The latest issue of the Yale Journal of International Law (Vol. 37, no. 1, Winter 2012) is out. Contents include:
Sarah B. Snyder (Univ. College London - History) has published Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge Univ. Press 2011). Here's the abstract:Two of the most pressing questions facing international historians today are how and why the Cold War ended. Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War explores how, in the aftermath of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, a transnational network of activists committed to human rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe made the topic a central element in East-West diplomacy. As a result, human rights eventually became an important element of Cold War diplomacy and a central component of détente. Sarah B. Snyder demonstrates how this network influenced both Western and Eastern governments to pursue policies that fostered the rise of organized dissent in Eastern Europe, freedom of movement for East Germans and improved human rights practices in the Soviet Union – all factors in the end of the Cold War.
The ESIL Interest Group on Peace and Security (IGPS) has the pleasure to announce that its third Workshop will take place in Valencia, Spain, just before the opening of the 5th ESIL Biennial Conference, on the topic: "Has International Law Something to Say About Revolution?"
The recent revolts in the Arab world and the international reactions that followed them demonstrated, according to some commentators, the limits of International Law in dealing with revolutions. This workshop will try to test and challenge this idea. Potential topics include: Is there a right to democracy in International Law? Legitimacy, recognition and de-recognition of governments and the principle of effectiveness; The continuing relevance of the principles of non intervention/non-interference in domestic affairs; The threshold of applicability of jus in bello; The International Human Rights implications posed both by the revolutions themselves and by outside responses; The role of the UN Security Council and the problem of interpretation of its resolutions.
The Workshop panel will consist of four or five participants and a chairperson. The languages used will be English and French.
The IGPS invites the submission of abstracts from ESIL members or other scholars or practitioners interested in participating in this special workshop. Priority will be given to IGPS members. Papers presented at the workshop will be selected through a competitive process involving the submission of abstracts. The selection process will be based exclusively on the scholarly merits of the submitted proposals. Each submission should include the following:
A) An abstract of no more than 600 words in English or French, specifying the intended language for the paper; and
B) A short CV in English or French including the author’s name, institutional affiliation, contact information and e-mail address.
All applications should be submitted to the IGPS chairman, Prof. Theodore Christakis (christakis@wanadoo.fr). The deadline for submission of proposals is Thursday, 1 March 2012. The outcome of the selection process will be notified to all applicants by Monday, 19 March 2012. The selection Committee will be composed only of members who do not intend to present an application. Its composition will be notified to all applicants with the results.
Strategy and publication
Please note that the strategy of the IGPS has always been to organize important events during the ESIL biennial conferences. The general idea is not to transform these workshops to a kind of “à default” solution for members unable to present papers during the main ESIL Conference but, on the contrary, to organize events of high quality which can be followed by publications in major (and peer-reviewed) journals of International Law. In October 2009 the IGPS published in the Revue Belge de droit international [(2008) 1/2, at 353–458] the Symposium on ‘Insurgency and International Law’ organized at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg during the September 2008 ESIL Conference. This Symposium included papers in English and in French. In February 2011 the IGPS published in the Leiden Journal of International Law (vol 24, 2011, at 71-161) the Symposium on the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Kosovo held during the ESIL Conference at the University of Cambridge. We welcome any expression of interest for the publication of this new event and we invite eventual editors to be part of the Selection Committee.
Registration to the main ESIL Conference
Interest Group attendees are under no obligation to attend the main ESIL 2012 conference. We nonetheless invite IGPS members who wish to attend the conference to register following the instructions on the conference website. Please note that there should be no waiver from registration fees for ESIL IG panelists. The ESIL Secretariat also asked us to remind all IG members to renew their membership of the society for the year 2012.
Maurizio Arcari & Louis Balmond have published Questions de droit international autour de l'avis consultatif de la cour internationale de justice sur le kosovo (Giuffrè 2011). Contents include:
The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 81, no. 1, 2012) is out. Contents include:
This short paper examines the conceptual methodology behind Global Administrative Law (hereafter GAL). It more particularly argues that GAL rests on a dialectical approach which oscillate between two methodological postures. GAL starts by deformalizing its object of study, namely the exercise of public authority at the international level. Such preliminary deformalization is what allows GAL to capture the factual phenomenon which it purports to regulate. Such a first methodological step brings GAL to initially move away from the traditional theory of sources of international law. Yet, GAL subsequently engages in a re-formalization with a view to designing principles of accountability, participations and transparency. Such a dialectical methodology radically departs from the mainstream methodology of the European tradition of international law, thereby making GAL an extremely refreshing and stimulating project for all European international legal scholars. To reap the benefits of the GAL approach, European international legal scholars nonetheless need to fathom the specific dynamics of the GAL project and its fundamental different nature. Note: Downloadable document is in French.
In this paper, I propose a hybrid constructivist-rationalist theory of compliance with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and investigate its validity both quantitatively and qualitatively, based on a comprehensive database on the compliance status of all ECtHR judgments rendered up until 2010. While much research on state compliance with normative obligations has remained wedded either to a constructivist, norm-based perspective or to a rationalist analytic lens that foregrounds actor preferences and cost-benefit calculations, a fully specified model of compliance has to allow for the simultaneous operation of the logics of appropriateness and of consequences. Specifically, I argue that the question whether to comply with a judgment needs to be separated analytically from the question of how to comply. In the context of European liberal democracies, the first question is best answered by positing a normative compliance pull exerted by the judgments of a duly constituted court, even one operating beyond the boundaries of the state. At the same time, norms as well as the judgments that interpret and apply them frequently retain an element of indeterminacy that provides states with alternatives as to how to comply with a given judgment. In light of such a choice space, and given an assumed preference for the status quo ante, governments will tend to choose those institutional and interpretive options that minimize - materially and normatively - the domestic impact of an adverse judgment and will, as a result, in most cases choose narrow or otherwise restrictive compliance.
Faculty of Law and Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law
McGill University, Montreal
CALL FOR PAPERS AND SESSION PROPOSALS
STATELESS LAW? THE FUTURE OF THE DISCIPLINE
Faculty of Law, McGill University
28‐29 September 2012
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first graduating class of the McGill Program, the Faculty of Law and the Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law will host an international conference on the future of the discipline of law. This event will aim to foster a debate that critically assesses the latest developments in legal thought and innovative approaches to law, in the light of the challenge of globalization and the move away from a national paradigm for understanding law. It will also ask the question of how to integrate the insights so gained into the teaching of law. The concern is with law in all its dimensions: public and private, local and transnational, formal and informal. By being forced to abandon, at least in part, the posited law of the nation state as their lode star, legal education and legal scholarship have been presented with an opportunity to break the mould of centuries of legal nationalism: an opportunity that encourages new, transdisciplinary and transnational ways of thinking about law. In short, the goal is to re-assess and to re-imagine the discipline of law, its place in the university, and its role in society. The working languages of the conference will be English and French.
Some of the themes which we expect to be covered include: How do globalization and legal pluralism affect our understanding of law, legal education or both? In its interaction with other disciplines, how does law preserve its disciplinary identity? Can a renewed understanding of particular fields of law shed light on our evolving understanding of the discipline? How is the teaching and research of basic private law—contracts, civil wrongs, property, the law of persons—affected by the increasingly transnational and transdisciplinary focus of legal scholarship?
Confirmed speakers include:
Professor Mireille Delmas-Marty (Collège de France) Professor John Gardner (University of Oxford) Professor Ernest Weinrib (University of Toronto) Professor Annelise Riles (Cornell University) Proposals for papers are now invited. If you would like to offer a paper, please submit a working title and an abstract (of no more than 350 words) by email to crdpcq.law@mcgill.ca before April, 16th, 2012. The abstract should be written in English or French, the language of the abstract indicating the language of the proposed full paper.
Proposals for sessions may also be submitted. Such proposals should include three or four paper proposals on a given theme. A session might be organized around an interdisciplinary nexus, postgraduate and/or undergraduate legal education, or a particular field of law or approach to law. Session proposals must include a statement that all of the proposed speakers have agreed to participate, and contact information for all proposed speakers.
Proposals will be selected on the basis of their quality and originality, as well as their engagement with the conference theme and their fit with other papers being presented at the conference. The selection will be made by a scientific committee. Presenters whose proposals are accepted will be expected to meet their own travel and accommodation costs, although the conference registration fee will be waived. Depending on the outcome of applications for financial assistance, some funds may be available to assist presenters with travel and accommodations; those who have need of such funds should indicate this in their applications.
* * *Faculté de droit et Centre de recherche en droit privé et comparé du Québec
Université McGill, Montréal
APPEL À COMMUNICATION ET À PROPOSITION DE SESSIONS
LE DROIT HORS D’ÉTAT? L’AVENIR DE LA DISCIPLINE
Faculté de droit, Université McGill
28‐29 septembre 2012
Afin de célébrer le 10e anniversaire de la première promotion du programme McGill, la Faculté de droit et le Centre de recherche en droit privé et comparé du Québec organisent une conférence internationale sur l’avenir de la discipline juridique.
Cet évènement a pour objectif d’alimenter un débat dans une optique mondiale, détachée du cadre national. Toutes les dimensions du droit — public et privé, local et transnational, formel et informel — seront abordées. Il s’agit de porter un regard critique sur les dernières évolutions de la pensée juridique, d’imaginer des approches originales du droit, de s’interroger sur un moyen d’adapter notre connaissance du droit aux perspectives dégagées. L’enseignement et l’apprentissage du droit ont dû s’émanciper, au moins en partie, du droit national, qui était jusqu’à maintenant la référence : n’est-ce pas l’occasion de rompre avec des siècles de tradition positiviste, en développant une nouvelle façon de penser le droit, transnationale et transdisciplinaire? En bref, le but de ce colloque est de redéfinir et de redessiner la discipline du droit, sa place dans les universités et son rôle dans la société.
Les langues du colloque seront le français et l’anglais.
Suggestion de thèmes : En quoi la mondialisation et le pluralisme juridique affectent notre compréhension du droit et/ou de l’enseignement du droit? Dans ses interactions avec d’autres disciplines, comment le droit préserve-t-il son identité en tant que discipline? Un renouvèlement de l’appréhension de champs particuliers du droit peut-il faire évoluer notre compréhension de la discipline? Comment, à travers ce prisme transnational et transdisciplinaire, l’enseignement et la recherche portant sur les bases du droit privé – droit des obligations, responsabilité civile, droit des biens, droit des personnes — sont-ils bouleversés?
Intervenants confirmés :
Pr Mireille Delmas-Marty (Collège de France) Pr John Gardner (Université d’Oxford) Pr Ernest Weinrib (Université de Toronto) Pr Annelise Riles (Université Cornell) Le comité organisateur invite maintenant les chercheurs à soumettre une proposition de communication.
Pour ce faire, veuillez faire parvenir un titre provisoire ainsi qu’un résumé d’au plus 350 mots à l’adresse courriel suivante : crdpcq.law@mcgill.ca avant le 16 avril 2012. Le résumé peut être rédigé en anglais ou en français, la langue du résumé indiquant la langue de la communication finale.
Il est aussi possible de proposer l’organisation de sessions complètes : pour ce faire, joignez trois ou quatre propositions de communication sur un thème donné. Une session peut être interdisciplinaire, organisée autour d’un thème commun, porter sur l’enseignement du droit, une matière ou une approche particulières.
Les propositions de sessions doivent être accompagnées d’une attestation confirmant l’accord de chacun des intervenants à participer au colloque, ainsi que leurs coordonnées.
Les communications seront sélectionnées en raison de leur qualité et de leur originalité, de même qu’en raison de leur pertinence en ce qui a trait aux thèmes de la conférence et aux autres communications retenues. Le choix des communications sera fait par un comité scientifique.
Les conférenciers dont les communications seront retenues devront assumer leurs propres frais de déplacement et d’hébergement, mais ils pourront assister gratuitement à la conférence. Des demandes ont été déposées auprès d’autorités subventionnaires et selon les réponses obtenues, des fonds pourraient être disponibles afin d'aider les conférenciers à financer leur participation. Les chercheurs nécessitant de tels fonds sont priés de l’indiquer dans leur soumission.
This article presents and assesses a new wave of empirical research on international law. Recent scholarship has moved away from theoretical debates over whether international law “matters,” and focuses instead on exploring the conditions under which international law is created and produces effects. As this empirical research program has matured, it has allowed for new, mid-level theorizing that we call “conditional international law theory.”
The Canadian Council on International Law will host a mini-conference on March 8, in Montreal. The preliminary program is here. Panels include: Investment Obligations in Times of Crises; Recognition of States at International Law; and Responsibility to Protect Against International Humanitarian and
Human Rights Violations.
One year on from the “Arab Spring”, join us in Cairo to explore contemporary geographies of international law. You are invited to reflect anew upon the “cores” and “peripheries” of international legal knowledge and practice in the face of recent structural shifts. Where (if anywhere) are they located today? Does international law project a disciplinary periphery, or several? Who or what occupies international legal peripheries today and what does peripheral status imply? What may be at stake in the mapping of cores and peripheries? Are there cores in the peripheral and vice versa? To what extent, if at all, do core-periphery dynamics in international law channel development and reform? Long associated with dependency theory, world systems theory and geographical analyses of trade, core-periphery schematics have nonetheless informed international legal thought, argument and policy-making in a wide range of ways. This conference will enable scholars of law and related disciplines to revisit core-periphery dynamics in global governance, in both their symbolic and their material dimensions, and contribute to their re-imagining for the current age.
On February 29, 2012, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law will host a workshop on "Compliance with International Environmental Obligations: Holding States to Account." Speakers will include: Alistair McGlone (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs); Stephen Hockman (6 Pump Court Chambers); and Roy Watkinson (Roy Watkinson Environmental Consulting Limited). Here's the idea:A concern to live in a healthy environment is becoming one of the most important aspects of our daily life. At the international level different legal regimes have emerged with an aim to provide standards and procedures for the protection of environment. One of the key questions is how to secure compliance of States with these provisions. The event will start with an overview of compliance mechanisms; what they are, a brief history of their development, and consideration of key issues that emerge after the compliance mechanisms are established and put into operation (Alistair McGlone). The discussion will continue with the examination of provisions of the Aarhus Convention; the way in which the Compliance Committee seeks to enforce them, and the implications of the process for national governments, including the UK (Stephen Hockman). Another important international mechanism for the protection of environment is the Committee on Implementation and Compliance under the Basel Convention. In this context, the event will consider practical experience accrued from the Committee's work as well as future challenges that lay ahead of the Basel Convention compliance mechanism (Roy Watkinson).
APPEL A CONTRIBUTIONS
L’ÉTAT SOUVERAIN A L’ÈRE DE LA MONDIALISATION –
STRUCTURES ET PROCESSUS DU CONSTITUTIONNALISME GLOBAL
Dans le cadre des échanges biennaux entre la Société française pour le droit international et la Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerrecht, l’Université Bâle organise des
RENCONTRES DE JEUNES CHERCHEURS
EN DROIT INTERNATIONAL
Ces rencontres, qui auront pour thème «L’état souverain à l’ère de la mondialisation – structures et processus du constitutionnalisme global», se tiendront à Bâle du 23 au 25 octobre 2012 ; elles se prolongeront, les 26 et 27 octobre 2012, à Bâle, avec le Colloque biennal des deux sociétés auquel les jeunes chercheurs sont conviés à participer.
Le Colloque biennal va traiter l’ensemble des problèmes qui se posent sur le sujet déterminé ‘Les immunités à l’ère de la mondialisation’. Les rencontres des jeunes chercheurs seront consacrées, d’une part, à une étude de l’influence de la mondialisation sur les régimes juridique nationaux et le droit international, ainsi que les concepts et de la structure de l’étatisme, d’autre part, à une étude des phénomènes et des processus du ‘Constitutionnalisme global’ dans une sélection de branches du droit international.
Les rencontres de jeunes chercheurs visent à approfondir la connaissance des pratiques et traditions juridiques des deux Etats et à favoriser des échanges sur les méthodes d’analyse et les paradigmes privilégiés ou à privilégier.
Un appel à contributions est lancé à l’adresse des doctorants, docteurs, post-doctorants et jeunes maîtres de conférence des universités de France ou d’Allemagne ou éventuellement d’autres universités européennes s’ils peuvent justifier d’un thème de recherche en rapport avec ce sujet.
La date limite d’envoi des candidatures est fixée au 15 mars 2012.
En étroite collaboration avec une équipe de jeunes chercheur des deux universités (Bâle et Hambourg) et avec Stefan Oeter (Université Hambourg), les responsables de cette manifestation, les professeurs Anne Peters pour l’Université Bâle et Evelyne Lagrange pour l’Université Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne), proposent aux jeunes chercheurs de leur soumettre des propositions d’intervention sur les thématiques suivantes (les illustrations données sont purement indicatives) :
1. Global Constitutionalism
Développement des concepts concernant ‘Global Constitutionalism‘– les phénomènes de constitutionnalisation du droit international – formes et modèles du ‘Global Constitutionalism‘– discours globale concernant les constituions: émergence et contestation
2. Les effets de la mondialisation sur le droit national et international
Le phénomène de la mondialisation du droit – les influences de la mondialisation sur les droits et les jurisprudences nationales – la mondialisation du droit et la croissance de l’importance du droit international: interdépendances de la mondialisation dans le droit international
3. L’insertion dans le système juridictionnel international
Réception de la jurisprudence internationale – effets des décisions des organes juridictionnels – collaboration avec les juridictions pénales internationales
4. La mondialisation et l’Etat souverain
Changements des concepts de la souveraineté sous l’influence de la mondialisation – l’étatisme dans le siècle de la ‘souveraineté limitée‘– l’importance de l’état dans le monde globalisé – quel rôle demeure pour le concept de la souveraineté ?
5. La souveraineté à l’épreuve de la mondialisation économique
Pratiques nationales en matière d’investissements internationaux et protection d’investissements – conventions fiscales – fonds souverains – expropriation indirecte
6. La contestation et la résistance du régime des immunités
Immunités de l’Etat – immunités des représentants de l’Etat – immunités des organisations internationales et de leurs agents – immunités et les droits de l’homme
Les organisateurs examineront également d’éventuelles propositions d’intervention sur d’autres thématiques.
Les propositions d’intervention (quatre pages maximum, dans une des trois langues de travail [français, allemand, anglais]), accompagnées d’un C.V., devront être adressées à
iia@jura.uni-hamburg.de
Les organisateurs retiendront au maximum 14 candidats en veillant à l’équilibre des thématiques et des approches. Seront valorisées l’originalité et/ou l’actualité de la recherche envisagée. Les candidats seront informés rapidement du résultat de la sélection.
Les rencontres prendront la forme d’ateliers ou de tables rondes au cours desquels les interventions seront présentées en français, en anglais ou en allemand (durée : 20 mn). Elles feront ensuite l’objet de discussions entre les participants et avec les organisateurs ou des intervenants extérieurs. En l’absence de traduction simultanée, la compréhension de l’allemand, du français et de l’anglais est requise. Il sera demandé à chaque participant d’adresser à l’avance aux organisateurs un plan de son intervention avec les mots et notions clés en allemand et/ou en anglais respectivement français et une bibliographie sélective. Ces documents seront communiqués aux participants.
Les organisateurs favoriseront la publication des meilleures contributions dans des revues scientifiques. Les frais de voyage et d’hébergement seront pris en charge ou remboursés par les organisateurs.
Planning is now in hand for this year's SLS conference, which is being held at Bristol University on 11-14 September 2012. The conference theme is 'Pressing Problems in the Law and Legal Education'.
The International Law section will be in Group A this year and will be meeting in the first half of the conference, on Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 12 September 2012. I'm now asking for volunteers to present papers at the four sessions that have been allocated to us. Discussion of any aspects of international law will be welcome. The deadline for proposals is 9th March 2012 but all that I require is a provisional title, a short abstract (two or three lines detailing what the paper is about) and an indication of your willingness to participate. In due course, if you commit to presenting a paper, I will need at least an abstract of it by the end of July. As usual, drafts of working papers are as welcome as finely honed pieces ready for publication. A best paper prize will be awarded for a sixth time this year. Details can be found on the SLS web site.
If you are offering more than one paper at the conference, please let me know. This is to enable better planning; it does not mean that individuals are not allowed to present more than one paper.
I am also asked to remind you that speakers do have to book into the conference and pay the appropriate fees.
In the meantime, if you do wish to offer a paper, please reply to me directly (Matthew.Happold[at]uni.lu).
Matthew Happold
Professeur en droit international public
Faculté de Droit, d'Économie et de Finance
Université du Luxembourg
148, avenue de la Faïencerie
L-1511 Luxembourg
Tel: (352) 46 66 44 69 76
The killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011 and Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen in September 2011 both raise the question of when the killing of an identified individual posing a threat to a nation-state is lawful. Although it has not yet been forced to publicly defend either killing in any great detail, the Obama Administration has insisted on the legality of both operations by deploying an amalgam of legal and rhetorical arguments that explicitly or implicitly invoke multiple bodies of law. Indeed, the legality of such targeted operations can be evaluated along a number of dimensions under public international law devoted to the jus ad bellum, under international humanitarian law and the jus in bello, under international human rights law, and under the applicable domestic legal regimes. This multiplicity of legal regimes invites a "mixing and matching" of doctrinal elements that blurs the distinctions between the various paradigms and can lead to doctrinal imbalances.
In the light of the legal indeterminacy surrounding these two operations, this article endeavors to systematically tease out the various arguments advanced in their defense and to map the contiguous and overlapping legal regimes that speak to the killing of these two men. I compare the legality of the two operations primarily under international law, leaving to others to develop whatever domestic constitutional limitations may exist by virtue of the 4th and 5th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The paper outlines several doctrinal pathways within international law that lead to the conclusion that both operations were legal. Along the way, I identify established landmarks in positive law. Reaching the ultimate destination, however, requires one to traverse uncertain terrain by deploying legal theories that remain under-developed, in flux, and contested. At these crossroads, the necessary arguments often do not enjoy textual support in the relevant treaties or reflect consistent state practice or opinio juris. Nor are there authoritative judicial pronouncements that provide validation. Furthermore, this expedition requires one to navigate between overlapping legal regimes with no compass to help resolve potential conflicts of law that arise. In my accounting of this journey, I provide a rather cursory treatment of established law and linger more at those junctures that could lead to a conclusion of illegality because there is a diversity of viewpoints in the literature. All told, the law can be made to work in defense of the United States' actions, but there are points along the way at which an authoritative decision-maker might reach a defensible contrary conclusion.
The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 50, no. 6, November 2011) is out. Contents include:
The latest issue of Archiv des Völkerrechts (Vol. 49, no. 4, December 2011) is out. Contents include:
The latest issue of Ocean Development & International Law (Vol. 43, no. 1, 2012) is out. Contents include:
