New Issue: Journal of Conflict & Security Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict & Security Law (Vol. 19, no. 3, Winter 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Strengthening the Accountability of the UN Security Council
• Jeremy M. Farrall, Rule of Accountability or Rule of Law? Regulating the UN Security Council’s Accountability Deficits
• Antonios Tzanakopoulos, Strengthening Security Council Accountability for Sanctions: The Role of International Responsibility
• Larissa J. van den Herik, Peripheral Hegemony in the Quest to Ensure Security Council Accountability for its Individualized UN Sanctions Regimes
• Christopher Michaelsen, Human Rights as Limits for the Security Council: A Matter of Substantive Law or Defining the Application of Proportionality?
• Philippa Webb, Deadlock or Restraint? The Security Council Veto and the Use of Force in Syria
• Christian Henderson, Authority without Accountability? The UN Security Council’s Authorization Method and Institutional Mechanisms of Accountability

New Volume: Yearbook of Polar Law

The latest volume of the Yearbook of Polar Law (Vol. 5, 2013) is out. The table of contents is here.

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

Two new lectures have been added to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Marko Milanovic on “The Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties” and by Dire Tladi on “Immunities and the Obligation to Cooperate under the Rome Statute.”

New Volume: Hague Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Hague Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 26, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Private International Law
• Micah R. Thorner & Rosa Huizinga, Hague Conference on Private International Law – Work in 2013
• International Criminal Law
Abel S. Knottnerus, The Growing Rift between Africa and the International Criminal Court: The Curious (Im)possibility of a Security Council deferral
• Ioannis P. Tzivaras, Sexual Violence against Men in Armed Conflicts: Insights from International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and the War Crimes Chamber of the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Public International Law
• Joanna Kulesza, Towards an Internet Framework Convention: The State of Play
• Jonathan L.H. Blaine, Sosa, Kiobel and Pirates Inc.: Defijining the ‘Modern’ Parameters of the Archaic Alien Tort Statute
• Patrick Dumberry, Responsibility for Crimes Committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian Population: Are the Rules of State Succession to International Responsibility of Any Use?
• Eva Kassoti, Unilateral Legal Acts Revisited: Common Law v. Civil Law Approaches and Lessons from the International Law Commission’s (Failed) attempt to Codify Unilateral Acts of States
• Daniel Peat, Interpreting Reasons: The Interpretation of the 1962 Temple of Preah Vihear Judgment
• James Sloan & Christian J. Tams, The Development of International Law by the International Court of Justice
• Adil Sahban, The Applicability of International Law Standards to the Sanctions of the Security Council
• Ryal Wun, Beyond Traditional Statehood Criteria: The Law and Contemporary Politics of State Creation
• Athanasios Yupsanis, Article 27 of the ICCPR Revisited – The Right to Culture as a Normative Source for Minority / Indigenous Participatory Claims in the Case Law of the Human Rights Committee
• International Investment Law and Arbitration
• Jeffrey Golden, Financial Market Dispute Settlement: Making Sense out of Current Nonsense
• Jeanrique Fahner, The Margin of Appreciation in Investor-State Arbitration: The Prevalence and Desirability of Discretion and Deference
• Yanying Li & Camille M. Ng, More in 2013 than Ever Before: Inter-State and Investor-State Arbitrations at the Permanent Court of Arbitration

New Issue: International Organizations Law Review

The latest issue of the International Organizations Law Review (Vol. 11, no. 1, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Jacob Katz Cogan, Editorial: The Decline of ‘Drafts’
• Nikolaos Voulgaris, Rethinking Indirect Responsibility
• Ana Sofia Barros & Cedric Ryngaert, The Position of Member States in (Autonomous) Institutional Decision-Making
• Mónika Ambrus, Legitimacy Narratives in Polycentric Water Law and Governance
• Alexander Orakhelashvili, Responsibility and Immunities
• Lijun Zhao, Soft or Hard Law

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 9, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Regulatory autonomy and liberalization of trade and investment flows: how are these competing interests balanced by international economic law?
• Introduced by Giovanna Adinolfi, Claudio Dordi and Tarcisio Gazzini
• Arthur E. Appleton, PIL and IEL: Will seal deaths resurrect the dream of international legal coherence?
• Lorenzo Cotula, Do investment treaties unduly constrain regulatory space?

Coggins: Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century

Bridget Coggins (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara - Political Science) has published Power Politics and State Formation in the Twentieth Century: The Dynamics of Recognition (Cambridge Univ. Press 2014). Here's the abstract:

From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.

New Issue: International Peacekeeping

The latest issue of International Peacekeeping (Vol. 21, no. 5, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Roland Paris, The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention
• Rahel Kunz, Gender and Security Sector Reform: Gendering Differently?
• Kelly Neudorfer, Reducing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse: Does Deterrence Work to Prevent SEAs in UN Peacekeeping Missions?
• Fredrik Doeser, Sweden's Participation in Operation Unified Protector: Obligations and Interests
• James I. Rogers & Caroline Kennedy, Dying for Peace? Fatality Trends for United Nations Peacekeeping Personnel
• Gëzim Visoka & John Doyle, Peacebuilding and International Responsibility

Safrin: Anticipating the Storm: Predicting and Preventing Global Technology Conflicts

Sabrina Safrin (Rutgers Univ., Newark - Law) has posted Anticipating the Storm: Predicting and Preventing Global Technology Conflicts (Arizona State Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article helps lay the foundation for a new field of international law — International Law and Technology — and opens novel avenues of inquiry in law and technology and intellectual property more broadly. It analyzes as a starting point why some technologies generate global conflicts while others do not. Technologies that face international resistance can trigger a barrage of international legal responses, ranging from trade bans and WTO disputes to international regulatory regimes and barriers to patenting. Agricultural biotechnology triggered all of these legal flashpoints, while the cellphone, a technology that grew up alongside it, triggered none. Why?

Understanding when a new technology will provoke an international legal firestorm is important to policymakers, business leaders, and lawyers. International controls on a new technology constrain state sovereignty and may impede or catalyze the development of an emerging technology. Technologies likely to generate international controversy bode poorly for regulatory harmonization regimes as contemplated by the new transatlantic trade talks. At a minimum, they require sensitive handling.

This article offers a framework of core geopolitical factors that can help predict the international acceptability of an emerging technology and its likelihood of triggering a plethora of international legal issues. The framework can help decision-makers avoid global technology conflicts and better manage these conflicts once they arise. The first factor is whether the technology is “a big- or a small-tent technology” from a global perspective, as reflected (1) in the innovative space, (2) in the marketplace, and (3) in the sphere of benefit sharing. To illustrate the analysis, the article presents original empirical patent data for the cellphone and agricultural biotechnology over three decades. This comparison highlights the importance of global innovative activity to international technology comity. The second core predictive factor is whether a new technology embodies nations’ fears of the future, as did agricultural biotechnology, or reflects their dreams, as did the cellphone. The first factor is utilitarian; the second is emotional.

Call for Papers: Regulating ‘Irregular’ Migration: International Obligations and International Responsibility

The Faculty of Law, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens has issued a call for papers for a conference on "Regulating 'Irregular' Migration: International Obligations and International Responsibility," to take place March 20, 2015. The call is here.

New Issue: International Security

The latest issue of International Security (Vol. 39, no. 2, Fall 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Nuno P. Monteiro & Alexandre Debs, The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation
• Adam P. Liff & G. John Ikenberry, Racing toward Tragedy?: China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma
• Lee J.M. Seymour, Why Factions Switch Sides in Civil Wars: Rivalry, Patronage, and Realignment in Sudan
• Khalid Homayun Nadiri, Old Habits, New Consequences: Pakistan's Posture toward Afghanistan since 2001
• Sumit Ganguly, Pakistan's Forgotten Genocide—A Review Essay
• Jon R. Lindsay & Lucas Kello, Correspondence: A Cyber Disagreement

Voon: Exploring the Meaning of Trade-Restrictiveness in the WTO

Tania S. Voon (Univ. of Melbourne - Law) has posted Exploring the Meaning of Trade-Restrictiveness in the WTO (World Trade Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Trade-restrictiveness is a familiar concept across various provisions and agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO), but its precise meaning remains vague. In many WTO disputes, the existence or degree of trade-restrictiveness of a challenged measure is simply assumed or addressed in a few brief sentences. Yet whether a measure is more trade-restrictive than necessary, or more trade-restrictive than a proposed alternative measure, is crucial to the legality of a range of measures currently in place around the world, some under challenge in the WTO. A careful analysis of the existing caselaw and treaty text — focusing on Article 2.2 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and the general exceptions in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and the General Agreement on Trade in Services — demonstrates that while the existence of discrimination is likely to restrict trade, discrimination is not necessary to establish trade-restrictiveness, which also necessarily arises from direct barriers to market access such as import bans. In the absence of an explicit barrier to imports, a WTO panel is likely to focus on the extent to which a challenged measure negatively affects the competitive opportunities of imported products vis à vis domestic products.

New Issue: Global Trade and Customs Journal

The latest issue of Global Trade and Customs Journal (Vol. 9, nos. 11/12, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Stuart Newman, APO in the EU: Clearly the Best Option
• Elena Klonitskaya, Is the WTO the Right Forum to Hear National Security Issues?
• Luis E. Mayaute Vargas, Negotiations and Implications of the Trade Facilitation Agreement in the WTO
• Johel Romero & Fernando Piérola, Traders Beware: The Obligation to Publish Trade Measures before Enforcement and Its Treatment in the Dispute “United States—Countervailing and Anti-Dumping Measures on Certain Products from China”

Call for Papers: Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law Fourth Annual Conference

The Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law has issued a call for papers for its fourth annual conference, which will take place May 8-9, 2015, at the University of Cambridge. The theme is "Developing Democracy: Conversations on Democratic Governance in International, European and Comparative Law." Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS

Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law

4th Annual Conference

University of Cambridge, 8–9 May 2015

Developing Democracy

Conversations on Democratic Governance in International,

European and Comparative Law

The editors of the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law (CJICL) and Hart Publishing welcome submissions for the Journal’s 4th annual conference to be held at the University of Cambridge on 8–9 May 2015. Conference highlights include a keynote address by Dame Rosalyn Higgins, DBE, QC, former President of the International Court of Justice.

The CJICL welcomes a wide variety of proposals in the fields of International, European and Comparative Law which identify current challenges to democratic governance and explore promising solutions. The conference theme understands democracy as a work in progress and attempts to promote a fruitful exchange on various transnational experiences. Papers can encompass empirical approaches, theoretical discussions and perspectives from practice.

Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

• Contemporary challenges of transnational democracy (global and European);
• Democracy and the sources of international law;
• Parliamentary democracy in times of economic and financial crisis;
• Counter-terrorism and democracy;
• New forms of democratic accountability;
• Domestic referenda on international agreements;
• Democracy and the use of force;
• The role of courts in defining and protecting democratic governance;
• Transparency and the principle of democracy;
• Public-private partnerships and democratic representation;
• Democratic representation of refugees;
• Comparative perspectives on democratic governance.

Accepted papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law. Abstracts should be submitted on the basis that the subsequent paper will be available for publication.

Important Dates

Submission of paper proposal and CV: 16 January 2015

Notification of acceptance: 6 February 2015

Final paper submission: 17 April 2015

Submission of paper for publication in CJICL: 30 June 2015

Submission Instructions

Applications can be submitted at www.cjicl.org.uk. They should include a paper proposal of not more than 300 words and a brief biography or CV.

Conference Registration

General registration for the conference will open in February 2015 on our website. Numbers are limited and early registration is highly recommended. We are eager to invite both scholars and practitioners to participate in our conference and are currently endeavouring to have attendance at the conference CPD accredited.

Thomas: The Uses and Abuses of Legitimacy in International Law

Christopher A. Thomas (London School of Economics - Law) has published The Uses and Abuses of Legitimacy in International Law (Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 729-58, Winter 2014). Here's the abstract:

In recent decades, the term ‘legitimacy’ has featured heavily in debates about international law and international institutions. Yet the concept of legitimacy, mercurial as it is, has remained under-scrutinized, leading to confusion and misuse. Rather than advancing a particular conception of what may make international law legitimate, this article seeks to clarify and complicate how international lawyers understand and use legitimacy as a concept. To begin, the article distinguishes between legal, moral and social legitimacy. It highlights the different ways in which these three approaches to legitimacy have been used in international law scholarship, while drawing attention to some of their more problematic tendencies. From there, it breaks the concept of legitimacy down into three major elements: its object, subject and basis. It argues that the tendency to blur these elements has led to much of the uncertainty and obfuscation in legitimacy debates. Finally, the article stresses the importance of distinguishing legitimacy from other grounds for compliance, including coercion, self-interest and habit. Ultimately, it argues that if treated with sufficient rigour, legitimacy provides a useful analytical concept for international lawyers. In doing so, it aims to encourage and facilitate the participation of international lawyers in broader inter-disciplinary debates about legitimacy.