Burci & Quirin: Ebola, WHO, and the United Nations: Convergence of Global Public Health and International Peace and Security

Gian Luca Burci (Legal Counsel, World Health Organization) & Jakob Quirin (World Health Organization) have posted an ASIL Insight on Ebola, WHO, and the United Nations: Convergence of Global Public Health and International Peace and Security.

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 20, no. 4, December 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Daniel J. Levine & Alexander D. Barder, The closing of the American mind: ‘American School’ International Relations and the state of grand theory
• Rebecca Adler-Nissen & Vincent Pouliot, Power in practice: Negotiating the international intervention in Libya
• Matthew D. Stephen, Rising powers, global capitalism and liberal global governance: A historical materialist account of the BRICs challenge
• Ja Ian Chong, Popular narratives versus Chinese history: Implications for understanding an emergent China
• David C. Kang, Why was there no religious war in premodern East Asia?
• Mark Axelrod, Clash of the treaties: Responding to institutional interplay in European Community–Chile swordfish negotiations
• Cecilia Albin & Daniel Druckman, Procedures matter: Justice and effectiveness in international trade negotiations
• Maria Koinova, Why do conflict-generated diasporas pursue sovereignty-based claims through state-based or transnational channels? Armenian, Albanian and Palestinian diasporas in the UK compared
• John M. Owen IV & Michael Poznansky, When does America drop dictators?
• Courtney Hillebrecht, The power of human rights tribunals: Compliance with the European Court of Human Rights and domestic policy change
• Klaus Dingwerth, Global democracy and the democratic minimum: Why a procedural account alone is insufficient

New Issue: Human Rights Law Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 14, no. 4, December 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Denise González Núñez, Peasants’ Right to Land: Addressing the Existing Implementation and Normative Gaps in International Human Rights Law
• Pok Yin S. Chow, Culture as Collective Memories: An Emerging Concept in International Law and Discourse on Cultural Rights
• Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir, The Differences that Make a Difference: Recent Developments on the Discrimination Grounds and the Margin of Appreciation under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights
• Lize R. Glas, Changes in the Procedural Practice of the European Court of Human Rights: Consequences for the Convention System and Lessons to be Drawn
• Elena Katselli Proukaki, The Right of Displaced Persons to Property and to Return Home after Demopoulos
• Debbie Sayers, Protecting Fair Trial Rights in Criminal Cases in the European Union: Where does the Roadmap take Us?

New Issue: Transnational Legal Theory

The latest issue of Transnational Legal Theory (Vol. 5, no. 3, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Zoran Oklopcic, Provincialising Constitutional Pluralism
• Kevin B Sobel-Read, Global Value Chains: A Framework for Analysis
• 10 Years Equator Principles: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry
• Isabel Feichtner & Manuel Wörsdörfer, Introduction
• Suellen Lazarus, The Equator Principles at Ten Years
• Annegret Flohr, A Complaint Mechanism for the Equator Principles—And Why Equator Members Should Urgently Want It
• Manuel Wörsdörfer, 'Free, Prior, and Informed Consent' and Inclusion: Nussbaum, Ostrom, Sen and the Equator Principles Framework
• Michael Riegner, The Equator Principles on Sustainable Finance Assessed from a Critical Development and Third World Perspective

New Issue: International Affairs

The latest issue of International Affairs (Vol. 90, no. 6, November 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Roy Allison, Russian ‘deniable’ intervention in Ukraine: how and why Russia broke the rules
• Cornelia Navari, Territoriality, self-determination and Crimea after Badinter
• David Wedgwood Benn, On re-examining western attitudes to Russia
• Gareth Stansfield, The Islamic State, the Kurdistan Region and the future of Iraq: assessing UK policy options
• Fred H. Lawson, Syria's mutating civil war and its impact on Turkey, Iraq and Iran
• David McDowall, Clarity or ambiguity? The withdrawal clause of UN Security Council Resolution 242
• Sten Rynning, The geography of the Atlantic peace: NATO 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall
• Kalypso Nicolaïdis & richard Youngs, Europe's democracy trilemma
• Joachim Krause, Assessing the danger of war: parallels and differences between Europe in 1914 and East Asia in 2014

Janik: The Janus Face of Nationalism in the European Union

Ralph R.A. Janik (Univ. of Vienna - Law) has posted The Janus Face of Nationalism in the European Union (in The 17th International Conference of Young Scholars: Crucial Problems of International Relations through the Eyes of Young Scholars: Collective Memory and International Relations, pp. 128-152, 2013). Here's the abstract:

The unprecedented growth of the modern state has been deeply connected with nationalism understood as the idea that a specific territory should be composed of people sharing a distinct history, language or culture: In the period which can roughly be demarcated as ranging from the Peace of Westphalia until the two world wars, this was the main generally agreed upon concept which provided the basis for a seemingly unlimited growth of the public sector and the regulation of aspects hitherto seen as outside the ambit of the state at the expense of individual liberties and the regional and municipal administration. Beginning with the formation of the European Union, however, there has been a substantial attempt at transforming the meaning and impact of nationalism. Instead of being an essentially modern, progressive concept, it is often portrayed as backward, an obstacle in the path towards further integration and the fulfilment of peace and improved living standards. In other words, the tide has turned, the nation-state has itself become the smaller unit it used to fight against in earlier times. At the same time, however, the arguments and the general attitude in favour of further integration in the EU clearly resemble those that were asserted during the rise of the nation-state. Thus, it seems that history is substantially repeating itself as the transmission of powers has only been taken to the next level with the EU simply having replaced the old nation-state.

Conference: Reassessing International Economic Law and Development: New Challenges for Law and Policy

The International Economic Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law is meeting today through Saturday, November 13-15, at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, for its biennial research conference. The theme is "Reassessing International Economic Law and Development: New Challenges for Law and Policy." The program is here.

New Issue: Yale Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Yale Journal of International Law (Vol. 39, no. 2, Summer 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Rachel Brewster & Adam Chilton, Supplying Compliance: Why and When the United States Complies with WTO Rulings
• Monica Hakimi, Toward a Legal Theory on the Responsibility to Protect
• Andrew Tutt, Treaty Textualism

Conference: SFDI-DGIR Joint Conference and Workshop for Junior Scholars

This Friday and Saturday, November 14-15, 2014, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht and the Société française pour le droit international will hold their biennial joint conference at the Université de Louvain. The theme is: "The Law of International Borders." The program is here. Today, November 13, within the framework of the biennial meeting, the societies will hold a workshop for junior scholars on the topic "International Law and Territoriality: Protecting, Making Sense and Going Beyond Sovereign Limits in Contemporary Practice." The program is here.

Bantekas & Mylonaki: Criminological Approaches to International Criminal Law

Ilias Bantekas (Brunel Univ. - Law) & Emmanouela Mylonaki (South Bank Univ. - Law) have published Criminological Approaches to International Criminal Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2014). Contents include:

• Ilias Bantekas, Introduction: an interdisciplinary criminology of international criminal law
• Andy Aitchison, Criminological theory and international crimes: examining the potential
• The relevance and application of empirical research methods to the study of international crimes Emmanouela Mylonaki
• Kristian Lasslett, Understanding and responding to state crime: a criminological perspective
• Jonathan Rusch, Investigating complex crime
• Dermot Groome, Evidence in cases of mass criminality
• Brian Cutler, Roderick Lindsay & Andrew Smith, Eyewitness psychology in the context of international criminal law
• Dionysios Demetis, The role of information systems in the prevention and detection of transnational and international crime
• Olaoluwa Olusanya, Using the macro-micro integrated theoretical model to understand the dynamics of collective violence
• Ilias Bantekas, The anthropological dimension of international crimes and international criminal justice
• Henrik Anckarsäter, Tova Bennet, Thomas Nilsson & Susanna Radovic, Mental health and international crimes
• Jeffrey Stevenson Murer, Understanding collective violence: the communicative and performative qualities of violence in acts of belonging
• Jo-Anne M. Wemmers & Amissi Manirabona, Defining victims: a proposed typology for victims of war crimes and their need for reparation

Vreeland & Dreher: The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council: Money and Influence

James Raymond Vreeland (Georgetown Univ.) & Axel Dreher (Universität Heidelberg) have published The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council: Money and Influence (Cambridge Univ. Press 2014). Here's the abstract:

Trades of money for political influence persist at every level of government. Not surprisingly, governments themselves trade money for political support on the international stage. Strange, however, is the tale of this book. For, in this study, legitimacy stands as the central political commodity at stake. The book investigates the ways governments trade money for favors at the United Nations Security Council - the body endowed with the international legal authority to legitimize the use of armed force to maintain or restore peace. With a wealth of quantitative data, the book shows that powerful countries, such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, extend financial favors to the elected members of the Security Council through direct foreign aid and through international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In return, developing countries serving on the Security Council must deliver their political support … or face the consequences.

Benedek, De Feyter, Kettemann, & Voigt: The Common Interest in International Law

Wolfgang Benedek, Koen De Feyter, Matthias C. Kettemann, & Christina Voigt have published The Common Interest in International Law (Intersentia 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

What lies in the common interest of the international community? How are those common interests protected? What is the role of states and of the international community? The Common Interest in International Law provides answers to these key questions that international law is faced with in times of globalization, humanization and climate change.

This book looks at the protection of common interests and shows how international law is progressively moving away from a system based on territorial sovereignty to a system based on shared responsibilities among states and other actors. The areas covered range from human rights law, international environmental law and international security law to international economic law and international litigation.

The editors’ objective is to investigate whether and how international law which historically is state-centric and consensual can protect common interests of humanity, when such common interests can only be safeguarded with the commitment and cooperation of all state and non-state actors. The issue of collective interests is subject to numerous current discourses in international law. This volume attempts to tie these together to a new – or renewed – understanding of ‘common interest’ reflective of contemporary challenges in international law. The concept of ‘common interest’ suggests that more is at stake in international law than the individual self-interests of states. Such notion might hold the key to transforming international law away from the dominance of sovereignty into a system which truly serves the interest of the “community”, including all relevant actors.

New Issue: Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Institutions

The latest issue of Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Institutions (Vol. 20, no. 4, October-December 2014) is out. Contents include:

• The Global Forum
• Matthew Hoisington, Toward an International Law for Ungoverned Spaces
• Special Section: The Middle East and the Atom: Continued Anarchy or a Regional Nuclear Energy Community?
• Grégoire Mallard & Paolo Foradori, The Middle East at a Crossroads: How to Face the Perils of Nuclear Development in a Volatile Region
• Mohamed Ibrahim Shaker, Regionalizing Nuclear Energy in the Middle East: Making Progress on the Nuclear- and WMD-free Zone
• Seyed Hossein Mousavian, The Solution to the Iranian Nuclear Crisis and its Consequences for the Middle East
• Articles
• David Bosco, Assessing the UN Security Council: A Concert Perspective
• Oliver P. Richmond & Ioannis Tellidis, Emerging Actors in International Peacebuilding and Statebuilding: Status Quo or Critical States
• Burak Bilgehan Özpek, The Role of Democracy in the Recognition of De Facto States: An Empirical Assessment
• Dominik Kopiński & Qian Sun, New Friends, Old Friends? The World Bank and Africa When the Chinese are Coming

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

I noted recently some additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. Two more lectures have now been added. They were given by Judge Vagn Joensen on “An Introduction to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and its Impact on the Rule of Law in Rwanda” and Professor David D. Caron on "Understanding Why International Courts and Tribunals Look and Act as They Do.”

Egan, Thornton, & Walsh: Ireland and the European Convention on Human Rights: 60 Years and Beyond

Suzanne Egan (Univ. College Dublin - Law), Liam Thornton (Univ. College Dublin - Law), & Judy Walsh (Univ. College Dublin - School of Social Justice) have published Ireland and the European Convention on Human Rights: 60 Years and Beyond (Bloomsbury 2014). Here's the abstract:

The book 2013 marks the 60th anniversary of Ireland's ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights and the 10th anniversary of the Convention's incorporation into domestic law, by means of the ECHR Act 2003. It contains a wealth of essays and articles by leading experts which examine Ireland's engagement with the European Convention on Human Rights at international level down through the years as well as the extent to which the case law of the European Court of Human Rights has influenced domestic human rights law and administrative action through the vehicle of the 2003 Act. It analyses current Strasbourg jurisprudence on key issues and project its likely implications on law and policy in the Contracting States, with particular reference to Irish domestic law.

The book addresses the difficult questions that arise for judges in both jurisdictions following the constitutionalisation of the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2009 and the revised agreement of the EU's accession to the ECHR.

The impact of the ECHR in Irish law is a particularly rich subject for analysis, given the strong tradition of rights review by the Irish judiciary in interpreting the fundamental rights guarantees in the Irish Constitution. While the Irish statute is superficially similar to the Human Rights Act in the United Kingdom, the context in which it operates is radically different, given the pre-eminent role of the Irish Constitution in shaping domestic human rights law. As well as outlining the specific domestic context in which the ECHR operates in Ireland, the book also includes comparative insights from the United Kingdom context as to the impact of the Human Rights Act to date in that jurisdiction.

Additional themes of the book include the development of ECHR jurisprudence and its effects in the domestic setting on asylum, immigration, criminal justice, children, mental health patients, gender recognition and the limits and potential of the ECHR as regards combating poverty. - See more at: http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/ie/ireland-and-the-european-convention-on-human-rights-60-years-and-beyond-9781780434728/#sthash.pg5vxrvi.dpuf

Seminar: The Role of Legal and Scientific Expertise in the Avoidance and Settlement of Water Law Disputes

On December 5, 2014, a seminar on "The Role of Legal and Scientific Expertise in the Avoidance and Settlement of Water Law Disputes" will take place at the Queen Mary University of London School of Law. The program is here. Here's the idea:

This seminar will seek to explain the complex relationships between international law, law enforcement, negotiation and litigation that surrounds water law disputes. Through a variety of panel discussions and speeches by industry experts, the seminar will consider the relationship between legal and scientific expertise in the field. The aim is to introduce the Water Convention and its Implementation Committee, and to consider the creation and effect of dispute avoidance instruments such as the 1992 UNECE Water Convention and the follow up Guide to Implementing the Convention (September 2013). In addition, there will be an exploration into the use of different experts in international litigation, with special reference to the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

New Issue: Global Policy

The latest issue of Global Policy (Vol. 5, no. 4, November 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Research Articles
• Conor Gearty, The State of Human Rights
• Michael Bohlander, Criminalising LGBT Persons Under National Criminal Law and Article 7(1)(h) and (3) of the ICC Statute
• J. Juan Masullo & Bajo Jone Lauzurika, Bringing the ‘New Wars’ Debate Back on Track: Building on Critiques, Identifying Opportunities, and Moving Forward
• Survey Article
• Denise Garcia, Global Norms on Arms: The Significance of the Arms Trade Treaty for Global Security in World Politics
• Special Section - The Arms Trade Treaty and Global Civil Society
• Matthew Bolton, Helena Whall, Allison Pytlak, Hector Guerra & Katelyn E. James, The Arms Trade Treaty from a Global Civil Society Perspective: Introducing Global Policy's Special Section
• Matthew Bolton & Katelyn E. James, Nascent Spirit of New York or Ghost of Arms Control Past?: The Normative Implications of the Arms Trade Treaty for Global Policymaking
• Helena Whall & Allison Pytlak, The Role of Civil Society in the International Negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty
• Matthew Bolton, Héctor Guerra, Ray Acheson & Oliver Sprague, The Road Forward for the Arms Trade Treaty: A Civil Society Practitioner Commentary
• Practitioner Commentaries
• Ioana Cismas, The Right to Food Beyond De-Mythification: Time to Shed the Inferiority Complex of Socio-Economic Rights
• Michael Chibba, Globalization and International Business as Interdependent Phenomena
• Anna Simpson, Brands Weigh Up Their Social Role
• Practitioners' Special Section - International Education - Students and Domestic Policy Challenges
• Brian Stoddart, International Education: The Hard Edge of Soft Power
• Dean Forbes, International University Campuses and the Knowledge Economy: The University City Project in Adelaide
• Simon Fraser, The Role for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and Donor Agencies in Developing Economies
• Response to Articles
• Zhonglu Zeng, Capital Controls: Economic Models and Contingency Strategies
• Dražen Derado, Is There an Alternative to the Present Model of Economic Governance of the Eurozone?
• Review Essay
• Richard Beardsworth, Whither Global Governance?

Glover: Paper Sovereigns: Anglo-Native Treaties and the Law of Nations, 1604-1664

Jeffrey Glover (Loyola Univ. Chicago - English) has published Paper Sovereigns: Anglo-Native Treaties and the Law of Nations, 1604-1664 (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 2014). Here's the abstract:

In many accounts of Native American history, treaties are synonymous with tragedy. From the beginnings of settlement, Europeans made and broke treaties, often exploiting Native American lack of alphabetic literacy to manipulate political negotiation. But while colonial dealings had devastating results for Native people, treaty making and breaking involved struggles more complex than any simple contest between invaders and victims. The early colonists were often compelled to negotiate on Indian terms, and treaties took a bewildering array of shapes ranging from rituals to gestures to pictographs. At the same time, Jeffrey Glover demonstrates, treaties were international events, scrutinized by faraway European audiences and framed against a background of English, Spanish, French, and Dutch imperial rivalries.

To establish the meaning of their agreements, colonists and Natives adapted and invented many new kinds of political representation, combining rituals from tribal, national, and religious traditions. Drawing on an archive that includes written documents, printed books, orations, landscape markings, wampum beads, tally sticks, and other technologies of political accounting, Glover examines the powerful influence of treaty making along the vibrant and multicultural Atlantic coast of the seventeenth century.

Peters, Lagrange, Oeter & Tomuschat: Immunities in the Age of Global Constitutionalism

Anne Peters (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law), Evelyne Lagrange (Univ. Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne - Law), Stefan Oeter (Univ. of Hamburg - Law) & Christian Tomuschat (Humboldt Univ. Berlin - Law) have published Immunities in the Age of Global Constitutionalism (Brill | Nijhoff 2014). Contents include:

• Alain Pellet & Daniel Thürer, Preface
• Anne Peters, Immune against Constitutionalisation?
• Pierre Boussaroque & David Lemétayer, L’immunité souveraine de l’État : la pratique française
• Martin Ney, Sovereign Immunities of States: a German Perspective
• Wladyslaw Czaplinski, Current Polish Practice in the Domain of State Immunity
• Thomas Giegerich, The Holy See, a Former Somalian Prime Minister, and a Confiscated Pissarro Painting: Recent US Case Law on Foreign Sovereign Immunity
• Mathias Audit, La renonciation par un État à son immunité d’execution
• Christian Tomuschat, The Case of Germany v. Italy before the ICJ
• Michael Bothe, Remedies of Victims of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanities: Some Critical Remarks on the ICJ’s Judgment on the Jurisdictional Immunity of States
• Jerzy Kranz, L’affaire Allemagne contre Italie ou les dilemmes du droit et de la justice
• Anne van Aaken, Blurring Boundaries between Sovereign Acts and Commercial Activities: A Functional View on Regulatory Immunity and Immunity from Execution
• Jürgen Bröhmer, Immunity and Sovereign Bonds
• Jean-Marc Thouvenin, Gel des fonds des banques centrales et immunité d’execution
• Andrea Gattini, Immunité et souveraineté dans l’arrêt de la Cour internationale de Justice dans l’affaire Immunités juridictionnelles de l’État
• Robert Uerpmann-Wittzack, Serious Human Rights Violations as Potential Exceptions to Immunity: Conceptual Challenges
• Pierre d’Argent, Immunity of State Officials and the Obligation to Prosecute
• Theodor Schilling, The Case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on the Immunity of States
• Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Immunités, responsabilisation des organisations internationales et protection des droits individuels
• Isabelle Pingel, Les immunités de l’Union européenne
• Pierre Panchaud & Jean Abboud, Immunités des organisations internationales : développements récents à la Banque des Règlements Internationaux
• Rémi Cèbe, Quelques réflexions sur les immunités des organisations internationales
• Stefan Oeter, The Law of Immunities as a Focal Point of the Evolution of International Law

Schreurer: Jurisdiction and Applicable Law in Investment Treaty Arbitration

Christoph Schreuer (Univ. of Vienna - Law) has posted Jurisdiction and Applicable Law in Investment Treaty Arbitration (McGill Journal of Dispute Resolution, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-25, 2014). Here's the abstract:

This article first discusses the law governing a tribunal’s jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is governed primarily by the instrument(s) bestowing jurisdiction. In the case of treaty arbitration, this will be the treaty offering consent to arbitration. On certain points, like the legality of the investment and the investor’s nationality, that treaty will refer to domestic law. A second part deals with the varying scope of jurisdiction exercised by investment treaty tribunals. It ranges from a wide jurisdiction over all disputes arising from investments to jurisdiction only over certain narrowly defined disputes. There is no clear correlation between these jurisdictional clauses and provisions on applicable law in the relevant treaties. A third part looks at situations in which the tribunal’s jurisdiction and the applicable law derive from different sources. This is the case, in particular, where the tribunal applies substantive standards that existed before the entry into force of the treaty providing for jurisdiction.

Cet article traite du droit applicable à la compétence des arbitres. La compétence étant déterminée principalement par le biais d’un instrument attributif, dans le cas de l’arbitrage d’investissement, cela aura lieu à travers le traité offrant la possibilité de consentir à l’arbitrage. Sur certains points, tels que la légalité de l’investissement et la nationalité de l’investisseur, le traité se réfèrera au droit national. La deuxième partie de l’article aborde la compétence variable des tribunaux en matière d’investissement. Elle peut s’appliquer à tous les différends concernant l’investissement ou seulement à certaines questions bien définies. Toutefois, il n’y a pas de corrélation évidente entre ces clauses attributives de compétence et les dispositions sur le droit applicable aux traités concernés. En dernier, la troisième partie se penche sur les cas où la compétence du tribunal et le droit applicable ont des sources distinctes. Cela peut se produire, notamment, lorsque le tribunal applique des standards préexistants à l’entrée en vigueur du traité attribuant la compétence.

Call for Papers: London International Boundary Conference 2015

A call for papers has been issued for the second London International Boundary Conference, to be held April 21-22, 2015. Here's the call:

LONDON INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY CONFERENCE 2015

CALL FOR PAPERS – Deadline 31 December 2014

We are pleased to announce that the London International Boundary Conference 2015, which will take place on 21-22 April 2015 at the Royal Geographical Society in London, has launched a call for papers.

This conference will provide a unique and multidisciplinary insight into the complex world of international boundary and territorial questions. Each panel will offer a balance of established expertise and emerging talent. The Department of Geography, King's College London, Volterra Fietta and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office invite any interested parties to submit their abstract to Clementine Lietar (clementine.lietar@volterrafietta.com) and Anass El Mouden (anass.elmouden@volterrafietta.com) by 31 December 2014. This abstract should be written in English and contain no more than 500 words. It should include the title of the paper as well as the name and contact details of the author.

Interested parties may submit an abstract on one of the following topics:

1- Boundary permeability and the reach of the State in the Middle East and Eastern Europe

2- Regional developments in the South and East China Seas since 2012

3- Multidisciplinary perspectives on the Arctic

4- Island sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction

5- Ethics and international boundaries

6- Jurisdiction challenges in boundary and sovereignty disputes

Once abstracts have been reviewed, authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit their paper and participate in one of the conference panels.

For more information on London International Boundary Conference 2015, please visit the conference website or email info@londoninternationalboundaryconference.com.

New Issue: Human Rights Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Review (Vol. 15, no. 4, December 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Walter J. Riker, Human Rights Without Political Participation?
• Attilio Pisanò, Human Rights and Sovereignty in the ASEAN Path Towards a Human Rights Declaration
• Julie Harrelson-Stephens & Rhonda L. Callaway, You Say You Want a Revolution: the Arab Spring, Norm Diffusion, and the Human Rights Regime
• Barbara Ann Rieffer-Flanagan, Democratic Dreams Neglected in the Land of the Pharaohs: US Democracy Assistance in Egypt
• Ahmed Shahid, Ageing with Dignity: Old-Age Pension Schemes from the Perspective of the Right to Social Security Under ICESCR
• Sergey Y. Marochkin & Galina A. Nelaeva, Rape and Sexual Violence as Torture and Genocide in the Decisions of International Tribunals: Transjudicial Networks and the Development of International Criminal Law

Job Opening: Athens (Postdoctoral Research Associate)

The School of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens invites applications for the position of Postdoctoral Research Associate in "Energy, Law of the Sea, International Responsibility, and International Environmental Law." The advertisement is here.

Rovine: Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers 2013

Arthur W. Rovine has published Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers 2013 (Brill | Nijhoff 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The 2013 volume of Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers is a collection of important works in the field written by the speakers at the 2013 Fordham Law School Conference on International Arbitration and Mediation. The 25 papers are organized into the following six parts:

Keynote Presentation by Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler

Part 1: Investor-State Arbitration by Andrea K. Bjorklund, Rudolf Dolzer, Abby Cohen Smutny, John Townsend

Part 2: Class Actions and Mass Claims by James Carter, John Crook, Christopher Drahozal, Veijo Heiskanen, Sandrine Giroud, Roman Khodykin, S.I. Strong

Part 3: Arbitration of International Disputes on Energy Issues by Arif Ali, Nigel Blackaby, Caline Mouawad, Sarah Vasani

Part 4: Investor-State Arbitration (2) by O. Thomas Johnson, Catherine H. Gibson, Mark McNeill, Laurence Shore, Robert Rothkopf, Todd Weiler

Part 5: The Arbitration of International Technology Disputes by Gary L. Benton, Rachel Koch, Thomas Halket, John Judge, Paul Klaas, Steven Reisberg

Part 6: Mediation by Elizabeth Birch, David Bristow, Hélène de Kovachich

Call for Submissions: The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA)

Transnational Dispute Management has issued a call for submissions for a TDM special issue on "The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA)." Here's the call:

TDM Call for Papers: The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA)

Herfried Wöss, Fabien Gélinas, Andrea Bjorklund, and John Gaffney will be editing a TDM Special Issue on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA).

CETA is one of the three landmark agreements – the others are the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – that will shape world trade and investment in the XXI century. Negotiations were launched in 2009 and a political agreement between the EU and Canada was reached on the key elements of CETA on October 18, 2013. The signing of the agreement took place in Ottawa at end of September 2014.

CETA is characterized by the further codification of international standards of investment protection by the Contracting Parties, and the introduction of new topics in international trade in goods and services, such as the efforts to remove regulatory divergence, which has been considered as the most prominent obstacle to trade and which should considerably increase economic growth for the citizens of both parties. This objective is to be achieved through Regulatory Cooperation and the establishment of a Regulatory Co-operation Forum.

CETA contains chapters on:

• Bilateral Co-operation on Biotechnology
• Bilateral Dialogue on Raw Materials Co-operation
• Cross-Border Trade in Services
• Dispute Settlement
• Domestic Regulation
• E-Commerce – Competition – State Enterprises
• Financial Services
• Government Procurement
• Investment
• Mutual Acceptance of the Results of Conformity Assessment
• Mutual Recognition of Professionals and Temporary Entry
• Regulatory Co-operation
• Enhanced Co-operation on Science, Technology, Research & Innovation (STRI)
• Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
• Sustainable Development (Trade and Sustainable Development and Trade and Labour)
• Taxation
• Technical Barriers to Trade
• Telecommunications

The four co-editors invite you to contribute to the special edition on CETA with unpublished or previously published articles, conference papers, research papers and case studies dealing with the Agreement and the issues raised by any of its chapters. Of particular interest in the investment chapter are:

• clarifications brought to key substantive provisions such as fair and equitable treatment;
• the definition of investment, which refers to “income generating assets” in the sense used by economists;
• the fair and equitable standard, including manifest arbitrariness, targeted discrimination on manifestly wrongful grounds and abusive treatment of investors, and its interpretation by the Contracting Parties;
• the definition of acts de jure imperii, and CETA’s detailed language on what constitutes indirect expropriation.

Also of interest are CETA reaffirmation of the right of the EU and Canada to regulate to pursue legitimate public policy objectives such as the protection of health, safety, or the environment and a number of procedural changes designed notably to respond to criticisms levelled at investment treaties over the past decade.

Dr. Herfried Wöss

Wöss & Partners, S.C.

Prof. Fabien Gélinas

McGill University,

Faculty of Law

Prof. A.K. Bjorklund

L. Yves Fortier Chair in International Arbitration and International Commercial Law

McGill University,

Faculty of Law

John P. Gaffney

Al Tamimi & Company

Feel free to circulate this call for papers amongst friends, colleagues and other people who you think may have an interest in this topic.

Proposals or papers should be submitted directly to the co-editors by January 15, 2015 hwoess@woessetpartners.com, fabien.gelinas@mcgill.ca, andrea.bjorklund@mcgill.ca and j.gaffney@tamimi.com – please CC info@transnational-dispute-management.com when submitting your materials.

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 21, no. 6, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Elisabeth Prügl & Jacqui True, Equality means business? Governing gender through transnational public-private partnerships
• Eddy S. Fang, Islamic finance in global markets: Materialism, ideas and the construction of financial knowledge
• Matthias Thiemann, In the Shadow of Basel: How Competitive Politics Bred the Crisis
• Barbara Sennholz-Weinhardt, Regulatory competition as a social fact: Constructing and contesting the threat of hedge fund managers’ relocation from Britain
• Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt, Why parties politicise international institutions: On globalisation backlash and authority contestation
• Lisa Kastner, ‘Much ado about nothing?’ Transnational civil society, consumer protection and financial regulatory reform
• Kaoru Natsuda & John Thoburn, How much policy space still exists under the WTO? A comparative study of the automotive industry in Thailand and Malaysia

New Issue: Review of International Organizations

The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 9, no. 4, December 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Julia C. Morse & Robert O. Keohane, Contested multilateralism
• Patrick Bayer, Christopher Marcoux, & Johannes Urpelainen, Choosing international organizations: When do states and the World Bank collaborate on environmental projects?
• Stephen Chaudoin, David Thomas Smith, & Johannes Urpelainen, American evangelicals and domestic versus international climate policy
• Thomas Gehring & Benjamin Faude, A theory of emerging order within institutional complexes: How competition among regulatory international institutions leads to institutional adaptation and division of labor

Call for Papers: The Changing Role of Scholarship in International Law

The Leiden Journal of International Law has issued a call for papers for a symposium on "The Changing Role of Scholarship in International Law," which will take place on May 11, 2015, in The Hague. Here's the call:

LJIL Symposium

11 May 2014 | The Hague

The Changing Role of Scholarship in International Law

Keynote by Martti Koskenniemi

LJIL has started to reflect on the changing role and function of scholarship in International Law. The role and concept of scholarship, including its foundations, methods and limits are in transition. This development opens up a wide array of questions and debates that are likely to remain at the forefront of academic thinking and research agendas in the next decade(s). The symposium presents an excellent opportunity to deepen discussion and reflection. It would present an occasion to reflect on the future of legal scholarship from different perspectives from within and beyond the Leiden Journal.

We invite papers to be submitted on the changing role of scholarship in international law. Possible themes include, and are not limited to:

I. Production of International Legal Scholarship

- What is considered ‘scholarship’ in International Law? To what extent are conceptions of scholarship tied to divergent schools of thought and disciplinary approaches/boundaries?

- How do different fields/traditions position themselves inside/outside International Law? Is there something like ‘mainstream’ and ‘periphery’?

- How have methods of scholarship changed over time? To what extent is International Law open to social science methods, and what are the implications of this for the development of scholarship? Relatedly: where does scholarship stop to be that of international law?

II. Scholarship and its relation to legal practice

- What is the nexus between scholarship and practice in International Law? How has it evolved over time?

- To what extent is scholarship a formal source of international law? How has it contributed to the development of International Law?

- To what extent and how is scholarship treated and received in judicial reasoning and decision-making ? To what extent do separate/dissenting opinions reflect scholarship?

III. Future of International Legal Scholarship

- What is the impact of new technologies on the understanding of scholarship? How does it affect production?

- What is the future role of Journals and publications? Who owns the intellectual property/copyright of scholarship? How can we embrace diversity and a more global perspective on scholarship?

- How can we determine impact of scholarship in International Law? How far can International Law grow as discipline?

Submission of Proposals and the Timeline

- Paper proposals should include a description of maximum 500 words and the applicant’s curriculum vitae.

- Email to: ljil@law.leidenuniv.nl.

- The deadline is 12 December 2014. Selected participants will be notified by 22 December. Participants are expected to submit draft papers by 1 May.

- We plan to publish a selection of the contributions in the LJIL.

- Please note that we can contribute to travelling and accommodation expenses, but of a select number of participants only.

On behalf of the LeidenJIL,

Eric de Brabandere,

Carsten Stahn, and

Ingo Venzke

Davis, Fuchs, & Johnson: State Control and the Effects of Foreign Relations on Bilateral Trade

Christina Davis (Princeton Univ.), Andreas Fuchs (Univ. of Heidelberg - Alfred Weber Institute for Economics), & Kris Johnson (Univ. of Massachusetts Boston - Collins Center for Public Management) have posted State Control and the Effects of Foreign Relations on Bilateral Trade. Here’s the abstract:

Do states use trade to reward and punish partners? WTO rules and the pressures of globalization restrict states’ capacity to manipulate trade policies, but we argue that governments can link political goals with economic outcomes using less direct avenues of influence over firm behavior. Where governments intervene in markets, politicization of trade is likely to occur. In this paper, we examine one important form of government control: state ownership of firms. Taking China and India as examples, we use bilateral trade data by firm ownership type, as well as measures of bilateral political relations based on diplomatic events and UN voting to estimate the effect of political relations on import and export flows. Our results support the hypothesis that imports controlled by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) exhibit stronger responsiveness to political relations than imports controlled by private enterprises. A more nuanced picture emerges for exports; while India’s exports through SOEs are more responsive to political tensions than its flows through private entities, the opposite is true for China. This research holds broader implications for how we should think about the relationship between political and economic relations going forward, especially as a number of countries with partially state-controlled economies gain strength in the global economy

de la Rasilla del Moral: The Ambivalent Shadow of the Pre-Wilsonian Rise of International Law

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral (Brunel Univ. – Law) has posted The Ambivalent Shadow of the Pre-Wilsonian Rise of International Law (Erasmus Law Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2014). Here’s the abstract:

The generation of American international lawyers who founded the American Society of International Law in 1906 and nurtured the soil for what has been retrospectively called a 'moralistic-legalistic approach to international relations' remains little studied. A survey of the rise of international legal literature in the United States from the midnineteenth century to the eve of the Great War serves as a backdrop to the examination of the boosting effect on international law of the Spanish American War in 1898. An examination of the Insular Cases before the US Supreme Court is then accompanied by the analysis of a number of influential factors behind the pre-war rise of international law in the United States. The work concludes with an examination of the rise of natural law doctrines in international law during the interwar period and the critiques addressed by the realist founders of the field of 'international relations' to the 'moralistic-legalistic approach to international relations'.

Call for Papers: Dreaming of the International Rule of Law – A History of International Courts and Tribunals

The International Group on the History of International Law of the European Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for a workshop to be held on the occasion of ESIL's 11th Annual Conference, September 10-12, 2015, in Oslo. The theme is: "Dreaming of the International Rule of Law – A History of International Courts and Tribunals." Here's the call:

Dreaming of the International Rule of Law – A History of International Courts and Tribunals

On the occasion of The ESIL 11th Annual Conference, to be held in Oslo, 10 – 12 September 2015. The Judicialization of International Law – A Mixed Blessing? The ESIL’s interest group on the History of International Law invites submissions, in English or French.

For all the current anxiety surrounding the judicialization of international politics, the contemporary growth of international courts and tribunals, which shows the continuing appeal of the “domestic analogy” in shaping the intellectual imagination of the discipline, may arguably be considered a dream made true for the long-standing aspirations of professional relevance of international lawyers. The promise of a more perfected international rule of law is among the factors that account for the fact that the establishment of new international courts and tribunals has accompanied the proliferation of international institutions and the diversification of international law for the last 25 years’-long post-cold war period.

Against this background, submissions are welcomed in two interdependent categories. On the first hand, the IGHIL invites submissions addressed to examine the histories of the creation of “successful” international courts and tribunals, in the sense of institutionally established and operative ones. On the other, the IGHIL welcomes submissions addressed to examine the histories of short-lived, aborted or failed international courts and tribunals as well as the history of projects for international courts of tribunals that remained “dead letter” and/or are still “in nuce".

Authors are invited to consider factors of failure/success in the creation, disappearance or non- emergence of international courts and tribunals in light of their legitimacy of origin and exercise as well as other factors. These may include, but are not limited to e.g. the role of particularly inspirational figures or social movements, the contextual-historical relevance of different international legal philosophies or the impact of context-breaking events in the history of international law.

Each submission should include:

– An abstract of no more than 400 words

– The intended language of presentation

– A short curriculum vitae containing the author’s name, institutional affiliation, contact information and e-mail address.

Applications should be submitted to both Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral and Randall Lesaffer by 15th February 2015. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of the selection process by 15th March 2015.

Selection will be based on scholarly merit and with regard to producing an engaging workshop, without prejudice to gender, seniority, language or geographical location. Please note that the ESIL Interest Group on the History of International Law is unable to provide funds to cover the conference registration fee or related transport and accommodation costs.

Vasiliev: The Making of International Criminal Law

Sergey Vasiliev (VU Univ. Amsterdam – Law) has posted The Making of International Criminal Law (in Research Handbook on the Theory & Practice of International Lawmaking, C. Brölmann & Y. Radi eds., forthcoming). Here’s the abstract:

The making of international criminal law (ICL) presents a unique configuration of law-creating processes and law-determining agencies, which underlines its distinct character as a body (or sub-system) of international law. This Chapter provides a panoramic and critical account of international criminal lawmaking, with a focus on the methodological problems raised by the genesis and evolution of ICL. In an attempt to bring closer the formalist and realist views, the Chapter exposes the complexities of the concept and phenomenon of international criminal lawmaking and highlights its major causes – the unparalleled normative profusion, sophistication, and ever-increasing specialization of this field, which accommodates multiple lawmakers, sources of law, and institutional enforcement frameworks. The Chapter addresses the function of legality as a normative constraint on the making of substantive ICL. It shows that the efficacy of that function has been afflicted by the conflicted character of ICL as a methodological hybrid pulled apart by the contest between incompatible doctrines of sources and methodologies of legal interpretation. While optimism regarding its future status in ICL can only be moderate, the Chapter makes a plea for resuscitation of the principle in the ICL domain. Next, the Chapter turns to the formal constraint on international criminal lawmaking: the orthodox doctrine of international law sources (as opposed to ‘subsidiary means’) and underlying methods of law-ascertainment. It interrogates the notion that old legal formalism squares with the actual role of, and relationship between, the law-creating processes and law-determining agencies in ICL. If legal formalism is to serve as an adequate descriptor and effective constraint on the genesis of law in this field, it is in need of careful recalibration in line with the nature of ICL as criminal law. Finally, since ICL has to a substantial degree been forged by international criminal tribunals making law at the interstices of traditional lawmaking authority, the Chapter applies the concept of ‘autopoietic law’ to the judicial production of ICL. With international criminal lawmaking being a polycentric enterprise, the legitimacy of judge-made autopoietic quasi-law remains vulnerable to challenges. The Chapter argues that recurring questions about the legitimacy of ICL, whether judge- or state-produced, can be attributed to the motives that led states to design some ICL regimes to be considerably more autopoietic than the others.

Orchard: A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Cooperation

Phil Orchard (Univ. of Queensland – International Relations) has published A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Cooperation (Cambridge Univ. Press 2014). Here’s the abstract:

Why do states protect refugees? In the past twenty years, states have sought to limit access to asylum by increasing their border controls and introducing extraterritorial controls. Yet no state has sought to exit the 1951 Refugee Convention or the broader international refugee regime. This book argues that such international policy shifts represent an ongoing process whereby refugee protection is shaped and redefined by states and other actors. Since the seventeenth century, a mix of collective interests and basic normative understandings held by states created a space for refugees to be separate from other migrants. However, ongoing crisis events undermine these understandings and provide opportunities to reshape how refugees are understood, how they should be protected, and whether protection is a state or multilateral responsibility. Drawing on extensive archival and secondary materials, Phil Orchard examines the interplay among governments, individuals, and international organizations that has shaped how refugees are understood today.