New Volume: Israel Yearbook on Human Rights

The latest volume of the Israel Yearbook on Human Rights (Vol. 49, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Claus Kreß, The Law of Naval Warfare and International Criminal Law: Germany's Federal Prosecutor on The Gaza Flotilla Incident
• Kenneth Mann, Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and the Role of the Courts: The Case of Palestinian Workers in Israel
• Yutaka Arai-Takahashi, Teasingly Inconclusive? Teasing out from the Travaux Préparatoires the Drafters’ Intentions on the So-Called ‘Homeland Battlefield Unprivileged Belligerents’ under the 1949 Geneva Conventions
• Steven Hill & Leonard Holzer, Detention Operations in Non-International Armed Conflicts between International Humanitarian Law, Human Rights Law and National Standards: A NATO Perspective
• Tassilo Singer, Airstrikes, UAVs and Fully Autonomous Weapon Systems, and the Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Law
• Alan Baker, Politicization of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law: Israel’s Dilemma
• Harry H. G. Post, The State of a Human Right to a Healthy Environment
• Haggai Erlich, Self-Definition and the Rights of Others – The Case of Egypt
• Robbie Sabel, Is International Law Relevant to the Arab-Israeli Conflict?
• Arnon Gutfeld & Boaz Vanetik, The American Involvement in the Drafting of Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)
• Guy Lurie & Yuval Shany, Invalidations of Laws in Israel in a Comparative Perspective
• Yoram Dinstein, The Impact of the Holocaust on the Development of International Law
• Jeff Lahav, Judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel Relating to Human Rights

New Issue: International Affairs

The latest issue of International Affairs (Vol. 95, no. 6, December 2019) is out. Contents include:

• ‘Well, What Is the Feminist Perspective on International Affairs?’: Theory/Practice
• Helen M. Kinsella & Laura J. Shepherd, ‘Well, what is the feminist perspective on international affairs?’: theory/practice
• Penny Griffin, The everyday practices of global finance: gender and regulatory politics of ‘diversity’
• Maria Stern, Courageously critiquing sexual violence: responding to the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize
• Elizabeth Pearson, Extremism and toxic masculinity: the man question re-posed
• Paula Drumond, What about men? Towards a critical interrogation of sexual violence against men in global politics
• Sam Cook, Marking failure, making space: feminist interventions in Security Council policy
• Cristina Masters & Marysia Zalewski, Reflections on the special section, ‘“Well, what is the feminist perspective on international affairs?”: theory/practice’
• Articles
• Zakia Shiraz & Richard J. Aldrich, Secrecy, spies and the global South: intelligence studies beyond the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance
• Michèle Bos & Jan Melissen, Rebel diplomacy and digital communication: public diplomacy in the Sahel
• Jess Gifkins, Samuel Jarvis, & Jason Ralph, Brexit and the UN Security Council: declining British influence?
• Wilfred M. Chow, Enze Han, & Xiaojun Li, Brexit identities and British public opinion on China
• Jonas Gamso, China's ivory bans: enhancing soft power through wildlife conservation
• Mai'a K. Davis Cross, The social construction of the space race: then and now
• Dong Jung Kim, Economic containment as a strategy of Great Power competition

de Frouville & Tavernier: La Déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme, 70 ans après : les fondements des droits de l'Homme au défi des nouvelles technologies

Olivier de Frouville (Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) - Law) & Julie Tavernier have published La Déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme, 70 ans après : les fondements des droits de l'Homme au défi des nouvelles technologies (Pedone 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Le 70ème anniversaire de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme (DUDH), adoptée par l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies le 10 décembre 1948, invite à interroger l’actualité de ce texte fondateur de la protection internationale des droits de l’Homme. Parmi les évolutions qu’a connues la société internationale depuis 1948, le progrès de la connaissance en matière scientifique constitue assurément l’un des défis les plus manifestes pour la mise en œuvre des droits proclamés en 1948. Si certaines questions peuvent être résolues par une transposition des solutions acquises en matière de protection des droits de l’Homme à de nouvelles problématiques, de nombreux développements en matière de progrès scientifique n’avaient pas pu être anticipés par les rédacteurs de la DUDH et posent des problèmes inédits qui appellent des solutions nouvelles. Les contributions présentées dans ce volume ont été réunies dans le cadre du 13ème colloque international du C.R.D.H., qui s’est tenu les 13 et 14 décembre 2018 à l’Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas. Prises ensemble, elles présentent un panorama de ces nouveaux défis posés à la pratique et ouvrent de nouvelles pistes pour la recherche.

New Volume: South African Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the South African Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 43, 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Moses Retselisitsoe Phooko, A sin committed by the (suspended) SADC Tribunal : the erosion of state sovereignty in the SADC region
• Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi, The principle of non-refoulement in South Africa and the exclusion from refugee status of asylum seekers who have committed offences abroad : a comment on Gavric v Refugee Status Determination Officer, Cape Town and Others
• Michelle Frances Diers, The historical development of international organisations with separate legal personality since the 19th century
• Isabeau Steytler, The unsettled question of Al-Bashir’s immunity : a case note on the ICC Minority Opinion of Judge Perrin de Brichambaut
• Dire Tladi, The International Law Commission is 70… staying with the old and playing with the new? Reflections on the work of the commission during its commemorative year
• George Barrie, The requirement of ‘awareness’ as a precondition for the existence of a ‘legal dispute’ under article 36(2) of the Statute of the ICJ
• Hennie Strydom, Introduction - The inaugral John Dugard Lecture in International Law, University of Johannesburg, 25 October 2018
• James Crawford, South Africa and international law : a tribute to John Dugard
• Max du Plessis, Closure - the inaugural John Dugard Lecture in International Law, University of Johannesburg, 25 October 2018

New Issue: Arbitration International

The latest issue of Arbitration International (Vol. 35, no. 3, September 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Jörg Risse, An inconvenient truth: the complexity problem and limits to justice
• Jan Frohloff, Arbitration in space disputes
• David J Stute, 28 USC § 1782—looking for consensus
• Recent Developments
• Kabir A N Duggal & Laurens H van de Ven, The 2019 Netherlands Model BIT: riding the new investment treaty waves
• Vicky Priskich, Binding non-signatories to arbitration agreements—who are persons ‘claiming through or under’ a party?

Roberts & St. John: UNCITRAL and ISDS Reform: Visualising a Flexible Framework

Anthea Roberts (Australian National Univ. - Regulation & Global Governance) & Taylor St. John (Univ. of St. Andrews - International Relations) have posted UNCITRAL and ISDS Reform: Visualising a Flexible Framework. Here's the abstract:

In UNCITRAL, states have broken through the impasse of the incrementalist and systemic reformer camps. They have all agreed that they want to pursue systemic reform, but they have different ideas about what that entails and what to prioritise. In broad terms, agreement seems to be coalescing around three main blocks of reforms: updating some of the procedural rules; enacting some sort of optional structural changes for dispute settlement; and creating a mechanism to support developing states with handling their treaties and disputes. Not every state is supportive of every proposal, but most seem open to pursuing all three in a (somewhat) simultaneous fashion.

That leaves an important question, which is starting to bubble up on the side lines of the negotiations: how might these different reforms fit together? Instead of treating the proposals as oppositional, could a flexible framework be developed that would allow multiple reforms to be developed over time in order to create a more holistic approach? What would this look like? What are the component parts or building blocks and how might they fit together?

Here we provide our initial thoughts on how to visualise a flexible framework for ISDS reform and how these more centralised reforms might operate within the wider more decentralised field. The framework we present is not simply a descriptive synthesis of the discussions to date, but rather a way to look at the various options raised in their entirety — including how they overlap and relate to one another.

Peat: The Tyranny of Choice and the Interpretation of Standards: Why the ECtHR Uses Consensus

Daniel Peat (Leiden Univ. - Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies) has posted The Tyranny of Choice and the Interpretation of Standards: Why the ECtHR Uses Consensus. Here's the abstract:

Recent studies in social psychology have consistently shown that individuals are inherently averse to ‘choice overload’. Faced with complex choice sets, they are unhappier with the choices they make, more likely to regret their decision, and more prone to reverse their initial choice. This article tests the hypothesis that individuals’ innate aversion to choice overload might explain why courts and tribunals interpret standards, such as fairness, necessity, and proportionality, in the way that they do. Drawing on the findings of an empirical study of 461 judgments of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, the article suggests that the Court’s consensus doctrine must be understood partially as a reaction to the ‘tyranny of choice’.

New Volume: Canadian Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Canadian Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 56, 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Sara Wharton & Rosemary Grey, The Full Picture: Preliminary Examinations at the International Criminal Court
• Fernando Arlettaz, Expulsions collectives: définition et portée de leur interdiction dans la jurisprudence de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme
• Joanna Harrington, Addressing the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials: Developments and Challenges within the Canadian Legal Landscape
• Antonio Bultrini, Reapprasing the Approach of International Law to Civil Wars: Aid to Legitimate Governments or Insurgents and Conflict Minimization
• Ryan Gauthier, Constructing Statehood through Sport: Football, Kosovo, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport
• Cyprien Bassamagne Mougnok, La codification du droit interaméricain de la drogue
• Idil Atak & Lorielle Giffin, Canada’s Treatment of Non-Citizens through the Lens of the United Nations Individual Complaints Mechanisms
• Marcin J. Menkes, The Legality of US Investment Sanctions against Iran before the ICJ: A Watershed Moment for the Essential Security and Necessity Exceptions

Workshop: Within the Realm of Possible: Reforming the UN Treaty Bodies’ Individual Communications Mechanisms

Tomorrow, November 15, 2019, the Hertie School will host a workshop on "Within the Realm of Possible: Reforming the UN Treaty Bodies’ Individual Communications Mechanisms." The program is here.

Conference: The 21st Anniversary of the Rome Statute: Perspectives Forgotten During the 20th Celebration Party

Tomorrow and Friday, November 14-15, 2019, iCourts will host a conference on "The 21st Anniversary of the Rome Statute: Perspectives Forgotten During the 20th Celebration Party." The program is here.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 45, no. 5, December 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue on Populism
• Sandra Destradi & Johannes Plagemann, Populism and International Relations: (Un)predictability, personalisation, and the reinforcement of existing trends in world politics
• Elise Ketelaars, Geographical value spaces and gender norms in post-Maidan Ukraine: the failed ratification of the Istanbul Convention
• Pablo de Orellana & Nicholas Michelsen, Reactionary Internationalism: the philosophy of the New Right
• Bice Maiguashca, Resisting the ‘populist hype’: a feminist critique of a globalising concept
• Articles
• Faruk Yalvaç & Jonathan Joseph, Understanding populist politics in Turkey: a hegemonic depth approach
• Sarah Kenyon Lischer, Narrating atrocity: Genocide memorials, dark tourism, and the politics of memory
• Marella Bodur Ün, Contesting global gender equality norms: the case of Turkey
• Aula Hariri, State formation as an outcome of the imperial encounter: the case of Iraq
• Simon Mabon, The world is a garden: Nomos, sovereignty, and the (contested) ordering of life
• Aggie Hirst, Play in(g) international theory

Modirzadeh: Cut These Words: Passion and International Law of War Scholarship

Naz K. Modirzadeh (Harvard Univ. - Law) has posted Cut These Words: Passion and International Law of War Scholarship (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In this paper, I explore how international legal scholarship about war, written at a time of war, ought to read. Can — and should — we demand doctrinal rigor and analytical clarity, while also expecting that scholarship makes us feel something, that it connects us to the author, that it captures the intimacy and emotion that human beings experience in relation to war?

I use two eras of international legal scholarship on war — namely, the Vietnam era and the War on Terror — to illustrate key moments in the field that were typified by very different kinds of writing and the corresponding differences in thinking and feeling. I argue, in part, that — in contradistinction to passion-filled Vietnam-era scholarship — a particularly influential strand of contemporary scholarship on the United States’ War on Terror adopts a view that is aridly technical, acontextual, and ahistorical. In short, it lacks passion. (I use “passion” as a composite term in an attempt to capture diverse facets of a problem that I am attempting to diagnose.)

The Introduction situates this project within broader writing on law and emotions. Part I provides a list of characteristics of what I consider passionate scholarship, using the Vietnam era as an example of that approach. Part II provides a mirrored list of the characteristics of abstract and bloodless scholarship, using the latter part of the War on Terror (2009 onward). The observations compare how scholars of each period contend with the sense of crisis and urgency of their time, the understanding that they (we) were living — and writing — through moments that would be seen as history-changing and law-shifting in the future. Part III examines possible explanations for differences where we ought to see similarities, for absences of scholarly connection where they should be plentiful, and for a seismic shift in the general tone and mood of international legal scholarship on war in less than two generations. Part IV concludes by discussing why we — international lawyers, scholars who feel strongly about war and peace — ought to care about and seek to reverse this shift.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: The American Convention on Human Rights and its New Interlocutors

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on "The American Convention on Human Rights and its New Interlocutors." The symposium includes an introduction by Jorge Contesse and Alexandra Huneeus and contributions by Ximena Soley, Rene Urueña, Paulina García-Del Moral, Par Engstrom, Jorge Contesse, and Alexandra Huneeus.

Call for Papers: Postgraduate Colloquium in Critical International Law

Durham Law School’s Law and Global Justice research cluster and the Centre for the Study of Colonialism, Empire and International Law at SOAS University of London have issued a call for papers for the second Postgraduate Colloquium in Critical International Law, to be held at Durham University on April 27, 2020. The call is here.

New Issue: Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international

The latest issue of the Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international (Vol. 21, no. 3, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Si Jin Oh, Resolving the Misunderstood Historical Order: A Korean Perspective on the Historical Tributary Order in East Asia
• Nicolas Carrillo-Santarelli & Carolina Olarte-Bácares, From Swords to Words: the Intersection of Geopolitics and Law, and the Subtle Expansion of International Law in the Consolidation of the Independence of the Latin American Republics

Stoyanova: Common law tort of negligence as a tool for deconstructing positive obligations under the European convention on human rights

Vladislava Stoyanova (Lund Univ. - Law) has posted Common law tort of negligence as a tool for deconstructing positive obligations under the European convention on human rights (International Journal of Human Rights, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article examines how the common law tort of negligence can provide a helpful guidance for deconstructing and elucidating some of the disparate analytical issues that are subsumed under the umbrella of positive obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Both frameworks, the common law and ECHR, aim to delimit the circumstances where responsibility for omissions can be found and have similar conceptual basis of protection in that they protect fundamental interests. However, in the context of the common law certain analytical elements are more thoroughly considered and better articulated. These elements are: the distinction between a duty and a breach of duty; the level of foreseeability of harm; the proximity between the state and the person who has suffered harm; the reasonableness of imposing a duty; the causation between the harm and the alleged omission. Two main arguments emerge from the juxtaposition of the ECHR analysis against the common law. First, by failing to explicitly articulate and distinguish certain analytical elements, the ECHR positive obligation judgments offer little general guidance as to the limits of responsibility. Second, the analytical inquiry applied when adjudicating positive obligations is in tension with the idea of the correlativity between rights and obligations.

New Issue: International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (Vol. 34, no. 4, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Robin Churchill, Dispute Settlement in the Law of the Sea: Survey for 2018
• Kris Van Nijen, Steven Van Passel, Chris G. Brown, Michael W. Lodge, Kathleen Segerson & Dale Squires, The Development of a Payment Regime for Deep Sea Mining Activities in the Area through Stakeholder Participation
• Günther Handl, Marine Environmental Damage: The Compensability of Ecosystem Service Loss in International Law
• Gabriela A. Oanta, Spain’s Action to Control and Suppress Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing: Current Status and Future Prospects
• Daria Shapovalova-Krout, International Governance of Oil Spills from Upstream Petroleum Activities in the Arctic: Response over Prevention?
• Erika J. Techera, Protected Area Law in Seychelles: Legal Complexity in a Micro-jurisdiction
• Quentin Hanich, Ruth Davis, Glen Holmes, Elizabeth-Rose Amidjogbe and Brooke Campbell, Drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs)
• M. Bob Kao, Assessing Maritime Piracy in American Law: A Century-old Punishment for an Evolving Crime
• Stuart Kaye, Assessing the Impact of the South China Sea Arbitration on Small Island States: A Case Study of Kiribati
• Nicola Ferri & Nilüfer Oral, The Sofia Ministerial Declaration on Black Sea Fisheries and Aquaculture

Linton, McCormack, & Sivakumaran: Asia-Pacific Perspectives on International Humanitarian Law

Suzannah Linton (Zhejiang Gongshang Univ.), Tim McCormack (Univ. of Tasmania), & Sandesh Sivakumaran (Univ. of Nottingham) have published Asia-Pacific Perspectives on International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Place is inextricably linked to history by way of culture, language, philosophy, faith and the development of worldviews. The richness and depth of experience of the Asia-Pacific region has been under-studied, over-simplified and under-appreciated. This book addresses that lacuna in the subject area of international humanitarian law. Drawing on authoritative perspectives and interviews with experts in and on this topic, including four of the region's most distinguished international judges, forty-one chapters thematically examine the development of international humanitarian law; practice and application of international humanitarian law; implementation and enforcement of international humanitarian law; and looking to the future and enhancing compliance with international humanitarian law. The expert contributors draw out unique features, providing fresh insights to scholarship. Contributions on and from the area also grapple with the regional commitments to humanitarianism generally, illuminating how and why international humanitarian law might be more readily accepted or ignored in armed conflicts in the region.

Call for Papers: Human Rights Overreach

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on "Human Rights Overreach," to take place in Erlangen, on July 1-2, 2020. The call is here.