New Volume: Anuário Brasileiro de Direito Internacional

The latest volumes of the Anuário Brasileiro de Direito Internacional (Vol. 9, nos. 1 & 2, 2014) are out. Contents include:

• Anne-Laure Chaumette, Droit International Penal et Droit International des Droits de l’Homme, Illustration d’un Dialogue des Juges
• Antônio de Aguiar Patriota, Multipolaridade da Cooperação e Direito Internacional
• Catherine Maria, A Contribuição do Juiz Internacional à Noção de Direito Imperativo na Ordem Jurídica Internacional: Análise Comparada da Jurisprudência da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos (Parte 1)
• Danny Zahreddine & Ricardo Bezerra Requião, Brasil e o Regime Internacional de Proteção aos Trabalhadores Migrantes
• Dante Maurício Negro Alvarado, Hacia un Marco Normativo en Las Américas en Materia de Protección de Datos Personales
• Francesco Seatzu, The Subregional Development Banks and the Expansion of Socio-Economic Growth in Latin America: Current Issues and Future Prospects
• Leandro Tripodi, Diretrizes da OCDE para Empresas Multinacionais: Governança Corporativa, Soft Law e Direitos Humanos
• Myriam Belolo Carabot, La Fonction du Juge Dans le Droit de k’Integration Analyse Comparee de l’Union Europeenne et du Mercosur
• Maria Blanca Noodt Taquela, El Principio de la Aplicación de las Normas Más Favorables a la Cooperación Judicial Internacional
• Catherine Maia, A Contribuição do Juiz Internacional à Noção de Direito Imperativo na Ordem Jurídica Internacional: Análise Comparada da Jurisprudência da Corte Internacional de Justiça e da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos (Parte 2)
• Claudia Lima Marques & Maria Laura Delaloye, Una Red de Cooperación Global para Proteger a los Turistas Extranjeros
• Fabrício Bertini Pasquot Polido & Lucas Sávio Oliveira da Silva, O Direito Internacional Privado na China: dos Fundamentos Históricos à Conformação Normativa
• Larissa Ramina, Phenomena That Characterize International Law in the XXI Century
• Luz Amparo Llanos Villanueva, Las Operaciones de Paz de Naciones Unidas Enfocadas Desde el Realismo Politico de las Relaciones Internacionales. El caso de Haiti.
• Maristela Basso, Conflito Entre as Leis Aplicáveis ao Contrato e ao Bem Imóvel Situado no Brasil
• Nadia de Araujo & Daniela Trejos Vargas, O Reconhecimento e Execução de Acordos Privados em Disputas Familiares Internacionais em Debate na Conferência de Haia de Direito Internacional Privado
• Régis Bismuth, The Path Towards an Iinternational Public Policy For Sovereign Debt Contracts
• Flávio Couto Bernardes & Leonardo Lima Naranjo, As Regras da OMC e a Validade dos Benefícios Tributários em Face da Agregação De Conteúdo Nacional
• Rafael Prado, Resenha da Obra las Reclamaciones Derivadas de los Accidentes de Circulación por Carretera Transfronterizos

Call for Papers: The Ideal of Democracy and the Reality of Sovereign Debt

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "The Ideal of Democracy and the Reality of Sovereign Debt," which will take place May 25, 2015, at the University of Cambridge. Here's the call:

Call for Papers

The Ideal of Democracy and the Reality of Sovereign Debt

25 May 2015, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, Senior Parlour Room

In the aftermath of the 2008 bank bailouts, sovereign debt has increased to unprecedented levels. As a result, governments saw their policy room curtailed by the demand for credibility and access to international capital markets. In Greece and Italy, democratically elected officials stepped down from power with the aim of promoting creditworthiness. The Argentine litigation in the United States again brought attention to substantial sway of bondholders over sovereign states. As a response, economic and legal debates on sovereign debts have been wide and varied, but they have only rarely addressed the core normative issues involved in issuing, trading, and restructuring sovereign debt. Political philosophers have been slow to respond to issues raised by recent debt crises. One likely reason for the current lack of normative reflection on the increased political importance of financial dynamics is the complexity of international financial markets.

The aim of the workshop is therefore to bring together scholars from philosophy, law, and the social sciences to discuss the consequences of rising sovereign debts for the normative ideals that inform existing parliamentary democracy. The workshop will feature invited contributions by keynote speakers Philip Wood (Law, Allen & Overy) and Gabriel Wollner (Philosophy, Humboldt). Drawing on these diverse perspectives, the workshop will contribute to a new framework for evaluating sovereign indebtedness.

Topics include but are certainly not limited to:

• Financial markets and democratic sovereignty
• Design of sovereign debt contracts and the role of international institutions
• The values and dangers of sovereign debt for social welfare
• Sustainable public finance and investment
• Fair sovereign debt restructuring
• Dealing with sovereign debt within the Eurozone
• Odious debt
• Rights and responsibilities of bondholders

Keynote speakers:

PHILIP WOOD is an expert in comparative and cross-border financial law and works full-time for the law firm Allen & Overy in the firm's London office. He has written around 18 books, including nine volumes in the series Law and Practice of International Finance published in 2007. He held visiting academic positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Queen Mary.

GABRIEL WOLLNER is assistant professor in philosophy at Humboldt University Berlin. His academic interests are in political philosophy and ethics, and the application of these inquiries to various issues in public policy. His work has appeared in a number of journals, including 'The Journal of Social Philosophy', 'The Journal of Political Philosophy' and 'The Canadian Journal of Philosophy'.

Submission details and deadlines:

The workshop is a one day event for which participants are expected to read the presented papers in advance. Papers can be up 10,000 words in length and presentations will be limited to 10 minutes, followed by a 40 minute discussion. To apply, please send a 500 – 700 word abstract to Jens van 't Klooster (jmv32@cam.ac.uk) before the 15th of February. Accepted presenters will be asked to circulate their paper by the first of May.

Organizers:

Anne Henow, Hayk Kupelyants, Jens van ‘t Klooster, Kim Hecker and Marco Meyer.

We gratefully acknowledge support by the University of Cambridge School of Arts and Humanities, Gonville and Caius College Cambridge and the Cambridge-Groningen ‘Trusting Banks’ project.

McLeod: Rule of Law in War: International Law and United States Counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan

Travers McLeod (Centre for Policy Development) has published Rule of Law in War: International Law and United States Counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan (Oxford Univ. Press 2015). Here's the abstract:

Rule of Law in War places international law at the centre of the transformation of United States counterinsurgency (COIN) that occurred during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It claims international law matters more than is often assumed and more than we have previously been able to claim, contradicting existing theoretical assumptions. In particular, the book contends international law matters in a case that may be regarded as particularly tough for international law, that is, the development of a key military doctrine, the execution of that doctrine on the battlefield, and the ultimate conduct of armed conflict. To do so, the book traces international law's influence in the construction of modern U.S. COIN doctrine, specifically, Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, released by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in December 2006. It then assesses how international law's doctrinal interaction held up in Iraq and Afghanistan. The account of this doctrinal change is based on extensive access to the primary actors and materials, including FM 3-24's drafting history, field documents, and interviews with military officers of various ranks who have served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Call for Papers: International Law and Time

The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies has issued a call for papers for a conference on "International Law and Time," which will take place June 12-13, 2015. Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS

International Law and Time

Deadline for abstract submission: 15 February 2015

The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva (IHEID), International Law Department, is convening a conference entitled ‘International Law and Time’ from 12 – 13 June 2015, to explore the phenomena of time and change in international law.

Time is an inherent component of many of the most important international law concepts. However, it also fundamentally determines international law as a field. International law has been in constant dynamic change since its inception. Capturing and understanding this change in time is one of the discipline’s fundamental challenges, as is the difficulty of working with the constantly changing materiae of international law in practice.

The conference is intended to create an opportunity to reflect and debate together the fundamentals of international law in depth. The themes sought to be explored include, inter alia, the identification of international law in time; change in international law; the tension in international law between change and stability; the impact of history (and our perception of past and future) on conceptualization and interpretation of international law; the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of ideas, themes and concepts over time; retroactivity; the role of time in creation and operation of international law norms and key international law concepts.

The conference will be structured into the following 6 sessions:

1. Attributing Meaning to Time: Visions of History and Future

2. International Law on a Given Day

3. Role of Time in Creation and Operation of Norms

4. International Law between Change and Stability

5. Continuity, Discontinuity, Recurrence

6. Regulating the Past: The Problem of Retroactivity

Panel descriptions can be found here.

The conference is open to both junior and senior international law scholars and practitioners. The organizers especially encourage current and recent doctoral students to apply. Papers will be selected based on quality, originality, and their capacity to provoke productive debate. Submissions of general character will be preferred over specialized contributions. The organizers will seek to publish the proceedings from the conference. Organizers will financially assist those selected speakers who would otherwise be unable to undertake the cost of the trip to Geneva.

Submissions: Abstracts of 500 words should be submitted through the online form by 15 February 2015. Selected applicants will be informed of their acceptance by 15 March 2015 and will be asked to submit their papers of around 6,000 words in length by 20 May 2015. The conference papers will be distributed to the other conference participants in advance to facilitate an in-depth discussion. The Graduate Institute is a bilingual institution; submissions in either English or French are welcome. Any questions should be addressed to the conference organizers (Klara Polackova Van der Ploeg; Leon Castellanos Jankiewicz and Luca Pasquet) at lawconference@graduateintitute.ch.

Özsu: Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers

Umut Özsu (Univ. of Manitoba - Law) has published Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers (Oxford Univ. Press 2015). Here's the abstract:

Large-scale population transfers are immensely disruptive. Interestingly, though, their legal status has shifted considerably over time. In this book, Umut Özsu situates population transfer within the broader history of international law by examining its emergence as a legally formalized mechanism of nation-building in the early twentieth century. The book's principal focus is the 1922-34 compulsory exchange of minorities between Greece and Turkey, a crucially important endeavour whose legal dimensions remain under-scrutinized. Drawing upon historical sociology and economic history in addition to positive international law, the book interrogates received assumptions about international law's history by exploring the 'semi-peripheral' context within which legally formalized population transfers came to arise.

Supported by the League of Nations, the 1922-34 population exchange reconfigured the demographic composition of Greece and Turkey with the aim of stabilizing a region that was regarded neither as European nor as non-European. The scope and ambition of the undertaking was staggering: over one million were expelled from Turkey, and over a quarter of a million were expelled from Greece. The book begins by assessing minority protection's development into an instrument of intra-European governance during the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then shows how population transfer emerged in the 1910s and 1920s as a radical alternative to minority protection in Anatolia and the Balkans, focusing in particular on the 1922-3 Conference of Lausanne, at which a peace settlement formalizing the compulsory Greek-Turkish exchange was concluded. Finally, it analyses the Permanent Court of International Justice's 1925 advisory opinion in Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, contextualizing it in the wide-ranging debates concerning humanitarianism and internationalism that pervaded much of the exchange process.

New Issue: Humanity

The latest issue of Humanity (Vol. 5, no. 3, Winter 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Jessica Whyte, The Fortunes of Natural Man: Robinson Crusoe, Political Economy, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Johanna Siméant, Interpreting the Rise of International "Advocacy"
• Peter Slezkine, From Helsinki to Human Rights Watch: How an American Cold War Monitoring Group Became an International Human Rights Institution
• Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Shanghai as a City of Juxtapositions
• Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Interview with Greg Girard
• Greg Girard, Phantom Shanghai

New Issue: Les Cahiers de l'Arbitrage

The latest issue of Les Cahiers de l'Arbitrage (2014, no. 4) is out. Contents include:

• Doctrine – Débats
• Remy Gerbay, Neither Savile Row nor quite Vivienne Westwood: the verdict on the 2014 LCIA Arbitration Rules
• Aren Goldsmith, Commentary: French Think Tank Releases Noteworthy Report On Third Party Litigation Funding

Petrig: Human Rights and Law Enforcement at Sea: Arrest, Detention and Transfer of Piracy Suspects

Anna Petrig (Univ. of Basel) has published Human Rights and Law Enforcement at Sea: Arrest, Detention and Transfer of Piracy Suspects (Brill | Nijhoff 2014). Here's the abstract:

Law enforcement at sea has become an increasingly important tool for combating transnational crime. Such law enforcement operations are commonly directed by multinational missions composed of military rather than police forces, and are often carried out in maritime areas not subject to national jurisdiction. Because of these characteristics, maritime law enforcement operations touch upon many unresolved human rights issues. In the present study, counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and in the Indian Ocean serve as the quintessential example of how law enforcement measures taken at sea may fall short of international human rights standards.

An unprecedented number of national and multinational missions have been deployed to counter the phenomenon of piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the region. Their mandate includes the arrest, detention and transfer for prosecution of piracy suspects. The book at hand examines the procedures pertinent to the decision whether to release piracy suspects, prosecute them in the seizing State or transfer them to a third State, and the detention regime pending such decisions. The study provides a critical analysis of the compatibility of these procedures with international law, first and foremost human rights law. Using piracy as an example, it demonstrates that the characteristics of national and multinational law enforcement at sea may lead to a deviation from certain human rights standards – standards that the States in question readily accept and apply in their land-based, territorial law enforcement operations. At the centre of the analysis are two unique case studies, which provide insight into the arrest, detention and transfer procedures in both a multinational context and a purely interstate setting.

New Issue: Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (Vol. 32, no. 4, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• L. Van Waas, ‘Are We There Yet?’ The Emergence of Statelessness on the International Human Rights Agenda
• D. McGrogan, On the Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties and Subsequent Practice
• N. Higgins, Advancing the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples: Getting UN Attention via the Universal Periodic Review
• M. Jonker & S. Halrynjo, Multidimensional Discrimination in Judicial Practice: A Legal Comparison Between Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands

New Issue: Asian Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Asian Journal of International Law (Vol. 5, no. 1, January 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Symposium: The Temple of Preah Vihear
• Simon Chesterman, The International Court of Justice in Asia: Interpreting the Temple of Preah Vihear Case
• Hao Duy Phan, Institutional Design and Its Constraints: Explaining ASEAN's Role in the Temple of Preah Vihear Dispute
• Victor Kattan, The Ghosts of the Temple of Preah Vihear/Phra Viharn in the 2013 Judgment
• Matthew Saul, Identifying Jus Cogens Norms: The Interaction of Scholars and International Judges
• Karin Loevy, The Legal Politics of Jurisdiction: Understanding ASEAN's Role in Myanmar's Disaster, Cyclone Nargis (2008)
• Dan Zhu, China, the Crime of Aggression, and the International Criminal Court
• Simon M. Meisenberg, Complying with Complementarity? The Cambodian Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
• Alistair Rieu-Clarke, Notification and Consultation Procedures Under the Mekong Agreement: Insights from the Xayaburi Controversy
• Prabhakar Singh, India Before and After the Right of Passage Case

New Issue: World Politics

The latest issue of World Politics (Vol. 67, no. 1, January 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Research Articles
• Jessica Gottlieb, The Logic of Party Collusion in a Democracy: Evidence from Mali
• Caroline A. Hartzell & Matthew Hoddie, The Art of the Possible: Power Sharing and Post—Civil War Democracy
• Paul Poast & Johannes Urpelainen, How International Organizations Support Democratization: Preventing Authoritarian Reversals or Promoting Consolidation?
• Margaret E. Peters, Open Trade, Closed Borders Immigration in the Era of Globalization
• Jonathan Kirshner, The Economic Sins of Modern IR Theory and the Classical Realist Alternative

New Volume: Yearbook of International Environmental Law

The latest volume of the Yearbook of International Environmental Law (Vol. 24, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Danielle Hanna Rached, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Holding Science and Policy-Making to Account
• Maria Eugenia Recio, The Warsaw Framework and the Future of REDD+
• Sophia Kopela, Climate Change, Regime Interaction, and the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility: The Experience of the International Maritime Organization
• Alistair Rieu-Clarke, Notification and Consultation on Planned Measures Concerning International Watercourses: Learning Lessons from the Pulp Mills and Kishenganga Cases
• Stavros-Evdokimos Pantazopoulos, Towards a Coherent Framework of Transnational Corporations’ Responsibility in International Environmental Law
• Alina Buccella, Can the Minamata Convention on Mercury Solve Peru’s Illegal Artisanal Gold Mining Problem?

New Issue: Manchester Journal of International Economic Law

The latest issue of the Manchester Journal of International Economic Law (Vol. 11, no. 3, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Stephen Kingah, Liliana Lizarazo Rodríguez & Philippe De Lombaerde, Constitutional Courts as Bulwarks against the Erosion of Social and Economic Rights through Free Trade Agreements: Colombia and South Africa Compared
• Marc D. Froese, Regional Trade Agreements and the Paradox of Dispute Settlement
• Nicolás M. Perrone, The International Investment Regime and Foreign Investor Rights: Another View of a Popular Story?
• Simin Gao & Qianyu Wang, Chasing the Shadow in Different Worlds: Shadow Banking and its Regulation in the U.S. and China
• Zia Akhtar, Seal Hunting, EU Regulation and Economies of Scale

Seibert-Fohr & Villiger: Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights - Effects and Implementation

Anja Seibert-Fohr (Member, UN Human Rights Committee; Georg-August-Universität Göttingen - Law) & Mark E. Villiger (Judge, European Court of Human Rights; Univ. of Zurich - Law) have published Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights - Effects and Implementation (Ashgate/Nomos 2014). Here's the abstract:

This volume, published in December 2014, deals with the domestic effects of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights as a challenge to the various levels of legal orders in Europe. The starting point is the divergent impact of the ECtHR’s jurisdiction within the Convention States. The volume seeks new methods of orientation at the various legal levels, given the fact that the Strasbourg case law is increasingly important for most areas of society. Topical tendencies in the case law of the Court are highlighted and discussed against the background of the principle of subsidiarity.

The book includes a detailed analysis of the scope, reach, consequences and implementation of the Court’s judgments and of the issue of concomitant damages. At the same time the volume deals with the role of domestic jurisdictions in implementing the ECtHR’s judgments. Distinguished Judges, legal academics and practitioners from various Council of Europe States are among the contributors to this volume, which succeeds in bringing divergent points of view into the discussion and in developing strategies for conflict resolution.

The book first assesses the binding effects of ECtHR judgments (Part II) and the scope and reach of damages (Part III). Both these aspects determine to what extent further action is required by national authorities. Subsequently, various contributions evaluate the competences of the ECtHR and national institutions respectively by considering the principle of subsidiarity (Part IV) and the role domestic courts play in implementing ECtHR judgments (Part V). Finally, suggestions are made for the future roles of the ECtHR and domestic courts in implementation (Part VI).

Contributors are, inter alia, the President of the European Court of Human Rights, Dean Spielmann, the judges of the Court Angelika Nußberger, Julia Laffranque and Linos-Alexander Sicilianos as well as the high-level national judges Sabino Cassese, Jacek Chlebny, Péter Kovács, Lord Justice Laws and Andreas Paulus.

New Issue: Asian International Arbitration Journal

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

• Michelle Lee, Existence of Arbitration Agreements – The Tension between Arbitral and Curial Review
• Yijin Wang, Ascertaining Foreign Law in PRC Arbitration
• Jack Wright Nelson, International Commercial Arbitration in Asia: Hong Kong, Australia and India Compared
• David A.R. Williams, Defining the Role of the Court in Modern International Commercial Arbitration
• Tan Ruo Yu, Stay of Oppression Claims in Favour of Arbitration in Singapore: Silica Investors Ltd v Tomolugen Holdings Ltd [2014] SGHC 101
• Sam Luttrell & Isuru Devendra, Consent in ICSID Arbitration – Case of Planet Mining Pty Ltd v Republic of Indonesia