The latest issue of the International Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 4, no. 1, 2015) is out. Contents include:
Over the last two decades, the growing restrictive attitudes of Western States towards asylum-seekers have caused much ink to flow concerning the individual and collective responsibilities of the host countries in sharing the “burden.” In contrast, the role and the responsibilities of the State of origin of refugees have remained quite unexplored in legal doctrine. The present article strives to fill this gap, analysing both the content of the pertinent international norms as well as their practical relevance in situations of mass flows. In the first part, this article will analyse whether the source State can be held responsible, or liable, towards receiving countries for the refugee influx. The article will then investigate the precise scope of the country of origin’s obligations vis-à-vis its fleeing citizens, particularly with respect to return and reparations. As will be shown, the enjoyment of the refugees’ rights in this regard has been significantly limited as a result of the characterization by States of repatriation as the best durable solution.
Cet article analyse l’impact des indépendances ibéro-américaines dans la doctrine contemporaine de la reconnaissance internationale. Ce n’est qu’après l’apparition de nouvelles nations ibéro-américaines que la légalité d’un gouvernement dépend de la seule légitimité que lui confère le peuple souverain, en dépit d’une conception longtemps dominante dans le Droit des gens, d’après laquelle cette légalité dépend du respect du principe de légitimité (c’est-à-dire, du droit de succession royal). Pour le démontrer, l’étude s’appuie sur une lecture transatlantique et de longue durée qui inclut plusieurs cas d’apparition d’entités souveraines à l’époque moderne et qui les compare avec la reconnaissance des gouvernements ibéro-américains.
The latest issue of Trade, Law and Development (Vol. 6, no. 2, Winter 2014) is out. Contents include:
This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its core legal texts from a children’s rights perspective. It examines the ICC provisions and its case law, evaluating whether these meet international children’s rights standards, particularly as regards the protection of child victims and witnesses, their participation as victims in ICC proceedings and their role as beneficiaries in reparations. The author proposes recommendations that could be adopted in order to guarantee children’s rights in ICC proceedings.
The latest issue of The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals (Vol. 14, no. 2, 2015) is out. Contents include:
The latest issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (Vol. 27, no. 3, October 2015) is out. Contents include:
While it is common to refer to the international rule of law, it is less common to define it or to explore what it means. I examine the international rule of law both in practice and as a concept. This is important because international legality is often used as a legitimating discourse for political power, and unstated disagreements about the meaning of the international rule of law can impede conversations about substantive political issues.
Although it now appears settled that the Paris agreement will be a treaty within the definition of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, debate continues over which provisions of the agreement should be legally binding. The legal character of the Paris agreement and its constituent parts may matter for several reasons, even in the absence of any enforcement mechanisms. Formulating an agreement in legally binding terms signals stronger commitment, both by the executive that accepts the agreement and by the wider body politic, particularly if domestic acceptance requires legislative approval. It can have domestic legal ramifications, to the extent that treaties prompt legislative implementation or can be applied by national courts. And it can serve as a stronger basis for domestic and international mobilisation. But, despite much empirical work over the past two decades, it has proved difficult to assess the strength of these factors in promoting effectiveness, both absolutely and relative to other elements of treaty design, such as an agreement’s precision and its mechanisms for transparency and accountability. On the one hand, states exhibit a strong belief that the legal character of an agreement matters. On the other hand, some political agreements, such as the 2009 Copenhagen Accord and the 1975 Helsinki Accords, arguably have had a greater influence on state behaviour than their legal counterparts. As a result, confident assertions, one way or the other, on the degree to which the legally binding nature of the Paris agreement does or does not matter seem unwarranted.
The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 21, no. 3, September 2015) is out. Contents include:
The latest issue of the American Review of International Arbitration (Vol. 26, no. 1, 2015) is out. Contents include:
This essay excavates and critiques the image of the critical subject that is presupposed by Koskenniemi in his 'From Apology to Utopia'. Critical international legal thought often invests considerable faith in the potential of the subject; I argue that this may, in some cases, be a misplaced strategy. This argument proceeds in three steps. Part I examines how the various theories and methods of Koskenniemi's text leaves us with no knowledge of the critical subject. Part II demonstrates that his text presupposes into existence a subject is rooted in a Sartrean metaphysic, and explores the nature of this being. Part III then demonstrates how this critical subject is structured by specific contradictions that may disable it from realizing the emancipatory politics of critical thought. More importantly, it attempts to show how this subject may very well embed the prevailing cultural ideology of our time, rather than challenge it. And yet, despite these antinomies and limits, many young scholars still continue to believe in this image of the critical subject. Because this image is held together through myth.
The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 54, no. 3, 2015) is out. Contents include:
The paper discusses how human rights norms are created in international law. After explaining the limits of the sources of positive international law (and especially the problems that are inherent to custom making), it turns towards the role of international courts and tribunals and discusses the ways through which these may recognise the existence of human rights. The paper identifies a number of means that are available to international courts for that task and highlights the distinction between consensus-based reasoning, and decision making based on human rights principles.
In Starvation as a Weapon Simone Hutter explores, within the framework of international law, the legality of using deliberate starvation as a means to an end. A close look at modern famine shows that, in many cases, food scarcity is not the product of coincidence, but a side effect or result of a deliberate strategy. Starvation is an efficient instrument when used to exert pressure and power, in times of war and peace. Simone Hutter demonstrates how international human rights law and international humanitarian law prevent deliberate starvation as a means of achieving political goals. She focuses on highly divisive and under-discussed instances in which states deploy deliberate starvation domestically, i.e. within the state’s own national territory.
The emerging transnational criminal law - Call for papers
Venue: Faculty of Law, Meeting room 02-0-16, Studiegaarden,
Studiestraede 6, ground floor, DK-1455 Copenhagen KIn recent years, the contours of a distinct transnational criminal law have emerged. To investigate the new practices and legal innovations around this form of law, iCourts invites papers for a multidisciplinary conference on the emerging forms of transnational criminal law.
In the late 2000s, transnational criminal law emerged as a scholarly concept aimed at capturing a range of new legal innovations that have sprung up on the international and even global scene. In contrast to scholarship on international criminal law driven by the international criminal courts, the emergent transnational criminal law targeted other forms of borderless crimes codified in international treaties and not necessarily tied to the practices of international institutions.
With the emergence of transnational criminal law, a myriad of scholarly questions regarding the genesis of this specific concept and as well as the legal practices it seeks to encompass have arisen. To investigate these phenomena, new forms of law as well as the academic concepts formed around them, iCourts invites papers for a multidisciplinary conference on the emerging transnational criminal law. The aim of the workshop and related conference is to provide the first collective and transdisciplinary perspective on the emergence and development of transnational criminal law. In this context, iCourts welcomes papers that will address one of the following dimensions:
The concept of transnational criminal law:
To understand the role of transnational criminal law, more scholarship on the theoretical boundaries of the concept is needed. Such studies could include strictly legal studies of its substantive and procedural dynamics as well as socio-legal research on how this term was crafted and how it relates to conceptual innovations in other disciplines.The practices of transnational criminal law:
If transnational criminal law is indeed an emerging field in its own right, understanding the practices active in it holds the key to understanding its developments. Papers are invited that tries to analyze how practices of transnational criminal law have evolved and are situated in a wider field of law and politics.The agents and networks of transnational criminal law:
Tied closely to the concrete practices that characterize transnational criminal law are the agents and networks that are driving them. Here socio-legal scholarship can potentially make a significant contribution to understanding this new form of law and who have been the central drivers in its theoretical as well as practical development.The institutions of transnational criminal law:
What are the institutions that have defined specific practices in transnational criminal law and what role do they play vis-à-vis other national and international organizations? Understanding the role of different institutions in transnational criminal law can provide pivotal insights into the functionality of this field and its practices.Abstracts for the workshop should focus on making an original contribution within one or more of the dimensions identified above. Papers will be selected on the basis of abstracts of 250 words accompanied by a brief statement of what the research will add to the state of the art.
Deadline for abstracts is 1 December 2015. Please send abstracts to Mikkel Jarle Christensen: mjc@jur.ku.dk
The workshop will take place May 17-18 2016. iCourts will cover flights and accommodation if booked through the center.
Reworked and finished papers are planned to be presented on a public conference scheduled for January 2017.
vailable research suggests that less developed countries have significant competitive advantage over developed countries in three major areas of international trade: agriculture, textiles and clothing (T&C), and cross-border labor mobility. Incidentally, these are also the trade sectors which experienced widespread protectionist measures, especially in developed world, for decade after decade. Under the World Trade Organization (WTO), which replaced the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) in 1995, much of the restrictions in T&C trade has been phased out, but still this sector faces much higher tariff and non-tariff barriers than any other manufacturing sector in world economy. The agricultural sector also experienced significant dismantling of deeply entrenched trade barriers under the WTO over the course of last two decades, but the sector still remains plagued with quite extensive domestic supports, export subsidies, and tariff barriers. At the same time, despite both theoretical expositions and empirical trends point to significant potential gains from cross-border labor mobility, the sector remains mired in a complex quagmire of economic and political restrictions around the world. Thus, all three sectors in which less developed countries have exports interests still remain less liberalized than the sectors in which developed countries have exports interests. This book provides an in-depth and up-to-date scholarly analysis of all three trade sectors—agriculture, T&C and cross-border labor mobility—with a penetrating scrutiny of historical backgrounds and developments, crosscurrents of interests and perspectives of both developed and developing countries, and evolving trade patterns and potentials in a more liberalized and globalized world economy. The book also identifies critical economic issues and options for less developed countries in the WTO negotiations for further liberalization of agriculture, T&C, and cross-border labor mobility.
Tuna and tuna-like species are migrating over long distances and cross national and international boundaries. Therefore, international cooperation is required in order to ensure sustainable management of the fisheries targeting these species. The book deals with the international legal framework for the management. It focuses on the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs), concentrating particularly on fisheries management in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean regions. It aims at providing a broader understanding of the international legal framework and to examine whether or not this framework enables tuna RFMOs and, in particular, the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to manage their fisheries sustainably.
English Abstract: While it is common to refer to the international rule of law, it is less common to define it or to explore what it means. In this essay I examine the international rule of law both in practice and as a concept. This is important because many controversies about the direction of world politics in fact rest on different accounts of the international rule of law. Understanding the various ways the idea is used, and their implications for policy-choices, can help clarify what it and what it is not being argued over in global controversies. I set out three distinct approaches to the concept of the international rule of law and compare them to contemporary state practice. The first is anchored on the obligation of states to comply with their international legal obligations. The second draws on an analogy with the domestic rule of law. The third begins from the observation that states invoke international law to explain and justify their policies - from this it expands into a model of law as integral to political legitimation. I find that the third provides the most conceptually coherent understanding of the international rule of law, and has interesting implications for the study of international law and politics.
Spanish Abstract: Aunque es común referirse al imperio internacional de la ley, es menos común definirlo o explorar lo que significa. En este ensayo examino el imperio internacional de la ley en la práctica y en teoría. Esto es importante porque muchas controversias sobre la dirección de la política mundial se basan de hecho en explicaciones diferentes del imperio internacional de la ley. Comprender las diferentes maneras en que se usa esta idea y sus implicaciones para la elección de políticas puede ayudar a clarificar lo que se está discutiendo y lo que no en las controversias globales. Yo planteo tres enfoques distintos del concepto de imperio internacional de la ley y los comparo con la práctica estatal contemporánea. El primero está anclado en la obligación de los estados de cumplir sus obligaciones legales internacionales. El segundo traza una analogía con el imperio doméstico de la ley. El tercero parte de la observación de que los estados invocan la ley internacional para explicar y justificar sus políticas – de aquí se amplía a un modelo de la ley como parte integral de la legitimación política. Me parece que el tercero ofrece la comprensión conceptualmente más coherente del imperio internacional de la ley y tiene implicaciones interesantes para el estudio de la ley y la política internacionales.
