New Issue: International Security

The latest issue of International Security (Vol. 38, no. 4, Spring 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Jenna Jordan, Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark: Why Terrorist Groups Survive Decapitation Strikes
• New Dimensions of Proliferation
• R. Scott Kemp, The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes: The Gas Centrifuge, Supply-Side Controls, and the Future of Nuclear Proliferation
• Gaurav Kampani, New Delhi's Long Nuclear Journey: How Secrecy and Institutional Roadblocks Delayed India's Weaponization
• Evan Braden Montgomery, Contested Primacy in the Western Pacific: China's Rise and the Future of U.S. Power Projection
• Kristin M. Bakke, Help Wanted? The Mixed Record of Foreign Fighters in Domestic Insurgencies
• Correspondence
• Richard W. Maass, Carla Norrlof, & Daniel W. Drezner, The Profitability of Primacy

Symposium on Jürgen Kurtz’s The WTO and International Investment Law

The latest issue of the Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies (Vol. 9, June 2014) contains a symposium on Jürgen Kurtz’s The WTO and International Investment Law. Contents include:

• Giorgio Sacerdoti, Trade and Investment Law: Institutional Differences and Substantive Similarities
• Donald McRae, The World Trade Organization and International Investment Law: Converging Systems—Can the Case for Convergence be Made?
• Tomer Broude, Toward an Economic Approach to the Consolidation of International Trade Regulation and International Investment Law
• Jürgen Kurtz, Charting the Future of the Twin Pillars of International Economic Law

Gopalan & Hogan: Ethical Transnational Corporate Activity at Home and Abroad: A Proposal for Reforming Continuous Disclosure Obligations in Australia and the United States

Sandeep Gopalan (Univ. of Newcastle - Law) & Katrina Hogan (Clayton Utz) have posted Ethical Transnational Corporate Activity at Home and Abroad: A Proposal for Reforming Continuous Disclosure Obligations in Australia and the United States. Here's the abstract:

MNCs routinely locate parts of their supply chain and production process in various countries primarily based on their ability to maximise profits for shareholders by lowering organizational costs. Inevitably, this goal creates incentives to establish operations in states with lower legal and ethical standards in areas including the environment, wages, labour standards, human rights, corruption, and company taxation. In turn, developing states compete to attract foreign direct investment by deregulating the above areas of their economies and creating a favourable business climate for MNCs. Going against the grain, the “home” legal climate for MNCs has become more complex due to a steady progression of new legislation aimed at better corporate behaviour whether it is in the form of increased disclosure obligations, greater empowerment of shareholders, mandatory codes of ethics, or the protections conferred on employees, consumers, and the environment. The result is a double standard whereby MNCs uphold higher ethical and legal standards in their own (developed) home state, but modify their behaviour to bare legal compliance with binding domestic laws when operating in developing host states.

Corporate law scholars cannot be indifferent to the horrific consequences – from a contribution to rapes and violent incidents from trade in conflict minerals in the DRC to the killing of workers due to poor conditions in garment manufacturing units in Bangladesh. Our argument – built upon a comparison of the United States and Australia – is novel in that it does not necessarily require the enactment of any costly new statutory provision or regulation. Rather, it is based upon clarifying and strengthening the existing model of disclosure-based regulation. We posit that a broader reading of the disclosure obligations of companies under existing legislation like the Reg. S-K in the United States, the continuous disclosure obligations under the Australian Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (‘CA’), and listing rules (LRs) such as those adopted by the ASX and the New York Stock Exchange (‘NYSE’) would require the disclosure of material corporate practices outside our national borders. Since knowledge about the veracity of relevant business practices in foreign locations is likely to be possessed by contractors down the supply chain, we posit that enforcement should largely be reliant upon a system of rewards for whistleblowers who provide information about breaches.

Hilpold: Jus Post Bellum and the Responsibility to Rebuild

Peter Hilpold (Univ. of Innsbruck - Law) has posted Jus Post Bellum and the Responsibility to Rebuild. Here's the abstract:

In the last years, the traditional dichotomy in International Law between jus ad bellum and jus in bello has been more and more abandoned in favour of a system comprising also norms designed to create fair and sustainable peace. It has been recognized that post-war societies need help in order to avoid a relapse into conflict and chaos. But what is the essence of this just post bellum? What are its sources? Did the introduction of a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) change the rather sceptical attitude by most governments towards peace-building activities that were often considered as intrusive?

In this contribution it will be shown that the contours of the jus post bellum are still rather unclear but on the other hand it is very likely that this concept is here to stay.

Macklem: Self-Determination in Three Movements

Patrick Macklem (Univ. of Toronto - Law) has posted Self-Determination in Three Movements. Here's the abstract:

This essay argues that the right of self-determination has become an instrument whose purpose is to promote a just distribution of sovereign power in the international legal order. It has come to assume this task because of three conceptual movements it underwent in the twentieth century that dramatically transformed its legal scope and content. The first had its origins in events surrounding the Paris peace process in 1919, where self-determination’s class of beneficiaries moved from the population of an existing state to potentially populations within and across state boundaries. The second, a movement in legal status, from a principle to a right, coincided with international law’s engagement with the dramatic decolonization projects that took root after the Second World War. The third movement is best understood in the context of self-determination’s awkward relationship to central tenets of both public international law and international human rights law. It is a movement between legal orders, from its engagement with the international realm to an additional engagement with the domestic realm, from an entitlement that had the capacity to protect existing states or produce new states to one that also validates domestic constitutional reorganization of a political community. As a result of these three movements, the right of self-determination authorizes the formation of a new state by a colonized population and, more controversially, when an existing state fails to secure effective measures of political representation – what international law refers to as "internal self-determination" – for a people in its midst.

New Issue: African Journal of International and Comparative Law

The latest issue of the African Journal of International and Comparative Law (Vol. 22, no. 2, June 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Hannah Woolaver, Pro-democratic Intervention in Africa and the ‘Arab Spring’
• Regis Yann Simo, The Law of International Responsibility: The Case of the WTO as a ‘Lex Specialis’ or the Fallacy of a ‘Self-contained’ Regime
• Ahmed Ali M. Khayre, Self-defence, Intervention by Invitation, or Proxy War? The Legality of the 2006 Ethiopian Invasion of Somalia
• E. H. Nfobin & Nchotu Veraline Nchang Epse Minang, The Cameroon ‘Anglophone Question’ in International Law
• Francis N. Botchway, The Immunity Conundrum
• Chukwunweike A. Ogbuabor, Tribunals of Inquiry as a Residual Matter Under the Nigerian Constitution: Resolving the Nigerian Conundrum
• Akeem Olajide Bello, United Nations and African Union Conventions on Corruption and Anti-corruption Legislations in Nigeria: A Comparative Analysis

Call for Papers: Representations of Women in International Law

The European Society of International Law Interest Group on Feminism and International Law has issued a call for papers for its panel at the ESIL 10th Anniversary Conference. The panel's theme is "Representations of Women in International Law." Here's the call:

“REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN IN INTERNATIONAL LAW”

Call for Papers – Deadline 11 June 2014

The European Society of International Law (ESIL) Interest Group on Feminism and International Law is calling for papers for its panel during the interest group meetings at the 10th ESIL Anniversary Conference (4th-6th Sept), to be held in Vienna, Austria, on 3 September 2014 from 2-6pm.

Following the overarching theme of the Conference, “International Law and …: Boundaries of International Law and Bridges to Other Fields and Disciplines”, we invite papers addressing the interplay between the representation of women in international law and other disciplines.

Papers may consider (but are not limited to) the following subjects:

• representation of women in international organisations;
• women as state representatives;
• dramatic and visual representations of women in situations such as armed conflict;
• stereotypes in representations of women, such as human rights victims;
• representations of ‘the other woman’ in international law;
• literary accounts of women in international law.

Please submit abstract proposal of no more than 500 words via email to Troy Lavers and Loveday Hodson (Troy.Lavers@le.ac.uk and Loveday.Hodson@le.ac.uk) by 11th June 2014.

Successful applicants will be informed by 30 June 2014. See below for further details.

In addition to the abstract, the following information must be provided on the submission:

The author’s name and affiliation

The author’s CV, including a list of relevant publications

The author’s contact details

Whether the author is an ESIL member

Papers will be selected by the co-chairs of the Interest Group (Dr. Troy Lavers and Dr Loveday Hodson) on the basis of abstracts submitted. Selection criteria are: originality of the work, links to the panel theme, and geographical representation of the speakers.

The purpose of the panel is to share cutting-edge research in specific areas of international law, to stimulate debate, and to foster contacts between participants. We welcome the sharing of ideas in progress.

In order to participate in the Interest Group panel, speakers must be members of ESIL. The membership can be formalised once abstracts have been accepted.

Unfortunately, the ESIL Interest Group on Feminism and International Law is not in a position to cover expenses for travelling and accommodation, or to waiver the ESIL conference fee.

Conference: The Approaches of Liberal and Illiberal Governments to International Law

On June 12-13, 2014, the University of Tartu Faculty of Law and the International Legal Theory Interest Group of the European Society of International Law will hold a conference on “The Approaches of Liberal and Illiberal Governments to International Law: A Conference Marking 25 Years since the Collapse of Communist Regimes," in Tallinn. The program is here.

New Issue: Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé

The latest issue of the Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé (Vol. 91, no. 2, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• A. Posez, La subsidiarité de l'enrichissement sans cause : étude de droit français à la lumière du droit comparé
• P. Lerner, La protection des débiteurs hypothécaires selon la loi israélienne
• J.S. Kurlat Aimar, L'atteinte des objectifs communautaires au sein du mercosur : un défi face à sa structure institutionnelle

Conference: Proof In International Criminal Trials

On June 27-28, 2014, the Bangor Law School and the Bangor Centre for International Law will hold a conference on "Proof In International Criminal Trials." The program is here. Here's the idea:

There is now an impressive body of literature on the precise scope, context and application of evidentiary rules in international criminal trials. However, the issues surrounding proof and reasoning on evidence in international criminal law have remained relatively under-examined to date. By bringing together judges, practitioners and leading scholars on evidence, international criminal procedure and analytical methods, this conference will comprehensively address issues related to proof in international criminal proceedings. These issues include, inter alia, the means by which inferences are drawn, how reasoning on findings of fact is articulated in judgments, and how witness credibility is assessed. Participants will analyse some of the challenges of fact-finding in the complex context of international criminal trials, which often involve large masses of evidence and hundreds of witnesses.

Conference: Sovereignty in the 21st Century

On June 20, 2014, the Society of Legal Scholars International Law Section and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law will co-host the 23rd Conference on Theory and International Law. The theme of this year's conference is "Sovereignty in the 21st Century." Here's the idea:

Sovereignty is one of the core constructs of international law and international relations. Notwithstanding its historical importance as a key component in the relations between states, debates about the nature of sovereignty and its legal aspects abound. These debates have intensified in recent years. The rise of international human rights law has challenged the basic tenets of the classical conceptualisation of state sovereignty. The rise of international organisations, multinational corporations and grassroots social movements also pose questions about the role of sovereignty in international law. The growing numbers of ethnic conflicts raise questions about the circumstances in which state sovereignty can be over-ridden. The changing nature of interaction and interdependence in an increasingly complex world paradoxically simultaneously encourages debates about both the diminution of sovereignty as well as presenting new frontiers for the exercise of sovereignty.

This conference will address aspects of both the theoretical and practical dimensions of sovereignty in the 21st century.

Topics to be discussed include:

• The future of the concept of permanent sovereignty over natural resources;
• The future of the anthropomorphic conceptualisation of the state in the context of the debates concerning statehood and recognition;
• International law and the value of statehood;
• State power and corporate sovereignty;
• Monetary sovereignty; and
• Counterterrorism, international organisations and state sovereignty.

ESIL International Legal Theory Interest Group Workshop

On September 3, 2014, the Interest Group on International Legal Theory of the European Society of International Law will hold a workshop on the occasion of the ESIL 10th Anniversary Conference in Vienna. I noted the call for papers here. The program is now available here.

Goldmann: Principles in International Law as Rational Reconstructions. A Taxonomy

Matthias Goldmann (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) has posted Principles in International Law as Rational Reconstructions. A Taxonomy. Here's the abstract:

The paper suggests that principles as an important part of legal doctrine should be understood as the result of the rational reconstruction of legal discourse in the sense of Jürgen Habermas’ method bearing the same name (A.). It first argues that principles are best understood as abstract legal rules, not as normative presuppositions that are categorically different from rules (B.). As principles in international law just as in domestic legal orders are important parts of doctrine, the papers inquires into the self-understanding of doctrine, i.e. of the method used for the formation of principles (C.I.). Doctrine as the production of conceptual abstractions from the positive law has faced a number of methodological challenges over the last two centuries (C.II.). The method of rational reconstruction provides a methodologically tenable explanation. Envisaged by Jürgen Habermas as an explanation for the practice of communication and later applied to the practice of political discourse, this method allows understanding legal principles as the normative presuppositions of the participants in legal discourse (C.III.). Depending on which part of legal discourse one attempts to reconstruct, a taxonomy of principles in international law emerges, ranging from hard-law general principles of law to structural principles with merely heuristic functions (D.). The rational reconstruction of principles in international law thus helps to carve out the dividing line between law and politics and bears relevance for current scholarly endeavors (E.).

SFDI: Internet et le droit international

The Société française pour le droit international has published Internet et le droit international : Colloque de Rouen de la Société française pour le droit international (Pedone 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Ce 47ème colloque annuel de la SFDI organisé par le Centre universitaire rouennais d’études juridiques (CUREJ) fut l’occasion de se pencher sur un sujet technique (austère, diront certains), novateur et pleinement ancré dans l’actualité : Internet et le droit international. La doctrine francophone, encore trop discrète sur ce thème, se devait de s’exprimer notamment pour présenter un contrepoids, s’il en fallait un, à la doctrine anglo-saxonne beaucoup plus prolixe dans ce domaine.

Il s’agissait d’organiser le premier colloque français sur le sujet et l’ambition était grande pour une thématique aussi vaste. Tout n’a pu être traité mais de nombreux aspects ont été abordés. L’ambition était d’adopter une vision transversale et généraliste du sujet afin d’appréhender Internet dans sa globalité sans tomber dans un traitement trop strictement technique. Internet a constitué le prisme par lequel plusieurs questions classiques du droit international ont été revisitées. Ce colloque, comme cet ouvrage, ne s’adressent donc pas seulement aux passionnés de l’informatique, bien au contraire, ils visent avant tout les juristes souhaitant réfléchir sur le droit international.

En aucun cas le droit international n’est figé. D’autant plus s’agissant d’Internet, il apparaît en mutation, pour ne pas dire en gestation. Si Internet est assurément un objet d’étude, il est tout autant devenu un objet du droit international. La question est davantage de savoir comment le droit international l’a jusqu’à présent appréhendé. Chaque intervenant a eu à s’interroger sur la pertinence des règles existantes du droit international pour réglementer Internet, amenant finalement à réfléchir à l’influence d’Internet sur l’évolution du droit international.

Plusieurs thèmes ont ensuite été privilégiés afin de caractériser la relation existant entre Internet et le droit international. La prédominance des entités privées dans la construction et la régulation d’Internet a nécessairement posé la question de la place de l’Etat face à cet objet et de la reconfiguration possible de ses relations avec les sujets internes. Ces figures du droit international que sont l’Etat et les sujets internes, notamment les individus, ont permis de réfléchir à des problématiques situées aux fondements du droit international : la compétence de l’Etat ou encore la protection des libertés fondamentales. Mais au-delà de ces questionnements théoriques classiques, Internet contribue à enrichir la réflexion sur des problématiques plus contemporaines telles que la question de la gouvernance.

Enfin, quelques thématiques spécifiques ont été traitées dans le cadre des ateliers, reflétant des questions propres au domaine cybernétique, même si les phénomènes qu’elles traitent ne sont en rien nouveaux. Ainsi, la « cyberguerre », la « cybercriminalité » ou « Internet et le commerce international » ont été l’occasion de s’interroger sur la façon dont cette technologie avait, si ce n’est bouleversé, du moins obligé le droit international à se repenser voire à s’adapter.

New Issue: Arbitration International

The latest issue of Arbitration International (Vol. 30, no. 2, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• James D. Fry & Juan Ignacio Stampalija, Forged Independence and Impartiality: Conflicts of Interest of International Arbitrators in Investment Disputes
• Simon Allison & Kanaga Dharmananda, Incorporating Arbitration Clauses: The Sacrifice of Consistency at the Altar of Experience
• Inna Uchkunova, Much Ado about Nothing – Conditional Stay of Enforcement in Annulment Proceedings under the ICSID Convention
• Catharine Titi, Investment Arbitration in Latin America The Uncertain Veracity of Preconceived Ideas
• Saud Al-Ammari & A. Timothy Martin, Arbitration in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Call for Papers: Authority in International Law: New and Traditional Forms and Approaches

A call for papers has been issued for the Third Annual ASIL–ESIL–MPIL Workshop on International Legal Theory, which will take place September 8, 2014, in Vienna, following the ESIL Tenth Anniversary Conference. The theme is "Authority in International Law: New and Traditional Forms and Approaches." Here's the call:

Authority in International Law:

New and Traditional Forms and Approaches

Call for Papers

On Monday, 8 September 2014 (after the ESIL Tenth Anniversary Conference), the Institute for European and International Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business will host the Third Annual ASIL–ESIL–MPIL Workshop on International Legal Theory. This workshop series is a collaboration between the Interest Groups on International Legal Theory of the American and European Societies of International Law and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law, Heidelberg. The principal aim of this collaboration is to facilitate frank discussion among legal scholars from diverse backgrounds and perspectives on the fundamental theoretical questions that confront the discipline today.

This year’s workshop invites scholars to reflect on the foundations of authority in the international sphere. The authority of law is a perennial question of jurisprudence. However, scholarship of international law and relations has developed new approaches and theories for this question, as the world of the twenty-first century is increasingly perceived as more interconnected and less state-centric. Thus, it is argued, it poses different challenges than the ‘classic’ Westphalian framework. International law generation, interpretation and enforcement have become increasingly complex and informal in a world of international regulatory bodies, international courts, and private standard-setting regimes. Some scholars have turned to instrumentalist or empiricist models to explain where authority actually lies. Others argue that we should foreground ‘legitimacy’, rather than worry about description and categorisation.

While the traditional discussion of ‘authority’ is focussed on the theoretical foundation for the models proposed, many of the new approaches are not. Some make do with a description of their model without entering into sustained analysis of its jurisprudential foundations. We invite contributions addressing – constructively or critically – the basis for new and traditional forms and approaches to inter/transnational authority.

Possible areas of research may include, but are not limited to:

• Traditional questions: where does international law get its authority from, why should we obey it?
• New approaches to governance, authority or publicness, e.g. Global Administrative Law, constitutionalism, International Public Authority, pluralism.
• New approaches to the authority and legitimacy of international law, e.g. impact-based approaches, constructivism.
• The relation of authority to phenomena of domination and hegemony in the international realm: Does authority intensify, disguise, or alleviate pathologic power-structures?

Selection Procedure and Workshop Organisation

Interested participants should submit an abstract (800 words max.) summarising the ideas they propose to develop for presentation at the workshop. Submissions of all proposals that engage the workshop’s theme are encouraged. Papers that have been accepted for publication prior to the workshop are in principle eligible for consideration, provided that they will not appear in print before the workshop. Papers will be chosen for presentation by peer review, taking into account not only the need for a balance of topics and viewpoints, but also for geographic diversity among the participants. Although discussants will be assigned to introduce the papers at the workshop, all par-ticipants will be expected to read all of the contributions in advance and come prepared to contribute to the discussion. The organisers hope that the event will serve as a showcase for innovative research on international legal theory, while at the same time strengthening personal and professional ties between scholars on either side of the Atlantic and beyond.

• Abstract submissions should be sent to asil.esil.mpil@gmail.com by 22 June 2014.
• Successful applicants will be notified by 7 July 2014.
• Short papers (5000 words max.) must be delivered by 25 August 2014.

Travel and accommodation costs will in all likelihood have to be borne by participants. Nonetheless, if funding cannot be obtained from other sources, applicants should indi-cate as part of their submission whether they will require financial assistance to cover the costs of travel and accommodation for the event, as a limited number of participants may be able to receive financial assistance.

Questions regarding the workshop may be directed to:

Evan Criddle ejcriddle@wm.edu

Jörg Kammerhofer joerg.kammerhofer@jura.uni-freiburg.de

Alexandra Kemmerer kemmerer@mpil.de

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 48, no. 3, June 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Erin Norma Hannah, The Quest for Accountable Governance: Embedded NGOs and Demand Driven Advocacy in the International Trade Regime
• Sangeeta Khorana & Maria Garcia, Procurement Liberalization Diffusion in EU Agreements: Signalling Stewardship?
• Trish Kelly, Tuna-Dolphin Revisited
• Zhang Xiaotong, Zhang Ping, & Yang Xiaoyan, The EU’s New FTA Adventures and Their Implications for China
• Holger P. Hestermeyer & Laura Nielsen, The Legality of Local Content Measures under WTO Law
• Erik R. Lowe, Technical Regulations to Prevent Deceptive Practices: Can WTO Members Protect Consumers from [un] Fair-Trade Coffee and [Less-Than] Free-Range Chicken?
• David Kleimann, Beyond Market Access?: The Anatomy of ASEAN’s Preferential Trade Agreements

New Issue: Journal of World Energy Law & Business

The latest issue of Journal of World Energy Law & Business (Vol. 7, no. 3, June 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Sub-Saharan Africa: Comparative Views on Anti-Corruption Legislation and Its Enforcement
• Charles P. McPherson, Necessary but not sufficient: anti-corruption and transparency legislation
• Carlos Feijó & Norman Nadorff, Where there’s a will there’s a way: making Angola’s probity laws work
• Eyram A. Adadevoh, New wine in new wine skins: the anti-corruption framework of Ghana
• Adedolapo A. Akinrele, Transparency in the Nigerian oil and gas industry
• Samuel Levy & Cerys Williams, Mozambique’s pathway to probity: evolving legal responses to corruption

Call for Papers: ASIL-Midwest Works-in-Progress Workshop

The ASIL-Midwest Interest Group of the American Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for its inaugural works-in-progress workshop, to be held September 5-6, 2014, at the University of Minnesota Law School. Here's the call:

ASIL-Midwest, an interest group of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) is co-sponsoring its first scholarly works-in-progress conference with ASIL Academic Partner University of Minnesota Law School, September 5-6, 2014. The event will take place at the law school, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The goal is to create a friendly, open conversation about work in progress and to foster a midwestern United States international law community. To that end, the workshop will include both full drafts and early works in progress.

Those interested in presenting at the conference should send a short abstract to ASIL-Midwest Co-Chair Alexandra Huneeus (huneeus@wisc.edu) by Monday, June 29, 2014. Please also include a sentence about the stage the paper is expected to be in by September (e.g., reasonably complete draft, early work in progress, etc.). Paper presenters will be asked to circulate their drafts (or a summary of the project if it's early stage) to workshop attendees no later than August 22, 2014. Those interested in serving as a commentator for a paper should also send an email to the Co-Chair by June 29 (huneeus@wisc.edu). Commentators will be asked to prepare five to eight minutes of comments on one of the papers. Those interested in presenting should let it be known if they are willing to serve as commentators as well.

All University of Minnesota faculty, staff, and students may attend for free. Participants who are not ASIL members or UMN affiliates will be required to pay a $75 registration fee (includes workshop and meals) for the conference. All meals will be provided, but participants are responsible for their own travel and hotel expenses.

Wilson: Inciting Genocide with Words

Richard Ashby Wilson (Univ. of Connecticut - Law) has posted Inciting Genocide with Words (Michigan Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article calls for a rethinking of the causation element in the prevailing international criminal law on direct and public incitement to commit genocide. After the conviction of Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity, the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide was established in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1948. The first (and thus far, only) convictions for the crime came fifty years later at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The ICTR’s incitement jurisprudence is widely recognized as problematic, but no legal commentator has thus far offered an adequate solution to one central contradiction, namely the Trial Chamber’s repeated claims of a causal connection between defendants’ speech and subsequent acts of genocide. Such claims imply that the commission of genocide is relevant to determining incitement, despite the fact that incitement is an inchoate crime and therefore only the speaker’s intention matters. Drawing upon J.L. Austin’s ordinary language philosophy, the article disentangles the intention of the speaker from the consequences of speech acts. In determining incitement to commit genocide, international law might differentiate between three aspects of performative utterances, or what Austin terms the "locutionary" (the meaning and content), the "illocutionary" (its force) and the "perlocutionary" (the consequences) qualities of speech acts. Specific intent to commit genocide is found in the content, meaning and force of speech acts, rather than in consequences, which can be an unreliable guide to intention. By using this template, international tribunals might better distinguish modes of liability that require causation (such as instigating) from inchoate crimes such as direct and public incitement to commit genocide, where the meaning and the force of public statements is paramount. Other benefits of this approach include refocusing attention on the prevention of genocide and clarifying and narrowing the range of impermissible speech.

New Issue: Human Rights Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Review (Vol. 15, no. 2, June 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Azadeh Chalabi, Law as a System of Rights: A Critical Perspective
• James C. Franklin, Human Rights Contention in Latin America: A Comparative Study
• Kelly A. McBride & Lindsey N. Kingston, Legal Invisibility and the Revolution: Statelessness in Egypt
• Lantz Fleming Miller, Is Species Integrity a Human Right? A Rights Issue Emerging from Individual Liberties with New Technologies
• Annika Björkdahl & Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, Gendered Justice Gaps in Bosnia–Herzegovina

SFDI: Actualités des réserves aux traités

The Société française pour le droit international has published Actualités des réserves aux traités : Journée d'études de Nanterre de la Société française pour le droit international (Pedone 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Lorsque, en 1993, la Commission du droit international a décidé d’inscrire à son ordre du jour la question des réserves aux traités, la complexité du sujet ne lui avait pas échappé. Conformément à son optimisme coutumier, cela ne l’avait pas empêchée de sous-estimer toutefois le temps à y consacrer. Selon la Commission, il y avait « de bonnes chances d’aboutir dans des délais raisonnables à un résultat concret, à savoir à l’adoption en première lecture, à la fin du quinquennat en cours [i.e., en 1996], d’un projet destiné à l’Assemblée générale ». Il a fallu attendre l’été 2011 pour que la Commission adopte en seconde lecture (et patienter jusqu’à janvier 2012, pour qu’il soit diffusé dans les six langues officielles de l’Organisation) le Guide de la pratique sur les réserves aux traités. On connaît cependant, depuis la Rome d’Auguste, les vertus du Festina lente. A lui seul, le volume, inégalé dans l’histoire de la CDI, du produit final du travail de la Commission (le Guide comporte 660 pages) témoigne de l’abondance et de l’extrême diversité de la pratique des réserves ainsi que de l’amplitude des difficultés que cette pratique soulève sur le terrain de la technique juridique. L’évènement que constitue la publication du Guide méritait qu’une journée d’études lui soit consacrée. Le présent ouvrage en est le produit. La publication du Guide coïncidant par ailleurs avec la décision du Rapporteur spécial sur les réserves aux traités, Alain Pellet, de quitter la Commission après plus de vingt années de dévouement, jamais démenti, à la cause du développement progressif et de la codification du droit international, le plaisir de l’hommage légitimement rendu au travail accompli a pu accompagner celui de l’échange scientifique. Cette journée d’études a réuni des intervenants de haute renommée, à la fois universitaires et praticiens. Elle s’est tenue le 15 novembre 2013 dans les locaux de l’Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, grâce au Centre de droit international de Nanterre (Cedin) qui, après en avoir soumis l’idée aux membres du Conseil de la SFDI qui l’ont favorablement accueillie, en a endossé la direction scientifique et pris en charge l’organisation matérielle.

Zidar & Bekou: Contemporary Challenges for the International Criminal Court

Andraž Zidar (British Institute of International and Comparative Law) & Olympia Bekou (Univ. of Nottingham - Human Rights Law Centre) have published Contemporary Challenges for the International Criminal Court (British Institute of International and Comparative Law 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The International Criminal Court celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2012. This first decade was marked not only by the Court issuing its first judgment, in the Lubanga case, but also by numerous challenges which it has had to resolve. This book brings together a number of perceptive insights into the functioning of the Court at the intersection between international criminal law theory and the practice developed by the Court.

Subjects covered in the book include the definition of crimes under the Rome Statute, the issue of complementarity between the ICC and domestic courts, the trigger mechanisms of the ICC, the role and rights of victims, and prospects for the future work of the ICC. Authors are leading specialists in the field of international criminal justice and include scholars, legal practitioners, NGO experts and ICC officials. The book will be an important asset for all readers interested in contemporary developments under the legal regime of the Rome Statute.

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 20, no. 2, June 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Jonas Hagmann & Thomas J. Biersteker, Beyond the published discipline: Toward a critical pedagogy of international studies
• Martin Senn & Christoph Elhardt, Bourdieu and the bomb: Power, language and the doxic battle over the value of nuclear weapons
• Douglas Webber, How likely is it that the European Union will disintegrate? A critical analysis of competing theoretical perspectives
• Erin R. Graham, International organizations as collective agents: Fragmentation and the limits of principal control at the World Health Organization
• Manfred Elsig & Mark A. Pollack, Agents, trustees, and international courts: The politics of judicial appointment at the World Trade Organization
• Michael Breen, IMF conditionality and the economic exposure of its shareholders
• Barry Buzan & George Lawson, Rethinking benchmark dates in International Relations
• A. Cooper Drury & Dursun Peksen, Women and economic statecraft: The negative impact international economic sanctions visit on women
• Nazya Fiaz, Constructivism meets critical realism: Explaining Pakistan’s state practice in the aftermath of 9/11
• Martin Weber, Between ‘isses’ and ‘oughts’: IR constructivism, Critical Theory, and the challenge of political philosophy
• Robyn Linde, The globalization of childhood: The international diffusion of norms and law against the child death penalty