Dietz: Global Order Beyond Law

Thomas Dietz (Univ. of Muenster - Politics and Law) has published Global Order Beyond Law: How Information and Communication Technologies Facilitate Relational Contracting in International Trade (Hart Publishing 2014). Here's the abstract:

Well-functioning contract law is a crucial prerequisite for economic development. However, even though international trade has increased enormously in recent decades, we still know little about the contract enforcement mechanisms that exist in today's globalised markets. The aim of this work is to shed light on the governance of complex cross-border contracts by developing a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the relevance of both formal and informal institutions. This framework is then applied to an empirical study of cross-border software development contracts. Combining a unique data set of 41 qualitative expert interviews with statistical data and surveys, the author demonstrates that state contract laws show fundamental signs of dysfunction across borders. Companies engaged in globalised exchange therefore rarely use this mechanism. Even the European Union's supranational enforcement order is, in practice, insignificant. Against all expectations, international commercial arbitration also turns out to be limited in its ability to provide a workable legal infrastructure for global commerce. With global trade lacking a reliable formal legal order, companies have reacted by creating their own informal governance structures. This book explains how complex exchange in global markets has emerged in the absence of a global legal order.

New Issue: International Criminal Law Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 14, no. 3, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Jennifer Bond & Meghan Fougere, Omnipresent Threats: A Comment on the Defence of Duress in International Criminal Law
• Stephen Bailey, Article 21(3) of the Rome Statute: A Plea for Clarity
• Geoff Gilbert, International Criminal Law Is not a Panacea - Why Proposed Climate Change ‘Crimes’ Are Just Another Passenger on an Overcrowded Bandwagon
• Elijah Oluwatoyin Okebukola, Training Children for Armed Conflict – Where Does the Law Stand?
• Conrad Nyamutata, From Heroes to Victims: An Analysis of the Mutation of the Social Meaning of Child Soldiering
• Noelle Higgins, The Responsibility of the Netherlands for the Actions of Dutchbat: An Analysis of Nuhanović and Mustafić

New Issue: Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 32, no. 3, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Maja Janmyr, Recruiting Internally Displaced Persons into Civil Militias: The Case of Northern Uganda
• Ingunn Elise Myklebust, The Protection of Private Ownership Rights in the ECHR and Norwegian Planning and Building Law
• Niina Meriläinen & Marita Vos, Framing by Actors in the Human Rights Debate: the Kony 2012 Campaign
• Aled Dilwyn Fisher, Human Rights in the Transition to a “Green Economy” – Critical Human Rights-Based Approaches to Climate Change in Norway

Jain: Perpetrators and Accessories in International Criminal Law

Neha Jain (Univ. of Minnesota - Law) has published Perpetrators and Accessories in International Criminal Law: Individual Modes of Responsibility for Collective Crimes (Hart Publishing 2014). Here's the abstract:

International criminal law lacks a coherent account of individual responsibility. This failure is due to the inability of international tribunals to capture the distinctive nature of individual responsibility for crimes that are collective by their very nature. Specifically, they have misunderstood the nature of the collective action or framework that makes these crimes possible, and for which liability may be attributed to intellectual authors, policy makers and leaders. In this book, the author draws on insights from comparative law and methodology to propose doctrines of perpetration and secondary responsibility that reflect the role and function of high-level participants in mass atrocity, while simultaneously situating them within the political and social climate which renders these crimes possible. This new doctrine is developed through a novel approach which combines and restructures divergent theoretical perspectives on attribution of responsibility in English and German domestic criminal law, as major representatives of the common law and civil law systems. At the same time, it analyses existing theories of responsibility in international criminal law and assesses whether there is any justification for their retention by international criminal tribunals.

New Issue: Stanford Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Stanford Journal of International Law (Vol. 50, no. 2, Summer 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Filippo Fontanelli & Giuseppe Bianco, Converging Towards NAFTA: An Analysis of FTA Investment Chapters in the European Union and the United States
• Tom Ruys, The Syrian Civil War and the Achilles' Heel of the Law of Non-International Armed Conflict
• Hedi Viterbo, Seeing Torture Anew: A Transnational Reconceptualization of State Torture and Visual Evidence
• Shuangge Wen, The Ideals and Reality of a Legal Transplant - The Veil-Piercing Doctrine in China

New Issue: Harvard International Law Journal

The latest issue of the Harvard International Law Journal (Vol. 55, no. 2, Summer 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Thomas H. Lee, The Law of War and the Responsibility to Protect Civilians: A Reinterpretation
• Gerald L. Neuman, Bi-Level Remedies for Human Rights Violations
• Sonia E. Rolland, Are Consumer-Oriented Rules the New Frontier of Trade Liberalization?
• Anne van Aaken, Behavioral International Law and Economics

Bismuth: La standardisation internationale privée : Aspects juridiques

Régis Bismuth (Université de Poitiers - Law) has published La standardisation internationale privée : Aspects juridiques (Larcier 2014). Here's the abstract:

Omniprésente mais constituant un phénomène qui échappe souvent à notre perception, la standardisation a pour objet la production de normes de référence destinées aux biens, produits, services et processus. Portant en apparence sur des matières techniques et s’enrobant d’une volonté de neutralité politique, la standardisation couvre toutefois des pans de plus en plus larges des activités humaines. Son influence est d’autant plus significative lorsqu’elle devient internationale, compte tenu de l’espace de production des standards ou de leur portée.

Les problèmes juridiques qu’elle soulève sont d’autant plus complexes et nombreux lorsqu’elle est élaborée par des instances composées de personnes privées, que ce soit parce que l’État, impuissant face aux forces du marché, préfère se reposer sur des acteurs privés ou que ces derniers comblent le vide laissé par les autorités publiques. En ce sens, au-delà des problèmes de légitimité démocratique qu’elle soulève, la standardisation internationale privée constitue un processus d’influence économique qui nous invite à repenser les rapports entre l’État, le droit et le marché, tout autant qu’elle permet au juriste d’explorer de nouvelles formes de normativité.

Lee: China’s Declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea: Implications for Public International Law

Jaemin Lee (Seoul National Univ. - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on China’s Declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea: Implications for Public International Law.

New Issue: Human Rights Law Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 14, no. 3, September 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Paula Gerber & Joel Gory, The UN Human Rights Committee and LGBT Rights: What is it Doing? What Could it be Doing?
• Oliver Diggelmann & Maria Nicole Cleis, How the Right to Privacy Became a Human Right
• Anna Nilsson, Objective and Reasonable? Scrutinising Compulsory Mental Health Interventions from a Non-discrimination Perspective
• Robert Spano, Universality or Diversity of Human Rights?: Strasbourg in the Age of Subsidiarity
• Ed Bates, Analysing the Prisoner Voting Saga and the British Challenge to Strasbourg
• James A. Roffee, No Consensus on Incest? Criminalisation and Compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights

Viterbo: Seeing Torture Anew: A Transnational Reconceptualization of State Torture and Visual Evidence

Hedi Viterbo (SOAS, University of London) has posted Seeing Torture Anew: A Transnational Reconceptualization of State Torture and Visual Evidence (Stanford Journal of International Law, Vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 281-317, 2014). Here's the abstract:

This article puts forward two interdependent conceptual reforms at the intersection of state torture, visuality, and law. First, to qualify as good evidence - legally and socially - torture images are usually required to be “accurate” and “transparent,” to successfully suppress all traces of the mediation and representation at work. However, this article suggests that this prevalent visual-evidentiary paradigm unwittingly serves state attempts to downplay, decontextualize, deny, and disregard torture allegations. In this light, drawing on the interdisciplinary field of visual studies, this article re-envisages the limitations as well as the critical potential of torture images.

Second, international and domestic law tend to conceptualize state torture in exclusively physical and mental terms. Challenging this tendency, this article argues that the extreme gravity of the physical and mental violence of torture ought not obscure, and in fact warrants closer attention to two other, interrelated forms of violence through which state torture operates, acquires its meaning, is experienced, and is made possible: (a) the violence of state mechanisms of (in)visibility - representational violence - which includes state efforts to control by whom and to what degree state torture can be seen; and (b) the violence of law - legal violence - which manifests itself in the contribution of legal institutions, lawyers, and legal rhetoric to enabling, legitimating, and keeping state torture out of public sight.

The perspective of this article is transnational, focusing on three cases of state torture: detainees in U.S. custody overseas; Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody; and opposition group members detained in Syria. Legal examples and visual materials from these three cases provide a contextualized basis for exploring what new light the proposed conceptual reforms can shed on the socio-political complexities and consequences of state torture.

New Issue: Journal of Private International Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Private International Law (Vol. 10, no. 2, August 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Ben Chen, Historical Foundations of Choice of Law in Fiduciary Obligations
• Monika Pauknerová & Magdalena Pfeiffer, The New Act on Private International Law in the Czech Republic: Starting Points and Perspectives within the European Union
• King Fung Tsang, Applicable Law in Piercing the Corporate Veil in the United States: A Choice with No Choice
• Katarzyna Reszczyk-Król, Law Applicable to Voluntary Representation in Some European Legal Systems
• Mónica Herranz Ballesteros, The Regime of Party Autonomy in the Brussels I Recast: The Solutions Adopted for Agreements on Jurisdiction
• Marco Raiteri, Citizenship as a Connecting Factor in Private International Law for Family Matters

Call for Submissions: Australian International Law Journal

A call for submissions has been issued by the Australian International Law Journal for its forthcoming volume. Here's the call:

The Australian International Law Journal, published by the International Law Association (Australian Branch), calls for papers of between 6,000 -12,000 words on topics of public or private international law. Casenotes (2,000-3,000 words) and Book Reviews (1,000 words) within the area of public or private international law are also welcomed.

Contributions should be submitted to the Editor, c/ the Treasurer at treasurer@ila.org.au. The deadline for submissions is 12 September, 2014 and accepted submissions will be published in Volume 21 of the Journal.

About the AILJ: From a modest beginning in 1983, as Australian International Law News, in 1985 the Journal achieved its status as a journal of international standing. The Editorial Advisory Board Members are eminent international lawyers and academics from all over the world.

From 2007, the Journal has been a peer-reviewed law journal.

Recent articles have covered topics including cyberspace, libel tourism in Australia, WTO Membership, illegal timber importation regulation, international arbitration in Australia, deep seabed mining, the European Union and the United Nations. In addition to articles, the latest volume contains symposium papers, surveys of recent decisions of the International Court of Justice and book reviews.

The AILJ has an extensive readership in Australia and internationally.

If you are interested in submitting a paper for consideration, please see the AILJ Guidelines for Authors.

Moyn: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 in the History of Cosmopolitanism

Samuel Moyn (Harvard Univ. - Law) has published The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 in the History of Cosmopolitanism (Critical Inquiry, Vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 365-384, Summer 2014). Here's an excerpt:

[N]ot only does cosmopolitanism come in the plural but articulations of it have teemed all along and even struggled vigorously with one another. And indeed they have done so in the heart of the tradition of the West . . . . Any story of cosmopolitanism anywhere . . . needs to be as much about the conflict of ideologies as it is about the breakthrough to one; and if this insight is helpful for understanding ancient history, it is even more decisive a tool for conceptualizing modern times. As late as 1948 and the beginning of the cold war, which was a battle to the death of rival cosmopolitanisms, “humanity” was crucial but only in different articulations aiming to supplement or to displace one another. In short, 1948 is not the turning point in the path of a singular cosmopolitanism but the scene of struggle between different kinds—a struggle in which the appeal to and of human rights was actually very minor.

New Issue: Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy

The latest issue of the Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy (Vol. 17, nos. 1-2, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Lexie Revord Larkin, Human–Wildlife Conflict in Maasai Mara National Reserve: Demonstrating the Need for an International Framework on Wildlife-Based Tourism
• Kirk W. Junker, A Strong Role for Custom in International Wildlife Litigation
• Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith & Nicholas S. J. Watts, Wildlife Conservation and Protected Areas: Politics, Procedure, and the Performance of Failure Under the EU Birds and Habitats Directives

Call for Submissions: German Yearbook of International Law

The German Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its forthcoming volume 57 (2014). Here's the call:

German Yearbook of International Law - Call for Papers

The German Yearbook of International Law is Germany’s oldest yearbook in the field of public international law. The GYIL is published annually by the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel and contains contributions on topics addressing all aspects of public international law. We aim to provide a forum for scholars of international law – both inside and outside Germany – to publish new research advancing public international legal discourse as well as analysis of current issues. The Yearbook features a ‘Forum’ for which prominent scholars are invited to enter into discussion on newly developing topics in international law and a ‘Focus’ section for which a group of experts are invited to write articles examining in-depth various aspects of a topic set in advance by the editors.

The General Articles section of the GYIL is open to submissions from the entire academic community and is independently peer-reviewed by a board of renowned experts. All work submitted will be scrutinised based on its intellectual quality and its advancement of academic discourse. The editors have thus decided to issue a general call for papers, inviting interested parties to submit contributions for consideration for inclusion in the forthcoming edition.

Those interested in publishing a General Article in the GYIL should submit a manuscript conforming with the house style of the GYIL (which is available on request or via our website) dealing with any topic of interest in the field of public international law to the editors by 22 September 2014. The length of the paper should be 10,000-12,500 words inclusive of footnotes. Potential authors are also requested to include a brief biographical statement, including information regarding current academic affiliations and general research interests. All inquiries and materials should be addressed to the Assistant Editors of the GYIL via e-mail: yearbook@internat-recht.uni-kiel.de.

Symposium: Legitimacy and International Courts

On September 18-19, 2014, the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law and PluriCourts - Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law will hold a symposium on "Legitimacy and International Courts," in Baltimore. The program is here. Here's the idea:

The symposium, co-sponsored by the University of Oslo's PluriCourts program and celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore, will bring together experts on specific courts and tribunals including the ICJ, WTO, ECJ, ECHR, Inter-American Court, ICSID, ITLOS, and ICC and specific themes including democracy, effectiveness, and judicial selection to consider the lessons that can be learned about the legitimacy of international courts and tribunals and those courts' and tribunals' ability to justify their authority and decisions.

Kanetake: The Interfaces between the National and International Rule of Law

Machiko Kanetake (Univ. of Amsterdam – Law) has posted The Interfaces between the National and International Rule of Law: A Framework Paper (in The Rule of Law at the National and International Levels: Contestations and Deference, Machiko Kanetake & André Nollkaemper eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This framework paper sets out the multiple angles from which the interfaces between the national and international rule of law can be analysed. The paper begins with a brief account of the concept of the international rule of law (Section II). It moves on to discuss the ‘national’ reception of the international rule of law (Section III), the points of connection between the national and international rule of law (Section IV), and the ‘international’ reception of the national rule of law (Section V). The paper concludes with a theoretical and normative assessment of the interfaces.

New Issue: Journal of the History of International Law

The latest issue of the Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international (Vol. 16, no. 1, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Emmanuelle Tourme Jouannet & Anne Peters, The Journal of the History of International Law: A Forum for New Research
• Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen, The Influence of the Concept of International Legal Personality in the Drafting of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice
• Alexis Heraclides, Humanitarian Intervention in International Law 1830–1939. The Debate
• Colin Smith & James Gallen, Cáin Adomnáin and the Laws of War

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 20, no. 3, September 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Lee J.M. Seymour, Let’s bullshit! Arguing, bargaining and dissembling over Darfur
• Claudia Aradau & Jef Huysmans, Critical methods in International Relations: The politics of techniques, devices and acts
• Jonathan W. Kuyper, Global democratization and international regime complexity
• Duncan Bell, Before the democratic peace: Racial utopianism, empire and the abolition of war
• Garrett Wallace Brown, The European Union and Kant’s idea of cosmopolitan right: Why the EU is not cosmopolitan
• Jonathan Gilmore, Protecting the Other: Considering the process and practice of cosmopolitanism
• Ty Solomon, The affective underpinnings of soft power
• Bernd Bucher, Acting abstractions: Metaphors, narrative structures, and the eclipse of agency
• Andrew A. Latham & James Christenson, Historicizing the ‘New Wars’: The case of Jihad in the early years of Islam
• K.M. Fierke, Who is my neighbour? Memories of the Holocaust/al Nakba and a global ethic of care
• Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Ideational change and the emergence of the international norm of truth and reconciliation commissions
• Joseph O’Mahoney, Rule tensions and the dynamics of institutional change: From ‘to the victor go the spoils’ to the Stimson Doctrine

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 53, no. 2, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Prosecutor v. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah Al-Senussi (Int’l Crim. Ct.), with introductory note by Gabriela Augustínyová
• Bundesrepublik Deutschland v. Kaveh Puid (E.C.J.), with introductory note by Guy S. Goodwin-Gill
• In the Matter of KL (A Child) (U.K. Sup. Ct.) & X v. Latvia (Eur. Ct. H.R.), with introductory note by Keith Loken
• International Criminal Court Code of Conduct for the Office of the Prosecutor, with introductory note by Lawrence Pacewicz
• African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution, with introductory note by Horace S. Adjolohoun

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 58, no. 6, September 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Daniel Mirza & Thierry Verdier, Are Lives a Substitute for Livelihoods? Terrorism, Security, and US Bilateral Imports
• Daina Chiba, Carla Martinez Machain, & William Reed, Major Powers and Militarized Conflict
• Christopher J. Fariss & Keith E. Schnakenberg, Measuring Mutual Dependence between State Repressive Actions
• J. Tyson Chatagnier, Teaching the Enemy: The Empirical Implications of Bargaining under Observation
• Kenneth A. Schultz, What’s in a Claim? De Jure versus De Facto Borders in Interstate Territorial Disputes
• Molly M. Melin & Alexandru Grigorescu, Connecting the Dots: Dispute Resolution and Escalation in a World of Entangled Territorial Claims
• Eran Halperin, Ruthie Pliskin, Tamar Saguy, Varda Liberman, & James J. Gross, Emotion Regulation and the Cultivation of Political Tolerance: Searching for a New Track for Intervention

New Issue: Ocean Development & International Law

The latest issue of Ocean Development & International Law (Vol. 45, no. 3, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• J. Ashley Roach, Today's Customary International Law of the Sea
• James Kraska, Governance of Ice-Covered Areas: Rule Construction in the Arctic Ocean
• Erik J. Molenaar, Options for Regional Regulation of Merchant Shipping Outside IMO, with Particular Reference to the Arctic Region

New Issue: Nordic Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 83, no. 3, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Yoshifumi Tanaka, Reflections on Transboundary Air Pollution in the Arctic: Limits of Shared Responsibility
• Ricky J. Lee & Sarah L. Steele, Models for Codifying International Rules for Jurisdiction, Liability, Safety and Accident Investigation for Commercial Passenger Spaceflight
• Radu Mares, Corporate and State Responsibilities in Conflict-Affected Areas

Broecker: The Reform of the United Nations’ Human Rights Treaty Bodies

Christen Broecker (Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights) has posted an ASIL Insight on The Reform of the United Nations’ Human Rights Treaty Bodies.

Nollkaemper: Framing Elephant Extinction

André Nollkaemper (Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has posted an ESIL Reflection on Framing Elephant Extinction.

New Issue: Global Environmental Politics

The latest issue of Global Environmental Politics (Vol. 14, no. 3, August 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Studying Global Environmental Meetings to Understand Global Environmental Governance: Collaborative Event Ethnography at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Lisa M. Campbell, Catherine Corson, Noella J. Gray, Kenneth I. MacDonald, & J. Peter Brosius, Introduction
• Catherine Corson, Lisa M. Campbell, & Kenneth I. MacDonald, Capturing the Personal in Politics: Ethnographies of Global Environmental Governance
• Lisa M. Campbell, Shannon Hagerman, & Noella J. Gray, Producing Targets for Conservation: Science and Politics at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Noella J. Gray, Rebecca L. Gruby, & Lisa M. Campbell, Boundary Objects and Global Consensus: Scalar Narratives of Marine Conservation in the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Deborah Scott, Sarah Hitchner, Edward M. Maclin, & Juan Luis Dammert B., Fuel for the Fire: Biofuels and the Problem of Translation at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya, Negotiating the Nagoya Protocol: Indigenous Demands for Justice
• Rosaleen Duffy, What Does Collaborative Event Ethnography Tell Us About Global Environmental Governance?
• Bram Büscher, Collaborative Event Ethnography: Between Structural Power and Empirical Nuance?

Call for Papers: Fourth Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law

A call for papers has been issued for the Fourth Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law, which will be convened by Dino Kritsiotis (Univ. of Nottingham - Law), Anne Orford (Univ. of Melbourne - Law), and J.H.H. Weiler (European Univ. Institute - Law) at the European University Institute on June 22-24, 2015. The closing deadline for applications is December 15, 2014. Here's the announcement:

FOURTH ANNUAL JUNIOR FACULTY FORUM FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW

The Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law was launched in the summer of 2011. It held its inaugural event at the New York University School of Law in May 2012; the second Forum was held at the University of Nottingham in May 2013 and the third (and most recent) Forum occurred at the University of Melbourne in July 2014. The Forum is designed as a regular addition to the international law calendar; its founding co-convenors are Dino Kritsiotis, Professor of Public International Law in the University of Nottingham, Anne Orford, Michael D. Kirby Professor of International Law in the University of Melbourne, and J.H.H. Weiler, President of the European University Institute in Florence. The Forum will allow international legal scholars, in the first six years of their academic career, a unique opportunity to present their research work by being paired with a senior scholar in the field of international law or related fields, who will lead a discussion of their presentation within the Forum.

The fourth Forum will convene at the European University Institute in June 2015, and selected presentations from the Forum will be published in the European Journal of International Law (Oxford University Press), a practice established from the inaugural Forum.