Hamdan: The Principle of Non-Refoulement under the ECHR and the CAT

Eman Hamdan has published The Principle of Non-Refoulement under the ECHR and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Brill | Nijhoff 2016). Here's the abstract:

In this study, Eman Hamdan examines the protection against refoulement under the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention against Torture, with the aim to determine which of those Conventions affords better protection for international protection seekers. Hamdan explores the scope and content of the principle of non-refoulement under both Conventions and the application of the principle to the immigration control measures and the extraordinary rendition operations.

The author provides a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the case-law of both the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee against Torture on the procedural and substantive aspects of the principle of non-refoulement, in order to help practitioners to determine which of these human rights treaty bodies is more favorable for their specific non-refoulement case.

Symposium: Effectiveness and Legitimacy of International Law

On July 22-23, 2016, the Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht and the Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer will co-host a symposium in honor of Christian Tomuschat on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. The theme is: "Effectiveness and Legitimacy of International Law." The program is here.

New Issue: Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law

The latest issue of the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law (Vol. 4, no. 2, 2015) is out. Contents include:

• Fourth Annual Conference: Developing Democracy: Conversations on Democratic Governance in International, European and Comparative Law
• Clara Rauchegger & Anika Seemann, Developing Democracy: Conversations on Democratic Governance in International, European and Comparative Law
• Rosalyn Higgins, Democracy and the United Nations
• Christopher Vajda, Democracy in the European Union: What has the Court of Justice to Say?
• Matej Avbelj, Integral Pre-emption of EU Democracy in Economic Crisis under Transnational Law
• Antonia Baraggia, Conditionality Measures within the Euro Area Crisis: A Challenge to the Democratic Principle?
• Afroditi Ioanna Marketou, Economic Emergency and the Loss of Faith in the Greek Constitution: How Does a Constitution Function when it is Dying?
• Russell Buchan, Developing Democracy through Liberal International Law
• Kalkidan N Obse & Christian Pippan, Collectively Protecting Constitutionalism and Democratic Governance in Africa: A Tale of High Hopes and Low Expectations?
• Amichai Magen, The Democratic Entitlement in an Era of Democratic Recession
• Vladyslav Lanovoy, Self-determination in International Law: A Democratic Phenomenon or an Abuse of Right?
• Silvia Suteu, Developing Democracy through Citizen Engagement: The Advent of Popular Participation in the United Kingdom’s Constitution-Making
• Anna Gamper, Constitutional Courts and Judicial Law-Making: Why Democratic Legitimacy Matters
• Andreas Kulick, Investment Arbitration, Investment Treaty Interpretation, and Democracy

Call for Engaged Listeners: Self-defence against Non-state Actors

The Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht has issued a "call for engaged listeners" for a workshop on "Self-defence against Non-state Actors." Here's the call:

MAX PLANCK TRIALOGUE ON THE LAW OF PEACE AND WAR

Vol. I.: Self-defence against Non-state Actors

Workshop

Call for engaged listeners

deadline: 3 October 2016

4-5 November 2016

Heidelberg

The Max Planck Trialogues, published with Cambridge University Press, are a new format of academic publishing in which three scholars co-author a book and tackle one and the same topic of the ius contra bellum, ius in bello, or ius post bellum from their distinct perspectives. The authors have been selected so as to represent different theoretical, geographical, and practical backgrounds and each of them contributes a chapter of 80 pages. The crucial idea of the Trialogues is to acknowledge the existing diversity of opinions and approaches in a field and to engage them with each other. Ultimately, the Trialogue shall lead to a book that covers the existing plurality in one field and provides, through engaging the three authors in a trialogue, the academic debate with new impulses.

The first volume deals with one of the most pressing legal issues of the ius contra bellum, namely the legality of self-defence against non-state actors. How do we have to interpret state practice – has it already implemented a broader concept of self-defence or is the traditional state centred view still good law? How can a new and broader notion of selfdefence be reconciled with the traditional international law on attribution and state responsibility? Under which specific requirements should self-defence, if at all, be regarded as lawful and how can an abuse of an extended right to self-defence be prevented? Especially the recent events in Syria make the debate on the current state of the law extraordinarily timely.

The three authors of the first volume of the Max Planck Trialogues are: Mary Ellen O’Connell (University of Notre Dame, USA), Christian Tams (University of Glasgow, UK), and Dire Tladi (University of Pretoria, South Africa).

The following commentators and discussants have confirmed their participation: Orna Ben-Naftali (College of Management Academic Studies, Israel), Theodore Christakis (University Grenoble-Alpes, France), Olivier Corten (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium), Larissa van den Herik (Leiden University, The Netherlands), Claus Kreß (Universität zu Köln, Germany), Inger Österdahl (Uppsala University, Sweden), Sir Michael Wood (UN International Law Commission, UK).

The workshop will begin on 4 November 2016 1.30 p.m. and end at 5 November 2016 at 1 p.m.

If you are interested in participating in the audience (not as a speaker), send an application with a statement of motivation explaining you interest and expertise or current research interest (maximum ½ page), and your cv including a list of publications (maximum one page) to Dr. Christian Marxsen (marxsen@mpil.de). The deadline for applications is 3 October 2016.

Anne Peters and Christian Marxsen

Johns: Data Territories: Changing Architectures of Association in International Law

Fleur E. Johns (Univ. of New South Wales - Law) has posted Data Territories: Changing Architectures of Association in International Law (Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Territoriality is a powerful architecture of association in international law, performing significant bounding, distributive and placement functions. Yet it has always interacted with other global legal architectures of affiliation and disaffiliation, among them informational geographies. So what becomes of territoriality amid the turn to data analytics – the automated analysis of massive, distributed data sets – as a basis for international legal and policy decision, action, thinking, and prediction? This article recounts processes and practices already underway on the global plane that are effecting, on one hand, the “datafication” of territory (and the related rise of a logic of association) and, on the other, the “territorialisation” of data (and the emergence or recurrence of “data territories”) in international legal order. Through these kinds of processes, and in its variable configurations, data might yet parallel physical territory (landed and maritime) as a primary medium for the conduct of juridical global life and conflict, a prospect that raises important questions for international law and lawyers.

Keitner: Authority and Dialogue: State and Official Immunity in Domestic and International Courts

Chimène I. Keitner (Univ. of California - Hastings College of the Law) has posted Authority and Dialogue: State and Official Immunity in Domestic and International Courts (in Concepts of International Law in Europe and the United States, Chiara Giorgetti & Guglielmo Verdirame eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter considers aspects of the ongoing conversation about norms of state and official immunity among domestic and international courts. Because immunity norms transect the international and domestic legal spheres, adjudicating immunity claims creates opportunities for dialogue between international and domestic courts about the content of immunity norms, and about which institutions (both domestic and international) have the authority to articulate and apply them.

Part I begins by discussing two challenges brought before international tribunals to the application of foreign state immunity by domestic courts: a challenge brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to the United Kingdom’s determination that Saudi Arabia was entitled to jurisdictional immunity from civil claims for torture (Jones v. United Kingdom), and a challenge brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to Italy’s determination that Germany was not entitled to jurisdictional immunity from civil claims for war crimes (Germany v. Italy). Both of these cases pitted the right of access to a judicial remedy against the norm of state immunity.

Part II examines two domestic cases that followed these international decisions. It discusses the Canadian Supreme Court’s decision in Estate of Kazemi v. Iran, which illustrates normative coalescence around a conception of immunity based on a domestic statute and reinforced by international jurisprudence. It then explores the Italian Constitutional Court’s Judgment 238/2014, which illustrates that international decisions can also provoke “legal protectionism” — the attempt to shield domestic norms and institutions from foreign or international “imports.”

Part III concludes by exploring how arguments based on the supremacy of domestic constitutional law have been used in other cases to justify non-compliance with the decisions of international bodies, even when the constitution explicitly incorporates international law into the domestic legal system. At a minimum, by conceptualizing various legal and political institutions as active interlocutors engaged in a collective process of norm articulation, we can perhaps worry somewhat less about who gets the “final word,” and focus instead on the doctrinal and normative implications of this ongoing conversation for the dignity and well-being of affected groups and individuals.

Conference: Religion und Völkerrecht - La religion et le droit international (DGIR/SFDI Joint Meeting)

On November 4-5, 2016, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht and the Société française pour le droit international will hold a joint meeting on "Religion und Völkerrecht – La religion et le droit international," in Regensburg. The program is here. Prior to the conference, from November 2-3, there will be a joint workshop for young researchers, focusing on the topic "Le droit international face aux défis culturels - Völkerrecht vor kulturellen Herausforderungen." The program is here.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 85, no. 3, 2016) is out. Contents include:

• Lisa Grans, A Right Not to Be Left Alone – Utilising the Right to Private Life to Prevent Honour-related Violence
• David M. Ong, Public Accountability for Private International Financing of Natural Resource Development Projects: The UN Rule of Law Initiative and the Equator Principles
• Graham Butler & Martin Ratcovich, Operation Sophia in Uncharted Waters: European and International Law Challenges for the EU Naval Mission in the Mediterranean Sea

Zaring: Legal Obligation in International Law and International Finance

David T. Zaring (Univ. of Pennsylvania - Wharton School) has posted Legal Obligation in International Law and International Finance (Cornell International Law Journal, Vol. 48, no. 1, p. 175, Winter 2015). Here's the abstract:

In an era riddled with critiques of the relevance of classic international law, some have loudly given up on the subject, while others have placed their hopes in alternative mechanisms of global governance. One alternative is “soft law,” and nowhere is soft law more successful than in international financial regulation (IFR). Today, almost every bank of any size across the world has to keep similar amounts of money in its emergency reserve, cannot stake its future on complex derivatives or other forbidden trades, and faces oversight that, no matter where the bank is located, will be conducted in roughly similar ways, with roughly similar tools. And yet the promulgators of these rules consistently disavow their status as binding law.

These disavowals are disingenuous, and unpacking the reasons why has useful lessons for how international governance works, whether backed by treaty and custom or not. IFR works like traditional international law in three ways. It, like international law, depends on domestic institutions for implementation, although traditional international law has often sought to ignore the importance of any institution below the level of the state. IFR reminds us that the coordination of international interests comes with winners and losers, and therefore that the “mere coordination exercise” that international governance represents should not be dismissed, though traditional international law occasionally has been critiqued for that reason. And IFR emphasizes the necessarily messy way that fundamental legal principles are arrived at in international governance of any stripe -- something I call the contestation principle. These features of both hard and soft law have been overlooked by both the traditionalists and critics of international law, but process-driven insights like them have much to tell us about both hard and soft law, which may not, in some ways, be so different after all.

New Issue: Die Friedens-Warte

The latest issue of Die Friedens-Warte (2015, nos. 3-4) is out. Contents include:

• Der „Islamische Staat“
• Anton Hofreiter, Außenpolitik im Blindflug
• Norbert Röttgen, Syrien als Prisma außenpolitischer Herausforderungen: Warum das Anti-IS-Mandat ein Bekenntnis zu Europa und seiner Verantwortung im Nahen und Mittleren Osten ist
• Christian Tomuschat, The Status of the ‘Islamic State’ under International Law
• Ignaz Stegmiller, The Right of Self-Defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
• Sebastian Lange, „Bleiben und Ausdehnen“: Ideologie, Organisation und Strategie des „Islamischen Staats“
• Sebastian Huhnholz, Heimkehr ins Kalifat? Historische Ursprünge und gegenwärtige Folgen der sakralen Geographie des Dschihadismus
• Max Hoffmann, Territorium als Faktor terroristischer Gewalt: Der „Islamische Staat“ und die Auswirkungen territorialer Kontrolle
• Jennifer Philippa Eggert, Women Fighters in the “Islamic State” and Al-Qaida in Iraq: A Comparative Analysis

BIICL: Obligations of States in Undelimited Maritime Areas

On Friday, July 22, 2016, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law will host an event on "Obligations of States in Undelimited Maritime Areas." Here's the idea:

Consisting of two panels featuring experts in Law of the Sea and members of the BIICL research project on the obligations of States in undelimited maritime areas, this event will analyse and discuss the obligations of States in regard to undelimited areas pending agreement on maritime boundary delimitation. In particular, the event will focus on the obligations of States under Articles 74(3) and 83(3) of UNCLOS to refrain from activities that could jeopardise or hamper the reaching of a final agreement on maritime delimitation.

The panels will present the findings of the BIICL research team and the implications of the research in practice. This will include a discussion of the impact of the decision of the ITLOS Special Chamber on provisional measures in the Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in the Atlantic Ocean as well as relevant aspects of the Award on the Merits of the Annex VII Arbitral Tribunal in The Republic of Philippines v The People's Republic of China case (released 12 July 2016).

Müller: Reforming the United Nations: A Chronology

Joachim Müller (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) has published Reforming the United Nations: A Chronology (Brill | Nijhoff 2016). Here's the abstract:

The UN celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2015. In the volume Reforming the UN: A Chronology by Joachim Müller an exciting story is told describing the evolution of the UN through the main change initiatives applied by each Secretary-General, characterized by political confrontations, crises of confidence and organizational constraints. Initiatives included approving the Sustainable Development Goals, strengthening peacekeeping, enlarging the Security Council, establishing mechanisms to protect human rights, improving aid efficiency, and reforming management practices. This story is completed by a Chronology of Reform Events to enhance the transparency of parallel, multi-layer reform tracks. Lessons learned highlight the main drivers of changes, the interests and constraints, and the dynamics of the reform process: valuable insight for capitalizing on future change opportunities.

Special Issue: Developing Countries, Emerging Powers and the WTO

The latest issue of International Negotiation (Vol. 21, no. 2, 2016) focuses on "Developing Countries, Emerging Powers and the WTO." Contents include:

• Developing Countries, Emerging Powers and the WTO
• J.P. Singh, Introduction: Emerging Powers and the WTO
• Amrita Narlikar & Diana Tussie, Breakthrough at Bali? Explanations, Aftermath, Implications
• Laura C. Mahrenbach, Emerging Powers, Domestic Politics, and WTO Dispute Settlement Reform
• Vinícius Rodrigues Vieira, Beyond the Market: The Global South and the WTO’s Normative Dimension
• J.P. Singh & Surupa Gupta, Agriculture and Its Discontents: Coalitional Politics at the WTO with Special Reference to India’s Food Security Interests
• Rorden Wilkinson, Conclusions: Emerging Powers in the WTO – Beware the Glass Ceiling

Garcia: La Palestine : d'un Etat non membre de l'Organisation des Nations Unies à un Etat souverain ?

Thierry Garcia (Université Grenoble Alpes - Law) has published La Palestine : d'un Etat non membre de l'Organisation des Nations Unies à un Etat souverain ? (Pedone 2016). Contents include:

• Louis Balmond, Etat palestinien
• Robert Kolb, La question de la Palestine et la politique juridique
• Thierry Garcia, La Palestine au sein du système des Nations Unies
• Antonello Tancredi, Le droit à l’autodétermination du peuple palestinien
• Pierre Bodeau-Livinec, La Palestine, d’un Etat non-membre à l’ONU à un Etat souverain ? L’opposition des Etats à l’accession de la Palestine aux traités multilatéraux dans le cadre onusien
• Paolo Palchetti, La participation de la Palestine à la procédure devant la Cour internationale de Justice
• Jean-François Guilhaudis, D’un Etat non membre de l’ONU à un Etat souverain ?
• Manuel Eynard, La relation juridique entre la Palestine et le Procureur de la Cour pénale internationale
• Catherine Maia, Les positions politiques et les justifications juridiques des Etats au regard de la reconnaissance (ou non reconnaissance) de la qualité d’Etat de la Palestine
• Emilie Legris & Dimitri Walas, La reconnaissance de l’Etat de Palestine dans le cyberespace
• Jean-Christophe Martin, L’Union européenne et la reconnaissance de l’Etat palestinien
• Josiane Auvret-Finck, Le partenariat Union Européenne-Palestine
• Maurizio Arcari, Conclusions

Cho & Kurtz: The Limits of Isomorphism: Global Investment Law and the ASEAN Investment Regime

Sungjoon Cho (Chicago-Kent College of Law) & Jürgen Kurtz (Univ. of Melbourne - Law) have posted The Limits of Isomorphism: Global Investment Law and the ASEAN Investment Regime (Chicago Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article probes the unique ontogenetic path of ASEAN’s regulation of foreign investment by juxtaposing global investment law and the ASEAN context. While the former delivers a powerful heuristic on isomorphism that ASEAN exhibits in its strong reflection of global investment norms, the latter sheds critical light on ideological and analytical blind spots by exploring distinct heterogeneities in ASEAN’s investment regulation. Those heterogeneities are not simply outliers but reflect important historical and cultural values inherent to ASEAN and its members. The insights uncovered in this article invite scholars and policymakers to define a new form of global investment law that is more inclusive and flexible than the strict and conventional paradigm.