New Issue: Asian Dispute Review

The latest issue of the Asian Dispute Review (July 2013) is out. Contents include:

• James Rogers & Matthew Townsend, New Rules for the Singapore Iinternational Arbitration Centre
• Phillip Georgiou, Myanmar’s Accession to the New York Convention
• Clarisse von Wunschheim & Lear Liu, The CIETAC Feud – Why it’s a Mess, and How to Avoid Being Caught in the Middle
• Appointing the Arbitral Tribunal: Conflicts of Interest andother Challenges by Robin Peard
• Philip Yang, Procedural Issues at the Interlocutory and Hearing Stages – Part 1
• Robert Morgan, Challenges to Awards: Reasons, Indemnity Costs and the CJR
• Promod Nair, Piloting a Much-Needed Course Correction: The Decision of the Indian Supreme Court in BALCO v Kaiser Aluminium

Marochkin: Contemporary Approaches of the Russian Doctrine to International Law: Identical to Western Ones?

Sergei Yu. Marochkin (Tyumen State Univ. - Law) has published Contemporary Approaches of the Russian Doctrine to International Law: Identical to Western Ones? (Baltic Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 12, pp. 29-56, 2012). Here's the introduction:

Approaches of the Russian doctrine to current international law (IL) seem to be better revealed through some features and trends of its development and consequent "hot" debated topics in the Russian and Western doctrines. At the beginning of a new century and millennium IL is undergoing certain changes and gaining new prospects for development. The incentives for this are the great alterations in the social and political picture of the world, the increase (intensification) of coherence and interdependence among the States, as well as the globalisation process, which is clearly steady and irreversible. Many problems which originally were of domestic or regional character have become universal. The integration, "disappearance" of frontiers and creation of common political, economical, financial and legal space tend to be obvious. The tendency can be easily revealed within Europe, and it has all preconditions for further development and expansion.

Current IL, its features and trends of development have regularly been an object of scientific analysis and research in the Russian and Western doctrines.1 This paper in particular touches upon such issues as: the growth of the legal foundation and the role of law in international relations; the shift in the fundamental principles of IL; the future of general international law and jus cogens; a correlation of coordinating and subordinating elements in the legal regulation of international relations; the development of international procedural law; a need for dynamism in norm-formation; the "myths" of IL and threats of its fragmentation, the growth of the "presence" and functioning of IL within domestic jurisdiction; the humanisation of IL; the balance between the State sovereignty and human rights.

The analysis is based on documents and on comparison with the Western approaches in an attempt to realise if the Russian and Western doctrines differ or not, and if the first one "in practice is enigmatical" as it is sometimes stated.

Part 2 of this article examines the correlation of political and legal regulation of international relations and outlines the tendency and necessity of growth of the legal one. Part 3 analyses the change of meaning and significance of the IL principles. Part 4 addresses the change of the character of IL, in particular, the balance of its coordinating and subordinating features. It also reflects some thoughts concerning the future of general IL and jus cogens. Part 5 presents the doctrinal discussion on the need for development of international procedural law and for the dynamism in normformation. Part 6 draws attention to the "Fragmentation Threat" and the "Myths" of IL. Part 7 demonstrates some approaches to the role of IL in the domestic jurisdiction. A special attention focuses on "the Russian case" - its specific constitutional and legal attitude to implementation of IL norms and the doctrine of IL which has elaborated the whole theory consisting of a complex of aspects concerning domestic operation and realisation of IL. Part 8 introduces views of Western and Russian scholars on the issue of "humanisation of IL". In the Conclusion there are some remarks summarising the tasks of the article.

New Issue: Revue Générale de Droit International Public

The latest issue of the Revue Générale de Droit International Public (Vol. 117, no. 2, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Dossier documentaire: immunités d'exécution des Etats. Cour de cassation (France), civ. 1, 28 mars 2013
• Les arrêts
• Pierre Chevalier, L'avis de l'Avocat général référendaire
• Article
• Florian Couveinhes Matsumoto, La critique des pincipales oreintations du conseil de sécurité par la République Populaire de Chine: eléments pour une évaluation des effets de la fin de l'hégémonie occidentale sur le droit de la paix et de la sécurité internationales
• Notes
• Robert Kolb, Nulité, inapplicabilité ou inexistence d'une norme coutumière contraire au jus cogens universel?
• Philippe Achilleas, Guerre froide numérique: autour de la révision du règlement des télécommunications internationales

New Issue: Journal of International Organizations Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of International Organizations Studies (Vol. 4, Special Issue, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Sociological Perspectives on International Organizations and the Construction of Global Order
• Martin Koch & Stephan Stetter, Sociological Perspectives on International Organizations and the Construction of Global Order - an Introduction
• Steven R. Brechin & Gayl D. Ness, Looking Back at the Gap: International Organizations as Organizations Twenty-Five Years Later
• Dieter Kerwer, International Organizations as Meta-Organizations: The Case of the European Union
• Stephan Stetter, The EU as a Structured Power: Organizing EU Foreign Affairs withini the Institutional Environment of World Politics
• Swati Srivastava, Assembling International Organizations
• Ulrich Franke & Martin Koch, Inter-Organizational Relations as Structures of Corporate Practice
• Robert M. Cutler, International Parliamentary Institutions as Organizations

New Issue: Journal of World Energy Law & Business

The latest issue of Journal of World Energy Law & Business (Vol. 6, no. 3, September 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Andrei V. Belyi, Institutional trends in Russia’s oil and gas sectors
• José Martínez de Hoz (h), Tomás Lanardonne, & Alex Máculus, Shale we dance an unconventional tango?
• Paul Michael Blyschak, Offshore oil and gas projects amid maritime border disputes: applicable law
• James D. Fry & ElFadil Ibrahim, Reassessing Venezuela’s organic hydrocarbon law: a balance between sovereignty and efficiency?
• Mirza Karim, A controversial decision of the Constitutional Court on the Indonesian Oil and Gas Law

Meyer: Menschenrechte in Afrika

Christine Meyer has published Menschenrechte in Afrika: Regionaler Menschenrechtsschutz als Herausforderung an menschenrechtliches Universalitätsdenken (Nomos 2013). Here's the abstract:

Sind Menschenrechte universal? Ein Blick in die Afrikanische Charta der Rechte der Menschen und der Völker offenbart die Einbeziehung von Völkerrechten und Individualpflichten – rechtliche Kategorien, die universellen Menschenrechtskatalogen im Wesentlichen fremd sind. Diese Diskrepanz zwischen afrikanischen Menschenrechtstexten und universellen Menschenrechtsdokumenten wirft grundlegende Fragen auf: Was sind Menschenrechte? Sind die Partikularitäten der Afrikanischen Charta als Menschenrechte zu qualifizieren? Erlaubt die Dichotomie von menschenrechtlicher Universalität und kultureller Relativität vermittelnde Positionen? Die Autorin widmet sich zunächst rechtsanalytisch und rechtsvergleichend diesen (Vor-)Fragen. Auf der Basis der gefundenen Ergebnisse entwickelt sie einen Standpunkt in der Kontroverse um die Universalität der Menschenrechte.

New Issue: Journal of Private International Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Private International Law (Vol. 9, no. 2, August 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Sixto A. Sánchez-Lorenzo, Common European Sales Law and Private International Law: Some Critical Remarks
• Gregor Christandl, Multi-Unit States in European Union Private International Law
• Tena Ratković & Dora Zgrabljićrotar, Choice-of-Court Agreements under the Brussels I Regulation (Recast)
• Peter Arnt Nielsen, Libel Tourism: English and EU Private International Law
• Stephen G.A. Pitel & Jesse R. Harper, Choice of Law for Tort in Canada: Reasons for Change
• Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan, A Conflict-of-Laws Approach to Competing Rationalities in International Law: The Case of Plain Packaging Between Intellectual Property, Trade, Investment and Health

New Issue: International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (Vol. 28, no. 2, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Barbara Kwiatkowska, Submissions to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf: The Practice of Developing States in Cases of Disputed and Unresolved Maritime Boundary Delimitations or Other Land or Maritime Disputes. Part One
• Peter Ørebech, The “Lost Mackerel” of the North East Atlantic—The Flawed System of Trilateral and Bilateral Decision-making

Betts: Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement

Alexander Betts (Univ. of Oxford - Politics and International Relations) has published Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (Cornell Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as "refugees," preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection.

In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of "survival migration" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa—Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia—Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. In Survival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

Kneer: Investitionsschutz und Menschenrechte

Dominik Kneer has published Investitionsschutz und Menschenrechte: Eine Untersuchung zum Einfluss menschenrechtlicher Standards auf die Investitionssicherung (Nomos 2013). Here's the abstract:

Investitionsschutz vs. Menschenrechte? – Aufbauend auf einer Analyse dieses Spannungsverhältnisses entwickelt die Arbeit konkrete Ansätze zur Harmonisierung dieser beiden Rechtsgebiete. Dabei wird untersucht, wie sich menschenrechtliche Standards sowohl verstärkend als auch abschwächend auf die Investitionssicherung auswirken können. So wird etwa der gewohnheitsrechtliche Investorenschutz gestärkt, wenn auch gegenüber dem Investor als zwingend anerkannte Menschenrechte einzuhalten sind. Ferner kann sich ein Investor vor internationalen Menschenrechtsgerichten wie dem EGMR auf sein Eigentum als Menschenrecht berufen. Hingegen muss der Schutz des Investors dort abgeschwächt werden, wo er mit den Menschenrechten Dritter kollidiert. Hier entwickelt die Arbeit sowohl auf Auslegung als auch auf Vertragsgestaltung gestützte Ansätze, um das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Investitions- und Menschenrechtsschutz aufzulösen.

McDermott: The Admissibility and Weight of Written Witness Testimony in International Criminal Law: A Socio-Legal Analysis

Yvonne McDermott (Bangor Univ. - Law) has posted The Admissibility and Weight of Written Witness Testimony in International Criminal Law: A Socio-Legal Analysis (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article introduces some quantitative and qualitative analysis to the use of written witness statements in lieu of oral testimony at trial to assess the impact of the more liberal rules on admissibility of evidence before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone in practice. It traces pieces of evidence admitted under the newer, more liberal rules on written witness testimony from admissibility to judgment, to establish what impact, if any, the liberal admissibility rules have had in practice and whether the critique that such rules might jeopardise fair trial standards has been realised. The analysis illustrates that the newer rules on admissibility are used with relative infrequency in some tribunals, but that the admission of such statements could raise the question of equality of arms in others, given that the more liberal rules on written statements tend to be used more frequently by the prosecution than by the defence. It will be shown that some Chambers have continued to emphasise the importance of oral testimony and have taken a very cautious approach when weighing written testimony, whilst others have suggested that written testimony that was not subject to full cross-examination should not, in principle, be given less weight than oral testimony. The ‘totality of the evidence’ approach in weighing the evidence shall be analysed from a practical standpoint, and it shall be shown that recent Appeals Chamber jurisprudence suggests that Trial Chambers may need to take a more particularised approach to pieces of evidence in the future.

Brand: Implementing the 2005 Hague Convention: The EU Magnet and the US Centrifuge

Ronald A. Brand (Univ. of Pittsburgh - Law) has posted Implementing the 2005 Hague Convention: The EU Magnet and the US Centrifuge (in Entre Bruselas Y La Haya, Estudios Sobre La Unificación Internacional Y Regional Del Derecho International Privado: Liber Amicorum Alegría Borrás, Joaquim Forner Delaygua, Cristina Gonzalez Beilfuss, & Ramon Vinas Farre eds., 2013). Here's the abstract:

Competence for the development of rules of private international law has become more-and-more centralized in the European Union, while remaining diffused in the United States. Nowhere has this divergence of process in private international law development been clearer than in the approach each has so far taken to the ratification and implementation of the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. In Europe, ratification has been preceded by the 2012 Recast of the Brussels I Regulation, coordinating internal and external developments, and reaffirming Union competence for future developments, both internally and externally. In the United States, debate has arisen over whether the Convention should be implemented in a single federal statute – as was done for the New York Convention in the Federal Arbitration Act – or through state-by-state enactment of a Uniform Act promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. These differences in approach are important to future negotiations in multilateral fora such as The Hague Conference on Private International law, UNCITRAL, and UNIDROIT. They demonstrate a coherence of approach within the EU which attracts not only its own Member States, but also external constituencies in international negotiations, and diffuse development of the law in the United States, which tends to make leadership in multilateral negotiations difficult.

Guilfoyle: Modern Piracy: Legal Challenges and Responses

Douglas Guilfoyle (Univ. College London - Law) has published Modern Piracy: Legal Challenges and Responses (Edward Elgar Publishing 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Modern Piracy is the first book to survey the law of maritime piracy from both public law and commercial law perspectives, as well as providing a contextual overview of piracy in major hotspots. Topics covered include issues of international law, law-enforcement cooperation, private armed security, ransoms, insurance and carriage of goods by sea. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the range of legal issues presented by the modern piracy menace and will be of interest to scholars and practitioners alike.

Hellum & Aasen: Women's Human Rights: CEDAW in International, Regional and National Law

Anne Hellum (Universitetet i Oslo) & Henriette Sinding Aasen (Universitetet i Bergen) have published Women's Human Rights: CEDAW in International, Regional and National Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

As an instrument which addresses the circumstances which affect women's lives and enjoyment of rights in a diverse world, the CEDAW is slowly but surely making its mark on the development of international and national law. Using national case studies from South Asia, Southern Africa, Australia, Canada and Northern Europe, Women's Human Rights examines the potential and actual added value of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in comparison and interaction with other equality and anti-discrimination mechanisms. The studies demonstrate how state and non-state actors have invoked, adopted or resisted the CEDAW and related instruments in different legal, political, economic and socio-cultural contexts, and how the various international, regional and national regimes have drawn inspiration and learned from each other.

Chetail: Armed Conflict and Forced Migration: A Systemic Approach to International Humanitarian Law, Refugee Law and Human Rights Law

Vincent Chetail (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies - Law) has posted Armed Conflict and Forced Migration: A Systemic Approach to International Humanitarian Law, Refugee Law and Human Rights Law (in The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Armed Conflict, A. Clapham & P. Gaeta eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

While sharing the same purpose of protecting individuals against abuses, international humanitarian law, refugee law and human rights law have largely evolved around their own specific sources, institutions and ethos. However a strict compartmentalization between these three branches of international law is artificial and even counterproductive for ensuring effective protection. This chapter highlights the limits of lex specialis and it calls for a systemic approach based on their cumulative application. Such an approach not only constitutes the most cogent frame of analysis for capturing the multifaceted interactions between humanitarian law, refugee law and human rights law. It also paves the way for a human rights-based approach to armed conflicts.

Haque: Killing with Discrimination

Adil Ahmad Haque (Rutgers Univ., Newark - Law) has posted Killing with Discrimination (in War Ethics, Samuel C. Rickless & Saba Bazargan eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter explores two possible moral justifications for the legal prohibition on the use of indiscriminate weapons. The prohibition could be justified instrumentally, as an indirect strategy of implementing more fundamental prohibitions on inflicting intentional, unnecessary, and disproportionate harm on civilians. However, the chapter argues that it is intrinsically morally wrong to use weapons that, either by their nature or by their use in a particular situation, are more likely to strike civilians or civilian objects than to strike combatants or military objectives. The chapter concludes that the use of such weapons should be considered unlawfully indiscriminate.

Brewster: Pricing Compliance: When Formal Remedies Displace Reputational Sanctions

Rachel Brewster (Duke Univ. - Law) has posted Pricing Compliance: When Formal Remedies Displace Reputational Sanctions (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The conventional wisdom in international law is that dispute resolution institutions sharpen the reputational costs to states. This article challenges this understanding by examining how the inclusion of dispute resolution tribunals and remedy regimes can alter reputational analysis by shifting the audience’s understanding of how mandatory a treaty’s substantive obligations are. Drawing on the distinction between prices and sanctions, this article contests the assumption that the introduction of a remedy regime in international agreements will regularly increase compliance with the treaty’s substantive terms. Instead, some remedy regimes may “price” deviations from the treaty’s terms and thereby facilitate breaches of the substantive rules. The article questions what the parties have actually agreed to when they form a treaty: Is it a promise to comply with the substantive provisions or is it a promise to abide by the terms of the dispute resolution system? Thus the article challenges whether the traditional reading of pacta sunt servanda (treaties should be obeyed), which requires adherence to a treaty’s substantive terms, is correct. Instead, this article argues that states can design (and are designing) treaties that are formally binding but define adherence to the dispute resolution system as the touchstone for compliance.

New Issue: Chicago Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Chicago Journal of International Law (Vol. 14, no. 1, Summer 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Megan Donaldson & Benedict Kingsbury, Ersatz Normativity or Public Law in Global Governance: The Hard Case of International Prescriptions for National Infrastructure Regulation
• Anthony J. Colangelo, Jurisdiction, Immunity, Legality, and Jus Cogens
• Andrew D. Mitchell & Caroline Henckels, Variations on a Theme: Comparing the Concept of “Necessary” in International Investment Law and WTO Law
• Dustin N. Sharp, Beyond the Post-Conflict Checklist: Linking Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice through the Lens of Critique
• Jeremy Rabkin & Ariel Rabkin, Navigating Conflicts in Cyberspace: Legal Lessons from the History of War at Sea

Malatesta & Sali: The Rise of Transparency in International Arbitration

Alberto Malatesta (Università Carlo Cattaneo LIUC - Law) & Rinaldo Sali (Milan Chamber of Arbitration) have published The Rise of Transparency in International Arbitration (Juris Publishing 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The advantages of arbitration as the main alternative means of dispute resolution are well known and undisputed. Privacy and confidentiality are among them and at the same time among the prevailing features of any arbitral proceedings. However, sometimes users have the feeling to deal with a close and too slow-growing world. The need, if not the request, for a greater accountability of the arbitral world in the whole is more and more widespread.

In this context the aim of this book is on the one hand to spur discussion and to shed new light on the traditional idea of confidentiality in international commercial arbitration (and in some other figures alike). Although this idea is sometimes founded upon sound reasons that cannot be ignored or totally set aside, it must be reconsidered by taking into account the rise of transparency. On the other hand, a specific proposal is made in order to step ahead from the current situation, with particular reference to the issue of the publication of the awards. In this respect, the main outcome is the Guidelines for the Anonymous Publication of Arbitral Awards, already adopted and experienced by the Milan Chamber. They are addressed to institutions, practitioners, scholars with the goal to favor the circulation of the awards and of the related decisions.

Rolland & Schools: Transboundary Regulation in the Case of Nanotechnologies: A Theoretical Framing

Sonia Elise Rolland (Northeastern Univ. - Law) & Sarah Schools (Northeastern Univ. - Law) have posted Transboundary Regulation in the Case of Nanotechnologies: A Theoretical Framing (Nanotechnology Law & Business, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

While much has been written about the risks and uncertainties of nanotechnology products and industries using nanotechnologies, an equally important issue is the different risk sensitivities and tolerances of individual states and constituencies within states, resulting in divergent regulatory schemes. Risks and uncertainty are relevant for policy-making because they are embedded in particular societal contexts, which differ from state to state, from one regulatory agency to another, across various industries and across civil society. Reflecting these varying sensitivities to risk in the context of nanotechnologies, then, presents multi-level regulatory challenges domestically but also internationally. While no single global constraining framework, such as a treaty, has emerged to address those transnational regulatory challenges, for technical and practical reasons, a number of regulatory processes have surfaced, combining public and private initiatives, hard and soft law at the domestic, transnational and international levels. This article presents nanotech regulation globally as a regime and it asks whether this regime can respond to the challenges of risk, uncertainty and promoting public and private innovation.

New Issue: Michigan Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Michigan Journal of International Law (Vol. 34, no. 3, Spring 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Scott P. Sheeran, Under International Human Rights Law: Theory, Legal Doctrine, and Politics
• Mark A. Drumbl, “She Makes Me Ashamed to be a Woman”: The Genocide Convention of Pauline Nyiramasuhko, 2011
• Laura Pedraza-Fariña, Conceptions of Civil Society in International Lawmaking and Implementation: A Theoretical Framework

Plakokefalos: The Limits of Responsibility: Liability for Damage in the Deep Seabed?

Ilias Plakokefalos (Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has posted The Limits of Responsibility: Liability for Damage in the Deep Seabed? Here's the abstract:

This contribution seeks to discuss the limits of state responsibility as they are witnessed in the topic of international liability. The first part addresses the intersection between responsibility and liability using as a reference point the work of the International Law Commission. The second part utilizes the case study of the environmental protection of the Deep Seabed Area. This is done in order to analyze and highlight the problems and – possible – prospects of the limits of state responsibility in the environmental management of the Area.

Call for Papers: Constitutionalisation and Fragmentation of International Law Revisited

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Constitutionalisation and Fragmentation of International Law Revisited," to take place November 18-19, 2013, at the Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw. The call for papers is here.

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 20, no. 4, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Nitsan Chorev, Restructuring neoliberalism at the World Health Organization
• Patrick Sharma, Bureaucratic imperatives and policy outcomes: The origins of World Bank structural adjustment lending
• Ulrich Brand & Markus Wissen, Crisis and continuity of capitalist society-nature relationships: The imperial mode of living and the limits to environmental governance
• Antoni Verger & Barbara van Paassen, Human development vis-à-vis free trade: Understanding developing countries' positions in trade negotiations on education and intellectual property rights
• David Fields & Matías Vernengo, Hegemonic currencies during the crisis: The dollar versus the euro in a Cartalist perspective
• Thomas Richter, When do autocracies start to liberalize foreign trade? Evidence from four cases in the Middle East and North Africa
• Bartholomew Paudyn, Credit rating agencies and the sovereign debt crisis: Performing the politics of creditworthiness through risk and uncertainty
• Valbona Muzaka, Intellectual property protection and European ‘competitiveness'
• Thomas B. Pepinsky, The domestic politics of financial internationalization in the developing world
• Christopher Gandrud, The diffusion of financial supervisory governance ideas
• Stephen Robert Buzdugan, Regionalism from without: External involvement of the EU in regionalism in southern Africa
• Samuel Rueckert Brazys, Evidencing donor heterogeneity in Aid for Trade
• Liviu Voinea, Revisiting crisis generators in Romania and other new EU member states

SIEL/CUP Prize for an Essay in International Economic Law

The Society of International Economic Law and Cambridge University Press award a prize for best essay submitted on any topic in any field of international economic law. Here's this year's announcement:

2013 SIEL/CUP Essay Prize

Terms and conditions

A prize has been established by the Society of International Economic Law and Cambridge University Press for the best essay submitted on any topic in any field of international economic law.

The competition is open to all current undergraduate and graduate students of any university or other tertiary education institution, and those who have graduated from a university or other tertiary education institution no earlier than five years before the submission deadline (ie those who graduated prior to 30 September 2008 are not eligible for the 2013 Prize). Members of the SIEL Executive Council may not submit entries. The essay must not have been previously published.

The prize consists of £200, as well as £300 of Cambridge University Press book vouchers and a three year subscription to the World Trade Review. The winning essay will be submitted to the World Trade Review for publication. Publication of the essay in the World Trade Review will be subject to the WTR’s normal review and decision procedure, but the WTR Editorial Board commits to expediting consideration with a view to early publication.

The prize will be awarded by the SIEL Executive Council on the recommendation of a Prize Committee drawn from its members and the Editorial Board of the World Trade Review. Decisions of the Prize Committee on the winning essay and on any conditions relating to this prize are final and no correspondence will be entered into.

For clarification, essays with a focus on international commercial arbitration or EU law will not be considered for this Prize.

Any queries should be addressed by email to Dr Lorand Bartels, University of Cambridge (lab53@cam.ac.uk).

Submission details

Entries must be written in English and should follow the style-sheet for the World Trade Review. Entries should not exceed 8,000 words, including references, footnotes, tables, appendices, etc.

Entries must be submitted in Word format with a cover sheet containing the title of the entry, name and contact details. The essay itself must contain no identifying information other than the title.

Entries should be submitted using this form.

The deadline for submission is 30 September 2013 (17:00 GMT).

Essays may be submitted from 7 September 2013.

Bradley: Treaty Termination and Constitutional Change

Curtis A. Bradley (Duke Univ. - Law) has posted Treaty Termination and Constitutional Change. Here's the abstract:

The termination of U.S. treaties provides an especially rich example of how governmental practices can inform and even define the Constitution’s separation of powers. The authority to terminate treaties is not addressed specifically in the constitutional text and instead has been worked out over time through political branch practice. This practice, moreover, has developed largely without judicial review. Despite these features, Congress and the President — and the lawyers who advise them — have generally treated this issue as a matter of constitutional law, not merely political happenstance. Importantly, the example of treaty termination illustrates not only how historical practice can inform constitutional understandings, but also how these understandings can change. In the nineteenth century, the prevailing view was that the termination of treaties required either congressional or senatorial approval. That understanding changed in the twentieth century, and unilateral presidential termination became the norm. The contours of this shift likely apply to other issues of constitutional law relating to presidential authority: First there is a consensus, both among the governmental actors and in the scholarly community. Then deviations take place with a potentially limited scope. The Executive Branch proceeds to articulate broader theories of the deviations. Congress’s resistance is intermittent, depending on whether it objects to the deviations on policy grounds. Practice then builds up around low-stakes examples. Eventually a more controversial example arises and the President pushes forward successfully, thereby consolidating the changed understanding. This dynamic of accretion and consolidation of institutional practice is not adequately captured by theories of constitutional change that focus on judicial review or that emphasize particular moments of contestation or public deliberation.

Yee: ‘Member Responsibility’ and the ILC Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations: Some Observations

Sienho Yee (Wuhan Univ. - Law) has posted ‘Member Responsibility’ and the ILC Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations: Some Observations (in Responsibility of International Organizations: Essays in Memory of Sir Ian Brownlie, Maurizio Raggazi ed., 2013). Here's the abstract:

This paper briefly explains the idea of "member responsibility" for acts of an international organization, moves on to lay out the International Law Commission 2011 Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations framework on this issue, and then offers some critical observations on the ILC treatment of the topic. The 2011 articles framework on this issue can be considered to have four aspects, short-handed roughly as "independent personality", "additional acts approach", "no member responsibility", and ‘remedy-enabling obligations pursuant to the rules of the international organization’. The consolation prizes that the ILC has given to the world are article 61 on prevention of circumvention of member States’ obligations and article 40 on ensuring the fulfillment of the obligation to make reparation. Neither represents a substantial victory for member responsibility, but each can be considered a half-step forward in that direction. As to article 61, the intention to circumvent obligations may be too high a threshold and may not cover the original establishment of an international organization and thus may not completely solve the ‘beautiful for some but ugly for others’ problem, but at least it would catch the overtly villainous States, if any. As to article 40, the ‘take all appropriate measures’ obligation to enable remedies on the part of the international organization as well as its member States may not rise to the level of ‘hard obligations’ because under article 40 these obligations are supposed to be pursuant to the rules of the organization which may reject such obligations. The saving grace is probably the suggestion made in the commentary that an implied obligation to enable remedies should be read into silent or unclear rules of the organization. This can be a powerful idea because silent or unclear rules of the organizations are the norm, other formulations the exception. This ‘rule of interpretation’ may nudge the law into the direction of providing for remedies where they are due.

Call for Papers: Africa 2013 - Was There Something Missed in the Decolonization Process? The International Law Perspective

The Faculty of Law of the University of Trento has issued a call for papers for a Young Scholars Workshop on "Africa 2013 - Was There Something Missed in the Decolonization Process? The International Law Perspective." Here's the call:

Call for Papers

Young Scholars Workshop on International Law

XI Edition

Africa 2013 – Was There Something Missed in the Decolonization Process?

The International Law Perspective

Trento, 6-7 December 2013

The initiative

The Young Scholars Workshop on International Law is a periodic initiative taking place in Italy since 2003. It is aimed at providing a critical discussion forum in which early career academics, doctoral students, and young legal professionals are encouraged to present their research on specific topics of international law. The XI edition of the Workshop will be hosted by the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento.

Theme for the 2013 Workshop

The decolonization of Africa has been praised (including by several African States) as a success story of the United Nations. Nevertheless, recent phenomena of relevance for international law may cast shadows over this suggestion, especially if the decolonization process is considered from a broader economic, cultural and institutional perspective. More than half a century from the adoption of the fundamental General Assembly resolutions on self-determination and on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the OAU, the call for papers intends to address a fundamental research question: Has formal independence released African States from patterns of dominance by former colonial powers, other States, and transnational corporations?

Applicants are welcome to submit unpublished proposals that stand up in favor or against the research question by exploring, from an international law perspective, one or more of the following thematic areas:

a) The theory and practice of the use of force in Africa

− military coups

− intervention in civil wars

− achievements and failures of peacekeeping missions

− boundary and territorial disputes

− the role of regional organizations

b) Economic and social self-determination in Africa

− economic conditionalities and the role of international financial institutions

− achievements and failures of regional economic integration

− issues related to the exploitation of natural resources

− environmental protection and sustainable development

− issues concerning development cooperation (e.g. EU/USA/China-Africa relations)

− the participation of African States in international economic organizations and in their systems of dispute resolution

− problems related to foreign investments

c) Human rights and criminal justice: the African viewpoint

− international criminal justice v. traditional models of reconciliation

− achievements and failures of international criminal justice

− the specificity of the regional system of human rights protection

− gender and cultural issues

− indigenous rights

d) The circulation of legal and institutional models: Africa as champion or recipient?

− models of regional integration

− the legal regime applicable to the activities of transnational corporations (public and private international law perspectives)

− harmonization of private international law, business law and commercial arbitration

Submissions

Submissions should include a short abstract in English (max. 600 words), the author’s affiliation and full contact information. They will be selected through a competitive process based on scholarly merit and originality. Subject to peer review and editorial discretion, selected submissions may be considered for publication in a leading journal of international law. The organization will cover accommodation costs for successful applicants.

Applications should be submitted in Word format to Marco Pertile (marco.pertile@unitn.it) and Julinda Beqiraj (julinda.beqiraj@unitn.it).

Deadline for abstract submission: 22 September

Notification to successful applicants: 1 October 2013

Deadline for submission of draft papers: 17 November 2013

New Issue: Review of International Organizations

The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 8, no. 3, September 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Helen V. Milner & Dustin Tingley, The choice for multilateralism: Foreign aid and American foreign policy
• Gabriele Spilker & Tobias Böhmelt, The impact of preferential trade agreements on governmental repression revisited
• Thomas Rixen & Bernhard Zangl, The politicization of international economic institutions in US public debates
• Yoram Z. Haftel, Commerce and institutions: Trade, scope, and the design of regional economic organizations