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 Rafael Prieto Sanjuán on “Crímenes de Guerra.”

New Issue: Transnational Environmental Law

The latest issue of Transnational Environmental Law (Vol. 9, no. 1, March 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Thijs Etty, Veerle Heyvaert, Cinnamon Carlarne, Bruce Huber, Jacqueline Peel, & Josephine van Zeben, The End of a Decade and the Dawn of a Climate Resistance
• Symposium: Climate Change Litigation: Trends, Policy Implications and the Way Forward
• Katerina Mitkidis & Theodora N. Valkanou, Climate Change Litigation: Trends, Policy Implications and the Way Forward
• Lennart Wegener, Can the Paris Agreement Help Climate Change Litigation and Vice Versa?
• Anna-Julia Saiger, Domestic Courts and the Paris Agreement's Climate Goals: The Need for a Comparative Approach
• Laura Burgers, Should Judges Make Climate Change Law?
• Joana Setzer & Lisa Benjamin, Climate Litigation in the Global South: Constraints and Innovations
• Javier Solana, Climate Litigation in Financial Markets: A Typology
• Case Comment
• Gerd Winter, Armando Carvalho and Others v. EU: Invoking Human Rights and the Paris Agreement for Better Climate Protection Legislation
• Article
• Alexander Zahar, Collective Obligation and Individual Ambition in the Paris Agreement

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 64, no. 4, April 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Christian Bjørnskov & Stefan Voigt, When Does Terror Induce a State of Emergency? And What Are the Effects?
• Vera Mironova, Loubna Mrie, & Sam Whitt, Commitment to Rebellion: Evidence from Syria
• Renard Sexton, Unpacking the Local Resource Curse: How Externalities and Governance Shape Social Conflict
• Douglas Page & Samuel Whitt, Confronting Wartime Sexual Violence: Public Support for Survivors in Bosnia
• Daehee Bak, Kerry Chávez, & Toby Rider, Domestic Political Consequences of International Rivalry
• Data Set Feature
• Brandon J. Kinne, The Defense Cooperation Agreement Dataset (DCAD)
• Michael K. Miller, The Autocratic Ruling Parties Dataset: Origins, Durability, and Death

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 27, no. 2, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Forum on China's Rise in a Liberal Order in Transition
• Nana de Graaff, Tobias ten Brink & Inderjeet Parmar, China’s rise in a liberal world order in transition – introduction to the FORUM
• Nana de Graaff, China Inc. goes global. Transnational and national networks of China’s globalizing business elite
• Shuhong Huo & Inderjeet Parmar, ‘A new type of great power relationship’? Gramsci, Kautsky and the role of the Ford Foundation’s transformational elite knowledge networks in China
• Clara Weinhardt & Tobias ten Brink, Varieties of contestation: China’s rise and the liberal trade order
• Christopher A. McNally, Chaotic mélange: neo-liberalism and neo-statism in the age of Sino-capitalism
• Articles
• Colin Hay, Does capitalism (still) come in varieties?
• Mark Anner, Squeezing workers’ rights in global supply chains: purchasing practices in the Bangladesh garment export sector in comparative perspective
• Pritish Behuria, The domestic political economy of upgrading in global value chains: how politics shapes pathways for upgrading in Rwanda’s coffee sector*
• Benjamin Selwyn, Bettina Musiolek & Artemisa Ijarja, Making a global poverty chain: export footwear production and gendered labor exploitation in Eastern and Central Europe
• Cédric Durand & Wiliiam Milberg, Intellectual monopoly in global value chains

Finke: (Un-)bedingte Gleichheit nichtstaatlicher Gewaltakteure im Völkerrecht

Jonas Finke has published (Un-)bedingte Gleichheit nichtstaatlicher Gewaltakteure im Völkerrecht (Nomos 2020). Here's the abstract:

Statt sich auf die Untersuchung eines Akteurs im völkerrechtlichen Gefüge zu beschränken, nimmt das Buch die Regulierung aller maßgeblichen nichtstaatlichen Gewaltakteure in den Blick. Mit diesem vergleichenden Ansatz geht es der Frage nach, ob die völkerrechtliche Behandlung von Terroristen, Piraten, Privaten Sicherheitsunternehmen und Bürgerkriegsparteien kohärent ist: Behandelt etwa das humanitäre Völkerrecht Bürgerkriegsparteien und Private Sicherheitsunternehmen gleich? Spielt es für die Anwendung des staatlichen Selbstverteidigungsrechts eine Rolle, ob der Angreifer ein Terrorist ist? Gibt es Gründe für die besondere völkerrechtliche Kriminalisierung von Piraterie? Die Untersuchung mündet in der Feststellung, dass eine Gleichbehandlung dort geboten ist, wo es um die Regelung militärischer Auseinandersetzungen mit nichtstaatlichen Akteuren geht. Dort jedoch, wo das Völkerrecht auf die völlige Zurückdrängung eines Akteurs ausgelegt ist, sind Differenzierungen gerechtfertigt.

Goldenziel: Law as a Battlefield: The U.S., China, and Global Escalation of Lawfare

Jill I. Goldenziel (Marine Corps Univ. - Command and Staff College) has posted Law as a Battlefield: The U.S., China, and Global Escalation of Lawfare. Here's the abstract:

Law is increasingly being used as a weapon of war. Unable or unwilling to challenge other states militarily, states use legal strategies to weaken the enemy’s legitimacy. Such “lawfare” can be used to achieve a kinetic objective, to forestall one, to degrade the enemy’s will to fight, and to shape the narrative of war. The Chinese military prioritizes lawfare as one of the “Three Warfares” that shape its military’s influence operations. Meanwhile, the U.S. has no similar lawfare doctrine or strategy, even as China is forcing it to fight back. This Article argues that the U.S. needs to develop a lawfare strategy to combat its adversaries. It will first define the concept of lawfare and discuss how its use has evolved and escalated globally in recent years. It will illustrate this phenomenon by examining three different types of lawfare between China and the U.S. or its allies: international arbitration over China’s claims to the Spratly Islands, China’s non-uniformed maritime militias, and litigation involving the U.S. and Huawei. After discussing the rise of lawfare globally, including lawfare efforts by Russia and the U.S., the article concludes with some recommendations for a U.S. lawfare strategy.

Hadjigeorgiou: Protecting Human Rights and Building Peace in Post-Violence Societies

Nasia Hadjigeorgiou (Univ. of Central Lancashire (Cyprus) - Law) has published Protecting Human Rights and Building Peace in Post-Violence Societies (Hart Publishing 2020). Here's the abstract:

This book critically examines the relationship between protecting human rights and building peace in post-violence societies. It explores the conditions that must be present, and strategies that should be adopted, for the former to contribute to the latter. The author argues that human rights can aid peacebuilding efforts by helping victims of past violence to articulate their grievance, and by encouraging the state to respond to and provide them with a meaningful remedy. This usually happens either through a process of adjudication, whereby human rights can offer guidance to the judiciary as to the best way to address such grievances, or through the passing and implementation of human rights laws and policies that seek to promote peace. However, this positive relationship between human rights and peace is both qualified and context specific. Through an interdisciplinary and comparative analysis of four case studies, the book identifies the conditions that can support the effective use of human rights as peacebuilding tools. Developing these, the book recommends a series of strategies that peacebuilders should adopt and rely on.

New Issue: Human Rights Law Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 19, no. 4, December 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Ralph Sandland, The Construction of Gender and Sexuality in the Approach of Key International Law Actors to the Circumcision of Children
• Talita de Souza Dias, Accessibility and Foreseeability in the Application of the Principle of Legality under General International Law: A Time for Revision?
• James Gallen, The European Court of Human Rights, Transitional Justice and Historical Abuse in Consolidated Democracies
• Daniela Alaattinoğlu & Ruth Rubio-Marín, Redress for Involuntarily Sterilised Trans People in Sweden against Evolving Human Rights Standards: A Critical Appraisal
• Angelika Reichstein, A Dignified Death for All: How a Relational Conceptualisation of Dignity Strengthens the Case for Legalising Assisted Dying in England and Wales
• Ruth Brittle, A Hostile Environment for Children? The Rights and Best Interests of the Refugee Child in the United Kingdom’s Asylum Law
• Leigh Toomey, The Right to Conscientious Objection to Military Service: Recent Jurisprudence of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 46, no. 2, April 2020) is out. Contents include:

• V. Spike Peterson, Family matters in racial logics: Tracing intimacies, inequalities, and ideologies
• Harriet Gray, Maria Stern, & Chris Dolan, Torture and sexual violence in war and conflict: The unmaking and remaking of subjects of violence
• Katja Freistein & Frank Gadinger, Populist stories of honest men and proud mothers: A visual narrative analysis
• Pol Bargués, Peacebuilding without peace? On how pragmatism complicates the practice of international intervention
• Olivia Nantermoz, International refugee protection and the primary institutions of international society
• Ellen J. Ravndal, Colonies, semi-sovereigns, and great powers: IGO membership debates and the transition of the international system

Bruno, Palombino, & Di Stefano: Migration Issues before International Courts and Tribunals

Giovanni Carlo Bruno (Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development, National Research Council of Italy), Fulvio Maria Palombino (Federico II Univ.), & Adriana Di Stefano (Univ. of Catania) have published Migration Issues before International Courts and Tribunals (CNR edizioni 2019). The e-book is available for free download here. Here's the abstract:

The volume collects 16 contributions on the role of international Courts and Tribunals in the development and/or application of migration law, fostering a dialogical approach among scholars, experts and policy makers in addressing relevant issues of judicial practice in the field. Special attention is paid throughout the volume to issues of human rights, given their centrality in international adjudication on migration and refugee law in times of crisis (suffice it to mention massive movements of people at sea, as well as de facto or de iure emergency situations in Europe and beyond).

Fabra-Zamora: Jurisprudence in a Globalized World

Jorge Luis Fabra-Zamora (Univ. of Toronto - Law) has published Jurisprudence in a Globalized World (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

In this unique book, leading legal scholars and philosophers provide a breadth of perspectives and inspire stimulating debate around the transformations of jurisprudence in a globalized world. Traditionally the central debates surrounding jurisprudence and legal theory are concerned with the elucidation of the particularities of state-law. This innovative book considers that this orthodox picture may no longer be tenable, given the increasing standardization of technologies, systems and information worldwide. Split across four thematic parts, this timely book provides a broad overview of the topic, followed by in depth analyses investigating the modifications to jurisprudence’s methodological approaches driven by globalization, the concepts and theoretical tools required to account for putative new forms of legal phenomena, and normative issues relating to the legitimacy and democratic character of these legal orders. Chapters cover legal encounters with alterity in a post-monist mode, normative legal pluralism, relating law and power in a historical global context, cosmopolitan legitimacy and human rights and dignity in a corporate world.

Broude & Henckels: Not all Rights are Created Equal: A Loss-Gain Frame of Investor Rights and Human Rights

Tomer Broude (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem - Law) & Caroline Henckels (Monash Univ. - Law) have posted Not all Rights are Created Equal: A Loss-Gain Frame of Investor Rights and Human Rights. Here's the abstract:

International investment tribunals often use the language of ‘rights’ to characterize foreign investors’ claims against host states, evoking the language of human rights and, in some cases, appearing to conflate the two concepts. We investigate the cognitive framing of the relationship between investor rights and human rights in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), as characterized by investment tribunals. We first establish that arbitrators (and scholars and counsel) tend to characterize investor claims as rights claims in general and property rights in particular, even if this normative basis is far from precise. Second, building on behavioral economics and cognitive psychology, we argue that this characterization places human rights considerations at a structural disadvantage in ISDS. Investor rights are perceived by arbitrators as endowments that are possessed and that risk being lost, while the human rights of host state populations are viewed as aspirational demands that might only be fully realized in the future. Thus, governmental actions interfering with investments are perceived by arbitrators as actual losses, while competing human rights claims are perceived as potential gains, or demands. Following prospect theory, the former (certain losses) will usually be weighed more heavily in a decision-making calculus than the latter (possible gains). This loss-gain frame provides a cognitive explanation for the prevalence of arbitral decisions that prefer investor claims over human rights, a phenomenon that is highly problematic in times in which the legitimacy of the ISDS system rests on its ability to consider the rights of non-investors.

New Issue: Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé

The latest issue of the Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé (Vol. 976, no. 1, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• F. Emara & A. Prujiner, Impact d’une demande de récusation du juge et de l’arbitre sur l’efficacité de la procédure d’urgence en droit comparé
• A. Bouberguig, L’infraction de l’abus de fonctions en droit algérien
• X. Thuni , F. Tulkens, S. Lamalle, J-C. Crespy, & F. Moussa, Le monde en archipels, pour une mondialisation multilingue organisé par l’Alliance française, au Palais des Académies à Bruxelles, le 4 décembre 2018 - Actes du colloque le droit dans le prisme des langues

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Prosper Weil's "Towards Relative Normativity in International Law?"

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on Prosper Weil's article "Towards Relative Normativity in International Law?" The symposium includes an introduction by Karen Knop and contributions by Pierre-Marie Dupuy, José E. Alvarez, Paola Gaeta, Mónica García-Salmones Rovira, John Tasioulas, and Sienho Yee.

New Issue: Human Rights Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Review (Vol. 21, no. 1, March 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Alison Brysk, Engaged Buddhism as Human Rights Ethos: the Constructivist Quest for Cosmopolitanism
• Aria Nakissa, Evolving Conceptions of Human Rights as a Bourdieusian Distinction Strategy: A Critical Perspective on Policies Targeting Muslim Populations
• Rachel George, The Impact of International Human Rights Law Ratification on Local Discourses on Rights: the Case of CEDAW in Al-Anba Reporting in Kuwait
• Vincent J. Carchidi, The Nature of Morals: How Universal Moral Grammar Provides the Conceptual Basis for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Galina A. Nelaeva, Elena A. Khabarova, & Natalia V. Sidorova, Russia’s Relations with the European Court of Human Rights in the Aftermath of the Markin Decision: Debating the “Backlash”

Call for Papers: Biases and International Adjudication

The Interest Group on International Courts and Tribunals of the European Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for a seminar to take place in the context of ESIL’s annual meeting in Stockholm in September 2020. The theme is: "Biases and International Adjudication." The call is here.

Hughes: How States Persuade: An Account of International Legal Argument Upon the Use of Force

David Hughes (Univ. of Michigan - Law) has posted How States Persuade: An Account of International Legal Argument Upon the Use of Force (Georgetown Journal of International Law, Vol. 50, No. 4, 2019). Here's the abstract:

This Article presents a theory of the sociology of argument in international law and considers how persuasion, through international legal argument, shapes legal change and influences notions of compliance. Commonly, international law is portrayed as a medium for debate. Within the resulting debates, persuasion is understood as a tool to induce compliance. Yet this is only one side of the conversation. Persuasion is a two-way discourse. Efforts to alter the behavior of a “non-compliant” state through cogent communication are often met with or preempted by legal arguments put forth by the state. This is perhaps most apparent in the deliberative environments that accompany the use of force and the conduct of warfare.

Built around a series of case studies in which states offer legal arguments in support of actions that, prima facie, extend beyond the limits of legal permissibility, this Article presents a theory of persuasion and legal communication that differs from how legal argument and international law are commonly under-stood. This Article offers a detailed and theorized account of the processes through which the non-compliant state argues, persuades, and employs international law. By mapping and conceptualizing persuasive techniques, I suggest that international law must be considered both in compliance and in violation. Switching emphasis and considering the actions and arguments offered by the “non-compliant” state facilitates a novel and complete understanding of the diplomatic, informal, and daily interactions that more commonly and more consequentially define how international law is understood, practiced, and altered.

Call for Papers: Behavioural Approaches in International Law

A call for papers has been issued for two workshops on "Behavioural Approaches in International Law," the first of which will take place on November 26, 2020, in Leiden/The Hague, and the second in early summer 2021 in Hamburg. The call is here.