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. 21, no. 4, October-December 2015) is out. Contents include:

• The Global Forum
• Edward C. Luck, R2P at Ten: A New Mindset for a New Era?
• Simon Chesterman, The Secretary-General We Deserve?
• Articles
• Elham Seyedsayamdost, Development as End of Poverty: Reform or Reinvention?
• Kjell Engelbrekt, Mission Creep? The Nontraditional Security Agenda of the G7/8 and the Nascent Role of the G-20
• Andrej Krickovic, “All Politics Is Regional”: Emerging Powers and the Regionalization of Global Governance
• Carl Death, Disrupting Global Governance: Protest at Environmental Conferences from 1972 to 2012
• Marcel Hanegraaff, Interest Groups at Transnational Negotiation Conferences: Goals, Strategies, Interactions, and Influence

Koskenniemi on Pedersen's "The Guardians"

Martti Koskenniemi (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) has published Imperialism with an Internationalist Face, a review of Susan Pedersen's The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire.

Workshop: International Organizations and the Rule of Law: Perils and Promise

On December 7-8, 2015, the New Zealand Centre for Public Law and the International Law Association (New Zealand Branch) will hold a workshop on "International Organisations and the Rule of Law: Perils and Promise" at the Victoria University of Wellington Faculty of Law. The program is here. Here's the idea:

International organisations have represented some of humanity’s highest hopes for a more just and peaceful world order. In recent years, however, they have also been beset by serious problems and criticisms. Internationalists once believed that apolitical, technical international agencies would bring about ‘peace by pieces’, but some organisations such as the World Bank and IMF now face the contrary charge of advancing a particular brand of neoliberal economics and in the process undermining public goods and political legitimacy in their member states. Observers have noted the irony that the United Nations promulgates a “rule of law” paradigm to its member states, while it is not at all clear that the organization itself meets the requirements of that ideal. The Security Council is regarded alternately as a tool of ‘hegemonic international law’ and lamentably ineffectual where the interests of its permanent members are directly or indirectly concerned. And whereas the international community once saw the blue helmets of UN peacekeepers as symbols of international peace and security, that hopeful promise has been undercut by the tragedies in Rwanda and Srebrenica, allegations of sexual misconduct and, more recently, the catastrophic cholera outbreak in Haiti.

These problems raise a series of important theoretical and practical policy questions that demand attention from international lawyers. On the one hand, classical international organisations law, such as the doctrine of implied powers, has legitimised the continuous ‘mission creep’ of organisations well beyond what their founders originally intended, while failing to develop an adequate and enforceable doctrine of ultra vires. On the other hand, international organisations’ immunities are interpreted in an exceedingly broad, functionalist manner, making their officials and experts, as well as the organisations themselves, effectively unaccountable for a wide range of civil and criminal wrongs. Efforts to extend the international law of responsibility to international organisations have been roundly criticised on both doctrinal and practical grounds, and are unlikely to provide recourse to individuals and groups most negatively impacted by IO activities. The internal accountability mechanisms of international organisations, such as the World Bank’s Inspection Panel, may not address the root of the problems.

This workshop will take a fresh look at the resources that international law possesses to ensure that international organisations are held accountable for their errors and excesses, while remaining relevant and effective in the face of ever growing global challenges. How can international law develop in a way that preserves and enhances the dynamic possibilities of international organisations and their ability to contribute to the development of international law while making sure that the organisations themselves comply with the rule of law? Can international law offer solutions, or is it part of the problem? The workshop organisers welcome papers that present original legal or empirical research; theoretical reflections; case studies from practice; and critical and historical perspectives.

The workshop will be held in a roundtable format, focused on the discussion of draft papers. To enable all participants to benefit from the workshop, all will be expected to have read, and be prepared to comment on, each other’s papers.

Egan: International Human Rights: Perspectives from Ireland

Suzanne Egan (Univ. College Dublin - Law) has published International Human Rights: Perspectives from Ireland (Bloomsbury 2015). Here's the abstract:

International Human Rights: Perspectives from Ireland examines Ireland's engagement with, and influence of, the international human rights regime. International human rights norms are increasingly being taken into account by legislators, courts and public bodies in taking decisions and implementing actions that impact on human rights. This title features articles by leading Irish and international academic experts, practitioners and advocates in the human rights field. It also combines both practical analysis and integrates perspectives from a broad range of actors in the human rights field.

New Volume: European Yearbook of International Economic Law

The latest volume of the European Yearbook of International Economic Law (Vol. 6, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Part I Issues
• Robert Howse, Distinguished Essay: Non-tariff Barriers and Climate Policy: Border-Adjusted Taxes and Regulatory Measures as WTO-Compliant Climate Mitigation Strategies
• Timothy Lyons, The Interaction of Customs and Non-tariff Barriers
• Nikita Lomagin, Non-tariff Barriers to Trade: Quality and Quantity from an Economic Perspective
• Akbar Rasulov, The Horizontal Mechanism Initiative in the WTO: The Proceduralist Turn and Its Discontents
• Gracia Marín Durán, NTBs and the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade: The Case of PPM-Based Measures Following US – Tuna II and EC – Seal Products
• Nikolay Mizulin & Huijian Zhu, Non-tariff Barriers and Private Conduct: The Case of Labelling
• Christian Pitschas, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement and the Development of International Standards
• Part II Regional Integration: Trade and Investment Relations
• Shotaro Hamamoto, Between the EU and East Asia: The Next Frontier? Economic Partnership Agreements Concluded by Japan
• Won-Mog Choi, Aggressive Regionalism with the First Partner in the Far East: The Korea-EU FTA and Its Implications for the Future
• Locknie Hsu, EU-ASEAN Trade and Investment Relations with a Special Focus on Singapore
• Chien-Huei Wu, A Mismatch Between Ambition and Reality: The EU’s Efforts to Counterbalance China and the US in East Asia
• Julien Chaisse, The European Union’s Normative Power in Asia: Endogenous and Exogenous Factors of the Nascent Investment Policy
• Part III International Economic Institutions
• Catharine Titi, Institutional Developments in Investor–State Dispute Settlement and Arbitration Under the Auspices of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
• Jan Bohanes & Karolyn Salcedo, Overview of WTO Jurisprudence in 2013
• Joy Kategekwa, Institutional Developments in the WTO: Recent Trends and the Challenge Going Forward
• Andrea Wechsler, WIPO’s Global Copyright Policy Priorities: The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled

Bjorge: Domestic Application of the ECHR: Courts as Faithful Trustees

Eirik Bjorge (Univ. of Oxford - Law) has published Domestic Application of the ECHR: Courts as Faithful Trustees (Oxford Univ. Press 2015). Here's the abstract:

Domestic courts are entrusted with the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as faithful trustees of the rights protected in the Convention. This book analyses the way in which the domestic courts in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany apply the ECHR and how, applying the Convention, they define their relationship with the European Court of Human Rights. Contrary to what others have contended, the book argues that it is not true descriptively, nor desirable normatively, that the domestic courts approach the ECHR based upon friction and assertion of sovereignty vis-à-vis the European Court. The proper role played by the domestic courts, and the one which they have taken on them to perform in fact, is to apply the Convention in all good faith, building on the principles of the Convention as set out in the jurisprudence of the European Court. But if domestic courts are in a position to apply the ECHR in the first place, it is because the application of the Convention has been entrusted to them by the other organs of the municipal state; in certain cases municipal principles of the separation of powers have an important bearing on domestic interpretation and application of the Convention.

Criddle & Banks: Customary Constraints on the Use of Force: Article 51 with an American Accent

Evan J. Criddle (William & Mary - Law) & William Banks (Syracuse Univ. - Law) have posted Customary Constraints on the Use of Force: Article 51 with an American Accent (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Article, prepared for a symposium on ‘The Future of Restrictivist Theories on the Use of Force,’ examines the current trajectory of restrictivist scholarship in the United States. In contrast to their counterparts in continental Europe, American restrictivists tend to devote less energy to defending narrow constructions of the UN Charter. Instead, they generally focus on legal constraints outside the Charter’s text, including customary norms and general principles of law such as necessity, proportionality, deliberative rationality, and robust evidentiary burdens. The Article considers how these features of the American restrictivist tradition reflect distinctive characteristics of American legal culture, and it explores the tradition’s influence on debates over anticipatory self-defense and the use of force against non-state actors abroad. The Article concludes by examining how the American restrictivist tradition is beginning to shape the United States’ approach to the use of force in response to cyber attacks.

deGuzman: The Elusive Essence of Crimes Against Humanity

Margaret M. deGuzman (Temple Univ. - Law) has posted The Elusive Essence of Crimes Against Humanity (in Essays in Honour of Roger Clark, William A. Schabas et al. eds., 2015). Here's the abstract:

As efforts to adopt an international convention on crimes against humanity gain momentum it becomes increasingly important for the international community to clarify the conceptual underpinnings of this category of international crimes. This book chapter seeks to contribute to that process by elucidating a tension between the two goals animating the definition: the goals of identifying crimes that ‘shock the conscience of humanity’ and of distinguishing crimes against humanity from ‘ordinary’ crimes subject to national adjudication.

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 14, no. 4, October 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Chris Downes, Worth Shopping Around? Defending Regulatory Autonomy under the SPS and TBT Agreements
• Elías A. Baracat, J. Michael Finger, Raúl León Thorne & Julio J. Nogués, Trade Reform and Institution Building: Peru and Argentina under the WTO
• Rudolf Adlung, The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and Its Compatibility with GATS: An Assessment Based on Current Evidence
• Antonia Eliason, The Trade Facilitation Agreement: A New Hope for the World Trade Organization
• Susan Aaronson, Why Trade Agreements are not Setting Information Free: The Lost History and Reinvigorated Debate over Cross-Border Data Flows, Human Rights, and National Security
• Kuei-Jung Ni, Legal Aspects (Barriers) of Granting Compulsory Licenses for Clean Technologies in Light of WTO/TRIPS Rules: Promise or Mirage?

Conference: International Law and Domestic Policies

This Friday and Saturday, October 30-31, 2015, Turgut Ozal University School of Law, in partnership with the Association for Canadian Studies, the Intercultural Dialogue Institute, the Canadian Council on International Law, and the Center for Global and Regional Studies (CEGRES), will hold a conference on "International Law and Domestic Policies," in Ankara. The program is here. Here's the idea:

The aim of this International Conference is to evaluate the impact of international law and transnational law on the legal orders of nation states in different national contexts. The importance of international law in an increasingly globalized world is duly and frequently acknowledged. However, it is difficult to say that international law produces the desired impact across different national legal orders.

On the one hand, practitioners, legal scholars and policy-makers note that as well as the force on domestic law of international law in the form of treaties, conventions and customary law, newer concepts such as global common law, international human rights adjudication and the regulatory powers created through transnational agreements all create the sense that the supremacy of the international legal order is well established and that most states and national communities act as responsible members of an ordered global community. On the other hand, however, international community faces a multitude of challenges and problematic situations stemming both from international and national levels.

Rovine: Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers 2014

Arthur W. Rovine has published Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers 2014 (Brill | Nijhoff 2015). Contents include:

• Catherine Kessedjian, International Arbitration – More Efficiency for Greater Credibility
• Peter Michaelson, Neutral Selection: Perspectives from a Neutral
• Stanimir A. Alexandrov & James Mendenhall, Breach of Treaty Claims and Breach of Contract Claims: Simplification of International Jurisprudence
• Laurence Shore and Liang-Ying Tan, Investment Treaty Tribunals, Human Rights, and International Law
• Rocío Digón & Marek Krasula, The ICC’s Role in Administering Investment Arbitration Disputes
• Bruce A. Green, Attorneys’ Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration
• Margaret Moses, Inherent Powers of Arbitrators to Deal with Ethical Issues
• Doak Bishop & Isabel Fernández de la Cuesta, A Defense of the IBA Guidelines on Party Representation
• Catherine A. Rogers & Idil Tumer, Arbitrator Challenges: Too Many or Not Enough?
• Lorraine M. Brennan, Preparing the Client in an International Mediation: What to Expect from the Process
• Anna Joubin-Bret, Investor-State Mediation (ISM): A Comparison of Recent Treaties and Rules
• Josefa Sicard-Mirabal & Rachael Clarke, The Effect of Culture on International Mediation
• James M. Rhodes, The Current Status and Future of International Mediation
• Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Variations in the Uptake of and Resistance to Mediation Outside of the United States
• Kaj Hobér, WTO and Russia
• Luiz Olavo Baptista, Arbitration in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
• Giorgio Sacerdoti, Settling International Economic Disputes: the WTO and other Models. Trade and Investments
• Gonzalo Biggs, The Challenge Posed to the WTO Dispute Settlement System by the Imbalance in Developing and Developed Country Participation
• John J. Barcelo III, Substantive and Procedural Arbitrability in Ad Hoc Investor-State Arbitration — BG Group v. Argentina
• Roland Ziadé & Lorenzo Melchionda, Structuring and Restructuring of Investment in Investment Treaty Arbitration
• Wolfgang Kühn, Defaulting Parties and Default Awards In International Arbitration
• Alexis Foucard & Léa Grandfond, Arbitration of International Tax Disputes: A Move Towards Democratization?
• Michael Lennard, International Tax Arbitration and Developing Countries
• Natalia Quinones Cruz, International Tax Arbitration as an ADR Solution in a Time of Global Tax Demands

Job Opening: Queen Mary University of London (Lecturer)

The Queen Mary University of London Schools of History and Law invite applications for the position of Lecturer in History and Law. Among other topics, the candidate's research may focus on the "history of human rights," "international and transnational history of law," and "comparative legal history." The successful candidate will lead in the development of the new degree of Law with History. The advertisement is here.

Sellars: Trials for International Crimes in Asia

Kirsten Sellars (Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong - Law) has published Trials for International Crimes in Asia (Cambridge Univ. Press 2015). Contents include:

• Simon Chesterman, Foreword
• Kirsten Sellars, Introduction
• Kirsten Sellars, Treasonable conspiracies at Paris, Moscow, and Delhi: the legal hinterland of the Tokyo tribunal
• Robert Cryer, Then and now: command responsibility, the Tokyo tribunal, and modern international criminal law
• Lisette Schouten, Colonial justice at the Netherlands Indies war crimes trials
• Cheah Wui Ling, The superior orders defence at the postwar trials in Singapore
• Valentya Polunina, The Khabarovsk trial: the Soviet riposte to the Tokyo tribunal
• Ōsawa Takeshi, The People's Republic of China's 'lenient treatment' policy towards Japanese war criminals
• Tara Gutman, Cambodia, 1979: trying Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide
• Mark Cammack, Crimes against humanity in East Timor: the hearings at the Indonesian Ad Hoc Human Rights Court
• Rehan Abeyratne, Asia as the laboratory of the superior responsibility doctrine
• Jia Bing Bing, The two approaches to the superior orders plea
• Neha Jain, The joint criminal enterprise doctrine at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
• M. Rafiqul Islam, Trials for international crimes in Bangladesh: prosecutorial strategies, defence arguments, and judgments
• Nina H. B. Jørgensen, Theories of joint criminal responsibility at the Asian tribunals: Hong Kong, East Timor, Cambodia
• Abdur Razzaq, The tribunals in Bangladesh: falling short of international standards

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 21, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Sustainable investment in natural resources: how is international law doing?
• Introduced by Angelica Bonfanti
• Francesca Romanin Jacur, Light and shadows in the relationship between international law and sustainable investments: The challenges of ‘natural resource grabbing’ and their effects on State sovereignty
• Elisabeth Bürgi Bonanomi, Sustainable Investment in Land in the Global South: What Would It Require from a Coherence Perspective? The case of Sierra Leone

Call for Papers: Global Constitutionalism without Global Democracy

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on "Global Constitutionalism without Global Democracy," to take place January 14-15, 2016, in Florence. Here's the call:

Workshop

Global Constitutionalism without Global Democracy

EUI, Florence 14-15 January 2016

International law is undergoing several profound transformations. New sectors develop as with the consolidation of the regime of Investment Arbitration or with the advancement of already existing areas as with the WTO. At the same time, claims about the “judicialization” of international law and processes of “global constitution” call for more precise definitions of terms such as ‘constitutionalism’, ‘constitution’ and ‘constitutionalisation’.

The starting assumption of the workshop is that domestic and global constitutionalism have in common several structural features but not that of democracy and legitimacy. Should global constitutionalism incorporate mechanisms and standards of democratic rule? If so how?

Legitimate democratic rule might only occur within a constitutional system, but does legitimate global constitutionalism — or alternatively a global constitution — need democratic legitimacy? Is the “we the people” the same constituent source of legitimacy for both domestic and global constitutionalism? And at the institutional level, is the implication to democratize and strengthen centralized bodies, such as reforming the UN General Assembly as well as fostering the role of global governance institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank? Or can incorporation of international law within domestic democratic contexts render international law under sufficient democratic control?

These themes of the workshop are both descriptive and normative. It starts with a mapping of proposed models for global constitutionalism, and subsequent discussions will examine possible democratic deficits and their possible resolutions within specialized regimes.

Philosophical and legal contributions which address the general topic of the democratic deficit of global constitutionalism and regimes are welcomed. Below are some topics for papers to be presented on.

• Security - which role in global constitutionalism?
• Environmental Law – a case of failed or stalled constitutionalization?
• Internet governance - is this form of multistakeholder engagement the way forward?
• Human Rights Constitutionalism – a metaconstitutional framework in theory? In practice? What room does it leave for democratic governance?
• What is Economic Constitutionalism?
• Is a global government desirable in light of judicialization and global constitutionalism? How to increase the legitimacy standards in the absence of a global demos(oi)?

Confirmed speakers include: Cristina Lafont, Mattias Kumm , Andreas Føllesdal, Giovanni Sartor, Claudio Corradetti, Richard Bellamy, Dennis Patterson, Martin Scheinin

If interested, please send an abstract of max 500 words to Claudio.Corradetti@jus.uio.no and Giovanni.Sartor@eui.eu before December 15, 2015.

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 54, no. 4, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Al Nashiri v. Poland (Eur. Ct. H.R.), with introductory note by Christina M. Cerna
• Fag og Arbejde v. Kommunernes Landsforening (CJEU), with introductory note by Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer
• United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration, with introductory note by Neale H. Bergman
• Final Report on the Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute (Aut Dedere Aut Judicare) (Int'l L. Comm'n), with introductory note by Monica P. Moyo

New Issue: New York University Journal of International Law and Politics

The latest issue of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (Vol. 47, no. 4, Summer 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Christian Marxsen, The Promise of Global Democracy: The International Impact of Civil Society
• Jed Odermatt, A Giant Step Backward? Opinion 2/13 on the EU's Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights
• Rachel López, The (Re)collection of Memory After Mass Atrocity and the Dilemma for Transitional Justice

New Issue: Journal of International Dispute Settlement

The latest issue of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement (Vol. 6, no. 3, November 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• John Gerard Ruggie & John F. Sherman III, Adding Human Rights Punch to the New Lex Mercatoria: The Impact of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on Commercial Legal Practice
• Articles
• Geraldo Vidigal, Targeting Compliance: Prospective Remedies in International Law
• Juan Pablo Moyano García, Moral Damages in Investment Arbitration: Diverging Trends
• Regis Bonnan, Different Conceptions of Amiable Composition in International Commercial Arbitration: A Comparison in Space and Time
• Themed Section on the ICJ’s Whaling Case
• Stephen R. Tully, ‘Objective Reasonableness’ as a Standard for International Judicial Review
• Makane Moïse Mbengue & Rukmini Das, The ICJ’s Engagement with Science: To Interpret or not to Interpret?
• Guillaume Gros, The ICJ’s Handling of Science in the Whaling in the Antarctic Case: A Whale of a Case?
• Lucas Carlos Lima, The Evidential Weight of Experts before the ICJ: Reflections on the Whaling in the Antarctic Case

Call for Papers: Inequality and Human Rights

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law has issued a call for papers for a conference on “Inequality and Human Rights,” to be held April 7–8, 2016. Here's the call:

Call for Papers

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law invites submissions for an interdisciplinary conference on the theme “Inequality and Human Rights,” to be held April 7-8, 2016.

Since the current global financial crisis began in 2008, income and wealth inequality both within and between countries has come under attack from multiple perspectives. While there is much methodological debate about how best to measure economic inequality globally, many of the figures are alarming. According to a recent report by Credit Suisse, half the world’s wealth is now owned by just 1% of the population, while the least well-off 50% own just 1% of global wealth.

Poverty, wealth and economic inequality are neither natural nor innate. Processes of impoverishment and uneven accumulation are produced, stabilized and sometimes challenged through legal and institutional arrangements, market competition, and social struggles. To date, human rights approaches to social and economic rights have primarily focused on poverty alleviation and the guarantee of basic rights. While not insignificant, these approaches have rarely attended to issues of extreme wealth or the social distribution of wealth.

We invite papers from any discipline that consider whether international human rights law, movements, and discourses have, could or should engage with the problem of economic inequality nationally or internationally. Are human rights frameworks equipped to address economic inequality? Might their promotion foreclose other, more effective, vocabularies and strategies aimed at economic justice? How might human rights frameworks need to change to contribute to a more egalitarian world?

We particularly encourage papers that consider these questions through contextualized examination of key sites of struggles over the distribution of income, benefits, access, decision-making power, and risk exposure. Such sites might include policies and practices around taxation, money and finance, debt (both sovereign and personal), development, natural resources and the environment, education, intellectual property, borders and migration, labor, housing, land ownership, and military intervention. Although our focus is on economic inequality, we also encourage papers that attend to the ways in which it interacts with other forms of inequality, such as those based on gender, race, nationality and physical and mental ability.

Please send an abstract of under 600 words to Julia Dehm (jdehm@law.utexas.edu) by December 1, 2015. A limited number of travel grants are available to support travel costs for selected participants who are unable to receive financial support from their home institutions. If you wish to apply for a travel grant, please complete an application form.

New Issue: Global Constitutionalism

The latest issue of Global Constitutionalism (Vol. 4, no. 3, November 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Or Bassok, Interpretative theories as roadmaps to constitutional identity: The case of the United States
• Markus Fraundorfer, Experiments in global democracy: The cases of UNITAID and the FAO Committee on World Food Security
• Ian Hurd, The international rule of law and the domestic analogy
• Wojciech Sadurski, Supranational public reason: On legitimacy of supranational norm-producing authorities
• Blagovesta Tacheva & Garrett Wallace Brown, Global constitutionalism and the responsibility to protect

New Issue: International Community Law Review

The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 17, nos. 4-5, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Extraterritorial Scope of Human Rights
• Elżbieta Karska & Karol Karski, Introduction: Extraterritorial Scope of Human Rights
• Krzysztof Załucki, Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in International Law
• Julia Kapelańska-Pręgowska, Extraterritorial Jurisdiction of National Courts and Human Rights Enforcement: Quo vadis justitia?
• Marta Szuniewicz, Problems and Challenges of the ECHR’s Extraterritorial Application to Law-Enforcement Operations at Sea
• Katarzyna Urszula Gałka, The Jurisdiction Criterion in Article 1 of the ECHR and a Territorial State
• Agnieszka Szpak, A Change of the U.S. Position Regarding the Extraterritorial Prohibition of Torture – Is It a Breakthrough?

Meyer: How Local Discrimination Can Promote Global Public Goods

Timothy Meyer (Vanderbilt Univ. - Law) has posted How Local Discrimination Can Promote Global Public Goods (Boston University Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

International negotiations struggle to keep pace with global problems like climate change. To fill this gap, local governments increasingly take matters into their own hands. For example, to promote the benefits of clean energy, a local government might give subsidies to renewable energy companies. Since 2001, California has given $2 billion in such subsidies, while states ranging from Minnesota to Kansas and Mississippi have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars each. Cities, such as Austin and Los Angeles, have also gotten into the act, contributing millions to renewable energy firms. To build support for these measures, the local government might condition the subsidy on the recipient’s use of components manufactured in the locality.

In 2013, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said these kinds of subsidies are unlawful because they discriminate against foreign products. This Article argues that the decision fails to account for the public goods generated by such programs, and suggests a new way for the WTO to review local subsidy programs that would balance the WTO’s impulse to protect international trade with the valuable global public goods such programs promise.

To make the case, I report on the results of an original 50-state survey. I identify 44 state renewable energy programs in 23 states within the United States that violate the WTO’s 2013 decision. I argue that these programs can increase global welfare in the aggregate, notwithstanding their discriminatory nature. They can do so by creating political support at the local level for renewable energy programs that might not otherwise pass. Local governments internalize few of the benefits from providing global public goods, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions through costly investments in renewable energy technology. Local efforts to address global public goods problems thus have to be linked to a concentrated benefit within the enacting jurisdiction. Protectionist measures that discriminate against foreign products provide this link, mobilizing local economic interests to pass global public goods programs that create benefits in other jurisdictions. Reforming international trade law to allow these linkages is imperative if local governments are to continue to play a role in solving global problems.

New Issue: Journal of International Trade Law and Policy

The latest issue of the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy (Vol. 14, no. 2, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Cinthia Cabral da Costa, Heloisa Lee Burnquist, & Joaquim José Martins Guilhoto, Special Safeguard Tariff Impacts on the Brazilian Sugar Exports
• Rafiqul Islam & Khorsed Zaman, Deadly Migrant Trafficking Trade by Sea and Restrictive Service Trade by the WTO: Unmasking the Linkage for the Liberalization of Labour-Intensive Service Trade

Andenas & Bjorge: Farewell to Fragmentation: Reassertion and Convergence in International Law

Mads Andenas (Universitetet i Oslo - Law) & Eirik Bjorge (Univ. of Oxford - Law) have published A Farewell to Fragmentation: Reassertion and Convergence in International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2015). Contents include:

• Mads Andenas & Eirik Bjorge, From fragmentation to convergence
• Christopher Greenwood, Unity and diversity in international law
• Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, A century of international justice and prospects for the future
• Nigel Rodley, The International Court of Justice and human rights treaty bodies
• Vera Gowlland-Debbas, The ICJ and the challenges of human rights law
• Philippa Webb, Factors influencing fragmentation and convergence in international courts
• Dean Spielmann, Fragmentation or partnership? The reception of ICJ case-law by the European Court of Human Rights
• Magdalena Forowicz, Factors influencing the reception of international law in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights
• Cameron Miles, The influence of the ICJ on the modern doctrine of provisional measures before international courts and tribunals: a 'uniform' approach
• Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, Just another case of treaty interpretation? Reconciling humanitarian and human rights law in the ICJ
• Emanuel Castellarin, The European Union's participation in international economic institutions: a mutually beneficial reassertion of the centre
• Veronika Fikfak, Reinforcing the ICJ's central international role – domestic courts' treatment of ICJ decisions and opinions
• Lorenzo Gradoni, The International Court of Justice and the international customary law game of cards
• Alexander Orakhelashvili, State practice, treaty practice and state immunity
• Jean-Louis Halpérin, Historical sketches of custom in international law
• Robert Kolb, Is there a subject-matter ontology in interpretation of international legal norms?
• Paolo Palchetti, Halfway between fragmentation and convergence: the role of the rules of the organization in the interpretation of constituent treaties
• Eirik Bjorge, The convergence of the methods of treaty interpretation
• Mads Andenas, The centre reasserting itself

Temperman: Religious Hatred and International Law

Jeroen Temperman (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam - Law) has published Religious Hatred and International Law: The Prohibition of Incitement to Violence or Discrimination (Cambridge Univ. Press 2015). Here's the abstract:

The UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights obliges state parties to prohibit any advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination or violence. This book traces the origins of this provision and proposes an actus reus for this offence. The question of whether hateful incitement is a prohibition per se or also encapsulates a fundamental 'right to be protected against incitement' is extensively debated. Also addressed is the question of how to judge incitement. Is mens rea required to convict someone of advocating hatred, and if so, for what degree of intent? This analysis also includes the paramount question if and to what extent content and/or context factors ought to be decisive. The author extensively engages with comparative domestic law and compares the workings of the UN Human Rights Committee with those of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the European Court of Human Rights.

New Issue: Europa Ethnica

The latest issue of Europa Ethnica (2015, nos. 3/4). Contents include:

• Peter Hilpold, Selbstbestimmung und Autonomie: Zwischen Sezession und innerer Selbstbestimmung
• Stefan Oeter, Die Kurden zwischen Diskriminierung, Autonomie und Selbstbestimmung
• Christoph Perathoner, Die Südtirol-Autonomie als internationales Referenzmodell? Die internationale Absicherung und die Verallgemeinerungsfähigkeit der Südtiroler Errungenschaften
• Daniel Turp, The Principle of Autonomy, the Right to Self-Determination and the Case of Québec

Alam, Atapattu, Gonzalez, & Razzaque: International Environmental Law and the Global South

Shawkat Alam (Macquarie Univ. - Law), Sumudu Atapattu (Univ. of Wisconsin - Law), Carmen G. Gonzalez (Seattle Univ. - Law), & Jona Razzaque (Univ. of the West of England - Law) has published International Environmental Law and the Global South (Cambridge Univ. Press 2015). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The unprecedented degradation of the planet's vital ecosystems is among the most pressing issues confronting the international community. Despite the proliferation of legal instruments to combat environmental problems, conflicts between rich and poor nations (the North-South divide) have compromised international environmental law, leading to deadlocks in environmental treaty negotiations and noncompliance with existing agreements. This volume examines both the historical origins of the North-South divide in European colonialism as well as its contemporary manifestations in a range of issues including food justice, energy justice, indigenous rights, trade, investment, extractive industries, human rights, land grabs, hazardous waste, and climate change. Born out of the recognition that global inequality and profligate consumerism present threats to a sustainable planet, this book makes a unique contribution to international environmental law by emphasizing the priorities and perspectives of the global South.

Helfer & Wuerth: An Instrument Choice Perspective on Customary International Law

Laurence R. Helfer (Duke Univ. - Law) & Ingrid B. Wuerth (Vanderbilt Univ. - Law) have posted An Instrument Choice Perspective on Customary International Law (Michigan Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Contemporary international lawmaking is characterized by a rapid growth of “soft law” instruments. Interdisciplinary studies have followed suit, purporting to frame the key question states face as a choice between soft and “hard” law. But this literature focuses on only one form of hard law — treaties — and cooperation through formal institutions. Customary international law (CIL) is barely mentioned. Other scholars dismiss CIL as increasingly irrelevant or even obsolete. Entirely missing from these debates is any consideration of whether and when states might prefer custom over treaties or soft law.

This article applies an instrument choice perspective to demonstrate custom’s continuing relevance to contemporary international lawmaking. First, we use instrument choice to identify the distinctive design features that distinguish CIL from treaties and soft law. As an ideal-type, we argue, custom is a non-negotiated, unwritten and universal form of cooperation. Second, instrument choice illuminates the constraints that limit custom to particular types of cooperation problems, which we label as custom’s “domains.” Specifically, CIL’s design features limit custom to situations in which all-states-benefit from a norm, hegemonic custom, and normative custom. Third, an instrument choice approach predicts that states will continue to prefer custom over treaties and soft law when its design features or substance offer competitive advantages over international agreements and nonbinding norms. Our instrument choice analysis thus not only predicts when custom will form, it also helps to explain several doctrinal features of custom that have long troubled scholars.