Saturday, December 21, 2013

Symposium: Toward a Multipolar Administrative Law – A Theoretical Perspective

A symposium on "Toward a Multipolar Administrative Law – A Theoretical Perspective," organized by the Jean Monnet Center of the New York University School of Law and the Institute for Research on Public Administration, took place on September 9-10, 2012. A selection of the papers has been posted here.

Call for Submissions: Journal of Arbitration and Intellectual Property Law

A call for submissions has been issued for the inaugural issue of the Journal of Arbitration and Intellectual Property Law. Here's the call:

The Journal of Arbitration and Intellectual Property Law is a tri-annual academic journal, published online, that seeks to provide an international forum for the publication of articles in the field of Arbitration and Intellectual property Rights.

The Journal is currently soliciting submissions for Volume I, Issue 1, which will be published in February 2014.

The submission deadline for Volume I, Issue 1 is December 25 2013.

We welcome submissions from academicians, practitioners, students, researchers and experts from within the legal community. We have a strong preference for articles that assert and defend a well-reasoned position.

We welcome students to contribute their write-ups in the form of Long Articles, Short Articles, Case Comments, Legislative Comments, and Book Reviews.

The submissions should be well-researched and involve critical analyses of domestic or international legal issues/developments that are relevant and contemporary. Authors should also strike a balance between being crisp yet comprehensive.

Green: Rethinking Private Authority: Agents and Entrepreneurs in Global Environmental Governance

Jessica F. Green (Case Western Reserve Univ. - Political Science) has published Rethinking Private Authority: Agents and Entrepreneurs in Global Environmental Governance (Princeton Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

Rethinking Private Authority examines the role of non-state actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. Jessica Green identifies two distinct forms of private authority--one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them.

Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, Green shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. Green traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. She persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for her arguments.

Groundbreaking in scope, Rethinking Private Authority demonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems

Friday, December 20, 2013

New Issue: Kokusaihō gaikō zasshi / Journal of International Law and Diplomacy

The latest issue of Kokusaihō gaikō zasshi / Journal of International Law and Diplomacy (Vol. 111, no. 4, March 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Kohki Abe, Human Rights-ization of International Law: A Critical Analysis of the "Ethical Turn"
  • Tetsuya Nakano, Reservations to Human Rights Treaties
  • Hiromi Sato, The Theory of Joint Criminal Enterprise and Customary International Law
  • Donald McRae, The Interrelationship of Codification and Progressive Development in the Work of the International Law Commission

New Issue: Diritto del Commercio Internazionale

The latest issue of Diritto del Commercio Internazionale (2013, no. 2) is out. Contents include:
  • Ugo Draetta, Italy as a place for international arbitrations: the myths of the “Italian torpedo”, the “irritual” arbitration et alia
  • Lorenzo Melchionda, The Assignment of Claims in International Investment Arbitrations
  • Paolo D. Farah & Elena Cima, L’energia nel contesto degli accordi dell’OMC: sovvenzioni per le energie rinnovabili e pratiche OPEC di controllo dei prezzi

New Issue: Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The latest issue of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (Vol. 46, no. 4, October 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Symposium: The Role of Non-State Actors in International Law
    • Ian Smillie, Blood Diamonds and Non-State Actors
    • Harlan Grant Cohen, Lawyers and Precedent
    • Peter Margulies, Constraining Targeting in Noninternational Armed Conflicts: Safe Conduct for Combatants Conducting Informal Dispute Resolution
    • Suzanne Katzenstein, Reverse-Rhetorical Entrapment: Naming and Shaming as a Two-Way Street
    • Peter J. Spiro, Constraining Global Corporate Power: A Short Introduction
    • Jean d’Aspremont, Cognitive Conflicts and the Making of International Law: From Empirical Concord to Conceptual Discord in Legal Scholarship

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 20, no. 6, 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • IPE with China's characteristics
    • Gregory Chin, Margaret M. Pearson & Wang Yong, Introduction – IPE with China's characteristics
    • Wang Yong & Louis Pauly, Chinese IPE debates on (American) hegemony
    • Pang Zhongying & Hongying Wang, Debating international institutions and global governance: The missing Chinese IPE contribution
    • Tianbiao Zhu & Margaret Pearson, Globalization and the role of the state: Reflections on Chinese international and comparative political economy scholarship
    • Xin Wang & Gregory Chin, Turning point: International money and finance in Chinese IPE
    • Qingxin K. Wang & Mark Blyth, Constructivism and the study of international political economy in China

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 52, no. 4, 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga (Int’l Crim. Ct.), with introductory note by Steven Arrigg Koh
  • Apotex Inc. v. United States: Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility (NAFTA Arb.), with introductory Note by Ronald J. Bettauer
  • Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (U.S. Sup. Ct.), with introductory note by Chimène I. Keitner
  • The Arms Trade Treaty, with introductory note by Scott Stedjan
  • Resolutions of the World Health Organization on the Election of the Director-General, with introductory note by Gian Luca Burci
  • Agreement and Statute of the Extraordinary African Chambers, with introductory note by Roland Adjovi
  • European Union Unitary Patent Package, with introductory note by Yohan Benizri

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Call for Papers: Il futuro delle organizzazioni internazionali – Prospettive giuridiche / L’avenir des organisations internationales. Perspectives juridiques

A call for papers has been issued for the 19th annual conference of the Italian Society of International Law, which will take place June 26-28, 2014, in Courmayeur. The theme is "Il futuro delle organizzazioni internazionali – Prospettive giuridiche / L’avenir des organisations internationales. Perspectives juridiques." Here's the call (Italian/French):

APPEL A COMMUNICATIONS

La Società Italiana di Diritto Internazionale (SIDI), en collaboration avec la Société Française pour le Droit International et la Fondazione Courmayeur Mont Blanc, invite les chercheurs de Droit International (public et privé) et de Droit de l’Union Européenne à soumettre leurs propositions de communication en vue du Colloque international “L’avenir des organisations internationales. Perspectives juridiques” qui se tiendra à Courmayeur (Italie) du 26 au 28 juin 2014, dans le cadre des thématiques suivantes (la liste n’est pas exhaustive):

  • Cas de superposition ou/et synergie entre organisations internationales dans des secteurs spécifiques, tels que la protection de l’environnement, le commerce international, la protection des droits de l’homme et l’utilisation de la force;
  • Anciennes et nouvelles formes de participation de la société civile aux organisations internationales et exigences de démocratisation;
  • Problèmes de coordination et de représentation de l’Union Européenne et de ses Etats membres au sein des organisations internationales universelles et régionales;
  • L’Union Européenne comme “modèle” pour d’autres expériences de coopération entre Etats en ce qui concerne, en particulier, le système juridictionnel;
  • Le rôle des organisations internationales universelles et régionales dans la solution pratique de la crise économique des années 2008-2013 et conséquences de la crise sur la structure de gouvernance desdites organisations et, en particulier, de l’Union Européenne;
  • Le rôle des organisations internationales dans l’harmonisation du droit international privé au moyen de divers types d’instruments normatifs: cas spécifiques liés à leur application au niveau national;
  • La contribution de sujets autres que les Etats au développement du droit international privé et processuel dans les organisations internationales.

Les propositions seront exposées dans un résumé de 500 mots maximum. Le texte de la communication et sa présentation durant le Colloque pourront être en italien ou en français, au choix de l’auteur.

Le résumé de la proposition de communication, au format PDF, devra être adressé, avant le 28 février 2014, à la SIDI à l’adresse suivante info@sidi-isil.org. Ce résumé devra porter le prénom, le nom et l’affiliation de l’auteur et être accompagné de l’engagement de l’auteur à soumettre, au cas où il serait sélectionné, la version presque définitive de sa communication avant le 31 mai 2014, de façon à ce qu’elle puisse être mise à la disposition des participants lors du Colloque.

Avant le 15 mars 2014, la SIDI communiquera les résultats de la sélection à tous ceux qui auront soumis un résumé. Les auteurs sélectionnés seront les invités des organisateurs du Colloque.

Les communications sélectionnées, dans leur version définitive, seront publiées dans les actes du Colloque, dans une collection spéciale éditée par les soins de l’Editeur Editoriale Scientifica de Naples. Les actes du Colloque seront publiés au cours du premier semestre 2015.

ESIL Lecture Series (Video)

The European Society of International Law has posted on YouTube three more installments in the ESIL Lecture Series. (ESIL has its own YouTube Channel.) The lectures are:

Call for Papers: Fifth International Four Societies Conference

The American Society of International Law, the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law, the Canadian Council on International Law, and the Japanese Society of International Law have issued a call for papers for their fifth joint conference and invite paper proposals from their members. The theme is "Experts, Networks and International Law." Here's the call:

The Fifth International Four Societies Conference

Australian National University

1-2 July 2014

Call for Papers

The international law societies of Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Japan and the United States of America (the “Four Societies”) have held four conferences bringing together early career scholars around a theme, generally leading to an edited conference volume. The underlying goal of this initiative is to foster a scholarly network between individuals associated with the four sponsoring societies. The first cycle of the Four Societies Project saw events hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL) at University of Wellington in 2006, the Canadian Council on International Law held at Edmonton in 2008, the Japanese Society of International Law held on Awajishima Island in 2010, and the American Society of International Law held at Berkeley Law School in 2012 ANZSIL will host the Fifth International Four Societies Conference at the Australian National University on 1-2 July 2014, on the theme of Experts, Networks and International Law. The Steering Committee for the Fifth Conference now invites paper proposals from members of the Four Societies.

The Theme: Experts, Networks and International Law

A decade ago, in her book A New World Order, Anne-Marie Slaughter presented a novel answer to the question of how best to govern the world. Slaughter argued that global governance already existed, but that it was not to be found where most people expected to find it. She focused particularly on the emergence of ‘government networks’ as a ‘key feature of world order in the twenty-first century’ (1). Slaughter argued that it was necessary ‘to stop imagining the international system’ as a system of unitary states, and to start thinking about the ways in which states had become ‘disaggregated’ (5-6). The state could best be understood as the sum of its aggregate parts (legislatures, regulators, judiciaries), with those parts increasingly having the capacity (and at times the imperative) to interact with their foreign counterparts in order to address issues of common concern. For Slaughter, the emergence of a ‘world of government networks’ was not just an ‘underappreciated’ fact of international life (1), but also offered ‘a more effective and potentially more just world order’ than either ‘what we have today’ or ‘a world government in which a set a global institutions perched above nation-states enforced global rules’ (7). Government networks, operating alongside international institutions, could often provide a more efficient and just way of ordering a globalized world: more efficient, because management of transnational problems (such as pandemics, natural disasters, or terrorism) required flexibility and an ability to harmonize and coordinate government responses between counterpart national officials; more just, because the decentralized and dispersed nature of networks, when guided by principles such as deliberative equality, legitimate difference, positive comity and subsidiarity, were able to exercise power without a centralized coercive authority (30). Slaughter concluded that ‘(g)lobal governance through government networks is good public policy for the world’ – a ‘world order self-consciously created out of horizontal and vertical government networks could … create a genuine global rule of law without centralized global institutions’ (261).

This conference will reflect upon how the vision of a new world order based upon networked, disaggregated state institutions has held up over the past ten years. How has this ideal of global governance fared in the face of world events since 2004 (such as the Global Financial Crisis and the Arab Spring), or the perceived failure to achieve consensus on core policy questions relating to pressing global issues such as climate change, agricultural liberalisation, international criminal prosecution, the responsibility to protect, or financial market reform? Does international law today in fact operate through diffused networks? Have (and how have) domestic courts lived up to their promise in enforcing a new transnational legal system? What do empirical studies of networks reveal about their effectiveness as mechanisms of decision- making and governance? Do network principles of ‘harmonisation’ and ‘convergence’ work in ‘hard’ issue areas (such as security, scarcity, and global redistribution)? How does power operate within and between transnational networks? Is strengthening governance by experts across fields such as policing, counter-terrorism, environmental protection, human rights promotion, food safety, public health, financial regulation, international criminal prosecution, investment liberalisation, and security sector reform equally desirable and effective? What is the power of networks and norm entrepreneurs in setting global policy agendas, and how much control do global policy-makers really have over the implementation of those agendas? Do networks complement or compete with traditional institutions of global governance, and how do these dynamics vary in different institutional and substantive settings? Should international lawyers support the development of global governance through government networks, or should they take a more critical approach to the rise of networked governance? The 2014 Four Societies conference provides an opportunity for exploring these and related aspects of the broad theme of experts, networks and international law. We encourage proposals from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and from all areas of international law. We welcome applications from those who are interested in working within the discipline of international law, as well as those taking an interdisciplinary approach to the theme.

Submission of Proposals and the Process of Selection

Applications to take part in the conference should include a paper description not exceeding 300 words and the applicant’s curriculum vitae. Papers should cover work that has not been published. The Four Societies intend to publish the papers in an edited collection with a leading international publisher. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to the Society of which the applicant is a member; applicants who are members of more than one of the Societies should make a submission to only one Society. The deadline for submission of proposals is February 1, 2014. Submissions should be made to the following individuals:

ANZSIL: Professor Anne Orford a.orford@unimelb.edu.au

ASIL: Ms Elizabeth Andersen events@asil.org

CCIL: Professor Joanna Harrington Joanna.Harrington@ualberta.ca

JSIL: Professor Akio Morita a.morita@hosei.ac.jp

Each sponsoring society will select four papers, subject to the review and approval of the Steering Committee comprised of members from the Four Societies. Preference will be given to papers by those who are in the early stages of their careers. The selected participants will be notified in March 2014. Each participant will submit a full paper to the organizers by 1 June 2014 for distribution to the other participants. Transportation to the venue will be subject to arrangement between each sponsoring organisation and its conference participants (and may include the seeking of internal university support or use of an existing grant). Lodging and meals at the venue during the conference will be provided by ANZSIL. The working language of the Conference will be English.

Recchia & Welsh: Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill

Stefano Recchia (Univ. of Cambridge - Politics and International Studies) & Jennifer M. Welsh (European Univ. Institute - Political and Social Sciences) have published Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
Classical arguments about the legitimate use of force have profoundly shaped the norms and institutions of contemporary international society. But what specific lessons can we learn from the classical European philosophers and jurists when thinking about humanitarian intervention, preventive self-defense or international trusteeship today? The contributors to this volume take seriously the admonition of contextualist scholars not to uproot classical thinkers' arguments from their social, political and intellectual environment. Nevertheless, this collection demonstrates that contemporary students, scholars and policymakers can still learn a great deal from the questions raised by classical European thinkers, the problems they highlighted, and even the problematic character of some of the solutions they offered. The aim of this volume is to open up current assumptions about military intervention, and to explore the possibility of reconceptualizing and reappraising contemporary approaches.

Hernández: The Activist Academic in IL Scholarship

Gleider I. Hernández (Durham Univ. - Law) has posted an ESIL Reflection on The Activist Academic in IL Scholarship.

Waters: The Milosevic Trial: An Autopsy

Timothy William Waters (Indiana Univ., Bloomington - Law) has published The Milosevic Trial: An Autopsy (Oxford Univ. Press 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The Milosevic Trial - An Autopsy provides a cross-disciplinary examination of the most controversial war crimes trial of the modern era and its contested legacy for the growing fields of international criminal law and post-conflict justice.

The international trial of Slobodan Milosevic, who presided over the violent collapse of Yugoslavia - was already among the longest war crimes trials when Milosevic died in 2006. Yet precisely because it ended without judgment, its significance and legacy are specially contested. The contributors to this volume, including trial participants, area specialists, and international law scholars bring a variety of perspectives as they examine the meaning of the trial's termination and its implications for post-conflict justice. The book's approach is intensively cross-disciplinary, weighing the implications for law, politics, and society that modern war crimes trials create.

The time for such an examination is fitting, with the imminent closing of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and rising debates over its legacy, as well as the 20th anniversary of the outbreak of the Yugoslav conflict. The Milosevic Trial - An Autopsy brings thought-provoking insights into the impact of war crimes trials on post-conflict justice.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Vrdoljak: The Cultural Dimension of Human Rights

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak (Univ. of Technology, Sydney - Law) has published The Cultural Dimension of Human Rights (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The intersections between culture and human rights have engaged some of the most heated and controversial debates across international law and theory. As understandings of culture have evolved in recent decades to encompass culture as ways of life, there has been a shift in emphasis from national cultures to cultural diversity within and across states. This has entailed a push to more fully articulate cultural rights within human rights law.

This volume analyses a range of responses by international law, and particularly human rights law, to some of the thorniest, perennial, and sometimes violent confrontations fuelled by culture in relations between individuals, groups and the state in international society. Across the different issues tackled, the contributions are tied by one unifying thread - that culture is understood, protected and promoted not only for its physical manifestations. Rather, it is the relationship of culture to people, individually or in groups, and the diversity of these relationships which is being protected and promoted; hence, the fundamental overlap between culture and human rights.

Liber amicorum en l'honneur de Raymond Ranjeva - L'Afrique et le droit international : variations sur l'organisation internationale

Liber amicorum en l'honneur de Raymond Ranjeva - L'Afrique et le droit international : variations sur l'organisation internationale (Pedone 2013) has been published. The table of contents is here.

New Issue: Journal of International Economic Law

The latest issue of the Journal of International Economic Law (Vol. 16, no. 4, December 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Robert W. Staiger & Alan O. Sykes, Non-Violations
  • Armand C. M. de Mestral, Dispute Settlement Under the WTO and RTAs: An Uneasy Relationship
  • Bruce Wardhaugh, GSP+ and Human Rights: Is the EU’s Approach the Right One?
  • Simon Lester & Inu Barbee, The Challenge of Cooperation: Regulatory Trade Barriers in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
  • Federico M. Lavopa, Lucas E. Barreiros, & M. Victoria Bruno, How to Kill a BIT and not Die Trying: Legal and Political Challenges of Denouncing or Renegotiating Bilateral Investment Treaties
  • Christian Vidal-León, Corporate Social Responsibility, Human Rights, and the World Trade Organization
  • Dan Wei, Antidumping in Emerging Countries in the Post-crisis Era: A Case Study on Brazil and China

New Issue: Journal européen des droits de l'homme / European Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Journal européen des droits de l'homme / European Journal of Human Rights (2013, no. 4) is out. Contents include:
  • Dossier: L’adhésion de l’Union européenne à la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme: questions émergentes / The accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights: emerging issues
    • Vasiliki Kosta, Nikos Skoutaris & Vassilis P. Tzevelekos, Introduction : the Accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights Introduction : l’adhésion de l’Union européenne à la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme
    • Aida Torres Pérez, Too many voices ? The prior involvement of the Court of Justice of the European Union / Trop de voix ? L’intervention préliminaire de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne
    • Olivier De Schutter, The Two Lives of Bosphorus : Redefining the Relationships between the European Court of Human Rights and the Parties to the Convention / Les deux vies de Bosphorus : la redéfinition des rapports entre la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme et les Parties à la Convention
    • Monica Claes & Šejla Imamović, Caught in the Middle or Leading the Way ? National Courts in the New European Fundamental Rights Landscape / Entre deux feux ou ouvrant la voie ? Les juridictions nationales dans le nouveau paysage européen des droits fondamentaux
    • Arman Sarvarian, The Attribution of Conduct in the Law of International Reponsibility, the European Union and the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights / L’attribution de comportement dans le droit de la responsabilité internationale, l’Union européenne et la jurisprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme

Call for Applications: The Hague Academy's Centre for Studies and Research

The Hague Academy of International Law is now accepting applications for the next session of its Centre for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations, which is to take place August 18-September 5, 2014. This year's subject is "The Rights of Women and Elimination of Discrimination." The program is available here. Here's the idea:
The Centre is designed to bring together young international lawyers of a high standard from all over the world, to undertake original research on a common general theme which is determined each year by the Academy. The research work undertaken at the Centre may be included in a collective work published by the Academy.

Chehtman: Jurisdiction

Alejandro Chehtman (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella - Law) has posted Jurisdiction (in Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law, Markus Dubber & Tatjana Höernle eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
This chapter seeks to provide an overall account of criminal jurisdiction under both international and domestic law. Section 2 presents the overall analyitical framework. It advocates understanding criminal jurisdiction as a Hohfeldian power to mete out legal punishment to a particular offender, and explains how this notion helps to distniguish conceptually between adjudicative and enforcement jurisdiction, and between the ambit and venue of the criminal law. The following Section presents and critically assesses the basic legal framework currently in force for domestic offences, namely, the principles of territoriality, nationality, passive personality and protection and the arguments that have been traditionally given to defend them. Section 4 discusses less central bases of criminal jurisdiction, such as the principle of vicarious jurisdiction, fraude à la loi, and jurisdiction over organized or transnational criminality, and seeks to provide conceptual clarity as to the best way to understand each of these extensions under the existing framework. Finally, Section 5 explores the three main theoretical approaches under which the existing legal framework has been usually defended or criticized. It therefore takes issue with 'comity' as the overall explanatory tool, with standard retributivist and deterrence accounts, and with the claim that the scope of State's criminal jurisdiction is derived from the internal structure of the notion of responsibility. Section 6 briefly concludes.

Sarat, Douglas, & Umphrey: Law and War

Austin Sarat (Amherst College - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), Lawrence Douglas (Amherst College - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), & Martha Merrill Umphrey (Amherst College - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought) have published Law and War (Stanford Univ. Press 2014). Contents include:
  • Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, & Martha Merrill Umphrey, Law and War: An Introduction
  • Sarah Sewall, Limits of Law: Promoting Humanity in Armed Conflict
  • Gabriella Blum, The Individualization of War: From War to Policing in the Regulation of Armed Combat
  • Laura K. Donohue, Pandemic Disease, Biological Weapons, and War
  • Samuel Moyn, From Antiwar Politics to Antitorture Politics
  • Larry May, War Crimes Trials during and after War

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 13, no. 1, January 2014) is out. Contents include:
  • Jaime Tijmes, Jurisprudential developments on the purpose of WTO suspension of obligations
  • Marc L. Busch & Krzysztof J. Pelc, Law, politics, and the true cost of protectionism: the choice of trade remedies or binding overhang.
  • Wolfgang Alschner, Amicable Settlements of WTO Disputes: Bilateral Solutions in a Multilateral System.
  • C. Zaki, An empirical assessment of the trade facilitation initiative: econometric evidence and global economic effects.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 24, no. 4, November 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial
    • JHHW, Crime and Punishment: The Reification and Deification of the State (A Footnote to the Syria Debate); House-keeping: Anonymity; In this Issue
  • Articles
    • Andrew Guzman, International Organizations and the Frankenstein Problem
    • Geraldo Vidigal, From Bilateral to Multilateral Law-Making: Legislation, Practice, Evolution and the Future of Inter-Se Agreements in the WTO
  • Symposium: The International Law Commission’s Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties
    • Marko Milanovic & Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, Reservations to Treaties: An Introduction
    • Alain Pellet, The ILC Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties: A General Presentation by the Special Rapporteur
    • Michael Wood, Institutional Aspects of the Guide to Practice on Reservations
    • Daniel Muller, Reservations and Time: Is There Only One Right Moment to Formulate and to React to Reservations?
    • Ineta Ziemele & Lasma Liede, Reservations to Human Rights Treaties: From Draft Guideline 3.1.12 to Guideline 3.1.5.6
  • Roaming Charges: Places of Destruction and Rebirth: A Remnant of the Kraków Ghetto Wall
  • EJIL: Debate!
    • Andrew Williams, The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy
    • Stelios Andreadakis, The European Convention on Human Rights, the EU and the UK: Confronting a Heresy: A Reply to Andrew Williams
  • EJIL: Debate!
    • Rosa Raffaelli, Horizontal Review between International Organizations: A Reply to Abigail C. Deshman
    • Abigail C. Deshman, Horizontal Review between International Organizations: A Rejoinder to Rosa Raffaelli
  • Critical Review of International Governance
    • Gurdial Nijar, Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation?
  • Review Essay
    • Christian Djeffal, Commentaries on the Law of Treaties: A Review Essay Reflecting on the Genre of Commentaries

Lee & Lee: Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges

Seokwoo Lee (Inha Univ. - Law) & Hee Eun Lee (Handong International Law School) have published Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Since the end of the Cold War, Northeast Asia has been one of the most dynamic and dangerous parts of the world. Encompassing Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and North and South Korea, the region has undoubtedly acquired a greater global geopolitical and economic significance in recent years. Now home to two of the three largest economies in the world, with the exception of North Korea, all of the countries in the region experienced rapid economic development which has resulted in Northeast Asia accounting for one-fifth of world production, one-sixth of world trade, and one-half of the world’s foreign currency reserves. This great economic dynamism is complemented by the tremendous political forces that animate the region, such as China’s ascendency to a global power challenging the United States and the European Union, tensions over nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, and Japan’s desire to validate itself as a legitimate international force with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

All of these modern issues faced by the region are matters of international law. Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges contends that international law is not only poised to take a bigger role in bringing about a resolution to these questions, but international lawyers of the region are working to bring about greater regional cooperation and integration as seen in other regions in the world. This edited volume was inspired by the first joint international academic conference of international lawyers from the Chinese Society of International Law, Japanese Society of International Law, and Korean Society of International Law which took place in Seoul, Korea on July 3, 2010. With a range of timely topics including, but not limited to, North Korean human rights, the South China Sea, and Japan’s efforts in UN peacekeeping operations, the esteemed contributors to Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges examine how international law can promote peace and justice in Northeast Asia.

New Issue: International Studies Quarterly

The latest issue of the International Studies Quarterly (Vol. 57, no. 4, December 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Michael A. Allen & Matthew Digiuseppe, Tightening the Belt: Sovereign Debt and Alliance Formation
  • Max Abrahms, The Credibility Paradox: Violence as a Double-Edged Sword in International Politics
  • Timothy M. Peterson, Sending a Message: The Reputation Effect of US Sanction Threat Behavior
  • Seo-Young Cho, Integrating Equality: Globalization, Women's Rights, and Human Trafficking
  • Simone Dietrich, Bypass or Engage? Explaining Donor Delivery Tactics in Foreign Aid Allocation
  • Catherine Eschle, Gender and the Subject of (Anti)Nuclear Politics: Revisiting Women’s Campaigning against the Bomb
  • Graeme A. M. Davies & Robert Johns, Audience Costs among the British Public: The Impact of Escalation, Crisis Type, and Prime Ministerial Rhetoric
  • Elizabeth Buckner & Susan Garnett Russell, Portraying the Global: Cross-national Trends in Textbooks’ Portrayal of Globalization and Global Citizenship
  • Nathan M. Jensen, Domestic Institutions and the Taxing of Multinational Corporations
  • Ryan Kennedy & Lydia Tiede, Economic Development Assumptions and the Elusive Curse of Oil
  • Nicola Pratt, Reconceptualizing Gender, Reinscribing Racial–Sexual Boundaries in International Security: The Case of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on “Women, Peace and Security”
  • Karl Kaltenthaler & William J. Miller, Social Psychology and Public Support for Trade Liberalization
  • Richard A. Nielsen, Rewarding Human Rights? Selective Aid Sanctions against Repressive States
  • José Fernández-Albertos, Alexander Kuo & Laia Balcells, Economic Crisis, Globalization, and Partisan Bias: Evidence from Spain
  • Sean Starrs, American Economic Power Hasn't Declined—It Globalized! Summoning the Data and Taking Globalization Seriously
  • Paul Poast & Johannes Urpelainen, Fit and Feasible: Why Democratizing States Form, not Join, International Organizations
  • Michael Breen & Iain McMenamin, Political Institutions, Credible Commitment, and Sovereign Debt in Advanced Economies

New Issue: International Studies Review

The latest issue of International Studies Review (Vol. 15, no. 4, December 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Analytical Essays: Evaluation, Synthesis, Reflections
    • Michael D. Ward, Nils W. Metternich, Cassy L. Dorff, Max Gallop, Florian M. Hollenbach, Anna Schultz & Simon Weschle, Learning from the Past and Stepping into the Future: Toward a New Generation of Conflict Prediction
    • Milan Babík, Realism as Critical Theory: The International Thought of E. H. Carr
    • Allison M. Shelton, Szymon M. Stojek & Patricia L. Sullivan, What Do We Know about Civil War Outcomes?
    • Quddus Z. Snyder, Taking the System Seriously: Another Liberal Theory of International Politics
  • The Forum
    • Hélène Trudeau, Isabelle Duplessis, Suzanne Lalonde, Thijs Van de Graaf, Ferdi De Ville, Kate O'Neill, Charles Roger, Peter Dauvergne, Jean-Frédéric Morin, Sebastian Oberthür, Amandine Orsini, Frank Biermann, Hiroshi Ohta & Atsushi Ishii, Insights from Global Environmental Governance

Monday, December 16, 2013

Hilpold: The ‘Politiciziation’ of the EU’s Common Commercial Policy – Approaching the ‘Post-Lockean’ Era

Peter Hilpold (Univ. of Innsbruck - Law) has posted The ‘Politiciziation’ of the EU’s Common Commercial Policy – Approaching the ‘Post-Lockean’ Era (in Reflections on the Constitutionalization of International Economic Law, Marise Cremona, Peter Hilpold, Nikos Lavranos, Stefan Staiger Schneider & Andreas R. Ziegler eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
The coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty is generally considered to be an important step in the further development of EU law. It is praised for bringing about greater efficiency, greater democracy and for bringing the Union closer to the Union’s citizens. The quest for a more democratic EU, in particular, has been a pivotal goal. In the perennial need to win over majorities for further integration, the promise of granting broader participatory rights has regularly been the bait. The manner of achieving this end was subject to intense discussion, but the overall consensus was that broader democratization should mainly be achieved by strengthening the role of the European Parliament (EP). With the Treaty of Lisbon the EP’s affirmation process, which started in 1957 at a very low-key level, has come full circle. In this process, through which the EP managed to attract ever greater powers, the Common Commercial Policy (CCP), long held to be immune from any EU parliamentarian interference, also came within the Parliament’s orbit. The consequence of this reform is slowly seeping into public awareness. The democratization of the common commercial policy is equivalent to an enormous leap forward in the politicization of this field.

Gantz: Liberalizing International Trade after Doha: Multilateral, Plurilateral, Regional, and Unilateral Initiatives

David A. Gantz (Univ. of Arizona - Law) has published Liberalizing International Trade after Doha: Multilateral, Plurilateral, Regional, and Unilateral Initiatives (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:
After ten years the Doha Development Round is effectively dead. Although some have suggested that Doha's demise threatens the continued existence of the GATT/WTO system, even with some risks of increasing protectionism, the United States, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, China and India, among others, have too much to lose to make abandoning the WTO a rational option. There are alternatives to a comprehensive package of new or amended multilateral agreements, including existing and future 'plurilateral' trade agreements, new or revised regional trade agreements covering both goods and services, and liberalized national trade laws and regulations in the WTO member nations. This book discusses these alternatives, which although less than ideal, may provide an impetus for continuing trade liberalization both among willing members and in some instances worldwide.

Bachmann, Sparrow-Botero, & Lambertz: When Justice Meets Politics: Independence and Autonomy of Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals

Klaus Bachmann, Thomas Sparrow-Botero, & Peter Lambertz have published When Justice Meets Politics: Independence and Autonomy of Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals (Peter Lang 2013). Here's the abstract:
Are the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) independent actors, who mete out fair and un-biased justice, or instruments of a new world order, which execute the will of the most powerful states? By applying process tracing and frame analysis, this book reveals the interplay between the power politics of states, the agenda setting power of international criminal tribunals and the scope of the autonomy which the tribunals, the prosecutors and judges enjoy – and how they make use of it. The book details the mechanisms that govern judicial behaviour at the ICTY and the ICTR as well as the influence of the media, non-governmental organisations, governments and international organisations on judges and prosecutors. Last but not least, it shows why and how initially controversial frames like those about the «genocide in Srebrenica» and «the Rwandan genocide» became almost undisputed notions which are hardly challenged by anyone today.

Farrell: The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances

Michelle Farrell (Univ. of Liverpool - Law) has published The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:
Can torture be justified in exceptional circumstances? In this timely work, Michelle Farrell asks how and why this question has become such a central debate. She argues that the ticking bomb scenario is a fiction which blinds us to the reality of torture and investigates what it is that that scenario fails to represent. Farrell aims to reframe how we think about torture, and critically reflects on the historical and contemporary approaches to its use in exceptional situations. She demonstrates how torture, from its use in Algeria to the 'War on Terror', has been misrepresented, and appraises the legalist, extra-legalist and absolutist assessments of exception to the torture prohibition. Employing Giorgio Agamben's theory of the state of exception as a foil, Farrell deconstructs these approaches and goes on to propose her own theory of exceptional torture.

Call for Papers: Jeunes chercheurs SFDI

La Société française pour le droit international (SFDI) will hold its annual conference at l’Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 on May 22-24, 2014. The theme is "Le développement et le droit international." Within the framework of the conference, SFDI has issued calls for papers for two demi-journées d’études. The first will be on the topic "Développement et Droits de l’Homme" and will take place February 21, 2014, at l’Université Panthéon-Assas Paris. The call is here, and the deadline is January 14, 2014. The second will be on the topic "Développement et maintien de la paix et de la sécurité" and will take place February 25, 2014, at Science Po Lyon. The call is here, and the deadline is December 18, 2013.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Call for Submissions: Transitional Justice: Does it have a future?

The International Journal of Transitional Justice has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "Transitional Justice: Does it have a future?." Here's the call:

Transitional Justice: Does it have a future?

The International Journal of Transitional Justice invites submissions for its 2015 special issue entitled ‘Transitional justice: Does it have a future?' to be guest edited by Dean Makau Mutua.*

It has been more than a quarter of a century since transitional justice burst onto the global stage. Over the years it has come to be billed as a panacea for addressing deeply embedded social and political dysfunction after periods of mass repression and violence. Many theorists and policy makers have argued that it is a key bridge to sustainable peace, democracy and human rights. But the historical record is not clear about a direct causal relationship between transitional justice mechanisms and specific outcomes in postconflict societies. In some cases, truth commissions, criminal prosecutions and other transitional justice interventions appear to have given society a chance at a new and hopeful beginning. In others, conflicts have either re-emerged or been exacerbated. Which begs the question, is transitional justice the appropriate vehicle for achieving these goals? If it does not always lead to positive outcomes, why not? Are there conceptual problems and theoretical deficiencies in how we make sense of justice and transitions that account for the failures? Or is it the translation of transitional justice norms into practice that is wanting?

The big question the 2015 special issue seeks to explore is this: Does transitional justice have a future, given its mixed record? This issue brings together scholars and actors engaged in the field of transitional justice to focus on the meaning of the concept, how its application has evolved and whether it is sustainable as theory and praxis.

Some of the key questions to explore include:

  • How defined is the concept of transitional justice?
  • What exactly does it entail and what does it seek to achieve?
  • Are political democracy, the rule of law and human rights – the pivots of liberalism – the desired end results implicit in transitional justice approaches? If so, why should liberalism be the germ of the new postconflict society?
  • If transitional justice promotes liberalism, who gains and who loses if it succeeds?
  • How would liberalism address deeply rooted cultural, colonial and ethnic rivalries and inequities?
  • If transitional justice promotes liberalism, who gains and who loses if it succeeds?
  • How would liberalism address deeply rooted cultural, colonial and ethnic rivalries and inequities?
  • Would structures of deep inequity be vanquished by these norms? Or does this conception of transitional justice exacerbate conflicts as it seeks to transform societies?
  • Who pays for transformation?
  • What about market forces and norms – do they fuel or contain conflict?
  • If existing transitional justice concepts are inadequate to recover, or reclaim, societies sickened by violence and repression, are there alternatives?
  • If so, how do those alternatives compare with present conceptualizations of transitional justice?
  • Should the term ‘transitional justice’ itself be discarded?

This special issue will openly tackle these questions through both new and established voices, with a particular emphasis on thinkers and actors from the global South. It seeks contributions that are unbounded by existing thinking. The idea is to advance the debate on transitional justice by re-examining core assumptions and plowing new intellectual ground.

*Professor Mutua is Dean, Distinguished Professor and the Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York. Previously, he was the Associate Director at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program and the Director of the Africa Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. He was appointed by the Government of Kenya as Chairman of the Task Force on the Establishment of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, which recommended a truth commission for Kenya. He serves as the Chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission.

The deadline for submissions is 1 July 2014.

Papers should be submitted online from the IJTJ webpage.

For questions or further information, please contact the Managing Editor at ijtj@csvr.org.za.

New Issue: ASA Bulletin

The latest issue of the ASA Bulletin (Vol. 31, no. 4, 2013) is out. Contents include:
  • Ingeborg Schwenzer & David Tebel, The Word is not Enough – Arbitration, Choice of Forum and Choice of Law Clauses Under the CISG
  • Luca Beffa, Enforcement of “Default Awards”
  • Julia Salasky & Corinne Montineri, UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration
  • Franz T. Schwarz & Christian W. Konrad, The Revised Vienna Rules An Overview of Some Significant Changes (and a Preview of the New Austrian Arbitration Law 2014)
  • Olivier Caprasse & Charles Price, The CEPANI 2013 Arbitration Rules