Saturday, October 3, 2020

New Issue: African Journal of International Criminal Justice

The latest issue of the African Journal of International Criminal Justice (2020, no. 2) is out. Contents include:
  • Symposium: A Way Forward: Academic and Practitioner Perspectives on the ILC Draft Articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity as adopted on Second Reading
    • Sean D. Murphy, Foreword
    • Charles C. Jalloh & Leila N. Sadat, Introduction to the Symposium on a Way Forward: Academic and Practitioner Perspectives on the ILC Draft Articles on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity as adopted on Second Reading
    • Alhagi B.M. Marong, The ILC Draft Articles on Crimes Against Humanity: An African Perspective
    • Sergey Sayapin, Why a Crimes Against Humanity Convention from a Perspective of Post-Soviet States?
    • Beth Van Schaack, Crimes Against Humanity in the “Western European & Other” Group of States: A Continuing Tradition
    • Mari Takeuchi, Asian Perspectives on the International Law Commission’s Work on Crimes Against Humanity
    • Leila N. Sadat & Madaline George, An Analysis of State Reactions to the ILC’s Work on Crimes Against Humanity: A Pattern of Growing Support
    • Hugo Relva, A Civil Society Perspective on the ILC Draft Convention on Crimes Against Humanity
    • Margaret M. deGuzman, Defining Crimes Against Humanity: Practicality and Value Balancing
    • Indira Rosenthal & Valerie Oosterveld, Gender and the ILC’s 2019 Draft Articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity
    • Claudio Grossman, ILC Report on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity and Enforced Disappearance
    • Joseph Rikhof, The International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity: Incitement/Conspiracy as Missing Modes of Liability
    • George William Mugwanya, Interstate Cooperation and Why a Horizontal Treaty Would Make a Difference for ICC Investigations
    • Larissa van den Herik, Relating to ‘The Other’: The ILC Draft Convention on Crimes Against Humanity and the Mutual Legal Assistance Initiative
    • Michael Imran Kanu, Unlocking the Sixth Committee’s Potential to Act for Crimes Against Humanity as It Did for Genocide
    • Pablo Arrocha Olabuenaga, Time to Deliver: Defining a Process Towards the Negotiation of a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity

Friday, October 2, 2020

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new materials to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website. They include: a lecture given by Karine Bannelier-Christakis on “Enjeux du principe de due diligence dans la prévention et la reaction aux cyber-attaques” and a lecture by Ivana Hrdličková on “Special Tribunal for Lebanon – A Tribunal of Many Firsts” in video and audio formats, accompanied by the related materials lists; as well as an introductory note by Jean Allain on the Slavery Convention, 1926, and the Protocol amending the Slavery Convention, 1953, and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, 1956.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

New Issue: La Comunità Internazionale

The latest issue of La Comunità Internazionale (Vol. 75, no. 3, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Articoli e Saggi
    • Giuseppe Nesi & Luca Poltronieri Rossetti, Member-on-Member Sexual and Gender- Based Crimes as War Crimes: Towards the Autonomy of Individual Criminal Responsibility from Underlying Violations of International Humanitarian Law?
    • Giulio Bartolini, Le misure di preparazione alle pandemie previste nei regolamenti sanitari internazionali e la loro (mancata) attuazione
    • Fiammetta Borgia, Osservazioni sulla (il)liceità delle operazioni mirate con i droni nella lotta al terrorismo: sistemi di norme a confronto
  • Osservatorio Diritti Umani
    • Valentina Zambrano, Il diritto a godere dei benefici del progresso scientifico: profili problematici di un diritto ancora in cerca di effettività
  • Osservatorio Europeo
    • Antonino Alì, The Intersection of EU and its Member States’ Security in Light of the Foreign Direct Investments Screening Regulation
    • Alessandro Perfetti, Supporto alle imprese europee in tempi di COVID-19: il quadro di riferimento temporaneo per gli aiuti di Stato
  • Note e Commenti
    • Piero Pennetta, Brevi note sul Trattato istitutivo dell’Organization of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States
    • Francesca Graziani, Iura novit curia e riqualificazione giuridica del fatto: una breve riflessione sulla giurisprudenza della Corte internazionale di giustizia

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 54, no. 5, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Petros C. Mavroidis, Matteo Fiorini, Bernard M. Hoekman, Maarja Saluste, & Robert Wolfe, WTO Dispute Settlement and the Appellate Body: Insider Perceptions and Members’ Revealed Preferences
  • Shin-yi Peng, A New Trade Regime for the Servitization of Manufacturing: Rethinking the Goods-Services Dichotomy
  • Joost Pauwelyn, Export Restrictions in Times of Pandemic: Options and Limits Under International Trade Agreements
  • Marc Bungenberg & Pieter Van Vaerenbergh, Countervailing Measures and China’s Accession Protocol to the WTO
  • Zaker Ahmad, A Trade Policy Agenda for the Diffusion of Low-Carbon Technologies
  • Zhiqiong June Wang & Jianfu Chen, BRI 2.0: Cosmetic Repairs or a Change of Course?
  • Nayung Kim, Trade Remedy Rules for Digital Services: Inapplicability of GATT-type Safeguard Rules

Call for Papers: A Lost World? Jewish International Lawyers and New World Orders (1917-1951)

The International Law Forum of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem together with the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow and the Jacob Robinson Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have issued a call for papers for a conference on "A Lost World? Jewish International Lawyers and New World Orders (1917-1951)," to take place mostly or partly online on May 24-25, 2021. The call is here.

Braun: State Responsibility and Investment Protection in the Time of Pandemic

Tillmann Rudolf Braun (Humboldt-Universität Berlin – Law & Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, Germany) has posted State Responsibility and Investment Protection in the Time of Pandemic (in Investment Protection, Human Rights, and International Arbitration in Extraordinary Times, Rainer Hofmann, Julian Scheu, Stephan Schill, & Christian Tams eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

To contain the spread of the global pandemic and to prevent the overburdening of their health systems, States worldwide have taken a host of previously unimaginable measures. While these measures ostensibly serve to mitigate the effects of the global pandemic, they also have an immediate impact on the commercial interests not only of domestic actors but of foreign investors. Some of these investors may feel disproportionately, or too undifferentiatedly, impacted by these policies, and therefore be drawn to the possibility of claiming on the more than 3,000 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and regional treaties in force around the world.

Affected investors may argue, in this potential ‘new frontier’ of investment treaty claims, that there can be no reason in principle why they, through no fault of their own, should be required to bear the expense of such measures for the benefit of wider society. In answer to such claims, States may seek to rely on general doctrines of customary international law such as ‘police powers’ or ‘state of necessity’. However, a closer look at these doctrines might reveal that they are not entirely free from contradictions, and that the risk allocations on which they are premised may be in need of some refinement.

While the police powers doctrine (also referred to as the ‘right to regulate’) empowers governments to implement measures for the protection of health, often in spite of the potential adverse consequences to certain parties, it is important to ask where the boundaries of the doctrine are to be set. Is the authorization that it offers unlimited? Or does it require—perhaps in order to more clearly differentiate (non-compensable) police powers from (compensable) indirect expropriation—a proportional relationship between the public purpose fostered by the measure and the interference with the investors’ property rights? How would this apply in a global health emergency? Regarding the customary international law defence of necessity, it is well known that its 'only way' condition is interpreted comparatively strictly as an ‘only one single means’ requirement. One might wonder whether, in view of contemporary necessity situations, this interpretation is still realistic, and whether a broader approach might not prove much more appropriate? For one thing is certain: the next great risk, such as a global pandemic of similar proportions, is already on the horizon.

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 64, no. 10, November 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Erin Baggott Carter & Brett L. Carter, Focal Moments and Protests in Autocracies: How Pro-democracy Anniversaries Shape Dissent in China
    • Benjamin O. Fordham & Katja B. Kleinberg, Too Pacifist in Peace, Too Bellicose in War: Political Information and Foreign Policy Opinion
    • Clayton Thyne & Kendall Hitch, Democratic versus Authoritarian Coups: The Influence of External Actors on States’ Postcoup Political Trajectories
    • Robert A. Blair & Nicholas Sambanis, Forecasting Civil Wars: Theory and Structure in an Age of “Big Data” and Machine Learning
    • Sara M. T. Polo, How Terrorism Spreads: Emulation and the Diffusion of Ethnic and Ethnoreligious Terrorism
    • Peter S. Henne, Nilay Saiya, & Ashlyn W. Hand, Weapon of the Strong? Government Support for Religion and Majoritarian Terrorism
    • Mario Krauser, In the Eye of the Storm: Rebel Taxation of Artisanal Mines and Strategies of Violence
    • Nina von Uexkull, Marco d’Errico, & Julius Jackson, Drought, Resilience, and Support for Violence: Household Survey Evidence from DR Congo
    • Eric Keels & Krista Wiegand, Mutually Assured Distrust: Ideology and Commitment Problems in Civil Wars

New Issue: Journal of Human Rights and the Environment

The latest issue of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (Vol. 11, no. 2, September 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial
    • Tom Sparks, Visa Kurki & Saskia Stucki, Animal rights: interconnections with human rights and the environment
  • Special Issue: (Legal) Animal Rights
    • Juan Pablo Mañalich R., Animalhood, interests, and rights
    • Joshua Jowitt, Legal rights for animals: aspiration or logical necessity?
    • Joe Wills, Animal rights, legal personhood and cognitive capacity: addressing ‘levelling-down’ concerns
    • Guillaume Futhazar, The conceptual challenges of invasive alien species to non-human rights
    • Maneesha Deckha, Veganism, dairy, and decolonization
    • Iyan Offor, Second wave animal ethics and (global) animal law: a view from the margins
    • Brian Favre, Is there a need for a new, an ecological, understanding of legal animal rights?

New Issue: Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa

The latest issue of the Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa (Vol. 53, no. 1, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Sabine Katharina Witting & Markus Penda Angula, Leveraging international law to strengthen the national legal framework on child sexual abuse material in Namibia
  • Enelia Jansen van Rensburg, The Interaction between section 233 of the South African Constitution and the Commentaries to the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital
  • Moses Retselisitsoe Phooko, A call for public participation in the treaty-making process in South Africa : what can South Africa learn from the Kingdom of Thailand?
  • John C. Mubangizi, National human rights institutions and sustainable development with specific reference to selected African examples
  • Ibrahim Imam & Wahab O. Egbewole, Comparative exposition of judicial interventionism in the enforcement of the healthcare right in Nigeria and India
  • George N. Barrie, Third-party state intervention in disputes before the International Court of Justice: a reassessment of Articles 62 and 63 of the ICJ Statute

Yilmaz Vastardis: The Nationality of Corporate Investors under International Investment Law

Anil Yilmaz Vastardis (Univ. of Essex - Law) has published The Nationality of Corporate Investors under International Investment Law (Hart Publishing 2020). Here's the abstract:

This monograph offers a detailed and distinctive analysis of corporate nationality under international investment law, covering the ICSID Convention and the investment treaty framework. It takes the reader back to the basics, threading through the concepts of jurisdiction, nationality, and corporate personality to give a clear context to the discussion of corporate nationality under international investment law, at a time when international investment is dominated by multinational business enterprises operating in a globalised economy.

The book examines different understandings of corporate personality and nationality under a selection of jurisdictions and public international law. It also offers an in-depth analysis of approaches found in ICSID arbitral awards and in investment treaty practice, distilling the problematic areas and discussing the impacts of the areas of concern. It evaluates the techniques developed to address problems and puts forward suggestions for effective and balanced solutions to the questions of corporate nationality and personal scope of investment protection.

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Ünüvar, Lam, & Dothan: Permanent Investment Courts: The European Experiment

Güneş Ünüvar (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts), Joanna Lam (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts), & Shai Dothan (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts) have published Permanent Investment Courts: The European Experiment (Springer 2020). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
This special issue of the European Yearbook of International Economic Law focuses on the opportunities and challenges connected with investment courts. The creation of permanent investment courts was first proposed several decades ago, but it has only recently become likely that these proposals will be implemented. In particular, the European Commission has pushed for a court-like mechanism to resolve investment disputes in various recent trade and investment negotiations. Such a framework was included in some free trade agreements (FTAs) and investment protection agreements (IPAs) the European Union (EU) signed or negotiated with Vietnam, Singapore, Mexico and Canada. While it was shelved long before the publication of this Special Issue, the European Commission had also formally proposed a court system during the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement with the United States. The issue of a Multilateral Investment Court (MIC) has also been prevalent at the Working Group III proceedings of the UNCITRAL on investor-State dispute settlement reform, attracting scholarly and public attention.Will these developments lead to the creation of permanent investment courts? How will such courts change the future of international investment law? Will they bring about a real institutional change in adjudicatory mechanisms? Will they introduce a 'hybrid' system, which borrows important characteristics from both arbitration and institutional methods of international adjudication? How will the enforcement mechanisms work, and under which rules of ethics will its adjudicators function and exercise their duties? This special issue brings together leading scholars sharing a common interest in investment courts to address these questions.

New Issue: Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy

The latest issue of the Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy (Vol. 23, no. 2, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Kenji Kamigawara, Katsuki Nakai, Naohiko Noma, Shinya Hieda, Emmanuelle Sarat, Alain Dutartre, Trevor Renals, Richard Bullock, Jacques Haury, Benjamin Bottner & Jean-Patrice Damien, What kind of legislation can contribute to on-site management?: Comparative case studies on legislative developments in managing aquatic invasive alien plants in France, England, and Japan
  • Oghenetejiri Digun-Aweto & Peet Van Der Merwe, Coping Strategies for Human–Wildlife Conflicts: A Case Study of Adjacent Communities to Nigeria’s Cross River National Park
  • Sanjay Gubbi, Aparna Kolekar & Vijaya Kumara, Policy to On-ground Action: Evaluating a Conflict Policy Guideline for Leopards in India
  • Jason MacLean, Susan G. Clark, Lee Foote, Thomas S. Jung, David S. Lee & Douglas A. Clark, Polar Bears and the Politics of Climate Change: A Response to Simpson

Guymon: Digest of United States Practice in International Law, 2019

CarrieLyn D. Guymon (Office of the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State) has published Digest of United States Practice in International Law, 2019.

Armitage & de la Rasilla: 'The Most Neglected Province': British Historiography of International Law

David Armitage (Harvard Univ. - History) & Ignacio de la Rasilla (Wuhan Univ. - Institute of International Law) have posted 'The Most Neglected Province': British Historiography of International Law (in The Cambridge History of International Law: I, Introduction, Randall Lesaffer & Anne Peters eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Every periodisation of the history of international law is inherently problematic. With this in mind, we use the general periodisation scheme of The Cambridge History of International Law to divide this chapter into five parts. First, we treat the so-called period of Western international law, 1776–1870 which parallels the first age of the British historiography of international law. This extends from Robert Ward’s Enquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations in Europe (1795) to Thomas Erskine Holland’s Oxford inaugural lecture on Alberico Gentili in 1874 although, as we shall see, the nineteenth-century cultivation of the subject in Britain was nourished by the convergence of earlier eighteenth-century streams of historical literature. The second part of this chapter examines the intellectual underpinnings of the British international legal historiography at the height of empire, which was also the great age of historicism in British international law, from roughly 1870 to 1920. The third part, in turn, examines the symbolic coming-of-age of the academic cultivation of the history of international law in the UK experienced from the establishment of the British Yearbook of International Law in 1920 up to Hersch Lauterpacht’s enunciation of the Grotian tradition of international law in the aftermath of the Second World War. The fourth part explores the influence the following ‘age of Lauterpacht’ in the decades up to 1960 on the study of the history of international law and how historiographical advances during the Cold War hiatus were to come increasingly from the semi-periphery rather than the centre and from disciplines other than international law. Finally, the fifth part briefly takes stock of the large impact the transdisciplinary ‘turn’ to the history of international law has had in challenging the traditional horizons of the British historiography of international law. The conclusion offers some reflections on the nascent field of comparative international legal history in the light of some characteristic features of its British strains over the longue durée.

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 73, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • The blurring distinction between public and private in international dispute resolution
    • Introduced by Ramses A. Wessel
    • Eva Kassoti & Jed Odermatt, The principle of autonomy and international investment arbitration: Reflections on Opinion 1/17
    • Luca Pantaleo, The future of investment arbitration in the light of Opinion 1/17
    • Barbara Warwas, The application of arbitration in transnational private regulation: An analytical framework and recommendations for future research
    • Stefania Marassi, International framework agreements and management of global supply chain: Extra-judicial mechanisms to enforce international labour standards

New Issue: Revista Latinoamericana de Derecho Internacional

The latest issue of the Revista Latinoamericana de Derecho Internacional (no. 9, 2020) is out. The table of contents is here.

New Issue: International Criminal Law Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 20, no. 5, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: International Criminal Law (ICL), International Criminal Justice (ICJ), and Public International Law (PIL): The Demarcation Debate
    • Anja Matwijkiw, Introduction. International Criminal Law (ICL), International Criminal Justice (ICJ), and Public International Law (PIL): The Demarcation Debate
    • Anja Matwijkiw, The Dangers of the Obvious but Often Disregarded Details in the International Criminal Law Demarcation Debate: Norm-Integration and the Triple-Thesis ‘Argument’
    • Harmen van der Wilt, State Practice as Element of Customary International Law: A White Knight in International Criminal Law?
    • Diego Mejía-Lemos, Custom in General International Law and International Criminal Law: A Survey of Selected Issues
    • Héctor Olasolo, Juan Ramón Martínez Vargas, & Laura Quijano Ortiz, The Tension between State Duties to Investigate and Prosecute ius Cogens Crimes and Immunity of the Highest State Representatives from Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction
    • Jake Romm, No Home in this World: The Case against John Yoo before the International Criminal Court
    • Mutaz M. Qafisheh, What Is Palestine? The de jure Demarcation of Boundaries for the icc’s ratione loci Jurisdiction and Beyond

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

McMillan: Imagining the International: Crime, Justice, and the Promise of Community

Nesam McMillan (Univ. of Melbourne - School of Social and Political Sciences) has published Imagining the International: Crime, Justice, and the Promise of Community (Stanford Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:
International crime and justice are powerful ideas, associated with a vivid imagery of heinous atrocities, injured humanity, and an international community seized by the need to act. Through an analysis of archival and contemporary data, Imagining the International provides a detailed picture of how ideas of international crime (crimes against all of humanity) and global justice are given content, foregrounding their ethical limits and potentials. Nesam McMillan argues that dominant approaches to these ideas problematically disconnect them from the lived and the specific and foster distance between those who have experienced international crime and those who have not. McMillan draws on interdisciplinary work spanning law, criminology, humanitarianism, socio-legal studies, cultural studies, and human geography to show how understandings of international crime and justice hierarchize, spectacularize, and appropriate the suffering of others and promote an ideal of justice fundamentally disconnected from life as it is lived. McMillan critiques the mode of global interconnection they offer, one which bears resemblance to past colonial global approaches and which seeks to foster community through the image of crime and the practice of punitive justice. This book powerfully underscores the importance of the ideas of international crime and justice and their significant limits, cautioning against their continued valorization.

New Issue: Jus Gentium: Journal of International Legal History

The latest issue of Jus Gentium: Journal of International Legal History (Vol. 5, no. 2, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • J. D. Gordan, III, When Law Failed: The Admiralty Sessions at The Old Bailey, 7-8 June 1792
    • O. V. Kresin, Ukrainian Statehood in the Mid-Seventeenth to Early Eighteenth Centuries in Treaties with Foreign States: Principal Legal Models (Part Two)
    • N. Fujinami, Arbitrating Capitulations: Small versus Barbarous in the 1901 Greco-Ottoman Consular Convention
  • Symposium: Archives of International Law: Histories of International Lawyers Between Trajectories, Practices, and Discourses
    • D. Kévonian & P. Rygiel, Archives of International Lawyers: Towards a Social History of International Legal Practice
    • G. Mouralis, Very Discreet Experts: The “International Association of Penal Law” and the Nuremberg Moment
    • A. Eyffinger, Private Files and Personal Contacts: Tobias Asser: Just Another Case Study
    • P. G. Bernaldo de Quirós, Estanislao Zeballos and the Argentine Doctrine of Human Private Law: A Micro-Social Approach to the History of Private International Law
    • D. Kévonian & P. Rygiel, Cross-Referencing Written Archives and Oral Sources: Transcript of a Filmed Interview with Jean Salmon
  • Notes and Comments
    • V. S. Ivanenko, Boris Nolde: International Lawyer of Imperial Russia and the Russia Abroad & Alexander Williams, Chains of Law: Postwar Justice in the Andaman Islands, Singapore, and Tokyo, 1945-1948
  • Documents and Other Evidence of State Practice
    • Mohsen Nikbin, The First Published Treaty Collection in Persia: An Introduction
    • O. V. Tarasov, Fragments from the 1844 Stepanov Manuscript on the “Law of Nations and Diplomacy”: From the Legacy of the Kharkiv School of International Law
    • T. F. Stepanov, Manuscript of T. F. Stepanov “Law of Nations and Diplomacy” (Summary)
    • P. Macalister-Smith & J. Schwietzke, A Brief Calendar of State Practice for Shandong: 1897–1924: Part Two (1905–1909): Ports and Railways

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 59, no. 5, October 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya et al. (S.C.C.), with introductory note by Russell Hopkins
  • The State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda (Neth. Sup. Ct.), with introductory note by André Nollkaemper & Laura Burgers
  • Media Council of Tanzania and Others v. Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania (East Afr. Ct. J.), with introductory note by Ndanga Kamau
  • Monasky v. Taglieri (U.S. Sup. Ct.), with introductory note by Linda Silberman

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 24, no. 8, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Pratik Dixit, Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India: decriminalising India’s sodomy law
  • Camila Teixeira, Priority, agency and cooperation: how international human rights law helps fulfil the economic and social rights of the most vulnerable
  • Hoko Horii, A blind spot in international human rights framework: a space between tradition and modernity within the child marriage discourse
  • Nomisha Kurian, Rights-protectors or rights-violators? Deconstructing teacher discrimination against LGBT students in England and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as an advocacy tool
  • Başak Çalı & Alexandre Skander Galand, Towards a common institutional trajectory? Individual complaints before UN treaty bodies during their ‘Booming’ years
  • Hasan Aydin & Koksal Avincan, Intellectual crimes and serious violation of human rights in Turkey: a narrative inquiry
  • Tara Smith, Understanding the nature and scope of the right to science through the Travaux Préparatoires of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
  • Mikaela Heikkilä , Hisayo Katsui & Maija Mustaniemi-Laakso, Disability and vulnerability: a human rights reading of the responsive state
  • Magdalena Kmak, The right to have rights of undocumented migrants: inadequacy and rigidity of legal categories of migrants and minorities in international law of human rights
  • Giovanna Gilleri, ‘How are you actually doing, ladies?’ Indicators of gender equality through the lens of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 26, Supplement, September 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: Interdisciplinarity and the IR Innovation Horizon
    • Ursula Daxecker, Annette Freyberg-Inan, Marlies Glasius, Geoffrey Underhill, & Darshan Vigneswaran, Introduction: Interdisciplinarity and the International Relations event horizon
    • Chengxin Pan, Enfolding wholes in parts: quantum holography and International Relations
    • Kerem Nisancioglu, Racial sovereignty
    • Selim Can Sazak, Bad influence: social networks, elite brokerage, and the construction of alliances
    • Heloise Weber & Martin Weber, Colonialism, genocide and International Relations: the Namibian–German case and struggles for restorative relations
    • Lucas Van Milders & Harmonie Toros, Violent International Relations
    • Catriona Standfield, Gendering the practice turn in diplomacy
    • Ross James Gildea, Psychology and aggregation in International Relations
    • Filiz Kahraman, Nikhil Kalyanpur, & Abraham L. Newman, Domestic courts, transnational law, and international order
    • William Kindred Winecoff, “The persistent myth of lost hegemony,” revisited: structural power as a complex network phenomenon

Monday, September 28, 2020

New Issue: Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme

The latest issue of the Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme (No. 124, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • J-P. Costa, In memorian Luzius Wildhaber
  • P. Lemmens, L'indépendance du juge national vue depuis Strasbourg
  • L-A. Sicilianos, La Convention européenne des droits de l'homme a 70 ans: dynamique d'un instrument international unique
  • T. Besse, La répression pénale des appels au boycott de produits israéliens en droit européen des droits de l'homme
  • G-F. Ntwari, Chronique de jurisprudence de la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples (2019)
  • G. Willems, Le genre non binaire et fluide consacré par la Cour constitutionnelle : faut-il flexibiliser ou abolir l’enregistrement civil du sexe ?
  • C. Pettiti, Les vidéosurveillances dans les entreprises et la protection de la vie privée des salariés
  • M. Courtoy, Le Comité des droits de l’homme des Nations Unies face à l’homme qui voulait être le premier réfugié climatique : une avancée mesurée mais bienvenue
  • N. Cariat & T. Martin, Le droit à un recours effectif des sociétés en liquidation et le droit de l’Union européenne
  • P. Frumer, Carton rouge pour l’arbitrage de la Fédération turque de football
  • M. Larché, Épilogue de l’affaire N.D. et N.T. : ni démission, ni tolérance
  • M. Nihoul, S. Wattier, & F. Xavier, L’art de la juste mesure dans la lutte contre le coronavirus face à la dimension collective de la liberté de culte

New Issue: Review of International Organizations

The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 15, no. 4, October 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Lauren L. Ferry, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, & Christina J. Schneider, Catch me if you care: International development organizations and national corruption
  • Ida Bastiaens & Evgeny Postnikov, Social standards in trade agreements and free trade preferences: An empirical investigation
  • William Seitz & Alberto Zazzaro, Sanctions and public opinion: The case of the Russia-Ukraine gas disputes
  • Sebastian Garmann, Voter turnout and public sector employment policy
  • Nathan M. Jensen, Noel P. Johnston, Chia-yi Lee & Hadi Sahin, Crisis and contract breach: The domestic and international determinants of expropriation
  • Fangjin Ye, The impact of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on collective labor rights in developing countries
  • Leslie Johns, Calvin Thrall, & Rachel L. Wellhausen, Judicial economy and moving bars in international investment arbitration
  • Ryan C. Briggs, Results from single-donor analyses of project aid success seem to generalize pretty well across donors

Madsen: Two Level Politics and the Backlash against International Courts: Evidence from the Politicisation of the European Court of Human Rights

Mikael Madsen (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) has posted Two Level Politics and the Backlash against International Courts: Evidence from the Politicisation of the European Court of Human Rights. Here's the abstract:
Are international institutions more prone to face backlash politics than domestic ones? Are international institutions easy targets for satisfying domestic political interests? Using the case of the recent criticism of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the article explores whether international institutions are more susceptible to face backlash politics than domestic ones due to the dual nature of international politics. The empirical study, focusing on the reform of the ECtHR through the 2018 Copenhagen Declaration, suggests that pre-existing commitments to international institutions might be given up rapidly when significant domestic interests collide with international institutions and their practices. The analysis, however, also shows that backlash politics against international institutions is transformed when seeking institutional reform. Entering a collective bargaining process, backlash objectives are changed by the logic of diplomatic negotiation, academic scrutiny and the interests of the other member states and civil society. This suggests that the two-level logic of ordinary international politics has a mediating effect on domestically fuelled backlash campaigns.

Call for Submissions: Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law

The Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law has issued a call for submissions for its 2021 volume. The call is here. The deadeline is November 20, 2020.

Liber amicorum en l'honneur de la professeure Haritini Dipla

The volume Enjeux et perspectives : Droit international, droit de la mer, droits de l'homme - Liber amicorum en l'honneur de la professeure Haritini Dipla (Pedone 2020) has been published. The table of contents is here.

Global Law at Reading 2020/21 Ghandhi Research Seminar Series

Global Law at Reading has announced the program for its 2020/21 Ghandhi Research Seminar Series. All seminars for the 2020/21 series will be delivered online and anyone is welcome to attend. For the invitation, please contact m.r.windsor@reading.ac.uk.

Lustgarten: Law and the Arms Trade: Weapons, Blood and Rules

Laurence Lustgarten has published Law and the Arms Trade: Weapons, Blood and Rules (Hart Publishing 2020). Here's the abstract:

This ground-breaking book offers an extensive legal analysis-grounded in public, EU, and international law-of arms trade regulation, integrated with insights drawn from international relations.

The sale of weapons and related technologies is, globally, one of the most politically controversial and ethically contentious forms of commerce. Intimately connected with sustaining repressive governments and violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, arms exports are also a central element in the economic and strategic policies of the governments of all large industrial states. They have also been the source of abundant corruption, and of serious challenges to the norms and effectiveness of constitutional accountability in democratic states. On paper, the arms trade is heavily regulated: national legislation and international treaties are in place which purport to prohibit certain transactions and limit others. Yet despite its importance, legal and international relations scholarship on the subject has been surprisingly limited.

This book fills this gap in the literature by examining and comparing the export control regimes of eight leading nations - USA, Russia, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, China, and India - with chapters contributed by leading experts in the field of law and international relations.

Krisch: Jurisdiction Unbound: Global Governance through Extraterritorial Business Regulation

Nico Krisch (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies) has posted Jurisdiction Unbound: Global Governance through Extraterritorial Business Regulation. Here's the abstract:
The international law of jurisdiction is faced with far-reaching changes in the context of a globalizing world, but its general orientation, centred on territoriality as the guiding principle, has remained stable for a long time. This paper traces how, in contrast to the prevailing rhetoric of continuity, core categories of jurisdiction have been transformed in recent decades in such a way as to generate an ‘unbound’ jurisdiction, especially when it comes to the regulation of global business activities. The result is a jurisdictional assemblage – an assemblage in which a multiplicity of states have valid jurisdictional claims without clear principles governing the relationship between them, creating a situation in which, in practice, a few powerful countries wield the capacity to set and implement the rules. Jurisdiction is thus misunderstood if framed as an issue of horizontal relations among sovereign equals but should rather be regarded as a structure of global governance through which (some) states govern transboundary markets. Using a governance prism, this paper argues, can help us to gain a clearer view of the normative challenges raised by the exercise of unbound jurisdiction, and it shifts the focus to the accountability mechanisms required to protect not only the rights of targeted companies but also, and especially, the self-government of weaker countries.

Van Schaack: Imagining Justice for Syria

Beth Van Schaack (Stanford Univ. - Law) has published Imagining Justice for Syria (Oxford Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:

This book situates the war in Syria within the actual and imagined system of international criminal justice. It explores the legal impediments and diplomatic challenges that have led to the fatal trinity affecting Syria: the massive commission of international crimes that are subject to detailed investigations and documentation but whose perpetrators have enjoyed virtually complete impunity. Given this tragic state of affairs, the book tracks a number of accountability solutions being explored within multilateral initiatives and by civil society actors, including innovations of institutional design; the renewed utility of a range of domestic jurisdictional principles (including the revival of universal jurisdiction in Europe); the emergence of creative investigative and documentation techniques, technologies, and organizations; and the rejection of state consent as a precondition for the exercise of jurisdiction.

Engaging both law and policy around international justice, the text offers a set of justice blueprints, within and without the International Criminal Court. It also considers the utility, propriety, and practicality of pursuing a transitional justice program without a genuine political transition. All told, the book attempts to capture results of the creative energy radiating from members of the international community intent on advancing the accountability norm in Syria even in the face of geopolitical blockages within the U.N. Security Council. In so doing, it presents the range of juridical measures-both criminal and civil - that would be available to the international community to respond to the crisis, if only the political will existed.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

New Issue: Journal of International Criminal Justice

The latest issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (Vol. 18, no. 3, July 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Aldo Zammit Borda, History in International Criminal Trials: The ‘Crime-driven Lens’ and Its Blind Spots
    • Hannes Jöbstl, Bridging the Accountability Gap: Armed Non-state Actors and the Investigation and Prosecution of War Crimes
  • Symposium: The Extraordinary Chambers in Cambodia: Revisiting the Experiment
    • Paolo Lobba & Niccolò Pons, Rethinking the Legacy of the ECCC: Selectivity, Accountability, Ownership
    • Diane Orentlicher, ‘Worth the Effort’? Assessing the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
    • Göran Sluiter & Marc Tiernan, The Right to an Effective Defence During ECCC Investigations
    • Natasha Naidu & Sarah Williams, The Function and Dysfunction of the Pre-Trial Chamber at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
    • Kai Ambos, The ECCC’s Contribution to Substantive ICL: The Notion of ‘Civilian Population’ in the Context of Crimes Against Humanity
    • Elinor Fry & Elies van Sliedregt, Targeted Groups, Rape and Dolus Eventualis: Assessing the ECCC’s Contributions to Substantive International Criminal Law
    • Sergey Vasiliev, ECCC Appeals: Appraising the Supreme Court Chamber’s Interventions
    • Yvonne McDermott, The ECCC’s Approach to Evidence and Proof
  • Cases Before International Courts and Tribunals
    • Daley J Birkett, Managing Frozen Assets at the International Criminal Court: The Fallout of the Bemba Acquittal

New Issue: International Studies Review

The latest issue of International Studies Review (Vol. 22, no. 3, September 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Swati Srivastava, Varieties of Social Construction
  • Ingvild Bode, Women or Leaders? Practices of Narrating the United Nations as a Gendered Institution
  • Alexander Anievas & Richard Saull, Reassessing the Cold War and the Far-Right: Fascist Legacies and the Making of the Liberal International Order after 1945
  • Thorsten Wojczewski, Populism, Hindu Nationalism, and Foreign Policy in India: The Politics of Representing “the People”
  • Yuichi Kubota, The Rebel Economy in Civil War: Informality, Civil Networks, and Regulation Strategies
  • Ricardo Villanueva, How Norman Angell Reveals the Significance of Marxism and Socialism in Early IR and a Debate before the “First Great Debate”
  • Rodger A Payne, Grappling with Dr. Strangelove’s “Wargasm” Fantasy
  • Daniel Lambach, The Territorialization of Cyberspace
  • Linus Hagström & Astrid H M Nordin, China's “Politics of Harmony” and the Quest for Soft Power in International Politics
  • Benjamin M Jensen, Christopher Whyte, & Scott Cuomo, Algorithms at War: The Promise, Peril, and Limits of Artificial Intelligence
  • Jörn Ege, Michael W Bauer, & Nora Wagner, Improving Generalizability in Transnational Bureaucratic Influence Research: A (Modest) Proposal
  • Ingo Henneberg & Friedrich Plank, Overlapping Regionalism and Security Cooperation: Power-Based Explanations of Nigeria's Forum-Shopping in the Fight against Boko Haram
  • Daniel Hywel Nicholls, All Hegemons Are Not the Same: The Role(s) of Relational Structures and Modes of Control
  • Radoslav S Dimitrov, Empty Institutions in Global Environmental Politics
  • Esra Cuhadar & Thania Paffenholz, Transfer 2.0: Applying the Concept of Transfer from Track-Two Workshops to Inclusive Peace Negotiations
  • Shamel Azmeh, Christopher Foster, & Jaime Echavarri, The International Trade Regime and the Quest for Free Digital Trade
  • Michelle Jurkovich, What Isn't a Norm? Redefining the Conceptual Boundaries of “Norms” in the Human Rights Literature

Bottini: Admissibility of Shareholder Claims under Investment Treaties

Gabriel Bottini (Uría Menéndez) has published Admissibility of Shareholder Claims under Investment Treaties (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:
This book addresses a growing problem in international law: overlapping claims before national and international jurisdictions. Its contribution is, first, to revisit two pillars of investment arbitration, i.e., shareholders' standing to claim for harm to the company's assets and the contract/treaty claims distinction. These two ideas advance interrelated (and questionable) notions of independence: firstly, independence of shareholder treaty rights in respect of the local company's national law rights and, secondly, independence of treaty claims in respect of national law claims. By uncritically endorsing shareholder standing in indirect claims and the distinctiveness of treaty claims, investment tribunals have overlooked substantive overlaps between contract and treaty claims. The book also proposes specific admissibility criteria. As opposed to strictly jurisdictional approaches to claim overlap, the admissibility approach allows consideration of a broader range of legal reasons, such as risks of multiple recovery and prejudice to third parties.

Scandinavian Studies in Law: Investigation and Prosecution in Scandinavia of International Crimes

Scandinavian Studies in Law has published Investigation and Prosecution in Scandinavia of International Crimes (2020). Here's the abstract:

Although none of the Scandinavian countries have had armed conflicts on their soil since the Second World War, there are in Scandinavia at present war criminals, and witnesses and victims of atrocity crimes. The crimes have been committed in different situations outside Scandinavia and it is only lately that the investigation and prosecution of these crimes have gained adequate attention.

This volume presents 21 articles on the investigation and prosecution in Scandinavia of international crimes. The articles present decisions and cases tried at domestic level in a thematic manner, by examining some overarching questions. For instance, to what extent and how international law sources are considered and/or implemented in the Scandinavian countries and how the objectives of international criminal law are brought into action. The volume is organized into five parts: Introduction, General Principles and Matters of Criminal Law, International Crimes, Procedural Matters, and Comparative Outlook.

New Issue: International Studies Quarterly

The latest issue of the International Studies Quarterly (Vol. 64, no. 3, September 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Christopher Linebarger & Alex Braithwaite, Do Walls Work? The Effectiveness of Border Barriers in Containing the Cross-Border Spread of Violent Militancy
  • Anna A Meier, The Idea of Terror: Institutional Reproduction in Government Responses to Political Violence
  • Robert Schub, When Prospective Leader Turnover Promotes Peace
  • William Spaniel, Peter Bils, & Gleason Judd, Stall Wars: When Do States Fight to Hold onto the Status Quo?
  • Tim Wegenast, Arpita Asha Khanna, & Gerald Schneider, The Micro-Foundations of the Resource Curse: Mineral Ownership and Local Economic Well-Being in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Inwook Kim, Swinging Shale: Shale Oil, the Global Oil Market, and the Geopolitics of Oil
  • Jonathan N Markowitz, Suzie Mulesky, Benjamin A T Graham, & Christopher J Fariss, Productive Pacifists: The Rise of Production-Oriented States and Decline of Profit-Motivated Conquest
  • Deepak Nair, Emotional Labor and the Power of International Bureaucrats
  • Stéphanie Martel, The Polysemy of Security Community-Building: Toward a “People-Centered” Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)?
  • Rebecca L Perlman, The Domestic Impact of International Standards
  • Kelebogile Zvobgo, Demanding Truth: The Global Transitional Justice Network and the Creation of Truth Commissions
  • Jonas Tallberg, Magnus Lundgren, Thomas Sommerer, & Theresa Squatrito, Why International Organizations Commit to Liberal Norms
  • Martin Weber, The Normative Grammar of Relational Analysis: Recognition Theory's Contribution to Understanding Short-Comings in IR's Relational Turn
  • Helen M Kinsella & Giovanni Mantilla, Contestation before Compliance: History, Politics, and Power in International Humanitarian Law
  • Sasikumar S Sundaram, The Practices of Evaluating Entitlements: Rethinking “Reputation” in International Politics
  • Matt Buehler, Kristin E Fabbe, & Kyung Joon Han, Community-Level Postmaterialism and Anti-Migrant Attitudes: An Original Survey on Opposition to Sub-Saharan African Migrants in the Middle East
  • Michael Intal Magcamit, Imagined Insecurities in Imagined Communities: Manufacturing the Ethnoreligious Others as Security Threats
  • Shengkuo Hu & Courtenay R Conrad, Monitoring via the Courts: Judicial Oversight and Police Violence in India
  • Kaitlyn Webster, Priscilla Torres, Chong Chen, & Kyle Beardsley, Ethnic and Gender Hierarchies in the Crucible of War
  • Christine Hackenesch & Julia Bader, The Struggle for Minds and Influence: The Chinese Communist Party's Global Outreach
  • Adam Scharpf, Why Governments Have Their Troops Trained Abroad: Evidence from Latin America
  • Ala’ Alrababa’h, Rachel Myrick, & Isaac Webb, Do Donor Motives Matter? Investigating Perceptions of Foreign Aid in the Conflict in Donbas

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 27, no. 5, 2020) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: Manufacturing development: how transnational market integration shapes opportunities and capacities for development in Europe’s three peripheries
    • László Bruszt & Julia Langbein, Manufacturing development: how transnational market integration shapes opportunities and capacities for development in Europe’s three peripheries: Introduction to the special issue
    • László Bruszt & David Karas, Diverging developmental strategies beyond “lead sectors” in the EU’s periphery: the politics of developmental alliances in the Hungarian and Polish dairy sectors
    • Visnja Vukov, European integration and weak states: Romania’s road to exclusionary development
    • Gergő Medve-Bálint & Vera Šćepanović, EU funds, state capacity and the development of transnational industrial policies in Europe’s Eastern periphery
    • Vera Šćepanović, Transnational integration in Europe and the reinvention of industrial policy in Spain
    • Julia Langbein & Olga Markiewicz, Changing modes of market integration, domestic developmental capacities and state-business alliances: insights from Turkey’s automotive industry
    • Julia Langbein, Shallow market integration and weak developmental capacities: Ukraine’s pathway from periphery to periphery
    • Olga Markiewicz, Stuck in second gear? EU integration and the evolution of Poland’s automotive industry
    • Laszlo Bruszt, Ludvig Lundstedt & Zsuzsa Munkacsi, Collateral benefit: the developmental effects of EU-induced state building in Central and Eastern Europe

Conference: International Law Weekend 2020

The American Branch of the International Law Association and the International Law Students Association will hold International Law Weekend 2020 on October 22-24, virtually. The theme is "International Law in Challenging Times." The program is here.