New Issue: International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics

The latest issue of International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics (Vol. 19, no. 1, February 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Steffen Mohrenberg, Vally Koubi, & Thomas Bernauer, Effects of funding mechanisms on participation in multilateral environmental agreements
• Pradip Kumar Sarker, Md Saifur Rahman, & Lukas Giessen, Regional economic regimes and the environment: stronger institutional design is weakening environmental policy capacity of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
• Amanda Linell, Martin Sjöstedt, & Aksel Sundström, Governing transboundary commons in Africa: the emergence and challenges of the Kavango–Zambezi Treaty
• Lisanne Groen, Explaining European Union effectiveness (goal achievement) in the Convention on Biological Diversity: the importance of diplomatic engagement
• Manjana Milkoreit & Kate Haapala, The global stocktake: design lessons for a new review and ambition mechanism in the international climate regime
• Chen Zhou, Can intellectual property rights within climate technology transfer work for the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement?
• P. Gallo & E. Albrecht, Brazil and the Paris Agreement: REDD+ as an instrument of Brazil’s Nationally Determined Contribution compliance

Rose, Kubiciel, & Landwehr: The United Nations Convention Against Corruption: A Commentary

Cecily Rose (Leiden Univ. - Grotius Centre for International Law), Michael Kubiciel (Universität Augsburg - Law), & Oliver Landwehr (UN Office on Drugs and Crime) have published The United Nations Convention Against Corruption: A Commentary (Oxford Univ. Press 2019). Here's the abstract:

The United Nations Convention against Corruption includes 71 articles, and takes a notably comprehensive approach to the problem of corruption, as it addresses prevention, criminalization, international cooperation, and asset recovery. Since it came into force more than a decade ago, the Convention has attracted nearly universal participation by states. As a global and comprehensive convention, which establishes new rules in several areas of anti-corruption law and helps shape domestic laws and policies around the world, this treaty calls for scholarly study.

This volume helps to fill a gap in existing academic literature by providing an invaluable reference work on the Convention. It provides systematic coverage of the treaty, with each chapter discussing the relevant travaux préparatoires, the text of the final article, comparisons with other anti-corruption treaties, and available information about domestic implementing legislation and enforcement.

New Addition to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added a lecture to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. It was given by Michael Scharf on “Accelerated Formation of Customary International Law.”

Mbara A Betsem: Les titres de noblesse de la victime devant la Cour pénale internationale

Guy David Mbara A Betsem has published Les titres de noblesse de la victime devant la Cour pénale internationale (L'Harmattan 2019). Here's the abstract:

La victime a longtemps été tenue à l'écart du procès devant les juridictions pénales internationales d'avant le début du XIXè siècle. Depuis l'avènement de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI), la victime est désormais admise dans le procès pénal. Ces droits, qui ne sont autres que des titres de noblesse, confèrent donc des privilèges permettant à la victime d'accéder à une justice pénale internationale très sélective, mais surtout réservée à une certaine catégorie de personnes. La CPI pose la problématique du rôle de l'État dans la mise en oeuvre des droits des victimes.

Call for Papers: Communication médiatique de l’État et droit international

The Centre de droit international de Nanterre (CEDIN) of the Université Paris Nanterre has issued a call for papers for a conference for young researchers on "Communication médiatique de l’État et droit international." The call is here.

Conference: Les revirements de jurisprudence en droit international

On June 27-28, 2019, the Institut du droit public et de la science politique of the Université Rennes 1 will hold a conference on "Les revirements de jurisprudence en droit international." The program is here.

Van Schaack: Innovations in International Criminal Law Documentation Methodologies and Institutions

Beth Van Schaack (Stanford Univ. - Law) has posted Innovations in International Criminal Law Documentation Methodologies and Institutions. Here's the abstract:

The conflict in Syria has become the most documented crime base in human history. Although the outside world was largely ignorant of the 1982 Hama massacre, information about today’s events on and off the Syrian battlefield is immediately disseminated around the globe through formal and informal media and social networks. From the beginning of the uprising, and in real-time, citizen journalists wielding smartphones from the grassroots began uploading videos and photographs of the revolution, the government’s crackdown, and the ensuing armed conflict at a rate never before seen in previous conflicts. Because the current information environment is increasingly internet-based and digital, human rights advocates have had to update their collection, storage, authentication, and analytical protocols. NGOs are thus exfiltrating regime documents, taking witness/victim testimonials remotely on new communications platforms, scrubbing social media sites for potential evidence, digitizing gigabytes of data that are then subjected to big-data and statistical analytical techniques, and securing potential evidence in encrypted digital vaults. These data are supporting classic human rights advocacy tools — naming and shaming exercises and the dissemination of damning human rights reports based upon moving accounts by victims. At the same time, multiple United Nations fact-finding efforts are also underway, at times with overlapping substantive mandates and employing varying methodologies. A new U.N. investigative mechanism created (not without controversy) by the General Assembly — the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism — is cataloging and collecting this data and rendering it increasingly useful for prosecutorial authorities.

This chapter surveys current documentation efforts devoted to Syria and the various types of information being generated, preserved, and analyzed. It then surveys the various organizations — from the multilateral to the most local of levels — that have taken up the collection mantle, employing new technologies to amass and exploit these data with an eye towards eventually seeking justice, broadly defined. Importantly, this is an activity in support of justice that can be pursued, capacitated, and realized pre-transition, while a conflict is ongoing and even without a clear path to justice. Indeed, it is crucial to collect such potential evidence as quickly as possible before it can be hidden or tampered with or before it gets deliberately or inadvertently destroyed. Given the evolution of the conflict, and the degree to which territory has changed hands and reverted to regime control, certain sources of information that were available early in the conflict are no longer accessible, the strongest argument in favor of launching a documentation effort immediately once a conflict is underway and maintaining a continuous process throughout as best as possible.

Together, these documentation projects have catalogued the commission in Syria of almost every type of war crime and crime against humanity known to humankind. The assumption is that this information will lay the groundwork for a whole range of transitional justice mechanisms — in the event that there is ever a transition. From the perspective of promoting more comprehensive criminal accountability, the challenge that awaits will be to transform these raw data into more structured information and then, ultimately, into admissible evidence. Because far-reaching justice may be years — or even decades — in the making, it is imperative that evidence of crimes being committed now is amassed in real time and preserved for when the time is ripe for justice and accountability in Syria. In the short term, all this documentation is contributing to episodic cases that are beginning to materialize extraterritorially in domestic courts around the globe. Indeed, these national efforts have emerged as the most promising avenue for justice.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 29, no. 4, November 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Article
• Otto Dix, βtruppen gehen unter Gas vor, 1924
• Editorial
  • JHHW, The European Dream Team; Nine Good Reads and One Viewing; EJIL Roll of Honour; In This Issue
• Honouring Raphael Lemkin: The 70th Anniversary of the Genocide Convention
• Johann Justus Vasel, ‘In the Beginning, There Was No Word . . .’
• ESIL Keynote Address
• Jan Klabbers, On Epistemic Universalism and the Melancholy of International Law
• Afterword: Eyal Benvenisti and His Critics
• Lorenzo Casini, Googling Democracy? New Technologies and the Law of Global Governance: Afterword to Eyal Benvenisti’s Foreword
• Lorna McGregor, Accountability for Governance Choices in Artificial Intelligence: Afterword to Eyal Benvenisti’s Foreword
• Eyal Benvenisti, Toward Algorithmic Checks and Balances: A Rejoinder
• New Voices: A Selection from the Sixth Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law
• Veronika Fikfak, Changing State Behaviour: Damages before the European Court of Human Rights
• An Hertogen, The Persuasiveness of Domestic Law Analogies in International Law
• Ntina Tzouvala, ‘These Ancient Arenas of Racial Struggles’: International Law and the Balkans, 1878–1949
• Daria Davitti, Biopolitical Borders and the State of Exception in the European Migration ‘Crisis’
• Geoff Gordon, Imperial Standard Time
• ESIL Young Scholar Prize
• Joshua Paine, International Adjudication as a Global Public Good?
• EJIL: Debate!
• Anne Peters, Corruption as a Violation of International Human Rights
• Kevin E Davis, Corruption as a Violation of International Human Rights: A Reply to Anne Peters
• Franco Peirone, Corruption as a Violation of International Human Rights: A Reply to Anne Peters
• Symposium: International Law and the First World War
• For All We Have and Are (1914)
• Thomas Graditzky, The Law of Military Occupation from the 1907 Hague Peace Conference to the Outbreak of World War II: Was Further Codification Unnecessary or Impossible?
• Neville Wylie & Lindsey Cameron, The Impact of World War I on the Law Governing the Treatment of Prisoners of War and the Making of a Humanitarian Subject
• The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
• Roaming Charges: Moments of Dignity: Death
• Critical Review of Governance
• Björnstjern Baade, Fake News and International Law
• ‘68 Retrospective and Prospective
• Deborah Whitehall, The International Prospects of the Soixante-Huitard
• Review Essay
• Paolo Palchetti, Unique, Special, or Simply a Primus Inter Pares? The European Union in International Law
• Book Reviews
• Felix Lange, reviewing Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World
• Diane A Desierto, reviewing Oisin Suttle, Distributive Justice and World Trade Law: A Political Theory of International Trade Regulation
• Marko Milanovic, reviewing Diane Orentlicher, Some Kind of Justice: The ICTY’s Impact in Bosnia and Serbia
• Dana Burchardt, reviewing Jean d’Aspremont, International Law as a Belief System
• James G Devaney, reviewing Katharina Diel-Gligor, Towards Consistency in International Investment Jurisprudence: A Preliminary Ruling System for ICSID Arbitration
• The Last Page
• Raphael Lemkin, Genocide

Le Bœuf: Le traité de paix – Contribution à l’étude juridique du règlement conventionnel des différends internationaux

Romain Le Bœuf has published Le traité de paix – Contribution à l’étude juridique du règlement conventionnel des différends internationaux (Pedone 2019). Here's the abstract:

Alors que le monde commémore la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale et le centenaire du traité de Versailles, la question des conditions du rétablissement d’une paix juste et durable continue de se poser avec insistance. À rebours de l’idée classique selon laquelle le traité de paix est le produit exclusivement politique d’un simple rapport de forces, la présente étude propose d’identifier les règles juridiques qui fondent et limitent les prétentions respectives de chacun des belligérants à l’issue d’un conflit.

L’analyse de la pratique historique des États fait ainsi apparaître un régime complexe, résultant de l’articulation des exigences simultanées et potentiellement contradictoires de différents corps de règles. L’intégrité de la volonté étatique, garantie par le droit des traités, doit alors composer avec les obligations que le droit de la responsabilité internationale et le droit de la sécurité collective font peser sur les parties.

À la lumière de cette situation extrême que constitue la fin de guerre, l’étude du traité de paix éclaire de façon plus générale la structure même des différends internationaux et des conditions de leur résolution.

Jensen: Tribunal Secretaries in International Arbitration

J Ole Jensen has published Tribunal Secretaries in International Arbitration (Oxford Univ. Press 2019). Here's the abstract:

For the first time, a monograph thoroughly analyses the controversial and sensitive topic of secretaries to arbitral tribunals. Tribunal secretaries support arbitrators at all stages of the arbitration and provide valuable assistance; yet, thus far, they have remained largely in the shadows. This book provides vital discussion on how tribunal secretaries should be appointed, what specific tasks they may be endowed with, and what the consequences of an impermissible use are. Comprehensive analysis of case law, arbitration legislation, institutional rules and guidelines, and supporting literature guides the reader towards a profound understanding of the benefits and pitfalls surrounding the tribunal secretary's position.

Tribunal Secretaries in International Arbitration adopts a transnational approach to systematically answer questions often discussed but thus far unresolved. Structured in three parts, the book develops the conceptual foundations, discusses the practical implementation, and outlines limits of the permissible use of tribunal secretaries. The busy practitioner is furnished with easy-to-use templates and guidelines for practical and seamless implementation in international arbitrations. These include a seven-step formal appointment process, ready-to-use material for correspondence with the parties, and a Traffic Light Scale of Permissible Tribunal Secretary Tasks for the consultation of arbitrators, secretaries and parties alike.

Criddle & Fox-Decent: Mandatory Multilateralism

Evan J. Criddle (William & Mary Law School) & Evan Fox-Decent (McGill Univ. - Law) have posted Mandatory Multilateralism (American Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Article challenges the conventional wisdom that states are always free to choose whether to participate in multilateral regimes. We argue that contemporary international law requires multilateralism in at least five domains: (1) disputes involving rivalrous claims to territorial jurisdiction, (2) disputes involving conflicting legal entitlements, (3) the administration of common resources, (4) threats to international peace and security, and (5) grave breaches of international human rights and international criminal law.

International law’s commitment to mandatory multilateralism, we claim, is explained by its organizing principles of sovereign equality and joint stewardship. Sovereign equality provides for states’ mutual independence within an international legal order structured in part by a prohibition on unilateralism. Similarly, when international law assigns collective responsibility to states to regulate certain global public goods (e.g., the deep ocean floor, international peace and security), joint stewardship dictates that states must regulate those goods multilaterally rather than unilaterally.

Where mandatory multilateralism applies, it imposes a substantive requirement that states pursue equitable solutions to controversies by balancing their own legal interests with the interests of others. States also bear procedural obligations to investigate and consult with other interested states, negotiate in good faith, and if negotiations stall, submit to third-party dispute resolution. If states are unable to agree on a negotiated solution or a forum for arbitration, they must maintain a dialogue and refrain from taking steps that would prejudice negotiations.

The final section of the Article explains how mandatory multilateralism offers lessons with respect to three current controversies: the South China Sea dispute, the United States’ pending withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and Bolivia’s efforts to compel Chile to negotiate over territorial access to the Pacific.

New Volume: Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law

The latest volume of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (Vol. 20, 2017) is out. Contents include:

• The Development and Interpretation of International Humanitarian Law
• Heleen Hiemstra & Ellen Nohle, The Role of Non-State Armed Groups in the Development and Interpretation of International Humanitarian Law
• Rogier Bartels, A Fine Line Between Protection and Humanisation: The Interplay Between the Scope of Application of International Humanitarian Law and Jurisdiction over Alleged War Crimes Under International Criminal Law
• Samit D’Cunha, The Notion of External NIACs: Reconsidering the Intensity Threshold in Light of Contemporary Armed Conflicts
• Valentina Azarova, Towards a Counter-Hegemonic Law of Occupation: On the Regulation of Predatory Interstate Acts in Contemporary International Law
• Targeting in Armed Conflicts
• Jeroen C. van den Boogaard & Arjen Vermeer, Precautions in Attack and Urban and Siege Warfare
• Till Patrik Holterhus, Targeting the Islamic State’s Religious Personnel Under International Humanitarian Law
• Héctor Olasolo & Felipe Tenorio-Obando, Are the Targets of Aerial Spraying Operations in Colombia Lawful Under International Humanitarian Law?
• Other Articles
• Beier Lin, Marie Wilmet, & Charlotte Renckens, Year in Review 2017

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 18, no. 1, January 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Wonkyu Shin & Dukgeun Ahn, Trade Gains from Legal Rulings in the WTO Dispute Settlement System
• Michelle Q. Zang, When the Multilateral Meets the Regionals: Regional Trade Agreements at WTO Dispute Settlement
• Simon Lester, Inu Manak, & Andrej Arpas, Access to Trade Justice: Fixing NAFTA's Flawed State-to-State Dispute Settlement Process
• Sherzod Shadikhodjaev, Input Cost Adjustments and WTO Anti-Dumping Law: A Closer Look at the EU Practice
• Christian Harris Slattery, ‘Fossil Fueling the Apocalypse’: Australian Coal Subsidies and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures
• Jennifer L. Tobin & Marc L. Busch, The Disadvantage of Membership: How Joining the GATT/WTO Undermines GSP

Conference: Politics and the Histories of International Law

Tomorrow and Saturday, February 15-16, 2019, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, under the auspices of the Journal of the History of International Law, will host a conference on "Politics and the Histories of International Law," in Heidelberg. The program is here.

New Issue: Leiden Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law (Vol. 32, no. 1, March 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Joseph Powderly, International criminal justice in an age of perpetual crisis
• International Legal Theory
• Mohammad Shahabuddin, The ‘standard of civilization’ in international law: Intellectual perspectives from pre-war Japan
• Fuad Zarbiyev, The ‘cash value’ of the rules of treaty interpretation
• Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, Performing the rule of law in international organizations: Ibrahim Shihata and the World Bank’s turn to governance reform
• International Law and Practice
• Gearóid Ó Cuinn & Stephanie Switzer, Ebola and the airplane – securing mobility through regime interactions and legal adaptation
• Erika de Wet, The invocation of the right to self-defence in response to armed attacks conducted by armed groups: Implications for attribution
• Isha Jain & Bhavesh Seth, India’s nuclear force doctrine: Through the lens of jus ad bellum
• Arthur Dyevre, Uncertainty and international adjudication
• Hague International Tribunals: International Criminal Courts and Tribunals
• Richard Clements, From bureaucracy to management: The International Criminal Court’s internal progress narrative
• Dire Tladi, The international law commission’s recent work on exceptions to immunity: Charting the course for a brave new world in international law?

Longobardo: Robust Peacekeeping Mandates and Jus Post Bellum

Marco Longobardo (Univ. of Westminster - Law) has posted Robust Peacekeeping Mandates and Jus Post Bellum (in Jus Post Bellum and the Justice of Peace, Carten Stahn et al. eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Recently, some peacekeeping forces have been tasked with combat operations, especially when the missions are deployed against non-state actors in the aftermath of internal armed conflicts. In the framework of these robust mandates, peacekeepers’ main responsibilities are to protect civilians and support the local central government in regaining full control over its territory. These robust mandates raise some issues regarding their compatibility with the principles at the basis of peacekeeping operations and their likely impact on jus post bellum. Furthermore, these mandates’ contribution to the achievement of a just peace is questionable. After briefly outlining the evolution of peacekeeping, this chapter explores the compatibility of robust mandates with jus post bellum principles and the pros and cons of robust mandates to reach a just and stable post-conflict arrangement, using the missions currently operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Mali, and in South Sudan as case studies.

New Issue: International Criminal Law Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 19, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: National Prosecutions of International Crimes: Sentencing Practices and (Negotiated) Punishments
• Barbora Holá, Róisín Mulgrew & Joris van Wijk, Introduction: National Prosecutions of International Crimes: Sentencing Practices and (Negotiated) Punishments
• Maja Munivrana Vajda, Domestic Trials for International Crimes – A Critical Analysis of Croatian War Crimes Sentencing Jurisprudence
• Branislav Ristivojević & Stefan Radojčić, Punishing International Crimes in Serbia
• Mirza Buljubašić, Rehabilitation Programmes for Convicted War Criminals in Domestic Prisons in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Case Study of Sarajevo Prison
• Juan-Pablo Perez-Leon-Acevedo, Sentencing Factors Concerning Those Most Responsible for International Crimes in Peru: An Analysis vis-à-vis International Criminal Court Sources
• Lily Rueda Guzman & Barbora Holá, Punishment in Negotiated Transitions: The Case of the Colombian Peace Agreement with the FARC-EP
• Tadesse Simie Metekia, Punishing Core Crimes in Ethiopia: Analysis of the Domestic Practice in Light of and in Comparison, with Sentencing Practices at the UNICTS and the ICC

Conference: The International Criminal Court and the Community of Nations

On March 8, 2019, the University of Georgia School of Law will host a conference on "The International Criminal Court and the Community of Nations." The program is here. Here's the idea:

Across the globe, resurgent nationalisms place stress on institutions designed to promote human and collective security through international cooperation. Critiques – even, at times, outright denunciations – compel such institutions to re-examine, in a process that poses challenges yet also portends opportunities for renewal. The dynamic surely affects the International Criminal Court. In the last several months alone, states as varied as Burundi, the Philippines, and the United States have levied harsh criticism against this twenty-year-old justice institution, established in recognition that “children, women and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities” that “threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world.” In the same time frame, the ICC Prosecutor welcomed a multistate referral of alleged crimes in Venezuela and launched a preliminary examination into alleged forced deportation in Myanmar, and the Court as a whole continued complementary efforts to strengthen national and regional prevention and accountability. It did so within legal, geopolitical, and budgetary constraints imposed by a trio of stakeholder communities.

The Dean Rusk International Law Center and the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law at the University of Georgia School of Law will host a daylong conference to explore these developments on Friday, March 8, 2019, at the law school’s Athens campus. The conference will feature a video message from International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Experts from academia and the practice will cast a critical eye on “The International Criminal Court and the Community of Nations”; that is, on the place of the ICC vis-à-vis communities of states parties, nonparty states, and nonstate stakeholders, as well as inherited communities. Presentations will be published in the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.

Gréciano & Mathieu: Juger les crimes contre l’humanité : Les leçons de l'histoire

Philippe Gréciano (Université Grenoble Alpes) & Martial Mathieu (Université Grenoble Alpes) have published Juger les crimes contre l’humanité : Les leçons de l'histoire (Pedone 2018). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Le colloque dont cet ouvrage rassemble les actes a été consacré aux questions juridiques et diplomatiques soulevées par le jugement des crimes contre l’humanité. La première partie de l’ouvrage replace dans leur contexte historique et politique les problèmes de la définition et de la répression des crimes internationaux, avant d’en offrir une illustration concrète avec le procès de Klaus Barbie, ainsi que celui des dirigeants Khmers rouges et d’Hissène Habré. La seconde partie analyse l’organisation du procès international pour juger ces crimes exceptionnels, en rappelant la compétence de chaque juridiction et celle de leurs différents acteurs, par delà les défis posés par la coopération judiciaire qui demeure la pierre angulaire de ces procès hors du commun. La quête de justice est-elle une utopie lorsque de tels actes ont été commis ? Pourquoi les juridictions ont-elles du mal à juger les criminels à travers le monde ? La Cour pénale internationale est-elle un rempart suffisant pour mettre un terme à l’impunité ? Quels sont les droits des victimes ?

Conference: Colloque annuel de la Société française pour le droit international

On May 23-24, 2019, the Société française pour le droit international will hold its Colloque annuel at the Université d’Angers. The theme is: "Extraterritorialités et droit international." The program is here. Here's the idea:

L’extraterritorialité dérange lorsqu’elle est subie, mais elle arrange lorsqu’elle est perçue comme un outil de projection de la puissance étatique. Dans les années 1980, la doctrine s’est penchée sur la définition de l’extraterritorialité et sur ses limites en termes de légalité internationale, sans jamais parvenir à un consensus. Qu’en est-il 35 ans plus tard, alors que l’interdépendance des États et les chocs de puissance qui en découlent se sont considérablement accrus, refaçonnant ainsi le droit international ?

Plus que jamais, le concept est aujourd’hui chargé d’une forte dimension politique, qui rend son analyse objective d’autant plus difficile. On l’associe souvent à une forme d’unilatéralisme impérialiste, en oubliant par ailleurs que l’extraterritorialité est également pratiquée par l’Union européenne et certains de ses États membres. De plus, pour certains domaines, loin d’être interdit, son exercice est commandé par le droit international lui-même.

La thématique est classiquement abordée selon une grille de lecture publiciste, qui conduit à s’interroger sur l’existence d’un titre de compétence étatique et sur la licéité de l’action d’un État. Dans la pratique la plus récente, cette approche est concurrencée par une logique privatiste, qui repose sur la définition d’un lien de rattachement et, éventuellement, sur la coordination des ordres juridiques. Peut-on combiner ces approches dans une démarche claire et empirique ?

Ces appréciations divergentes imposent de mener au préalable un travail de généalogie, de définition et de taxinomie, mais aussi de recenser, aussi exhaustivement que possible, les différentes formes de l’extraterritorialité dans la multitude de domaines où elle se manifeste.

Nous tenterons de cerner et discerner les réponses à ces questions par une approche structurelle des concepts, notions, méthodes (1ère demi-journée), puis en déclinant les champs matériels du droit international concernés, en distinguant entre les domaines dans lesquels l’extraterritorialité tire sa source directe ou indirecte du droit international, en devenant ainsi un outil de protection de valeurs ou du moins des intérêts communs (3ère demi-journée) et ceux où elle est une manifestation de puissance, un instrument de la projection de celle-ci (4ème demijournée). La 2ème demi-journée est consacrée à une revue de l’actualité institutionnelle 2018- 2019 par les juges français des juridictions internationales, ainsi que par les membres français des instances internationales d’experts et par le conseiller juridique du Quai d’Orsay.

Conference: Legal Resilience in an Era of Hybrid Threats

The Exeter Centre for International Law and its conference partners, the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, will hold a conference on "Legal Resilience in an Era of Hybrid Threats," on April 8-10, 2019, at the University of Exeter. The program is here.

Hess & Mantovani: Current Developments in Forum Access: Comments on Jurisdiction and Forum Non Conveniens – European Perspectives on Human Rights Litigation

Burkhard Hess (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law) & Martina Mantovani (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law) have posted Current Developments in Forum Access: Comments on Jurisdiction and Forum Non Conveniens – European Perspectives on Human Rights Litigation (in The Continuing Relevance of Private International Law and Its Challenges, F. Ferrari & D. Fernandez Arroyo eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Against the backdrop of the renewed discussion on universal civil jurisdiction, sparked by the Naït Liman judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, this paper provides an overview of the approaches adopted by national courts in Europe vis-à-vis the assessment of international jurisdiction in human rights and public interest litigation concerning mass torts occurred outside the territory of European States.

The private international law doctrine of the forum of necessity is assessed in the first part of the paper. Subjected, in the domestic case law, to very narrow interpretations of its triggering elements – the impossibility of bringing proceedings elsewhere and the sufficient connection with the forum state – this doctrine appears nowadays as a toothless instrument in the quest for justice by victims of extraterritorial harm.

The second part of the paper looks into alternative procedural strategies, all based on the hard-and-fast logic of the Brussels I bis Regulation, that foreign plaintiffs may implement in order to bring their case in Europe. In addition to the more established practice of joining the claims against a parent company and a foreign subsidiary before the courts of the former’s domicile, the paper gives account of other claims recently brought against a EU-domiciled defendant on the basis of unprecedented legal grounds, i.e property law (the Song Mao case in the UK), the notion of “supply chain liability” (the Kik case in Germany) or new forms responsibility liked to the proportional contribution to a worldwide damage (the RWE case in Germany).

The paper concludes that even though jurisdiction might not be a main impediment when the EU domiciled respondent is the only defendant, victims of human rights abuses may still not succeed due to other procedural hurdles, derailing a judgment on the merits, or owing to the unsatisfactory state of development of the applicable substantive law.

Call for Papers: Backwards and Forwards: Law in a Time of Crisis (Deadline Extended)

The Stanford Program in Law and Society has issued a call for papers for its Sixth Conference for Junior Researchers, to take place May 10-11, 2019. The theme is: "Backwards and Forwards: Law in a Time of Crisis." The call is here. The deadline has been extended to February 15, 2019.

New Issue: Revue québécoise de droit international

The latest issue of the Revue Québécoise de Droit International (Vol 30, no. 2, 2017) is out. Contents include:

• Études
• Olivier Delas, Manon Thouvenot, & Valérie Bergeron-Boutin, Quelques considérations entourant la portée des décisions du Comité des droits de l’homme
• Geneviève Dufour & Delphine Ducasse, La négociation des accords de libre-échange sous l’administration Trump : les principes de réciprocité et de multilatéralisme
• Gilbert Gagné, L’interface commerce-culture et la question du règlement des différends
• Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau, Andréanne Thibault, Nan Schivone, Caroline Dufour, Sarah Gouin, Nina Monjean, & Éloïse Moses, A Story of Debt and Broken Promises? The Recruitment of Guatemalan Migrant Workers in Quebec
• Gabrielle Marceau & Clément Marquet, La jurisprudence de l’OMC et la recherche d’un équilibre entre développement économique et considérations non-commerciales : le cas de l’environnement
• Camille Marquis-Bissonnette, L’article 6(5) PAII : quelle pertinence à l’ère du contre-terrorisme?
• Adlene Mohammedi, De l’usage du droit international au Moyen-Orient : approche critique
• Nanette Neuwahl, L’exemple du CETA pour les rapports futurs Union européenne / Royaume-Uni – et le report du CETA?
• David Pavot, Le retrait de la déclaration du Rwanda permettant aux individus et ONG de saisir la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples
• Blandine Gardey de Soos, L’Union européenne et le droit au séjour dérivé des ressortissants d’États tiers consacré par la CJUE : L’affaire Rendón Marín et ses conséquences

Workshop: ANZSIL International Economic Law Interest Group

The International Economic Law Interest Group of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law will hold its 2019 workshop this Friday, February 15, at the University of Canterbury. The program is here.

Workshop: Customary International Law and its Interpretation in International Tax & Investment Law

On February 20, 2019, a workshop on "Customary International Law and its Interpretation in International Tax & Investment Law" will be held at the University of Groningen. The program is here. Here's the idea:

In international law, interpretation is ubiquitous and is the process through which the interpreter attempts to determine the true meaning of the rule that is being interpreted. Most cases brought before international courts and tribunals deal one way or another with questions of interpretation. This process has been codified in Articles 31-33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT).

Customary international law (CIL), in turn, is one of the formal sources of international law creating binding rules of international law. Some of the most crucial rules of international law started and continue to exist as CIL. The issue with CIL, however, is that it is an unwritten source of international law. Its existence is determined inductively through examination of two elements, state practice and opinio juris (acceptance as law).

Whereas in the application of treaties the process of interpretation is one that always yields a solution, with respect to CIL these rules of interpretation have not been examined, despite the fact that it has been and remains the object of multiple studies and of application by almost all courts and tribunals. Evidently in the study of CIL there is a lacuna in understanding how CIL once it has been formed, continues to exist and is interpreted, and what is the nature and content of those interpretative rules.

In light of these developments and evolving views, this workshop aims to initiate a debate on the challenges and opportunities presented by CIL and its interpretation in two main fields, ie international tax law, and international investment law.