Saturday, November 8, 2014
Pentassuglia: Scotland Decides - An International Law Perspective
Friday, November 7, 2014
New Issue: Leiden Journal of International Law
- Editorial
- Ingo Venzke, What Makes for a Valid Legal Argument?
- International Legal Theory
- Kalkidan Obse, The Arab Spring and the Question of Legality of Democratic Revolution in Theory and Practice: A Perspective Based on the African Union Normative Framework
- International Law and Practice
- Nico Schrijver, A Portrait of Judge P. H. Kooijmans – A Passionate Advocate of the Rule of Law in International Affairs
- Phil C.W. Chan, China’s Approaches to International Law since the Opium War
- Melissa H. Loja, Who Owns the Oil that Traverses a Boundary on the Continental Shelf in an Enclosed Sea? Seeking Answers in Natural Law through Grotius and Selden
- Hague International Tribunals: International Criminal Courts and Tribunals
- Tilman Rodenhauser, Beyond State Crimes: Non-State Entities and Crimes Against Humanity
- Ingrid Kost, Books and Articles in the Field of the Prevention and Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Autumn 2014)
- Marko Divac Oberg, International Criminal Procedure – A Comparative Book Review
- Reading Unruly Law
- Richard Joyce, Law’s Outside
- Roberto Vilchez Yamato, On the Question of the Negative and the Politics of International Legal Language
- Mariana Valverde, ‘Non-Legality’ and Society
- Fleur Johns, Author’s Response
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Panel: Contentious Sovereignty: The Late Ottoman Empire and International Legal Theory and Practice
- Aimee M. Genell (Yale Univ.), “Marginal Occupations: The Ottoman Empire and the Ambiguities of Partial Sovereignty in 19th-Century International Law”
- Umut Özsu (Univ. of Manitoba), “The Ottoman Empire, the Origins of Extraterritoriality, and International Legal Theory”
- Will Smiley (Princeton Univ.), “Inventing Intervention: The Ottoman Empire, the Battle of Navarino, and the Use of Force in the 19th Century”
Conference: 2014 ASIL Midyear Meeting and Research Forum
Baldez: Defying Convention: U.S. Resistance to the UN Treaty on Women's Rights
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) articulates what has now become a global norm. CEDAW establishes the moral, civic, and political equality of women; women's right to be free from discrimination and violence; and the responsibility of governments to take positive action to achieve these goals. The United States is not among the 187 countries that have ratified the treaty. To explain why the United States has not ratified CEDAW, this book highlights the emergence of the treaty in the context of the Cold War, the deeply partisan nature of women's rights issues in the United States, and basic disagreements about how human rights treaties work.
Shaffer, Elsig, & Puig: The Extensive (But Fragile) Authority of the WTO Appellate Body
The authority of an international court (IC) is not necessarily evolutionary and its development unidirectional. This article focuses on the authority of the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and shows how it rapidly and almost immediately became extensive, but has since exhibited signs of becoming increasingly fragile. The article applies a typology of IC authority developed by Alter, Helfer and Madsen (2014) and explains the transformation from narrow authority (a dispute resolution venue under the GATT based on political negotiations) to extensive authority (a sophisticated WTO dispute settlement system) and presents empirical indicators of the rise of the AB’s authority. Such rapid development of extensive field authority is arguably a unique case in international politics at the multilateral level. That authority nonetheless remains fragile, and shows signs that it could decline significantly for reasons we explain.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Schiele: Evolution of International Environmental Regimes: The Case of Climate Change
Drawing specifically on the international climate regime, Simone Schiele examines international environmental regimes from a legal perspective and analyses a core feature of international regimes – their ability to evolve over time. In particular, she develops a theoretical framework based on general international law which allows for a thorough examination of the understanding of international law and the options for law-creation in international environmental regimes. The analysis therefore provides both a coherent understanding of the international climate regime and a starting point for further research in other regimes.
Cahin, Poirat, & Szurek: La France et les Organisations Internationales
- Edwige Belliard, Questions juridiques liées à l'implantation des organisations internationales
- Jean-Pierre Lafon, Le bureau international des expositions
- Eva-Maria Gröniger-Voss & Jean-Michel Favre, Le CERN et la France
- Bérangère Taxil, Les accords de siège conclus par la France
- Arnaud de Nanteuil, La France et l'immunité des organisations internationales
- Jean Matringe, Les actes unilatéraux des organisations internationales devant le juge français
- Nicolas de Rivière, Histoire de la Direction des Nations Unies et des organisations internationales
- Bruno Etien, Le rôle de la Mission des fonctionnaires internationationaux
- Jean-François Dobelle, La représentattion permanente de la France auprès du Conseil de l'Organisation de l'Aviation civile internationale et de la Conférence du Désarmement
- Bruno Gain, La représentation permanente de la France auprès du Conseil de l'Europe
- Christophe Guilhou, Le rôle d'une représentation permanente à Genève
- Philippe Marland, La représentation permanente de la France auprès de l'OCDE
- Pierre-Antoine Molina, Etats, compétences de l'Union européenne et organisations internationales : le cadre général
- Claude Blanchemaison, La présidence française du Conseil de l'Union européenne 2008
- Yves Daudet, La France et la cohérence du système des Nations Unies : bilan et perspectives
- Mathias Forteau, Présentation générale : la France et la réforme des Nations Unies: aspects politiques et institutionnels
- Alain Dejammet, La réforme du Conseil de sécurité état des lieux
- Thérèse Gastaut, Le Secrétariat, instrument de diplomatie multilatérale : quelle réforme?
- Christina Vasak, De la gestion de l'Organisation des Nations Unies
- Olivier de Frouville, La place de la société civile dans les organisations internationales : quelle stratégie pour la France au XXIème siècle?
- Hervé Ascensio, La France, le Pacte mondial et le rôle des entreprises
- Conrad Eckenschwiller, Le rôle des entreprises dans le monde du XXIème siècle : le Pacte mondial en France
- Michel Doucin, L'ambassadeur en mission, tête chercheuse de la diplomatie globale
- Franck Latty, La France et les nouvelles formes d'organisations internationales : entre dogmatisme et pragmatisme : la France et le droit des organisations sportives internationales
Fanchiotti, Miraglia, & Pierini: La Corte penale internazionale: Profili sostanziali e processuali
- J.P. Pierini, Natura ed ambito di applicazione dello statuto
- J.P. Pierini, L’oggetto della giurisdizione e l’ammissibilità del caso
- J.P. Pierini, Principi di diritto sostanziale
- V. Fanchiotti, Struttura della corte e fase delle indagini
- V. Fanchiotti, Il dibattimento e le impugnazioni
- J.P. Pierini, L’esecuzione della pena
- M. Miraglia, La cooperazione con la corte penale internazionale e l’ordinamento italiano
New Issue: European Journal of International Law
- Editorial
- JHHW, Sleepwalking Again: The End of the Pax Americana 1914–2014; After Gaza 2014: Schabas; Peer Review Redux; In this Issue
- Articles
- Jan Klabbers, The Emergence of Functionalism in International Institutional Law: Colonial Inspirations
- Michelle Leanne Burgis-Kasthala, Over-stating Palestine’s UN Membership Bid?An Ethnographic Study on the Narratives of Statehood
- Mark Chinen, Complexity Theory and the Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of State Responsibility
- Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses A. Wessel, & Jan Wouters, When Structures Become Shackles: Stagnation and Dynamics in International Lawmaking
- EJIL: Debate!
- Mónica García-Salmones Rovira, The Politics of Interest in International Law
- Jörg Kammerhofer, The Politics of Interest in International Law: A Reply to Mónica García-Salmones Rovira
- Mónica García-Salmones Rovira, The Politics of Interest in International Law: A Rejoinder to Jörg Kammerhofer
- Roaming Charges: Moments of Dignity: Keepers of the Sultan’s Treasures, Brunei Regalia Museum
- The European Tradition in International Law: F.F. Martens
- Lauri Mälksoo, F.F. Martens and His Time: When Russia Was an Integral Part of the European Tradition of International Law
- Rein Müllerson, F.F. Martens – Man of the Enlightenment: Drawing Parallels between Martens’ Times and Today’s Problems
- Rotem Giladi, The Enactment of Irony: Reflections on the Origins of the Martens Clause
- Andreas T. Müller, Friedrich F. Martens on ‘The Office of Consul and Consular Jurisdiction in the East’
- Critical Review of International Governance
- Shashank P. Kumar & Cecily Rose, A Study of Lawyers Appearing before the International Court of Justice, 1999–2012
- Review Essay
- Gleider I. Hernández, The Judicialization of International Law: Reflections on the Empirical Turn
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Call for Contributors: Oxford Reports on International Law (Reports on International Trade Law Decisions)
The Oxford Reports on International Law (ORIL) brings together decisions on public international law from international law courts, domestic courts, and ad hoc tribunals, and is the most up-to-date source of international case law available. We are in the process of creating a new module for the ORIL provisionally entitled Reports on International Trade Law Decisions. This is the first database to provide expert commentary and analysis of case law of trade-related international dispute settlement systems, focusing on issues relating to public international law. In first instance, the database covers cases decided by, inter alia, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (Panels and the Appellate Body), NAFTA and the Caribbean Court of Justice. So far, over 60 cases have been commissioned to contributors. Decisions of other tribunals, such as those of ASEAN, MERCOSUR and EFTA, are equally targeted. The development of the new module is led by the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies at the University of Leuven, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jan Wouters and Prof. Dr. Geert Van Calster.
We are currently looking for contributors that are experts in the fields of public international law, WTO law, and international trade law who would like to take part in the project. Contributors are asked to draft short case notes (around 1.000 words) on judgments from the abovementioned tribunals, insofar they are significant for public international law. You will of course be credited as the sole author, and each case note will be published in the Oxford Reports on International Law – Reports on International Trade Law Decisions module, to be launched by March 2015. Moreover, you may use case notes as the basis for a subsequent publication provided it is not identical (in which case consent from OUP would need to be asked), and due reference is made to the earlier OUP case note. Additionally, authors of case notes are to be compensated 45 EUR per note from Oxford University Press. In our experience, a case note takes around 2 days’ work.
If you are interested in becoming a contributor and are willing to contribute to this exciting project, please send us a short description of your background and experience, insofar relevant. If you have specific interests or expertise relevant to the project, feel free to suggest to author specific case notes. Please do keep in mind that many WTO cases have already been commissioned for head notes and may no longer be available. Considering the broad scope of this project, feel free to forward this invitation to equally qualified colleagues who may be interested to submit case notes.
Thank you in advance and we are at your disposal should you have additional queries. Please mail to dylan.geraets@law.kuleuven.be
Prof. Dr. Jan Wouters and Prof. Dr. Geert Van Calster, Editors
Dylan Geraets and Bregt Natens, Associate Editors
Scheid: The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention
- Don E. Scheid, Introduction
- Tzvetan Todorov, The responsibility to protect and the war in Libya
- George R. Lucas, Jr, Revisiting armed humanitarian intervention: a 25-year retrospective
- Fernando R. Tesón, The moral basis of humanitarian intervention revisited
- Ned Dobos & C.A.J. Coady, All or nothing: are there any 'merely permissible' humanitarian interventions?
- Helen Frowe, Judging armed humanitarian intervention
- James Pattison, Bombing the beneficiaries: the distribution of the costs of the responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention
- Michael Blake, The costs of war: justice, liability, and the pottery barn rule
- Luke Glanville, Humanitarian intervention and the problem of abuse after Libya
- Alex J. Bellamy, The responsibility to protect and the problem of regime change
- Michael W. Doyle, Law, ethics, and the responsibility to protect
- Jennifer M. Welsh, Responsibility to protect and the language of crimes: collective action and individual culpability
- Brian Orend, Post-intervention: permissions and prohibitions
- David Rodin, Rethinking responsibility to protect: the case for human sovereignty
New Issue: International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law
- Energy from the Sea: An International Law Perspective on Ocean Energy
- Nigel Bankes & Seline Trevisanut, Introduction: Energy from the Sea
- Richard Barnes, Energy Sovereignty in Marine Spaces
- Catherine Redgwell, Mind the Gap in the gairs: The Role of Other Instruments in losc Regime Implementation in the Offshore Energy Sector
- Angelica Bonfanti & Francesca Romanin Jacur, Energy from the Sea and the Protection of the Marine Environment: Treaty-Based Regimes and Ocean Corporate Social Responsibility
- Seline Trevisanut, The Role of Private Actors in Offshore Energy: Shifting Models of Participation
- Nigel Bankes, Recent Framework Agreements for the Recognition and Development of Transboundary Hydrocarbon Resources
- Ronán Long, Harnessing Offshore Wind Energy: Legal Challenges and Policy Conundrums in the European Union
- Hannah Katharina Müller & Martha M. Roggenkamp, Regulating Offshore Energy Sources in the North Sea—Reinventing the Wheel or a Need for More Coordination?
Watson: Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law
This work is the first to assess the legality and impact of colonisation from the viewpoint of Aboriginal law, rather than from that of the dominant Western legal tradition. It begins by outlining the Aboriginal legal system as it is embedded in Aboriginal people’s complex relationship with their ancestral lands. This is Raw Law: a natural system of obligations and benefits, flowing from an Aboriginal ontology. This book places Raw Law at the centre of an analysis of colonisation – thereby decentring the usual analytical tendency to privilege the dominant structures and concepts of Western law. From the perspective of Aboriginal law, colonisation was a violation of the code of political and social conduct embodied in Raw Law. Its effects were damaging. It forced Aboriginal peoples to violate their own principles of natural responsibility to self, community, country and future existence. But this book is not simply a work of mourning. Most profoundly, it is a celebration of the resilience of Aboriginal ways, and a call for these to be recognised as central in discussions of colonial and postcolonial legality.
Jacobs: Targeting the State in Jus Post Bellum: Towards a Theory of Integrated Sovereignties
This chapter explores the role that sovereignty plays in the jus post bellum context. Noting the generally negative perceptions of the concept of "sovereignty" in a number of academic and activist circles, this chapter argues that sovereignty should be on the contrary a important consideration in any post conflict discussion. In order words, while the State is often seen as the target, i.e an obstacle to effective post conflict policies, it, and its sovereignty, should become a target, i.e. an objective of jus post bellum. The Chapter first explains how issues relating to statehood and sovereignty are often central in post conflict situations, such as in claims to self-determination or the international prosecution of crimes. The chapter then proposes a theoretical framework to conceptualize the relationship between the international and domestic spheres through a revisiting of Georges Scelle's Role Splitting theory (dedoublement fonctionnel). Ultimately, the chapter calls for a rethinking, rather than a discarding, of the notion of sovereignty in today's globalized and interconnected legal orders.
White: The Cuban Embargo under International Law
The United States embargo against Cuba was imposed over fifty years ago initially as a response to the new revolutionary government's seizure of US properties, which was viewed by the US as a violation of international law. However, while sanctions can be legitimate means of enforcing established norms, the Cuban embargo itself appears to be the wrongful act, and its persistence calls into question the importance and function of international law.
This book examines the history, legality and effects of US sanctions against Cuba and argues that the embargo has largely become a matter of politics and ideology; subjecting Cuba to apparently illegitimate coercion that has resulted in a prolonged global toleration of what appears to be a serious violation of international law. The book demonstrates how the Cuban embargo undermines the use of sanctions world-wide, and asks whether the refusal of world governments to address the illegality of the embargo reduces international law to tokenism where concepts of sovereign equality and non-intervention are no longer a priority. Despite the weaknesses of international law, Nigel D. White argues that in certain political conditions it will be possible to end the embargo as part of a bilateral agreement to restore normal relations between the US and Cuba and, furthermore, that such an agreement, if it is to succeed, will have to be shaped by the broad parameters of law and justice.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Lindseth: Supranational Organizations
The key distinction between a supranational organization (SNO) and an international organization (IO) is the scope of autonomous regulatory power that the body may enjoy. Taking the European Union (EU) as the leading exemplar of the type, an SNO can exercise a whole range of rulemaking, adjudication, and enforcement powers with a comparatively high degree of independence from intergovernmental or national control, at least within the scope of authority delegated to the supranational level. In the literature on European legal integration over the last several decades, this degree of autonomous regulatory power has given rise to the notion that the EU has become something of an autonomous “constitutional” order in its own right. When applied to SNOs more generally, this becomes what we might call the “constitutional, not international” framework.
However, both SNOs and IOs can equally be seen — in fact, should better be seen — along a different dimension, what this contribution calls the “administrative, not constitutional” framework. From this perspective, delegation expresses “pre-commitment” of constitutional principals on the national level to a stream of policy choices to be implemented by denationalized agents enjoying some measure of autonomy, either de jure or de facto. The key difference between an SNO and IO is not in their purported “constitutionalization” but in the degree of autonomous regulatory discretion delegated to the denationalized agent. In legal terms, this analytical framework operates along a spectrum stretching from strongly legitimated “constitutional government” on the national level to diffuse and fragmented forms of “administrative governance” on either the sub-national, national, supranational, or international levels. In this regard, both SNOs and IOs, as well as national and sub-national agencies, can be seen as a further stage in the development of the diverse expressions of administrative governance beyond the political summit of the state (i.e., the “legislature” or the “executive” in their highest institutional forms).
New Issue: Human Rights Quarterly
- Guobin Zhu, The Right to Minority Language Instruction in Schools: Negotiating Competing Claims in Multinational China
- Felipe Gómez Isa, Cultural Diversity, Legal Pluralism, and Human Rights from an Indigenous Perspective: The Approach by the Colombian Constitutional Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
- Cara L. Kennedy, Toward Effective Intervention for Haiti’s Former Child Slaves
- Antoine Buyse, Words of Violence: “Fear Speech,” or How Violent Conflict Escalation Relates to the Freedom of Expression
- Luke William Hunt, The Global Ethics of Helping and Harming
- Teresa Godwin Phelps, Truth Delayed: Accounting for Human Rights Violations in Guatemala and Spain
- Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Russian NGOs and the European Court of Human Rights: A Spectrum of Approaches to Litigation
- Sally-Anne Way, The “Myth” and Mystery of US History on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: The 1947 “United States Suggestions for Articles to be Incorporated in an International Bill of Rights”
- Tom Zwart, Safeguarding the Universal Acceptance of Human Rights Through the Receptor Approach
- Carrie Booth Walling & Susan Waltz, Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together: Human Rights Advocacy and the History of International Human Rights Standards Website
New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law
Allen: The Chagos Islanders and International Law
In 1965, the UK excised the Chagos Islands from the colony of Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in connection with the founding of a US military facility on the island of Diego Garcia. Consequently, the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands were secretly exiled to Mauritius, where they became chronically impoverished. This book considers the resonance of international law for the Chagos Islanders. It advances the argument that BIOT constitutes a 'Non-Self-Governing Territory' pursuant to the provisions of Chapter XI of the UN Charter and for the wider purposes of international law. In addition, the book explores the extent to which the right of self-determination, indigenous land rights and a range of obligations contained in applicable human rights treaties could support the Chagossian right to return to BIOT. However, the rights of the Chagos Islanders are premised on the assumption that the UK possesses a valid sovereignty claim over BIOT. The evidence suggests that this claim is questionable and it is disputed by Mauritius. Consequently, the Mauritian claim threatens to compromise the entitlements of the Chagos Islanders in respect of BIOT as a matter of international law. This book illustrates the ongoing problems arising from international law's endorsement of the territorial integrity of colonial units for the purpose of decolonisation at the expense of the countervailing claims of colonial self-determination by non-European peoples that inhabited the same colonial unit. The book uses the competing claims to the Chagos Islands to demonstrate the need for a more nuanced approach to the resolution of sovereignty disputes resulting from the legacy of European colonialism.
New Issue: Criminal Law Forum
- Yvon Dandurand, Criminal Justice Reform and the System’s Efficiency
- Adrian M. Plevin, Beyond a “Victims’ Right”: Truth-Finding Power and Procedure at the ICC
- Russell Buchan, The Mavi Marmara Incident and the International Criminal Court
- Marta Bo, The Situation in Libya and the ICC’s Understanding of Complementarity in the Context of UNSC-Referred Cases
Sunday, November 2, 2014
MacKenzie: International Aspects of Asylum Law in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
New Volume: Polish Yearbook of International Law
- Maurizio Arcari, The Creeping Constitutionalization and Fragmentation of International Law: From “Constitutional” to “Consistent” Interpretation
- Cezary Mik, Jus Cogens in Contemporary International Law
- Gino J. Naldi & Konstantinos D. Magliveras, Human Rights and the Denunciation of Treaties and Withdrawal from International Organisations
- Lord Lester of Herne Hill, Free Speech Today
- Dimitry Kochenov, On Policing Article 2 TEU Compliance – Reverse Solange and Systemic Infringements Analyzed
- Krystyna Kowalik-Bańczyk, A la recherche d’une coherence perdue – Possible Arguments for the Non-application of EU Law in Member States
- Jakub Kociubiński, Consolidation or Fragmentation? European Competition Law in the EU Air Transport Sector: A Policy Analysis
- Comments on Janowiec and others v. Russia
- Ireneusz C. Kamiński, The Katyń Massacre before the European Court of Human Rights: A Personal Account
- Yaroslav Kozheurov, The Case of Janowiec and Others v. Russia: Relinquishment of Jurisdiction in Favour of the Court of History
- William Schabas, Do the “Underlying Values” of the European Convention on Human Rights Begin in 1950?
- Susana Sanz-Caballero, How Could It Go So Wrong? Reformatio in Peius before the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR in the Case Janowiec and Others v. Russia (or Polish Collective Memory Deceived in Strasbourg)
- Gabriella Citroni, Janowiec and Others v. Russia: A Long History of Justice Delayed Turned into a Permanent Case of Justice Denied
- Answers to the Questions for the Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Janowiec and Others v. Russia