Saturday, August 24, 2019

New Issue: Swiss Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Swiss Review of International and European Law (Vol. 29, no. 2, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Matthias Oesch, Handelspolitische Schutzmassnahmen der EU und der Schweiz: Grundlagen, Praxis, Abhängigkeiten
  • Nicolas F. Diebold & Anne-Cathrine Tanner, WTO-Recht und regionale Integration
  • Thomas Cottier, Der Strukturwandel des Aussenwirtschaftsrechts
  • Astrid Epiney, Brexít und die Schweiz: « Mind the Gap »
  • Michael J. Hahn, Handelspolitische Autonomie der Schweiz?: Freihandelsstrategien der Schweiz und der EU im Vergleich

Gabius: Staatenimmunität im Konflikt mit dem Rechtsschutzanspruch des Einzelnen aus Art. 6 I EMRK

Anne Gabius has published Staatenimmunität im Konflikt mit dem Rechtsschutzanspruch des Einzelnen aus Art. 6 I EMRK (Duncker & Humblot 2019). Here's the abstract:
Das Recht auf Zugang zu Gericht ist zu einem Sinnbild der sich stetig entwickelnden Rechtsposition des Einzelnen im Völkerrecht geworden, da es vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) justiziabel ist. Im Falle eines Aufeinandertreffens mit der Staatenimmunität hat es nach Ansicht des EGMR vollständig zurückzutreten, was nach Ansicht der Autorin den durch die Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention (EMRK) garantierten Mindeststandard unterschreitet. Der Konflikt zwischen regional verbindlichem Völkervertragsrecht (Art. 6 I EMRK) und allgemein verbindlichem Völkergewohnheitsrecht (Staatenimmunität) ist Ausdruck einer fragmentierten Völkerrechtslandschaft, in der zwei (Teil-)Rechtsordnungen bzw. sog. Regime gemeinsame Schnittmengen aufweisen (Inter-Regime-Konflikt). Die vorliegende Arbeit schlägt vor, die betroffenen Interessen in Einklang zu bringen und hierbei beiden Regimen den jeweils größtmöglichen Anwendungsspielraum zu belassen. Sie appelliert an den EGMR, seinem Auftrag aus Art.19 EMRK entsprechend seine Verantwortung für eine praktische und effektive Durchsetzung des Rechts auf Zugang zu Gericht aus Art. 6 I EMRK ernst- und wahrzunehmen.

New Issue: Revista Costarricense de Derecho Internacional

The latest issue of the Revista Costarricense de Derecho Internacional (No. 9, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Édgar E. Méndez Zamora, La Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre la utilización de las comunicaciones electrónicas en los contratos internacionales: beneficios para Costa Rica en caso de adhesión
  • Tainá Garcia Maia, Towards an International Court Against Terrorism: An Analysis of the Added-Value of Establishing such a Court
  • Justinico Moreno, La efectividad de la excepción de corrupción en el arbitraje de inversión Diana María Beltrán Vargas y Stefanny
  • Gloria Ramos, Evaluating the Impact of Private Law-Making in Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Mario Peña Chacón, Derechos Humanos Ambientales

New Issue: La Comunità Internazionale

The latest issue of La Comunità Internazionale (Vol. 74, no. 2, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Forum: Il Futuro Dell’unione Europea Tra Crisi Dell’integrazione E Rilancio Del Progetto Federale
    • Pietro Gargiulo & Ivan Ingravallo, Introduzione
    • Giulia Rossolillo, La riforma dell’Unione europea: prospettive future
    • Michele Vellano & Annamaria Viterbo, Verso un rafforzamento del ruolo internazionale dell’euro
    • Pietro Gargiulo, Il futuro dell’Europa sociale: contenuto, problemi e limiti del pilastro europeo dei diritti sociali
    • Criseide Novi, Il ruolo ancora decisivo degli Stati membri nella politica estera e di sicurezza comune dell’Unione europea
    • Ivan Ingravallo, Considerazioni critiche sulle prospettive di ulteriore allargamento dell’Unione europea
  • Interventi
    • Umberto Leanza, L’individuo e i diritti umani nell’ordinamento internazionale e in quello europeo

Artese & Vitkov: Cyberwarfare and Collateral Damages

Edoardo E. Artese & Valentin Vitkov have posted Cyberwarfare and Collateral Damages (Globalex, June 2019). Here's the abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to offer an introductory overview on the collateral damages and victims of cyberwarfare. Cyberwarfare is a new type of warfare that poses numerous challenges. The article illustrates some basic definitions of cyberwarfare and cyber weapons proposed so far, as well as the international legal framework. Furthermore, the article addresses collateral damages and the role of the victims including illustrations of two paradigmatic cases of widely known cyberattacks.

Young, Nyhan, & Charlesworth: Studying Country-Specific Engagements with the International Court of Justice

Margaret A. Young (Univ. of Melbourne - Law), Emma Nyhan (Univ. of Melbourne - Law), & Hilary Charlesworth (Univ. of Melbourne - Law) have posted Studying Country-Specific Engagements with the International Court of Justice (Journal of International Dispute Settlement, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Countries engage with the International Court of Justice as litigants, as participants in advisory proceedings, and less directly, through contributions of nationals as judges or lawyers. A broad range of scholarship within the discipline of public international law examines this engagement. Specific regional experiences are often emphasised and grouped, for example, by western, African or Asian accounts. Yet the nature and extent of scholarship on a single country’s engagement with the Court is less commonly explored. This article surveys scholarly approaches to specific domestic engagement with the ICJ. It focuses on six countries – Australia, France, Nicaragua, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – and examines the scholarship generated by each of these countries’ encounters with the Court. This scholarship provides insights into politics, history, institutional practice, professional experience and international legal doctrine. Preliminary in scope, the article points to the value of empirical, historical and country-specific accounts of the work of the ICJ.

Daugirdas & Burci: Financing the World Health Organization: What Lessons for Multilateralism?

Kristina Daugirdas (Univ. of Michigan - Law) & Gian Luca Burci (Graduate Institute) have posted Financing the World Health Organization: What Lessons for Multilateralism? (International Organizations Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the
When it comes to financing the work of international organizations, voluntary contributions from both state and nonstate actors are growing in size and importance. The World Health Organization (WHO) is an extreme case from this perspective, with voluntary contributions - mostly earmarked for particular purposes - comprising more than 80 percent of its funds. Moreover, nonstate actors are by now supplying almost half of WHO’s funds, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ranking as the second-highest contributor after the United States. A number of public-health and international relations scholars have expressed alarm over these trends, arguing that heavy reliance on multilateral contributions is inconsistent with genuine multilateralism. Relying on interviews with current and former WHO officials, our study explores the causes and consequences of these trends, and recent efforts by the WHO secretariat to reconcile growing reliance on voluntary contributions with multilateral governance. We describe the headway WHO has made in mitigating the risks associated with heavy reliance on voluntary contributions—as well as the challenges that persist. Most importantly, we argue that multilateralism is not categorically incompatible with reliance on voluntary contributions from both state and nonstate actors. Collective multilateral decisionmaking is not a binary feature, either present or absent. Even if the final decision to provide voluntary contributions is up to individual donors, international institutions have opportunities to regulate them both in terms of substance and process. The more heavily regulated voluntary contributions are, the more embedded they become in collective decisions, the less tension there is between multilateralism and reliance on voluntary contributions.

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Hélène Tigroudja on “Universal and regional systems of protection of human rights: harmonization, complementarity or fragmentation” and “Les systèmes universels et régionaux de protection des droits de l'homme : harmonisation, complémentarité ou fragmentation.”

Friday, August 23, 2019

Heller: Who Is Afraid of the Crime of Aggression?

Kevin Jon Heller (Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has posted Who Is Afraid of the Crime of Aggression? Here's the abstract:
Immediately after the historic adoption of the aggression amendments on 14 December 2017, a number of participants in the negotiations expressed their belief that activating the crime of aggression would help deter states from engaging in the illegal use of force. Unfortunately, the version of the crime adopted in New York is but a pale shadow of the kind of criminal prohibition capable of convincing would-be aggressors that they will be held accountable for their acts. Instead, as this article explains, the crime of aggression at the ICC is so jurisdictionally narrow, so substantively limited, and so unlikely to promote domestic prosecutions that its deterrent value is essentially nonexistent.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Drumbl & Barrett: Research Handbook on Child Soldiers

Mark A. Drumbl (Washington and Lee Univ. - Law) & Jastine C. Barrett have published Research Handbook on Child Soldiers (Edward Elgar Publishing 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
Child soldiers remain poorly understood and inadequately protected, despite significant media attention and many policy initiatives. This Research Handbook aims to redress this troubling gap. It offers a reflective, fresh and nuanced review of the complex issue of child soldiering. The Handbook brings together scholars from six continents, diverse experiences, and a broad range of disciplines. Along the way, it unpacks the life-cycle of youth and militarization: from recruitment to demobilization to return to civilian life. The overarching aim of the Handbook is to render the invisible visible – the contributions map the unmapped and chart new directions. Challenging prevailing assumptions and conceptions, the Research Handbook on Child Soldiers focuses on adversity but also capacity: emphasising the resilience, humanity, and potentiality of children affected (rather than ‘afflicted’) by armed conflict.

Alschner: Ensuring Correctness or Promoting Consistency? Tracking Policy Priorities in Investment Arbitration through Large-Scale Citation Analysis

Wolfgang Alschner (Univ. of Ottawa - Law) has posted Ensuring Correctness or Promoting Consistency? Tracking Policy Priorities in Investment Arbitration through Large-Scale Citation Analysis (in Empirical Perspectives on Investment Arbitration, Daniel Behn, Ole Kristian Fauchald & Malcolm Langford eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
This chapter investigates the relative importance investment tribunals accord to correctness and consistency considerations in arbitral decision-making by empirically investigating the similarity of treaties connected through precedent. My argument is that tribunals enjoy large discretion in their choice of precedent and use that discretion to further their legal policy preferences. Tribunals that take a system-oriented approach and understand their mandate as promoting the consistent and harmonious development of investment law will select precedent more liberally including cases rendered under highly dissimilar investment treaties. Conversely, tribunals that favor a dispute-centric approach and understand their mandate as ensuring the correct interpretation of the specific treaty will select precedent more cautiously focusing on cases rendered under the same or highly similar treaties, but excluding case law from dissimilar ones. Using a dataset of more than 4500 citations, I find that, apart from NAFTA and a few other exceptions, most tribunals cite precedent liberally rather than cautiously suggesting that tribunals prioritize consistency over correctness considerations. This conflicts with the preferences expressed by states in the UNCITRAL process that place correctness over consistency. Current investment law reform efforts are an opportunity to remedy this mismatch of policy preferences between states and tribunals.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Brems: Positive Subsidiarity and its Implications for the Margin of Appreciation Doctrine

Eva Brems (Universiteit Gent - Law) has posted Positive Subsidiarity and its Implications for the Margin of Appreciation Doctrine (Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
The article presents an argument in favour of a richer theory of subsidiarity in the European Court of Human Rights context. In particular, the proposal is to include what is called a 'positive' dimension in subsidiarity thinking. That is to say, the article argues that the scholarly and political debate on ECHR subsidiarity has focused mostly on ECHR restraint, associated with a wide margin of appreciation for the States Parties. There is however a complementary dimension in the subsidiarity layout, which concerns the responsibility of national authorities to offer first-line protection of Convention rights. The article examines the role the European Court of Human Rights can play in facilitating that first-line responsibility. The article explores what this means for the margin of appreciation of national authorities.

Kuehl: Global Warming - Researching the U.S. Approach to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol

Heidi Frostestad Kuehl (Northern Illinois Univ. - Law) has posted Global Warming - Researching the U.S. Approach to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol (GlobaLex, July/August 2019).

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Non-State Actors and New Technologies in Atrocity Prevention

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on "Non-State Actors and New Technologies in Atrocity Prevention." The symposium includes an introduction by Larissa van den Herik and Alexandra Huneeus and contributions by Alexa Koenig, Emma Irving, Rebecca Hamilton, Nancy Amoury Combs, and Colette Rausch.

New Issue: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (Vol. 20, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Focus — Law and Technology
    • Melissa de Zwart & Dale Stephens, The Space (Innovation) Race: The Inevitable Relationship between Military Technology and Innovation
    • Matthijs M Maas, International Law Does Not Compute: Artificial Intelligence and the Development, Displacement or Destruction of the Global Legal Order
    • Carrie McDougall, Autonomous Weapon Systems and Accountability: Putting the Cart before the Horse
    • Andrew D Mitchell, Tania Voon & Jarrod Hepburn, Taxing Tech: Risks of an Australian Digital Services Tax under International Economic Law
    • Arvin Kristopher Razon, Liberalising Blockchain: An Application of the GATS Digital Trade Framework
  • Lecture
    • Adam Roberts, Foundational Myths in the Laws of War: The 1863 Lieber Code, and the 1864 Geneva Convention
  • Articles
    • Toni Collins & Shea Esterling, Fluid Personality: Indigenous Rights and the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017 in Aotearoa New Zealand
    • Ingrid Landau, Human Rights Due Diligence and the Risk of Cosmetic Compliance
    • Samuel Berhanu Woldemariam, Amy Maguire & Jason von Meding, Forced Human Displacement, the Third World and International Law: A TWAIL Perspective
  • Commentary
    • Jeremy J Kingsley & Melinda Heap, Dubai: Creating a Global Legal Platform?
  • Review Essay
    • Daniela Alaattinoğlu, Odette Mazel, Claerwen O’Hara & Dianne Otto, Fearless Speech: Seeking Freedom beyond the (Liberal) Fishbowl

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 25, no. 4, December 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Thomas Oatley, Toward a political economy of complex interdependence
  • Jonathan Luke Austin, Towards an International Political Ergonomics
  • Jeffrey M Chwieroth & Andrew Walter, The financialization of mass wealth, banking crises and politics over the long run
  • Harriet Gray & Maria Stern, Risky dis/entanglements: Torture and sexual violence in conflict
  • Maria Martin de Almagro & Caitlin Ryan, Subverting economic empowerment: Towards a postcolonial-feminist framework on gender (in)securities in post-war settings
  • Robin Dunford & Michael Neu, The Responsibility to Protect in a world of already existing intervention
  • Elvira Rosert, Norm emergence as agenda diffusion: Failure and success in the regulation of cluster munitions
  • Sarah G. Phillips, Making al-Qa’ida legible: Counter-terrorism and the reproduction of terrorism
  • Allard Duursma & John Gledhill, Voted out: Regime type, elections and contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations
  • Reinhard Wolf, Taking interaction seriously: Asymmetrical roles and the behavioral foundations of status
  • Hartmut Behr, Towards a political concept of reversibility in international relations: Bridging political philosophy and policy studies
  • Michael E. Newell, How the normative resistance of anarchism shaped the state monopoly on violence

Monday, August 19, 2019

Helfer: Pushback Against Supervisory Systems: Lessons for the ILO from International Human Rights Institutions

Laurence R. Helfer (Duke Univ. - Law) has posted Pushback Against Supervisory Systems: Lessons for the ILO from International Human Rights Institutions. Here's the abstract:

The ILO supervisory system, which has reviewed compliance with international labor standards for nearly all of the organization’s 100-year history, is widely hailed as cornerstone of its institutional architecture. In 2012, however, the employer representatives challenged the longstanding position of ILO expert bodies that Convention No. 87 on freedom of association implicitly protects the right to strike. The resulting “crisis of tripartism” has raised questions about the proper interpretation of international labor law and the future competences of ILO monitoring mechanisms.

This chapter, a contribution to a forthcoming edited volume on the centenary of the ILO, offers a wider perspective on these events. It begins by analyzing how states and non-state actors have pushed back against the treaty monitoring bodies created by UN human rights conventions. The chapter then compares the similarities and differences between pushback against human rights treaty bodies and challenges to ILO expert committees over the right to strike. The chapter concludes by highlighting ongoing UN and ILO initiatives aimed at strengthening international supervisory systems.

New Issue: International Journal of Refugee Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (Vol. 31, no. 1, March 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Catherine Dauvergne & Hannah Lindy, Excluding Women
  • Andrew Wolman, The Role of Departure States in Combating Irregular Emigration in International Law: An Historical Perspective
  • Claire Nolasco Braaten & Daniel Braaten, Suffer the Little Children to Come: The Legal Rights of Unaccompanied Alien Children under United States Federal Court Jurisprudence
  • Susanna Dechent, Sharmin Tania, & Jackie Mapulanga-Hulston, Asylum Seeker Children in Nauru: Australia’s International Human Rights Obligations and Operational Realities

Sunday, August 18, 2019

New Issue: Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The latest issue of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (Vol. 52, no. 3, May 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Antonia Eliason, Using the WTO to Facilitate the Paris Agreement: A Tripartite Approach
  • Arlene S. Kanter, Do Human Rights Treaties Matter: The Case for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities
  • Alexandra V. Orlova, The Soft Power of Dissent: The Impact of Dissenting Opinions from the Russian Constitutional Court
  • Imogen Saunders, Artificial Islands and Territory in International Law