Ryngaert: Unilateral Jurisdiction and Global Values

Cedric Ryngaert (Utrecht Univ. - Law) has published Unilateral Jurisdiction and Global Values (Eleven International Publishing 2015). Here's the abstract:

This book aims to identify opportunities, limits and obstacles to the exercise of unilateral jurisdiction in the common interest by states that have no (or at least not the strongest) connection to a situation. In doing so, it seeks to find entry points in the international law of jurisdiction for the realization of cosmopolitanism.The author investigates, from both a normative and an empirical point of view, whether the international legal system accommodates the exercise of unilateral jurisdiction in a cosmopolitan fashion by states or regional organizations such as the European Union, whether there are indications in practice that such jurisdiction is indeed exercised, and what limitations, if any, are or should be imposed. In this investigation, the book draws on insights from public international law, legal theory, and political philosophy.

Lennon & Walker: Routledge Handbook of Law and Terrorism

Genevieve Lennon (Univ. of Strathclyde - Law) & Clive Walker (Univ. of Leeds - Law) have published Routledge Handbook of Law and Terrorism (Routledge 2015). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

In the years since 9/11, counter-terrorism law and policy has proliferated across the world. This handbook comprehensively surveys how the law has been deployed in all aspects of counter-terrorism. It provides an authoritative and critical analysis of counter-terrorism laws in domestic jurisdictions, taking a comparative approach to a range of jurisdictions, especially the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, and Europe.

New Issue: International Community Law Review

The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 17, no. 3, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Otto Spijkers & Arron Honniball, Developing Global Public Participation (1) Global Public Participation at The United Nations
• Otto Spijkers & Arron Honniball, Developing Global Public Participation (2) Shaping the Sustainable Development Goals
• Lawrence Li, Space Debris Mitigation as an International Law Obligation
• Vassilis Pergantis, Logique de Validité Redoux?
• Jeanrique Fahner, The Contested History of International Investment Law

Bartels: WTO Law Aspects of Clean Trade

Lorand Bartels (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has posted WTO Law Aspects of Clean Trade. Here's the abstract:

The Clean Trade project is designed to block the importation of natural resources that have been exploited in violation of the human right to permanent sovereignty over these natural resources (‘exploited resources’). To this end, the Clean Trade project envisages that states would impose a direct embargo on exploited resources, and would impose duties on products from intermediate states that import exploited resources. This note, written in the context of the Clean Trade Project, examines the WTO legality of these two mechanisms. It concludes that, most likely, these mechanisms are WTO-legal. In the event that they are not, this note also considers a third option, namely, a waiver from WTO obligations, along the lines of the waiver for the Kimberley Process for ‘conflict diamonds’.

New Issue: International Affairs

The latest issue of International Affairs (Vol. 91, no. 4, July 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Wyn Bowen & Matthew Moran, Living with nuclear hedging: the implications of Iran's nuclear strategy
• Jason Ralph & James Souter, A special responsibility to protect: the UK, Australia and the rise of Islamic State
• Simone Molin Friis, ‘Beyond anything we have ever seen’: beheading videos and the visibility of violence in the war against ISIS
• Harsh V. Pant & Julie M. Super, India's ‘non-alignment’ conundrum: a twentieth-century policy in a changing world
• Michael Mayer, The new killer drones: understanding the strategic implications of next-generation unmanned combat aerial vehicles
• Pía Riggirozzi & Jean Grugel, Regional governance and legitimacy in South America: the meaning of UNASUR
• Christian Downie, Global energy governance: do the BRICs have the energy to drive reform?
• Derek Averre & Lance Davies, Russia, humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: the case of Syria
• Lorena De Vita, German–Israeli ties in 2015 and 1965: the difficult special relationship

de la Rasilla del Moral: 'In the General Interest of Peace' - British International Lawyers and the Spanish Civil War

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral (Brunel Univ. - Law) has posted 'In the General Interest of Peace' - British International Lawyers and the Spanish Civil War (Journal of the History of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

At the time when the Syrian Civil War has re-ignited the interest of international lawyers for the study of Civil Wars, this article reviews the core issues and different doctrinal positions present in the international legal debates triggered by the Spanish Civil War. It pays particular attention to the contributions of the first two British judges at the International Court of Justice, A. D. McNair (1946-1955) and H. Lauterpacht (1955-1960) to these debates. Their writings can be seen as respectively representative of the two stages through which British international lawyers went in the international legal debates on the Spanish Civil War. Up to early 1938, British International lawyers adopted a characteristically apologetic approach to the policy undertaken by the British Government on the advice of the British Foreign Office. The second stage, from early 1938 to the end of the Spanish Civil War in March 1939, was in turn informed by a “practitioner's approach” to the analysis of the domestic cases brought before the British courts as a result of the hostilities. The article concludes with an analysis of the case for British “benevolent neutrality to the Nationalists” in the Spanish Civil War, reviewing the underlying motives which historians have highlighted as lurking behind the British-led non-intervention policy in the Spanish Civil War.

New Issue: Virginia Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Virginia Journal of International Law (Vol. 55, no. 2, Spring 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Ashley Deeks, An International Legal Framework for Surveillance
• Charles W. Mooney, Jr., The Cape Town Convention's Improbable-but-Possible Progeny Part Two: Bilateral Investment Treaty-Like Enforcement Mechanism
• Julia Ya Qin, The Conundrum of WTO Accession Protocols: In Search of Legality and Legitimacy

Gostin, Sridhar, & Hougendobler: The Normative Authority of the World Health Organization

Lawrence O. Gostin (Georgetown Univ. - Law), Devi Sridhar (Univ. of Edinburgh - Centre for Population Health Sciences), & Daniel Hougendobler (Georgetown Univ. - Law) have posted The Normative Authority of the World Health Organization (Public Health, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The World Health Organization (WHO) was born after the devastation of World War II, as a normative agency endowed with unprecedented constitutional powers. But even as it has achieved stunning successes, such as the eradication of smallpox, it has failed to live up to the exalted expectations of the postwar health and human rights movement e exemplified most recently by its inadequate response to the Ebola epidemic. Our aim is to offer innovative ideas for restoring the Organization to its leadership position by exercising its normative authority, even as it faces a crowded and often chaotic global health architecture. Before doing so, it will be helpful to summarize the main tensions the Organization faces in today's global health landscape.

New Issue: Human Rights Quarterly

The latest issue of the Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 37, no. 3, August 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Cosette D. Creamer & Beth A Simmons, Ratification, Reporting, and Rights: Quality of Participation in the Convention against Torture
• Roos Haer, Tobias Hecker, & Anna Maedl, Former Combatants on Sexual Violence During Warfare: A Comparative Study of the Perspectives of Perpetrators, Victims, and Witnesses
• Martin Lukk & Keith Doubt, Bearing Witness and the Limits of War Photojournalism: Ron Haviv in Bijeljina
• Björn Ahl, The Rise of China and International Human Rights Law
• Gordon Crawford & Bård A. Andreassen, Human Rights and Development: Putting Power and Politics at the Center
• Khulekani Moyo & Sandra Liebenberg, The Privatization of Water Services: The Quest for Enhanced Human Rights Accountability
• Leigh A. Payne, Francesca Lessa, & Gabriel Pereira, Overcoming Barriers to Justice in the Age of Human Rights Accountability
• Aisling Swaine, Beyond Strategic Rape and Between the Public and the Private: Violence Against Women in Armed Conflict

Grant: Aggression against Ukraine: Territory, Responsibility, and International Law

Thomas D. Grant (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has published Aggression against Ukraine: Territory, Responsibility, and International Law (Palgrave Macmillan 2015). Here's the abstract:

Aggression against Ukraine marks a stunning shift. Ever since 1945 it had been understood that the borders of States must not be the object of forcible change by other States. However, Russia has now revived long-buried historical claims—and prosecutes them by dint of arms. The annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent armed incursions in eastern Ukraine under color of separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk challenge not just one State's territorial integrity, but jeopardize the general settlement on which international law for almost three generations has rested. This is the settlement which enabled human rights and modern institutions of international law to flourish. Russia's domestic rejection of human rights and its new geopolitics of territorial seizure in this light should be seen not in isolation but as connected developments—and as a challenge to international law and global public order at large.

New Issue: Yale Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Yale Journal of International Law (Vol. 40, no. 2, Summer 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Gary J. Bass, The Indian Way of Humanitarian Intervention
• Richard C. Chen, A Contractual Approach to Investor-State Regulatory Disputes
• Jens David Ohlin, The Combatant's Privilege in Asymmetric and Covert Conflicts

Klabbers: Advanced Introduction to the Law of International Organizations

Jan Klabbers (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) has published Advanced Introduction to the Law of International Organizations (Edward Elgar Publishing 2015). Here's the abstract:

The Advanced Introduction to the Law of International Organizations gives a nuanced overview of the legal mechanisms behind the operation of international organizations such as the UN, the EU and the World Bank. It offers perceptive insights by placing the law of international organizations in a political context and provides systematic discussion of a variety of relevant legal notions, ranging from the powers of international organizations to mechanisms of accountability. Written by a leading authority on the topic, it provides a concise and accessible examination of this developing facet of international law.

Symposium: Three Pathways to Global Standards: Private, Regulator, and Ministry Networks

AJIL Unbound is currently hosting a symposium on Stavros Gadinis's article Three Pathways to Global Standards: Private, Regulator, and Ministry Networks (currently available for free at that link). The symposium includes response essays by Robert B. Ahdieh, Fleur Johns, and Paul B. Stephan.

Ruggie: Incorporating Human Rights: Lessons Learned, and Next Steps

John Gerard Ruggie (Harvard Univ. - Kennedy School) has posted Incorporating Human Rights: Lessons Learned, and Next Steps (in Business and Human Rights: From Principles to Practice, Justine Nolan & Dorothea Baumann-Pauly, eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The UN Guiding Principles mark the first time the international community has adopted a set of standards stipulating the obligations of states and the responsibilities of corporations in relation to business and human rights. They succeeded where previous such efforts failed. Critics believe it is because the Guiding Principles do not, in themselves, impose new legal obligations on states or businesses. This is a partial and therefore misleading answer. More to the point is that they broke through certain conventional conceptual and doctrinal shackles. These had contributed to past failures, and they would do so again if turned loose on future developments. Hence this chapter is divided into two parts: summarizing the premises underlying the Guiding Principles, and how to build on them in the current UN business and human rights treaty process.

Land: Justice as Legitimacy in the European Court of Human Rights

Molly K. Land (Univ. of Connecticut - Law) has posted Justice as Legitimacy in the European Court of Human Rights (in Legitimacy and International Courts, Harlan Grant Cohen & Nienke Grossman eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Using the example of the prisoner voting cases at the European Court of Human Rights, this chapter builds on existing literature regarding the legitimacy of judicial institutions to consider the role of justice with respect to the normative and sociological legitimacy of international human rights courts. The chapter identifies the pursuit of just outcomes as a significant independent influence on the legitimacy of these courts. Doing justice even when it requires expansive lawmaking in order to protect unpopular groups can be an affirmative source of legitimacy for these institutions. Although the legitimacy challenges faced by the European Court of Human Rights in connection with its prisoner voting cases are significant, the chapter argues that the Court’s retroactive narrowing of its decision in Hirst may have undermined the extent to which prisoner voting is viewed as an issue of justice. When a court that derives its legitimacy from its moral compass bows to political pressure, it risks doing violence to the perception that it is a moral actor, which may be a critical part of the foundation of its legitimacy. In some instances, taking an unpopular position and displeasing states is precisely what human rights courts are supposed to do - and in so doing, they may end up strengthening their position in the long term.

Tzanakopoulos: The Right to Be Free from Economic Coercion

Antonios Tzanakopoulos (Univ. of Oxford - Law) has posted The Right to Be Free from Economic Coercion (Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This paper seeks to determine if there is a fundamental right of States to be free from economic coercion, against the background of international law permitting economic coercion as a means for its own implementation. After defining coercion and other cognate terms, it surveys the limits to (economic) countermeasures and (economic) sanctions, and determines that any 'sphere of economic freedom' of States is essentially a relative concept, without an irreducible core. Public International Law does not currently establish a fundamental right to be free from economic coercion -- though one should probably be established.

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 19, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• UN immunity and the Haiti Cholera Case
• Introduced by Emanuele Cimiotta and Maria Irene Papa
• Rosa Freedman & Nicolas Lemay-Hebert, Towards an alternative interpretation of UN immunity: A human rights-based approach to the Haiti Cholera Case
• Riccardo Pavoni, Choleric notes on the Haiti Cholera Case

New Issue: Global Environmental Politics

The latest issue of Global Environmental Politics (Vol. 15, no. 3, August 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Advancing Comparative Climate Change Politics: Theory and Method
• Mark Purdon, Introduction
• Kathryn Harrison, International Carbon Trade and Domestic Climate Politics
• David Houle, Erick Lachapelle, & Mark Purdon, Comparative Politics of Sub-Federal Cap-and-Trade: Implementing the Western Climate Initiative
• Kathryn Hochstetler & Genia Kostka, Wind and Solar Power in Brazil and China: Interests, State–Business Relations, and Policy Outcomes
• Prakash Kashwan, Forest Policy, Institutions, and REDD+ in India, Tanzania, and Mexico
• Sam Barrett, Subnational Adaptation Finance Allocation: Comparing Decentralized and Devolved Political Institutions in Kenya
• Tim Forsyth & Les Levidow, An Ontological Politics of Comparative Environmental Analysis: The Green Economy and Local Diversity
• Paul F. Steinberg, Can We Generalize from Case Studies?

Viñuales: International Investment Law and Natural Resources Governance

Jorge E. Viñuales (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has posted International Investment Law and Natural Resource Governance (in Research Handbook on International Law and Natural Resources, K. Kulovesi & E. Morgera eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This paper analyses the implications of contemporary international investment law for the regulation of natural resources. Natural resources are unevenly distributed across different regions and countries and that makes access a very important question. In turn, access to resources located in the territory or within the jurisdiction of a country and, more generally, any activities conducted in connection with such resources, are subject to the regulatory powers of the host State. Although such powers are above all a matter of sovereignty, understanding them through this prism alone would miss an important point, namely that the interests of a host State and a foreign investor may be aligned not only in pursuance of public welfare but also to the detriment of it. The latter phenomenon has been called the “resource curse” – i.e. a situation where a rapacious government exploits the country’s natural resources for its own benefit depriving the population of its due. Foreign investors may be involved in such phenomenon either deliberately (i.e. through a close connection with the rapacious government) or as a mere result of their activity in the host State (i.e. by making the exploitation profitable for the government irrespective of any explicit complicity). Thus, questions of 'access', 'sovereignty' and 'distribution' are closely interrelated in ways that require sustained analysis. The first section of the paper provides a brief overview of the basic architecture and building blocks of international investment law, from a structural and dynamic perspective. The focus then turns to the core subject matter, namely the specific implications of this body of law for the governance of natural resources, particularly as regards access, sovereignty and distribution. In conclusion, some observations and recommendations regarding possible avenues for reform are put forward for consideration and future research.

Pollack: Who Supports International Law, and Why? The United States, the European Union, and International Law

Mark A. Pollack (Temple Univ. - Political Science) has posted Who Supports International Law, and Why? The United States, the European Union, and International Law (International Journal of Constitutional Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Over the past several decades, it has become commonplace in both scholarly and political circles to contrast the positions of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) toward the rule of international law, with the US being characterized at best by ambivalence toward legal constraints, and at worst as a “rogue nation.” The EU, by contrast, has presented itself and been seen as a strong supporter of international law. The symposium introduced by this paper interrogates this conventional wisdom, applying and testing a theoretical framework that attempts to disaggregate both the nature and the causes of state support for international law. This introduction is organized in four parts. Part I problematizes the dependent variable, “support” for international law, disaggregating that concept into four discrete dimensions of leadership, consent, compliance, and internalization. Part II moves from characterizing to explaining attitudes toward international law, identifying four sets of factors or independent variables – international and domestic, political and legal – that might account for observed differences between the US and the EU. Part III introduces the five empirical papers in the symposium, which deal respectively with international human rights law, criminal law, environmental law, trade law, and the internalization of international law by US and EU high courts. Part IV concludes with preliminary findings about the nature and the determinants of US and EU support for international law. With respect to the dependent variable, we find considerable differences between the US and the EU, as suggested by the conventional wisdom, but we also identify important nuances in the nature of those differences, which center primarily around the dimensions of consent and internalization, albeit with important variations across issue-areas. In terms of the independent variables, we find that the roots of US and EU differences are complex and multi-causal, defying any effort to reduce those differences to simple contrasts such as American exceptionalism or the EU’s normative difference.

van Aaken: Is International Law Conducive to Prevent Looming Disasters?

Anne van Aaken (Univ. of St. Gallen - Law) has posted Is International Law Conducive to Prevent Looming Disasters? Here's the abstract:

Looming disasters mostly require collective action but international law is traditionally consent based. For a state to be bound by international law, it needs to have ratified a treaty (e.g. concerning climate change) or must be bound by customary international law. This horizontal form of cooperation makes the system sensitive to collective action problems (like free-riding on global public good, overuse of commons, begging-thy-neighbor etc.). I explore the question of whether other forms of cooperation, e.g. cooperation through soft law or international organizations mitigate the problem and under what circumstances this might be so. Furthermore, international law design might need to take into account internal processes within states (breaking up the black-box) as well as behavioral economic insights. The paper will suggest some mechanisms to help prevent states overcoming the cooperation problem with regard to looming disasters and highlight their limits as well. It submits that international lawyers need to look at all behavioral mechanisms of international law in order to understand how it can be designed and used to prevent looming disasters.

New Issue: Humanity

The latest issue of Humanity (Vol. 6, no. 2, Summer 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Carolyn J. Dean, Atrocity Photographs, Dignity, and Human Vulnerability
• Jeremy Adelman, Michele Alacevich, Victoria de Grazia, Ira Katznelson, & Nadia Urbinati, Albert Hirschman and the Social Sciences: A Memorial Roundtable
• Gregory Mann, From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: An Introduction
• Janet Roitman, Kenneth Harrow, & Gregory Mann, An Interview with Gregory Mann
• Katherine Chandler, A Bee with an Electronic Brain: Drone Flights in Cold War America
• Pierluigi Musarò, The Banality of Goodness: Humanitarianism Between the Ethics of Showing and the Ethics of Seeing
• Lorrin Thomas, When We Talk About Human Rights

New Issue: Journal of International Criminal Justice

The latest issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (Vol. 13, no. 3, July 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Marlies Glasius, ‘It Sends a Message’: Liberian Opinion Leaders’ Responses to the Trial of Charles Taylor
• Hemi Mistry, The Paradox of Dissent: Judicial Dissent and the Projects of International Criminal Justice
• Symposium: Proof in International Criminal Trials
• Yvonne McDermott & John D. Jackson, Foreword
• Paul Roberts, The Priority of Procedure and the Neglect of Evidence and Proof: Facing Facts in International Criminal Law
• Yvonne McDermott, Inferential Reasoning and Proof in International Criminal Trials: The Potentials of Wigmorean Analysis
• Mark Klamberg, The Alternative Hypothesis Approach, Robustness and International Criminal Justice: A Plea for a ‘Combined Approach’ to Evaluation of Evidence
• Michael Ramsden & Cecilia Chung, ‘Reasonable Grounds to Believe’: An Unreasonably Unclear Evidentiary Threshold in the ICC Statute
• Triestino Mariniello, Questioning the Standard of Proof: The Purpose of the ICC Confirmation of Charges Procedure
• John D. Jackson & Yassin M. Brunger, Witness Preparation in the ICC: An Opportunity for Principled Pragmatism
• Cases before International Courts and Tribunals
• Nerina Boschiero, The ICC Judicial Finding on Non-cooperation Against the DRC and No Immunity for Al-Bashir Based on UNSC Resolution 1593

New Issue: Leiden Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law (Vol. 28, no. 3, September 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Cecily Rose, International Lawyers as Public Intellectuals and the Need for More Books
• John Dugard Lecture - 2015
• Kenneth J. Keith, The International Rule of Law
• International Legal Theory
• Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral, The Shifting Origins of International Law
• Yolanda Gamarra, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406): A Precursor of Intercivilizational Discourse
• International Law and Its Methodology
• Ino Augsberg, Some Realism About New Legal Realism: What's New, What's Legal, What's Real?
• Jan Klabbers, Whatever Happened to Gramsci? Some Reflections on New Legal Realism
• Gregory Shaffer, New Legal Realism's Rejoinder
• Jakob V.H. Holtermann & Mikael Rask Madsen, High Stakes and Persistent Challenges – A Rejoinder to Klabbers and Augsberg
• International Law and Practice
• Hugh Thirlway, Human Rights in Customary Law: An Attempt to Define Some of the Issues
• Rosa Freedman & Nicolas Lemay-Hebert, ‘Jistis ak Reparasyon pou Tout Viktim Kolera MINUSTAH’: The United Nations and the Right to Health in Haiti
• Mamadou Hébié, Was There Something Missing in the Decolonization Process in Africa?: The Territorial Dimension
• Friedrich Benjamin Schnedier, The International Convention on the Prevention of Odious Agreements: A Human Rights-Based Mechanism to Avoid Odious Debts
• Shen Wei, Expropriation in Transition: Evolving Chinese Investment Treaty Practices in Local and Global Contexts
• Hague International Tribunals: International Court of Justice
• Abdulqawi A. Yusuf, From Reluctance to Acquiescence: The Evolving Attitude of African States Towards Judicial and Arbitral Settlement of Disputes
• International Criminal Courts and Tribunals
• Marcus Joyce, Duress: From Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court, Finding the Balance Between Justification and Excuse
• Aldo Zammit Borda, Appraisal-Based and Flexible Approaches to External Precedent in International Criminal Law

New Issue: Review of International Organizations

The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 10, no. 3, September 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Liesbet Hooghe & Gary Marks, Delegation and pooling in international organizations
• Asif Efrat, Do human rights violations hinder counterterrorism cooperation? Evidence from the FBI’s deployment abroad
• Bernd Schlipphak, Measuring attitudes toward regional organizations outside Europe
• Daniel J. Blake & Autumn Lockwood Payton, Balancing design objectives: Analyzing new data on voting rules in intergovernmental organizations

New Issue: Journal of Conflict & Security Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict & Security Law (Vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Tom Coppen, Developing IAEA Safeguards: An Institutional Perspective on the State-level Concept
• Christian Schaller, Using Force Against Terrorists ‘Outside Areas of Active Hostilities’—The Obama Approach and the Bin Laden Raid Revisited
• Ezequiel Heffes, Detentions by Armed Opposition Groups in Non-International Armed Conflicts: Towards a New Characterization of International Humanitarian Law
• Sean Butler, Separating Protection from Politics: The UN Security Council, the 2011 Ivorian Political Crisis and the Legality of Regime Change
• Marina Aksenova, Conceptualizing Terrorism: International Offence or Domestic Governance Tool?
• Yasuhito Fukui, The Arms Trade Treaty: Pursuit for the Effective Control of Arms Transfer

Kellman: Exporting Armed Drones – The United States Sets Policy

Barry Kellman (DePaul Univ. - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on Exporting Armed Drones – The United States Sets Policy.