment, the legal framework, the commercial interests, and how to ensure sustainable development. The Journal of International Law and Politics and the Environmental Law Journal will publish papers resulting from the conference.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 21, no. 2, May 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• JHHW, Editorial: Individuals and Rights – The Sour Grapes
• Articles
• Christopher Macleod, Towards a Philosophical Account of Crimes Against Humanity
• Marco Dani, Remedying European Legal Pluralism: The FIAMM and Fedon Litigation and the Judicial Protection of International Trade Bystanders
• Monica Hakimi, State Bystander Responsibility
• Santiago Villalpando, The Legal Dimension of the International Community: How Community Interests Are Protected in International Law
• Critical Review of International Governance: An Occasional Series
• Dereje Zeleke Mekonnen, The Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement Negotiations and the Adoption of a ‘Water Security’ Paradigm: Flight into Obscurity or a Logical Cul-de-sac?
• Lingjie Kong, Data Protection and Transborder Data Flow in the European and Global Context
• Gurdial Singh Nijar Incorporating Traditional Knowledge in an International Regime on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing: Problems and Prospects

Fellmeth: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in the Public Eye

Aaron X. Fellmeth (Arizona State Univ. - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in the Public Eye.

New Issue: New York University Journal of International Law and Politics

The latest issue of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (Vol. 42, no. 3, Spring 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Forum: The ICRC Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law
• Ryan Goodman & Derek Jinks, The ICRC Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law: An Introduction to the Forum
• Kenneth Watkin, Opportunity Lost: Organized Armed Groups and the ICRC "Direct Participation in Hostilities" Interpretive Guidance
• Michael N. Schmitt, Deconstructing Direct Participation in Hostilities: The Constitutive Elements
• Bill Boothby, "And for Such Time As": The Time Dimension to Direct Participation in Hostilities
• W. Hays Parks, Part IX of the ICRC "Direct Participation in Hostilities" Study: No Mandate, No Expertise, and Legally Incorrect
• Nils Melzer, Keeping the Balance between Military Necessity and Humanity: A Response to Four Critiques of the ICRC's Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities

Call for Proposals: 2011 ASIL Annual Meeting (Reminder)

A reminder that the deadline for the American Society of International Law's call for proposals for its 2011 Annual Meeting is this Monday, June 28. Here's the call.

van Ginkel: The Practice of the United Nations in Combating Terrorism from 1946 to 2008

Bibi van Ginkel has published The Practice of the United Nations in Combating Terrorism from 1946 to 2008: Questions of Legality and Legitimacy (Intersentia 2010). Here's the abstract:

Over the last thirty years, the UN has shown an unmistakable interest in combating terrorism. This book analyses the practice of the General Assembly and the Security Council in combating terrorism. It answers the question whether these organs, taking into account their powers and the constitutional and public international law limitations thereof, best contribute to a universal anti-terrorism policy.

In order to assess whether both organs are indeed fulfilling this purpose, the analysis of the adopted counter-terrorism measures of both the General Assembly and the Security Council focuses on their legality and legitimacy. Whereas the measures adopted should clearly fall within the powers of the organs (legality), testing the legitimacy of these measures adds another layer of information with regard to the quality of these measures. The analysis of the legitimacy of the anti-terrorism measures is based on the theory of Thomas Franck, who claims that a rule’s legitimacy provides information on the pull to compliance of the measure.

Apart from this critical analysis of the legality and the legitimacy of more than 130 resolutions adopted by both UN organs, this book offers an essential insight in the way the degree of legitimacy of certain measures can be improved, and how the overall effectiveness of the counter-terrorism policy of the UN can be strengthened.

New Issue: Mealey's International Arbitration Report

The latest issue of Mealey's International Arbitration Report (Vol. 25, no. 6, June 2010) is out.

Kornfeld: ECJ Holds that West Bank Products are Outside Scope of the EU-Israel Association Agreement

Itzchak Kornfeld (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on ECJ Holds that West Bank Products are Outside Scope of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

Lamont: International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance

Christopher K. Lamont (Univ. of Ulster - Transitional Justice Institute) has published International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance (Ashgate 2010). Here's the abstract:

International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance provides a comprehensive study of compliance with legal obligations derived from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's (ICTY) Statute and integrates theoretical debates on compliance into international justice scholarship. Through the use of three models of compliance based on coercion, self-interest and norms, Christopher Lamont explores both the domestic politics of war crimes indictments and efforts by external actors such as the European Union, the United States and the Tribunal itself to induce compliance outcomes. He examines whether compliance outcomes do or do not translate into a changed normative understanding of international criminal justice on the part of target states.

Dickinson: Military Lawyers on the Battlefield: An Empirical Account of International Law Compliance

Laura Dickinson (Arizona State Univ. - Law) has posted Military Lawyers on the Battlefield: An Empirical Account of International Law Compliance (American Journal of International Law, Vol. 104, No. 1, 2010). Here's the abstract:

This empirical study, based on personal interviews, draws on insights from organizational theory to consider how military lawyers embedded with troops can help produce battlefield decisions that comply with international legal norms. These lawyers appear to be most likely to function effectively and encourage legal compliance if certain organizational features are present. Accordingly, focusing on the links between organizational structure, institutional culture, and legal compliance through more nuanced qualitative analysis should contribute to a better understanding of international law compliance.

Bellelli: International Criminal Justice: Law and Practice from the Rome Statute to Its Review

Roberto Bellelli has published International Criminal Justice: Law and Practice from the Rome Statute to Its Review (Ashgate 2010). The table of contents is available here. Here's the abstract:

This volume presents an overview of the principal features of the legacy of International Tribunals and an assessment of their impact on the International Criminal Court and on the review process of the Rome Statute. It illustrates the foundation of a system of international criminal law and justice through the case-law and practices of the UN ad hoc tribunals and other internationally assisted tribunals and courts. These examples provide advice for possible future developments in international criminal procedure and law, with particular reference to their impact on the ICC and on national jurisdictions. The review process of the Rome Statute is approached as a step of a review process to provide a perspective of the developments in the field since the Statute’s adoption in 1998.

Scheffer: States Parties Approve New Crimes for International Criminal Court

David Scheffer (Northwestern Univ. - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on States Parties Approve New Crimes for International Criminal Court.

New Issue: Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (Vol. 28, no. 2, June 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Andrew Drzemczewski, The Parliamentary Assembly’s Involvement in the Supervision of the Judgments of the Strasbourg Court
• Nadezhda Purtova, Private Law Solutions in European Data Protection: Relationship to Privacy, and Waiver of Data Protection Rights
• Lieselotte Viaene & Eva Brems, Transitional Justice and Cultural Contexts: Learning from the Universality Debate

Calliess & Zumbansen: Rough Consensus and Running Code: A Theory of Transnational Private Law

Gralf-Peter Calliess (Univ. of Bremen - Law) & Peer Zumbansen (York Univ. - Osgoode Hall Law) have published Rough Consensus and Running Code: A Theory of Transnational Private Law (Hart Publishing 2010). Here's the abstract:

Private law has long been the focus of efforts to explain wider developments of law in an era of globalisation. As consumer transactions and corporate activities continue to develop with scant regard to legal and national boundaries, private law theorists have begun to sketch and conceptualise the possible architecture of a transnational legal theory. Drawing a detailed map of the mixed regulatory landscape of 'hard' and 'soft' laws, official, unofficial, direct and indirect modes of regulation, rules, recommendations and principles as well as exploring the concept of governance through disclosure and transparency, this book develops a theoretical framework of transnational legal regulation.

Rough Consensus and Running Code describes and analyses different law-making regimes currently observable in the transnational arena. Its core aim is to reassess the transnational regulation of consumer contracts and corporate governance in light of a dramatic proliferation of rule-creators and compliance mechanisms that can no longer be clearly associated with either the 'state' or the 'market'. The chosen examples from two of the most dynamic legal fields in the transnational arena today serve as backdrops for a comprehensive legal theoretical inquiry into the changing institutional and normative landscape of legal norm-creation.

Wenzel: Schutzverantwortung im Völkerrecht: Zu Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der ‚Responsibility to Protect‘-Konzeption

Matthias Wenzel has published Schutzverantwortung im Völkerrecht: Zu Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der ‚Responsibility to Protect‘-Konzeption (Verlag Dr. Kovač 2010). Here's the abstract:

Neben dem "Kampf gegen den Terror" zählt die Verhinderung von schweren Menschenrechtsverletzungen in innerstaatlichen Konflikten zu den bedeutendsten Problemen des Völkerrechts im ersten Jahrzehnt des 21. Jahrhunderts. Der Kampf von Aufständischen, Kriminellen, warlords gegen Regierungen folgt vor allem in Afrika, für Außenstehende schwer nachvollziehbar, komplett eigenen "Regeln". Weil in afrikanischen Kriegen immer auch ethnische Konflikte ausgetragen werden, sind sie besonders grauenerregend. In weiter Ferne liegt die Achtung auch nur grund­legender Gewährleistungen des Genfer Rechts oder international anerkannter Menschenrechtsstandards. Die Staatengemeinschaft konnte auf solche Gräueltaten in innerstaatlichen Konflikten jedoch oft nur sehr behäbig reagieren.

Die International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty entwickelte zwei Grundthesen, um dem zu entgegnen. Erstens habe der Heimatstaat die "(Haupt-)Verantwortung", die eigene Bevölkerung vor Menschenrechtsverletzungen zu schützen. Wenn er dazu nicht in der Lage ist, gehe die "responsibility to protect" auf die in den Vereinten Nationen organisierte Staatengemeinschaft über. Dann soll sie angehalten sein, notfalls militärisch gegen den untätigen Staat einzugreifen und einen elementaren Menschenrechtsschutz sicherstellen. Aber können die Sicherheitsratsmitglieder tatsächlich verpflichtet werden, im Zweifel für die humanitäre Intervention zu stimmen? Verhilft die Responsibility to Protect gar der Idee der Solidarität im Völkerrecht zum "Durchbruch", gibt es auf Kooperation basierende Verantwortung?

Zu Beginn stellt der Autor den Inhalt der "Responsibility to Protect" dar und behandelt die mit Verantwortung und Solidarität verbundenen Grundlagen. Im fortschreitenden Verlauf der Untersuchung ist die eher vernachlässigte systematische Analyse der Staatenpraxis zu afri­ka­nischen innerstaatlichen Konflikten von besonderem Interesse, wobei die regionalen Ansätze der Afrikanischen Union ein starkes Gewicht verdienen. Behandelt werden die Reaktionen der Staatengemeinschaft zu den Konflikten im Kongo, in Liberia, Burundi, an der Elfenbeinküste und in Darfur / Sudan. Hinterfragt wird ferner, ob sich nach den jüngsten Ereignissen auch die Folgen von Naturkatastrophen durch den Verantwortungs-Mechanismus lindern lassen.

Die von der Staatengemeinschaft aufgenommenen und umgesetzten Ideen werden so von den weniger zukunftsträchtigen getrennt und auf ihre Völkerrechtmäßigkeit hin überprüft.

Call for Papers: International Economic Law in a Time of Change (Reminder)

A reminder that the International Economic Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for its biennial interest group conference to take place November 18-20, 2010, at the University of Minnesota Law School. The theme is "International Economic Law in a Time of Change: Reassessing Legal Theory, Doctrine, Methodology and Policy Prescriptions." The call is here. The deadline is July 30, 2010.

Pierik & Werner: Cosmopolitanism in Context: Perspectives from International Law and Political Theory

Roland Pierik (Universiteit van Amsterdam) & Wouter Werner (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) have published Cosmopolitanism in Context: Perspectives from International Law and Political Theory (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010). Contents include:

• Roland Pierik & Wouter Werner, Cosmopolitanism in context: an introduction
• Simon Caney, Human rights and global climate change
• Ellen Hey, Global environmental law and global institutions: a system lacking 'good process'
• Tomer Broude, The WTO/GATS Mode 4, international labour migration regimes and global justice
• Thomas Pogge, Incentives for pharmaceutical research: must they exclude the poor from advanced medicines?
• Nicholas Tsagourias, Cosmopolitan legitimacy and UN collective security
• Kok-Chor Tan, Enforcing global justice: the problem of intervention
• Steven Roach, Rawls's Law of the Peoples and the International Criminal Court
• Victor Peskin, An ideal becoming real? The International Criminal Court and the limits of the cosmopolitan vision of justice
• Jorge Valades, Is immigration a human right?
• Thomas Spijkerboer, A distributive approach to migration law. Or: the convergence of Communitarianism, Libertarianism and the status quo
• Roland Pierik & Wouter Werner, Can cosmopolitanism survive institutionalisation?

Tams & Tzanakopoulos: Barcelona Traction: The ICJ as an Agent of Legal Development

Christian J. Tams (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) & Antonios Tzanakopoulos (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) have posted Barcelona Traction: The ICJ as an Agent of Legal Development (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This contribution revisits the International Court of Justice's landmark decision in the Barcelona Traction case forty years later. It evaluates two pronouncements that the Court made in the case, with respect to the nationality of corporations for purposes of diplomatic protection, and with respect to obligations erga omnes, from the perspective of the Court's importance as an agent for the development of international law.

Mitchell & Toon: Implications of the World Trade Organization in Combating Non-Communicable Diseases

Andrew D. Mitchell (Univ. of Melbourne - Law) & Tania S. Voon (Univ. of Melbourne - Law) have posted Implications of the World Trade Organization in Combating Non-Communicable Diseases. Here's the abstract:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed a number of strategies to combat non-communicable diseases such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes, by targeting the risk factors of tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, and poor diet. A number of the domestic regulatory responses contemplated by the WHO and individual countries have the potential to restrict or distort trade, raising the question whether they are consistent with the obligations imposed on Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this article, we demonstrate that WTO rules do limit Members’ flexibility in implementing public health measures to address these diseases. However, the focus of WTO provisions on preventing discrimination against or between imports and the exceptions incorporated in various WTO agreements leave sufficient scope for Members to design carefully directed measures to achieve genuine public health goals while minimising negative effects on international trade.

Sadat: On the Shores of Lake Victoria: Africa and the Review Conference for the International Criminal Court

Leila N. Sadat (Washington Univ. in St. Louis - Law) has posted On the Shores of Lake Victoria: Africa and the Review Conference for the International Criminal Court. Here's the abstact:

This paper addresses the interesting questions surrounding the ICC Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda, from May 31-June 11, 2010. Written in the weeks prior to the conference, it represents an effort to place the Kampala Conference in historical and political perspective, as well as offer some reflections on the International Criminal Court’s first seven years.

Estreicher: Privileging Asymmetric Warfare?: Defender Duties Under International Law

Samuel Estreicher (New York Univ. - Law) has posted Privileging Asymmetric Warfare?: Defender Duties Under International Law. Here's the abstract:

Scholarship and advocacy needs to bring defender duties to the forefront of any discussion and investigation of armed conflicts. The necessarily joint contribution of attackers and defenders alike to civilian harm must be recognized. Any investigation of an armed conflict must focus on the duties of both parties and evaluate the feasibility of attacker compliance with some of the more open-ended obligations of international humanitarian law (IHL), such as the so-called duty of proportionality, as a function in part of the extent of defender compliance with its duties.

There are open areas in IHL. States that have acceded to Additional Protocol (AP) I are not necessarily bound by ICRC interpretations and they and states that have declined to ratify AP I can play an active role in formulating and urging others to adopt rules of practice that strike the right balance between attacker and defender duties. Even if, for example, there is widespread international recognition that, at some abstract level, the duty of proportionality is grounded in customary law, the content of that duty is not necessarily identical to the wording contained in AP Article 57. The effectiveness of such a duty, including the ability of military commanders to implement it in the air and on the ground, may well depend on serious consideration, elaboration and implementation of defender duties, for defenders are often in the superior position to minimize civilian exposure to the dangers of military operations.

Defender duties in armed conflicts is a neglected area of IHL. This needs to change if the overall mission of this body of law – minimization of harm to civilians – is to have any reasonable prospect of being realized.