Saturday, July 22, 2017

New Issue: Journal on the Use of Force and International Law

The latest issue of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (Vol. 4, no. 1, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial Comment
    • James A Green, The ‘additional’ criteria for collective self-defence: request but not declaration
  • Articles
    • Paulina Starski, Silence within the process of normative change and evolution of the prohibition on the use of force: normative volatility and legislative responsibility
    • Gina Heathcote, Women and children and elephants as justification for force
    • Nader Iskandar Diab, Enforcement action by regional organisations revisited: the prospective joint Arab forces
    • Benjamin Nußberger, Military strikes in Yemen in 2015: intervention by invitation and self-defence in the course of Yemen’s ‘model transitional process’

Friday, July 21, 2017

New Issue: London Review of International Law

The latest issue of the London Review of International Law (Vol. 5, no. 1, March 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • History, Anthropology and the Archive of International Law
    • Madelaine Chiam, Luis Eslava, Genevieve Renard Painter, Rose Sydney Parfitt, & Charlotte Peevers, Introduction
    • Genevieve Renard Painter, A letter from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to King George V: writing and reading jurisdictions in international legal history
    • Luis Eslava, The materiality of international law: violence, history and Joe Sacco’s The Great War
    • Rose Sydney Parfitt, The Anti-Neutral Suit: international legal futurists, 1914–2017
    • Madelaine Chiam, Tom Barker’s ‘To Arms!’ poster: internationalism and resistance in First World War Australia
    • Charlotte Peevers, A deathless story: the ANZAC Memorial, memory and international law
  • Books etc.
    • Robert Howse, Economics for progressive international lawyers: a review essay

Dietrich: Oil Revolution: Anticolonial Elites, Sovereign Rights, and the Economic Culture of Decolonization

Christopher R.W. Dietrich
(Fordham Univ. - History) has published Oil Revolution: Anticolonial Elites, Sovereign Rights, and the Economic Culture of Decolonization (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:
Through innovative and expansive research, Oil Revolution analyzes the tensions faced and networks created by anti-colonial oil elites during the age of decolonization following World War II. This new community of elites stretched across Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, and Libya. First through their western educations and then in the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, these elites transformed the global oil industry. Their transnational work began in the early 1950s and culminated in the 1973–4 energy crisis and in the 1974 declaration of a New International Economic Order in the United Nations. Christopher R. W. Dietrich examines how these elites brokered and balanced their ambitions via access to oil, the most important natural resource of the modern era.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Kassoti: Trading with Settlements: The International Obligations of the European Union with Regard to Economic Dealings with Occupied Territories

Eva Kassoti (Hague Univ. of Applied Sciences - Law) has posted Trading with Settlements: The International Obligations of the European Union with Regard to Economic Dealings with Occupied Territories. Here's the abstract:
This Policy Brief examines the EU’s practice in relation to trade agreements involving occupied territories by focusing on the case-studies of Palestine and Western Sahara with a view to ascertaining its legality and coherence. It is shown that several aspects of the agreements are highly problematic in the light of the EU’s international law obligations of non-recognition and non-assistance and that the Union has largely adopted an inconsistent approach in its economic dealings with the occupied territories in question. In conclusion, concrete policy recommendations are offered in order to ensure the legality and coherence of the EU’s trade policy in situations of occupation.

Hirsch: The Sociological Dimension of International Arbitration: The Investment Arbitration Culture

Moshe Hirsch (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem - Law) has posted The Sociological Dimension of International Arbitration: The Investment Arbitration Culture (in The Oxford Handbook of International Arbitration, Thomas Schultz & Federico Ortino eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Sociological analysis of international arbitration begins from the premise that individuals’ behaviour and normative choices are significantly affected by socio-cultural factors and processes. Thus, behaviour of actors participating in international arbitration is not isolated from its social context; and is rather deeply embedded in various sociological factors and processes (such as norms, socialization, or social control). This chapter is primarily focused on the investment arbitration community; analysing the interactions between the social features of this community and two significant issues in investment arbitration: (i) the application of human rights law by investment arbitrators, (ii) the constraining nature of norms regarding side arbitrator impartiality. While the first issue focuses on the particular features of the investment arbitration community and its interactions with another social group (the human rights community), the second issue regarding arbitrators' impartiality is explored by employing several theoretical perspectives relating to the structure-agency debate in sociological literature.

Section II briefly sketches out the features of the investment arbitration community. Sections III and IV illustrate the scholarly and practical value of the sociological perspective by analysing two prominent issues in contemporary international investment law. Section III presents a sociological analysis of the socio-cultural interactions between the investment arbitration and human rights communities, and their impacts on the limited application of international human rights law by investment tribunals. Section IV addresses one of the fundamental questions in sociological literature in the (limited) sphere of the investment arbitration community: to what extent and how do cultural patterns influence arbitrators? To answer this question, this Section succinctly employs three sociological theoretical lenses (the structural-functional, symbolic-interactionist and Swidler's approaches) to examine some recent empirical results regarding investment arbitrators' impartiality. Section V briefly recaps the main conclusions drawn from the preceding sections and offers some directions regarding future research work in this field.

Jain: Radical Dissents in International Criminal Trials

Neha Jain (Univ. of Minnesota - Law) has posted Radical Dissents in International Criminal Trials (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
International criminal law, for much of its history, has been a law characterized by dissents. However, international law scholarship has largely ignored the role of the dissenting opinion in shaping the discourse of international criminal law. This Article critically examines the nature and function of dissents at international criminal tribunals at a particularly crucial moment in the life of these courts, when the project of establishing accountability of mass atrocity through criminal trials is increasingly under attack. The Article argues that the dissenting opinion is a crucial legal device that can have a transformative potential in international criminal adjudication through its creation of a civic space for contestation that paradoxically shores up the legitimacy of the international criminal trial. To this end, it constructs a discrete category of dissenting opinions at international criminal courts: “radical dissents”. The content and rhetorical style of a radical dissent enables actors invested in the project of international criminal justice to use it as a vital dissentient voice both within and outside the courtroom. Agents who operate within the confines of the legal trial, such as defendants, lawyers, appellate chambers, and future judges, may channel its authority to challenge the idiom in which the majority judgment speaks. Likewise, the radical dissent could provide a legal language through which academics, victims, civil society, and other affected communities continue to grapple with constructing and coming to terms with events that defy human understanding.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Framing Global Migration Law - Part II

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on "Framing Global Migration Law - Part II," the second in a three-part symposium that began here. The symposium includes an introduction by Jaya Ramji-Nogales and Peter J. Spiro and contributions by Jacqueline Bhabha, E. Tendayi Achiume, Janie A. Chuang, Ibrahim Awad, Diego Acosta, Loren B. Landau, and Martin Ruhs.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 21, no. 7, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Eliza Watt, ‘The right to privacy and the future of mass surveillance’
  • Sarah Combellick-Bidney, Reproductive rights as human rights: stories from advocates in Brazil, India and South Africa
  • Shabnam Moinipour, Refugees against refugees: the Iranian Migrants’ perception of the human rights of Afghans in Iran
  • Louise E. Wise, Social death and the loss of a ‘world’: an anatomy of genocidal harm in Sudan
  • Ron Dudai, Entryism, mimicry and victimhood work: the adoption of human rights discourse by right-wing groups in Israel
  • Julia Chaitin, Shoshana Steinberg & Sharon Steinberg, ‘BDS – it’s complicated’: Israeli, Jewish, and others’ views on the boycott of Israel
  • Mona Paré & Tate Chong, Human rights violations and Canadian mining companies: exploring access to justice in relation to children’s rights
  • Elif Celik, The role of CRPD in rethinking the subject of human rights
  • Paul Gready & Simon Robins, Rethinking civil society and transitional justice: lessons from social movements and ‘new’ civil society
  • Sharifah Rahma Sekalala, Who gets to sit at the table? Interrogating the failure of participatory approaches within a right to health framework
  • Aliraza Javaid, Moving through shadows: police, policing and male rape

New Issue: Journal of International Trade Law and Policy

The latest issue of the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy (Vol. 16, no. 1, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Ludo Cuyvers, Ermie Steenkamp, Wilma Viviers, Riaan Rossouw, & Martin Cameron, Identifying Thailand’s high-potential export opportunities in ASEAN+3 countries
  • Ida Madieha Abdul Ghani Azmi & Rokiah Alavi, In search for support for the extension of copyright term under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: A preliminary study of the Malaysian music industry
  • Antoine Martin & Bryan Mercurio, Doha dead and buried in Nairobi: lessons for the WTO

New Issue: Kokusaihō gaikō zasshi / Journal of International Law and Diplomacy

The latest issue of Kokusaihō gaikō zasshi / Journal of International Law and Diplomacy (Vol. 115, no. 4, January 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Setsuko Aoki, International Law Applicable to Malicious Cyber Activities against Space Assets
  • Tadashi Mori, Legal Structure of the Right of Collective Self-Defence
  • Tetsuo Morishita, The Relationship of Choice of Law Approach and Recognition Approach in Some International Business Law Issues

New Volume: Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional

The latest volume of the Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional (Vol. 10, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Maurice Kamto, Remarques sur l'identification et la preuve d’une pratique ultérieure établissant un accord des États ou des organisations internationales sur l'interprétation d'un traite
  • Ana Gemma López, Aplicación de tratados sucesivos concernientes a la misma materia. Análisis del artículo 30 de la Convención de Viena sobre Derechos de los Tratados
  • María Teresa Infante Caffi, The Pact of Bogotá: cases and legal challenges
  • Juan José Quintana, Cuestiones de procedimiento en los casos Costa Rica c. Nicaragua y Nicaragua c. Costa Rica ante la Corte Internacional de Justicia
  • Lucius Caflisch, Attribution, responsibility and jurisdiction in International Human Rights Law
  • Djamchid Momtaz, L’obligation de ne pas prêter aide ou assistance au maintien d’une situation créée par la violation d’une norme impérative du droit international général
  • Olivier Corten, Faut-il voir le mâle partout ? Les théories féministes à l’épreuve du droit de la paix et de la sécurité internationales
  • Carlos Portales & Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón, Building Prevention to Protect: The Inter-American Human Rights System
  • Carlos Enrique Arévalo Narváez & Paola Andrea Patarroyo, Treaties over time and Human Rights: A Case Law analysis of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Ramírez
  • Mathias Audit, La coexistence de procédures contentieuses en matière d’investissements étrangers
  • Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Environmental Protection and Investment Arbitration
  • Soledad Torrecuadrada García-Lozano, Las obras de arte del Estado y su inmunidad

Monday, July 17, 2017

New Issue: Journal of International Organizations Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of International Organizations Studies (Vol. 8, no. 1, Spring 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Adrian Ratsimbaharison, Regional Integration vs. Globalization: A Social network analysis of the trade within and outside the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
  • Patrick Theiner, Donor Choice in Multilateral Health Aid

New Issue: Transnational Environmental Law

The latest issue of Transnational Environmental Law (Vol. 6, no. 2, July 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial
    • Thijs Etty, Veerle Heyvaert, Cinnamon Carlarne, Dan Farber, Bruce Huber, & Josephine van Zeben, The Maturing of Transnational Environmental Law
  • Articles
    • Veerle Heyvaert, The Transnationalization of Law: Rethinking Law through Transnational Environmental Regulation
    • Stephen J. Turner, The Use of ‘Macro’ Legal Analysis in the Understanding and Development of Global Environmental Governance
    • Jessica F. Green & Graeme Auld, Unbundling the Regime Complex: The Effects of Private Authority
    • Elena Merino Blanco & Ben Pontin, Litigating Extraterritorial Nuisances under English Common Law and UK Statute
    • Jona Razzaque, Payments for Ecosystem Services in Sustainable Mangrove Forest Management in Bangladesh
    • Celeste M. Black, Taxation of Cross-Border Transfers of Carbon Emission Allowances under Linked Emissions Trading Schemes
    • Ed Couzens, Size Still Matters, Although It Shouldn’t: The Debate on Small Cetaceans, IWC 65, and Monaco’s Resolution on Highly Migratory Cetaceans

New Issue: Asian Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Asian Journal of International Law (Vol. 7, no. 2, July 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Amit Kumar Sinha, Non-Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties of South Asian Countries
  • Muhammad A. Sayeed, Revisiting the Regime of Trademark Protection in Bangladesh: TRIPS Compatibility and Ramifications
  • Dilini Pathirana, An Overview of Sri Lanka’s Bilateral Investment Treaties: Status Quo and Some Insights into Future Modifications
  • Yvette Anthony, The Evolution of Indirect Expropriation Clauses: Lessons from Singapore’s BITs/FTAs
  • Michael Ramsden, Uniting for MH17
  • Bryan H. Druzin, Why does Soft Law Have any Power Anyway?

Inaugural Volume: Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law

The inaugural volume of the Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law (2016) is out. Contents include:
  • Zeray Yihdego, Melaku Geboye Desta, & Fikremarkos Merso, Towards Rebalancing the Narrative of International Law
  • Makane Moïse Mbengue & Najib Messihi, The South West Africa Cases: 50 Years Later
  • Jean Allain, Decolonisation as the Source of the Concepts of Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes
  • Getachew A. Woldemariam, The Place of International Law in the Ethiopian Legal System
  • Derk Bienen, Ethiopia’s WTO Accession at the Crossroads
  • Melaku Geboye Desta, Competition for Natural Resources and International Investment Law: Analysis from the Perspective of Africa
  • Duncan French, The Global Goals: Formalism Foregone, Contested Legality and “Re-imaginings” of International Law
  • Olivia Woolley, Developing Countries Under the International Climate Change Regime: How Does the Paris Agreement Change Their Position?
  • Salman M.A. Salman, The Declaration of Principles on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: An Analytical Overview
  • Jasmin Hansohm & Zeray Yihdego, The South Sudan Crisis: Legal Implications and Responses of the International Community

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 16, no. 3, July 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Erin Hannah, James Scott, & Rorden Wilkinson, Reforming WTO-Civil Society Engagement
  • Gilles Muller, Troubled Relationships under the GATS: Tensions between Market Access (Article XVI), National Treatment (Article XVII), and Domestic Regulation (Article VI)
  • Nicolas Lamp, The ‘Development’ Discourse in Multilateral Trade Lawmaking
  • Silke Trommer, The WTO in an Era of Preferential Trade Agreements: Thick and Thin Institutions in Global Trade Governance
  • Faizel Ismail, The AGOA Extension and Enhancement Act of 2015, the SA–US AGOA negotiations and the Future of AGOA

New Issue: International & Comparative Law Quarterly

The latest issue of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (Vol. 66, no. 3, July 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Sangeetha Pillai & George Williams, Twenty-First Century Banishment: Citizenship Stripping in Common Law Nations
    • Adamantia Rachovitsa, The Principle of Systemic Integration in Human Rights Law
    • Massimo Lando, Judicial Uncertainties Concerning Territorial Sea Delimitation Under Article 15 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
    • Anna Chadwick, Regulating Excessive Speculation: Commodity Derivatives and the Global Food Crisis
    • Jérémie Gilbert, Litigating Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Africa: Potentials, Challenges and Limitations
    • Tobias Lutzi, Internet Cases in EU Private International Law—Developing a Coherent Approach
  • Shorter Article and Notes
    • Hélène Lambert, Temporary Refuge from War: Customary International Law and the Syrian Conflict
    • Marek Martyniszyn, Japanese Approaches to Extraterritoriality in Competition Law
    • ? Luca Enriques, A Harmonized European Company Law: Are We There Already?

New Issue: Journal of International Criminal Justice

The latest issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (Vol. 15, no. 2, May 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Current Events: Syria, International Criminal Justice, and the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism
    • Florian Jeßberger, Foreword
    • Christian Wenaweser & James Cockayne, Justice for Syria?: The International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism and the Emergence of the UN General Assembly in the Realm of International Criminal Justice
    • Alex Whiting, An Investigation Mechanism for Syria: The General Assembly Steps into the Breach
    • Ingrid Elliott, ‘A Meaningful Step towards Accountability’?: A View from the Field on the United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria
  • Articles
    • Jennifer DePiazza, Denial of Fair Trial as an International Crime: Precedent for Pleading and Proving it under the Rome Statute
    • Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko Misidentification of Victims under International Criminal Law: An Attempted Offence?
    • Marc Schack, ‘Going to The Hague’ as Coercive Leverage: The Palestinian ICC Policy during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge
    • Sandra C. Wisner, The Invisible Hand: International Criminal Responsibility of Business Leaders for Aiding and Abetting the Forcible Transfer of Population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
  • National Prosecution of International Crimes: Legislation and Cases
    • Max du Plessis & Guénaël Mettraux, South Africa’s Failed Withdrawal from the Rome Statute: Politics, Law, and Judicial Accountability
    • Gennady Esakov International Criminal Law in Russia: Missed Crimes Waiting for a Revival

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Hilpold: Unilateralism in Refugee law—Austria’s Quota Approach Under Scrutiny

Peter Hilpold (Universität Innsbruck - Law) has posted Unilateralism in Refugee law—Austria’s Quota Approach Under Scrutiny (Human Rights Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
In the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” and of crumbling state structures, an exodus of unknown proportion from the Near East and from Northern Africa has set in and was further exacerbated by civil war and ISIS terror rule over large territories in the Near East. As a consequence, thousands of refugees came to Europe. Many of them fulfilled the conditions for non-refoulement according to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on the Law of Refugees of 1951 or were at least entitled for temporary protection according to the Common European Asylum System. These instruments did not, however, take into consideration situations of mass influx and neither is there an efficient mechanism for burden sharing within the EU in place. Some countries where overwhelmed by these migration flows. In this contribution, particular attention will be given to the reactions to these developments by the Austrian government. In Austria, as a consequence of mounting pressure by considerable parts of the population demanding a halt to this migration, the government adopted or announced a series of measures that, if implemented, will constitute a blatant violation of international law. This holds true, in particular, for the so-called upper limit (“Obergrenze”) for asylum seekers. Legal academia in Austria in part was silent as to these events, in part sustained it after having been engaged for a legal. It is contended here that unilateralism may be effective in a short-time perspective, but the long-term consequences should not be overlooked. It would be better to work on a genuine international burden-sharing mechanism even though this approach is more difficult to sell to national constituencies.

New Issue: Business and Human Rights Journal

The latest issue of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Vol. 2, no. 1, January 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Shane Darcy, ‘The Elephant in the Room’: Corporate Tax Avoidance & Business and Human Rights
    • Bonita Meyersfeld, Empty Promises and the Myth of Mining: Does Mining Lead to Pro-Poor Development?
    • Benjamin Thompson, Determining Criteria to Evaluate Outcomes of Businesses’ Provision of Remedy: Applying a Human Rights-Based Approach
    • Nora Götzmann, Human Rights Impact Assessment of Business Activities: Key Criteria for Establishing a Meaningful Practice
    • Andreas Graf & Andrea Iff, Respecting Human Rights in Conflict Regions: How to Avoid the ‘Conflict Spiral’
    • Lucy Amis, Mega-Sporting Events and Human Rights—A Time for More Teamwork?
  • Developments in the Field
    • Hiroshi Ishida & Hiroki Wada, The Implementation of the UN Guiding Principles into Daily Business Operations and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games
    • Fréderic Foromo Loua & Jonathan Kaufman, Molmou v Guinea: The ECOWAS Court of Justice at the Service of its Member States
    • Baskut Tuncak, Lessons from the Samarco Disaster1
    • Deanna Kemp & John R Owen, Corporate Readiness and the Human Rights Risks of Applying FPIC in the Global Mining Industry
    • Lívia Menezes Pagotto, Leticia Arthuzo, Aron Belinky, Daniela Gomes Pinto, & Mario Monzoni, Incorporating Children and Adolescents’ Rights in Corporate Management: A Tool Based on Strategic Maps and the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard

New Issue: Global Constitutionalism

The latest issue of Global Constitutionalism (Vol. 6, no. 1, March 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial
    • Mattias Kumm, Jonathan Havercroft, Jeffrey Dunoff, & Antje Wiener, The end of ‘the West’ and the future of global constitutionalism
  • Special Issue: Constitution-making and political settlements in times of transition
    • Christine Bell, Foreword
    • Christine Bell, Introduction: Bargaining on constitutions – Political settlements and constitutional state-building
    • Charmaine Rodrigues, Letting off steam: Interim constitutions as a safety valve to the pressure-cooker of transitions in conflict-affected states?
    • Silvia Suteu, Eternity clauses in post-conflict and post-authoritarian constitution-making: Promise and limits
    • Tom Gerald Daly, The alchemists: Courts as democracy-builders in contemporary thought
    • Jenna Sapiano, Courting peace: Judicial review and peace jurisprudence

Madsen: Rebalancing European Human Rights: Has the Brighton Declaration Engendered a New Deal on Human Rights in Europe?

Mikael Rask Madsen (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) has posted Rebalancing European Human Rights: Has the Brighton Declaration Engendered a New Deal on Human Rights in Europe? (Journal of International Dispute Settlement, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Has the Brighton Declaration produced a New Deal on European human rights in terms of engendering a new and more central role to national legal and political institutions? A greater subsidiarity? Against the backdrop of a systematic exploration of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the articles concludes that the ECtHR is indeed providing more subsidiarity following the Brighton Declaration. It does so by a greater use of the terms “margin of appreciation” and “wide(r) margin,” and particularly with regard to two areas of law: Art. 8 on the right to privacy and Art. 35 on access to the Court. However, as the article further demonstrates, this increase in subsidiarity is very uneven across the member states. The old Western member states generally benefit far more from these new directions in the ECtHR’s jurisprudence. But contrary to popular belief, vocal critiques of the system are not given more deference according to this analysis. A final more general conclusion follows from these findings, namely that the ECtHR is receptive to political signals and does not operate in isolation from politics as it is often claimed. Although currently merely soft law documents, the Brighton Declaration and associated Protocols have triggered change at the Court in the direction set out in these documents and events. This has theoretical implications for the understanding of the evolution of international courts.

Warner: The African Union and Article 4(h): Understanding Changing Norms of Sovereignty and Intervention in Africa Through an Integrated Levels-of-Analysis Approach

Jason Warner (U.S. Military Academy - Department of Social Sciences and Combating Terrorism Center) has published The African Union and Article 4(h): Understanding Changing Norms of Sovereignty and Intervention in Africa Through an Integrated Levels-of-Analysis Approach (in Democracy, Constitutionalism, and Politics in Africa: Historical Contexts, Developments, and Dilemmas, Eunice N. Sahle ed., 2017). Here's the abstract:
The emergence of the African Union (AU) in 2002 was notable for a number of reasons, especially its inclusion of Article 4(h)—which explicitly allows for the AU to intervene in member states’ affairs—in its Constitutive Act. What caused the inclusion of the highly progressive Article 4(h), especially given the states’ historical commitments to a norm of non-intervention? This chapter suggests that to understand the normative shifts leading to the inclusion of Article (h) in the AU’s Constitutive Act, one must employ an explicitly multi-causal, integrated levels-of-analysis approach, taking into account inputs that informed Article 4(h)’s development at the systemic, pan-African, regional, statist, and leadership levels of analysis.

New Volume: Australian Year Book of International Law

The latest volume of the Australian Year Book of International Law (Vol. 34, 2016) is out. Contents include:
  • Kirby Lecture in International Law — 2016
    • Justin Gleeson, Australia's Increasing Enmeshment in International Law Dispute Resolution: Implications for Sovereignty
  • South China Sea Agora
    • Natalie Klein, Islands and Rocks after the South China Sea Arbitration
    • Imogen Saunders, The South China Sea Award, Artificial Islands and Territory
    • Tim Stephens, The Collateral Damage from China's 'Great Wall of Sand': The Environmental Dimensions of the South China Sea Case
    • David Letts, Rob Mclaughlin & Hitoshi Nasu, Maritime Law Enforcement and the Aggravation of the South China Sea Dispute: Implications for Australia
    • Tara Davenport, Legal Implications of the South China Sea Award for Maritime Southeast Asia
  • Articles
    • Robin M Smith, State Responsibility and Genocidal Intent: A Three Test Approach
    • Thomas Wooden, The 1954 Hague Convention: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sacred Sites as Cultural Property
    • Alison Pert, The Development of Australia's International Legal Personality

New Volume: Anuario Español de Derecho Internacional

The latest volume of the Anuario Español de Derecho Internacional (Vol. 32, 2016) is out. Contents include:
  • Estudios Doctrinales
    • Cástor Miguel Díaz Barrado, Los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible: un principio de naturaleza incierta y varias dimensiones fragmentadas
    • Carlos R. Fernández Liesa, Transformaciones del Derecho internacional por los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible
    • Antonio Blanc Altemir, La incidencia del «factor ruso» en la seguridad energética europea. Especial referencia al sector del gas
    • Pilar Pozo Serrano, El uso de la fuerza contra el Estado Islámico en Irak y Siria: problemas de fundamentación jurídica
    • Félix Vacas Fernández, La acción concertada de la Comunidad Internacional para la protección del patrimonio cultural en conflictos armados: Mali como paradigma
    • Florabel Quispe Remón, La protección de los derechos humanos en el sistema interamericano: su evolución y una visión actual
    • Juan Jorge Piernas López, 100 años de libre determinación de los pueblos. La evolución del principio
    • Jordi Feo Valero, La respuesta del sistema de Naciones Unidas ante la situación de crisis prolongada en Haití
    • Eimys Ortiz, Unión Europea-Cuba: relación compleja, futuro incierto
    • Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Seguridad Humana y Derecho Internacional Público
  • Notas
    • Miguel Yagües Palazón, La capacidad ofensiva de los interceptores cinéticos exo-atmosféricos en el marco del Derecho espacial y humanitario: usos y restricciones
    • Belén del Río, La gobernanza global de la energía
    • Rafael Pedro Martínez Sánchez, Los instrumentos de gestión de las fronteras exteriores de la Unión Europea ante los flujos migratorios masivos

Carrillo-Santarelli: Direct International Human Rights Obligations of non-State Actors

Nicolás Carrillo-Santarelli (Universidad de La Sabana - Law) has published Direct International Human Rights Obligations of non-State Actors: A Legal and Ethical Necessity (Wolf Legal Publishers 2017). Here's the abstract:
In this book, addressing the reality that non-state actors do violate human rights in practice, which cannot be overlooked, Prof. Nicolás Carrillo-Santarelli argues that the foundations and main principles of international human rights law call for the regulation of direct nonstate obligations and responsibilities, given the potential failure of domestic actions and the limits of voluntary strategies. In part I, the author presents his ideas on why non-state abuses should be regarded as human rights violations and wrongful acts. In this sense, Chapter 1 explores why the protection of human dignity, being non-conditional, cannot depend on the presence of a State abuser. Chapter 2 explores the idea that every conduct contrary to human rights has legal relevance and requires a correlative appropriate legal response. Chapter 3 reinforces the previous ideas in light of the peremptory principle of non-discrimination; with Chapter 4 providing suggestions on when direct international action should take place. Part II, afterwards, studies why direct protection from non-state violations is possible and what legal mechanisms and institutions permit to make it effective. In Chapter 5, the author argues that the notion of international legal personality is not an obstacle since regarding addressees as subjects highlights the possibility of there being direct non-state international duties, which would not weaken existing human rights protections. Chapter 6 presents the argument that there are already implied human rights obligations of non-state actors, and that complementary obligations should be created. Chapter 7 explores the idea that non-state responsibility can coexist with that of other participants in violations, and that non-state responsibility is often a precondition of full reparations. The fi nal Chapter turns to the examination of the mechanisms that can be used to respond to or prevent non-state violations of human rights law. The book is based on the idea that the protagonists of human rights law are individuals, who deserve protection from all abusers, be them States, armed groups, international organizations, or other actors.

Kolb: Good Faith in International Law

Robert Kolb (Univ. of Geneva - Law) has published Good Faith in International Law (Hart Publishing 2017). Here's the abstract:
There is a great degree of controversy on the proper complexion and role of general principles of law in the international legal order. Opinions range from total rejection of some types of principles to the most enthusiastic endorsement of principles as the necessary oil for the many complex wheels of the legal order. In this book one of the leading public lawyers of his generation explores the concept of good faith and its role in international law. Rather than offer a detailed, comprehensive examination, Kolb aims to map the true points of gravity of the principle of good faith in the international legal order. In so doing, he illustrates how the various legal institutions who operate in the sphere of public international law allow the principle of good faith to unfold.