Sanchez: Recent Developments in U.S. International Arbitration Law: Will Congress Take On the Supreme Court?

Ernesto J. Sanchez has posted an ASIL Insight on Recent Developments in U.S. International Arbitration Law: Will Congress Take On the Supreme Court?

New Issue: International & Comparative Law Quarterly

The latest issue of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (Vol. 59, no. 4, October 2010) is out. Contents include:

• KJ Keith, The International Court of Justice and Criminal Justice
• Michael Bridge, Avoidance for Fundamental Breach of Contract Under the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods
• Christine Bell & Catherine O'Rourke, Peace Agreements or Pieces of Paper? The Impact of UNSC Resolution 1325 on Peace Processes and Their Agreements
• Dominic McGoldrick, The Boundaries of Justiciability
• Máire Ní Shúilleabháin, Ten Years of European Family Law: Retrospective Reflections from a Common Law Perspective
• Tom Allen, Liberalism, Social Democracy and the Value of Property Under the European Convention on Human Rights
• Alberto Alvarez-Jiménez, Public Hearings at the WTO Appellate Body: The Next Step
• Bo Yin & Peter Duff, Criminal Procedure in Contemporary China: Socialist, Civilian or Traditional?

New Issue: Journal of International Maritime Law

The latest issue of the Journal of International Maritime Law (Vol. 16, no. 3, 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Richard Williams, The Rotterdam Rules: winners and losers
• Kathleen S. Goddard, The application of the Rotterdam Rules
• Proshanto K. Mukherjee & Olena Bokareva, Multimodal maritime plus: some European perspectives on law and policy
• Heiki Lindpere, The Rotterdam Rules from an Estonian perspective

Markert: Streitschlichtungsklauseln in Investitionsschutzabkommen

Lars Markert has published Streitschlichtungsklauseln in Investitionsschutzabkommen: Zur Notwendigkeit der Differenzierung von jurisdiction und admissibility in Investitionsschiedsverfahren (Nomos 2010). Here's the abstract:

Die Absicherung von Direktinvestitionen im Ausland erfolgt heutzutage in erster Linie über völkerrechtliche Investitionsschutzabkommen und die in ihnen enthaltene Befugnis des Investors, seine Rechte in einem internationalen Schiedsverfahren gegen den ausländischen Gaststaat der Investition durchzusetzen.Das Buch erläutert erstmals detailliert und systematisch Anwendungsbereich und Rechtswirkung von Streitschlichtungsklauseln in Investitionsschutzabkommen. Dabei wird aufgezeigt, wie diese Klauseln Grundlage aber auch Grenzen der Befugnis, ein Investor-Staat-Schiedsverfahrens einzuleiten, darstellen. Die im Buch vorgenommene Differenzierung von Zuständigkeit (jurisdiction) und Zulässigkeit (admissibility) in Investitionsschiedsverfahren ermöglicht es, Streitschlichtungsklauseln erstmalig in ein dogmatisch stimmiges und zugleich praxisnahes Gesamtkonzept einzubetten. Dieses lässt sich auch auf das im Investitionsrecht höchst strittige Zusammenspiel von Streitschlichtungs- und Meistbegünstigungsklauseln übertragen, dem am Ende des Buches ein eigenes Kapitel gewidmet ist.

Conference: Die Unabhängigkeitserklärung des Kosovo – Das Gutachten des IGH vom 22. Juli 2010 und seine Auswirkungen auf das geltende Völkerrecht

The University of Innsbruck will host a conference on "Die Unabhängigkeitserklärung des Kosovo – Das Gutachten des IGH vom 22. Juli 2010 und seine Auswirkungen auf das geltende Völkerrecht," December 16, 2010. The program is here.

Workshop: McInerney

Tom McInerney (International Development Law Organization) will give a talk today at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law's Friday Lunchtime Lecture Series on "Treaty Monitoring and State Fiscal Capacity - with Particular Focus on Developing Countries."

Roberts: Comparative International Law? The Role of National Courts in Creating and Enforcing International Law

Anthea Roberts (London School of Economics - Law) has posted Comparative International Law? The Role of National Courts in Creating and Enforcing International Law (International & Comparative Law Quarterly, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Academics, practitioners and international and national courts are increasingly seeking to identify and interpret international law by engaging in comparative analyses of various domestic court decisions. This emerging phenomenon, which I term ‘comparative international law,’ loosely fuses international law (as a matter of substance) with comparative law (as a matter of process). However, this comparative process is seriously complicated by the ambiguous role that national court decisions play under the international law doctrine of sources, pursuant to which they provide evidence of the practice of the forum state as well as being a subsidiary means for determining international law. This article analyzes these dual, and sometimes conflicting, roles of national courts and the impact of this duality on the comparative international law process.

von Bernstorff: The Public International Law Theory of Hans Kelsen: Believing in Universal Law

Jochen von Bernstorff (Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht) has published The Public International Law Theory of Hans Kelsen: Believing in Universal Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010). Here's the abstract:

This analysis of Hans Kelsen's international law theory takes into account the context of the German international legal discourse in the first half of the twentieth century, including the reactions of Carl Schmitt and other Weimar opponents of Kelsen. The relationship between his Pure Theory of Law and his international law writings is examined, enabling the reader to understand how Kelsen tried to square his own liberal cosmopolitan project with his methodological convictions as laid out in his Pure Theory of Law. Finally, Jochen von Bernstorff discusses the limits and continuing relevance of Kelsenian formalism for international law under the term of 'reflexive formalism', and offers a reflection on Kelsen's theory of international law against the background of current debates over constitutionalisation, institutionalisation and fragmentation of international law. The book also includes biographical sketches of Hans Kelsen and his main students Alfred Verdross and Joseph L. Kunz.

Neumann: Norway and Russia Agree on Maritime Boundary in the Barents Sea

Thilo Neumann (Bucerius Law School) has posted an ASIL Insight on Norway and Russia Agree on Maritime Boundary in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

Meckenstock: Investment Protection and Human Rights Regulation: Two Aims in a Relationship of Solvable Tension

Cordula A. Meckenstock has published Investment Protection and Human Rights Regulation: Two Aims in a Relationship of Solvable Tension (Nomos 2010). Here's the abstract:

Investment protection and domestic human rights regulation are allegedly contradictory aims. The author examines the tension between these two legitimate aims that becomes evident with so-called stabilization clauses in State Contracts. Stabilization clauses are aimed at “freezing” the legal and economic framework of large investment projects in the according host state. They collide with subsequent domestic regulation for the purpose of implementing higher human rights standards. The author develops practical contractual instruments for the solution of the identified tension in future investment projects making use of the ongoing international debate as well as of a current case study.

Workshop: Ghandhi

Sandy Ghandhi (Univ. of Reading - Law) will give a talk today at the Oxford Public International Law Discussion Group on "The Human Rights Committee of the ICCPR and Problems of Implementation: Challenges and Prospects."

New Issue: International Arbitration Law Review

The latest issue of the International Arbitration Law Review (Vol. 13, no. 4, 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Christine Mcisaac, Challenging by the Rules of the Game: Certainty Through Procedural Harmonisation of Challenges in International Commercial Arbitration
• Joanna Dingwall, International Arbitration in Scotland: A Bold, New Future
• Steven H. Reisberg, Objections to the Jurisdiction of the Arbitration Tribunal Under the US Federal Arbitration Act: How to Preserve the Right to Judicial Review

New Issue: Stanford Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Stanford Journal of International Law (Vol. 46, no. 1, Summer 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Benjamin Mason Meier, Global Health Governance and the Contentious Politics of Human Rights: Mainstreaming the Right to Health for Public Health Advancement
• Barry Sautman, Scaling Back Minority Rights?: The Debate about China's Ethnic Policies
• David Wallach, The Alien Tort Statute and the Limits of Individual Accountability in International Law

New Issue: Journal of International Maritime Law

The latest issue of the Journal of International Maritime Law (Vol. 16, no. 2, 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Konstantinos Bachxevanis, ‘Crew negligence’ and ‘crew’ incompetence': their distinction and its consequence
• Ling Li, Maritime liens and ship mortgages in bankruptcy — a comparison of recent Canadian, Chinese and US law
• Huijie Luo, Recent developments in Chinese maritime law

Workshops: Cogan, Hathaway & Shapiro

Jacob Katz Cogan (Univ. of Cincinnati - Law) will give a talk today at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Faculty Workshop on "The Coercive Turn in International Law."

Oona Hathaway (Yale Univ. - Law) & Scott Shapiro (Yale Univ. - Law) will give a talk today at the New York University School of Law Hauser Globalization Colloquium on "Outcasting: Enforcement in Domestic and International Law."

Nystuen & Casey-Maslen: The Convention on Cluster Munitions: A Commentary

Gro Nystuen (Univ. of Oslo - Law) & Stuart Casey-Maslen (Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights) have published The Convention on Cluster Munitions: A Commentary (Oxford Univ. Press 2010). Here's the abstract:

This Commentary on the Convention on Cluster Munitions is a detailed assessment of the negotiation, content, and implications of the Convention, which is the latest treaty to ban a conventional weapon.

The treaty, which will enter into force as binding international law on 1 August 2010, bans the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of all cluster munitions. The book describes what cluster munitions are, when and where they have been used, and what steps States Parties will need to consider in order to implement the treaty's provisions. The Commentary goes systematically through the Convention article by article, explaining the purpose of each provision, its background and negotiation, and the meaning of each paragraph and sub-paragraph.

Lowe & Tzanakopoulos on Econcomic Warfare and Humanitarian Intervention

Vaughan Lowe (Univ. of Oxford - Law) & Antonios Tzanakopoulos (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) have posted two of their entries in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law: Economic Warfare and Humanitarian Intervention.

New Issue: Climate Law

The latest issue of Climate Law (Vol. 1, no. 2, 2010) is out. Contents include:

• Meinhard Doelle, Early experience with the Kyoto compliance system: Possible lessons for MEA compliance system design
• Athena Ballesteros, Smita Nakhooda, Jacob Werksman, & Kaija Hurlburt, Power, responsibility, and accountability: Rethinking the legitimacy of institutions for climate finance
• Alexander Zahar, Does self-interest skew state reporting of greenhouse gas emissions? A preliminary analysis based on the first verified emissions estimates under the Kyoto Protocol
• Greg Picker, Reflections on climate politics in a sunburnt country

de Búrca: The Road Not Taken: The EU as a Global Human Rights Actor

Gráinne de Búrca (Harvard Univ. - Law) has posted The Road Not Taken: The EU as a Global Human Rights Actor. Here's the abstract:

This paper challenges the traditional account of the EU’s engagement with human rights. The classic narrative begins with the silence of the EEC Treaty in 1957 and depicts a gradual engagement with human rights over the decades, culminating in the establishment of a substantial EU human rights regime in recent years. The paper provides an alternative account of the EU’s trajectory by returning to its origins in the 1950s and comparing the ambitious but long-forgotten plans for European Community engagement with human rights drafted in the early 1950s with today’s EU human rights framework. The paper argues that the current EU human rights system is in several ways less robust and less ambitious than that envisaged in the 1950s, and that the two main causes for criticism of today’s EU system – namely that it lacks a serious human rights mechanism, and that there is a double-standard as between internal and external human rights policies – have survived the changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and have to some extent been enshrined by those changes. The paper concludes by suggesting that the EU’s aspiration to be taken seriously as a global normative actor is hindered by its exceptionalism in this field.

Workshop: Tzanakopoulos

Antonios Tzanakopoulos (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) will give a talk today at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict on "Access to a Court and the Security Council: Implications for Normative Hierarchy."

Orakhelashvili: Review Essay on Scheinin & Kamminga's The Impact of Human Rights on General International Law

Alexander Orakhelashvili (Univ. of Birmingham - Law) has posted Review Essay on Scheinin & Kamminga, The Impact of Human Rights on General International Law (International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 2010, 491-499).

Murphy: Book Review of Marc Weller's Contested Statehood: Kosovo’s Struggle for Independence

Sean D. Murphy (George Washington Univ. - Law) has posted Book Review of Marc Weller, Contested Statehood: Kosovo’s Struggle for Independence (George Washington International Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

How an area measuring no more than about 11,000 square kilometers could become arguably “ground zero” for the formation of post-Cold War international law is a bit of a mystery, but the province (and now country) of Kosovo, in the late twentieth/early twenty-first centuries, somehow managed to pull off that feat. In Contested Statehood: Kosovo’s Struggle for Independence Marc Weller provides the best history to date of the Kosovo crisis from the end of the Cold War up to the point that Kosovo’s independence was declared in February 2008. In its July 2010 advisory opinion on that legality of that Declaration, the International Court of Justice avoided a lengthy account of Kosovo’s contemporary history, hewing closely to just those facts and law necessary to answer the narrow question before it. As such, anyone interested in the backdrop for the Court’s advisory opinion would do well to keep Contested Statehood close at hand.

New Volume: Australian International Law Journal

The latest volume of the Australian International Law Journal (Vol. 16, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Roger S Clark, The Review Conference on the Rome Statut e of the International Criminal Court, Kampala, Uganda, 31 May-11 June 2010
• Matthew Gillett, Victim Participation at the International Criminal Court
• Emmi Okada, The Australian Trials of Class B and C Japanese War Crimes Suspects, 1945-51
• Susan Harris Miller, Wearing his Jacket: A Feminist Analysis of the Serious Crimes Process in Timor-Leste
• Robert Lancaster, Intervening Interests: Humanitarian and Pro-Democratic Intervention in the Asia-Pacific
• Brent Michael, Responding to Attacks by Non-State Actors: The Attribution Requirement of Self-Defence
• Kelisiana Thynne, Targeting the 'Terrorist Enemy': The Boundaries of Armed Conflict Against Transnational Terrorists
• Andrew Yuile, At the Fault-Lines of Armed Conflict: The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah Conflict and the Framework of International Humanitarian Law
• Irina Kolodizner, The Charter of Rights Debate: A Battle of the Models

Arsanjani, Cogan, Sloane & Wiessner: Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman

I am very pleased to announce the publication of Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2011), which I edited with Mahnoush H. Arsanjani (formerly, Director, Codification Division, U.N. Office of Legal Affairs), Robert D. Sloane (Boston Univ. - Law), and Siegfried Wiessner (St. Thomas Univ. - Law). Contents include:

• The Editors, Introduction
• Rosalyn Higgins, An Appreciation
• Harold Hongju Koh, Michael Reisman, Dean of the New Haven School of International Law
• Prosper Weil, L’honneur des juristes
• Siegfried Wiessner, Michael Reisman, Human Dignity, and the Law
• Adeno Addis, Law as a Process of Communication: Reisman Meets Habermas
• Mahnoush H. Arsanjani, Uses and Abuses of Illusion in International Politics
• James E. Baker, Prelude to Decision: Michael Reisman, the Intelligence Function, and a Scholar’s Study of Intelligence in Law, Process, and Values
• Daniel Bodansky, Prologue to a Theory of Non-Treaty Norms
• Steve Charnovitz, How Nongovernmental Actors Vitalize International Law
• Menachem Mautner, Between Façades and Operational Codes: Michael Reisman’s Jurisprudence of Suspicion
• Jan Paulsson, Scholarship as Law
• Steven R. Ratner, Between Minimum and Optimum World Public Order: An Ethical Path for the Future
• Emmanuel Roucounas, The Users of International Law
• Gary J. Simson, Rethinking Choice of Law: What Role for the Needs of the Interstate and International Systems?
• Robert D. Sloane, More Than What Courts Do: Jurisprudence, Decision, and Dignity – In Brief Encounters and Global Affairs
• Eisuke Suzuki, Reconfiguration of Authority and Control of the International Financial Architecture
• Attila Tanzi, Remarks on Sovereignty in the Evolving Constitutional Features of the International Community
• Christian Tomuschat, International Law as a Coherent System: Unity or Fragmentation?
• J.H.H. Weiler, Entrenchment – Human and Divine: A Reflection on Deuteronomy 13:1-6
• Rüdiger Wolfrum, Obligation of Result v. Obligation of Conduct: Some Thoughts about the Implementation of International Obligations
• Nisuke Ando, Secession or Independence – Self-Determination and Human Rights: A Japanese View of Three Basic Issues of International Law Concerning “Taiwan”
• M. Cherif Bassiouni, Reflections on the Torture Policy of the Bush Administration (2001-2008)
• Lucius Caflisch, Waivers in International and European Human Rights Law
• Antonio Cassese, Reflections on the Current Prospects of International Criminal Justice
• Lung-chu Chen, Human Rights and World Public Order: Major Trends of Development, 1980-2010 and Beyond
• Christine Chinkin, U.N. Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Missions: Lessons from Gaza
• Aaron Xavier Fellmeth, Choice of Gender Identity in International Human Rights Law
• Jochen Abr. Frowein, The International Protection of Human Rights as an Element of World Order
• Christof Heyns & Magnus Killander, Towards Minimum Standards for Regional Human Rights Systems
• Kenneth C. Randall & Chimène I. Keitner, Sabbatino, Sosa, and “Super Norms”
• Luzius Wildhaber, Some Remarks about the Realistic Idealism of the European Court of Human Rights
• Guillermo Aguilar Alvarez & Santiago Montt, Investments, Fair and Equitable Treatment, and the Principle of “Respect for the Integrity of the Law of the Host State”: Towards a Jurisprudence of “Modesty” in Investment Treaty Arbitration
• José E. Alvarez, The Once and Future Foreign Investment Regime
• David D. Caron, The Interpretation of National Foreign Investment Laws as Unilateral Acts Under International Law
• Tai-Heng Cheng, State Succession and Commercial Obligations: Lessons from Kosovo
• Rudolf Dolzer, Emergency Clauses in Investment Treaties: Four Versions
• Florentino P. Feliciano, Deconstruction of Constitutional Limitations and the Tariff Regime of the Philippines: The Persistence of a Martial Law Syndrome
• Francisco Orrego Vicuña, Softening Necessity
• William W. Park, Truth and Efficiency: The Arbitrator’s Predicament
• Christoph Schreuer, The Future of Investment Arbitration
• Hi-Taek Shin, The Domestic Decision-Making Process and Its Implications for International Commitments: American Beef in Korea
• Albert Jan van den Berg, Dissenting Opinions by Party-Appointed Arbitrators in Investment Arbitration
• Guiguo Wang, China’s Practice in International Investment Law: From Participation to Leadership in the World Economy
• Bernard H. Oxman, On Rocks and Maritime Delimitation
• Salman M.A. Salman, The Future of International Water Law: Regional Approaches to Shared Watercourses?
• Eyal Benvenisti, The Law on Asymmetric Warfare
• Elli Louka, Precautionary Self-Defense and the Future of Preemption in International Law
• Djamchid Momtaz, Le programme nucléaire de l’Iran et le régime de non-prolifération nucléaire
• Nicholas Rostow, U.N. Realities
• Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, The Principle of Compétence de la Compétence in International Adjudication and Its Role in an Era of Multiplication of Courts and Tribunals
• Alain Pellet, Shaping the Future of International Law: The Role of the World Court in Law-Making
• Stephen M. Schwebel, Gorbachev Embraces Compulsory Jurisdiction

Alvarez: Are Corporations 'Subjects' of International Law?

Jose E. Alvarez (New York Univ. - Law) has posted Are Corporations 'Subjects' of International Law? (Santa Clara Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Courts and scholars often attempt to draw legal conclusions from the status of entities, whether states, international organizations or corporations. Debates concerning whether corporations are “subjects” of international law and the legal conclusions that supposedly follow from this are particularly vociferous within Alien Tort Claims litigation in U.S. courts. Using the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United as a cautionary tale, the author argues that drawing legal conclusions from the fact of “subject-hood” is fraught with peril, particularly in the case of corporations. He argues that such top-down approaches are likely to lead to unintended consequences and that corporations, like international organizations, should more properly be seen as “participants” than “subjects.”