New Issue: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (Vol. 21, no. 1, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Rafael Braga da Silva, Synergies between Core and Transnational Crimes: An Analysis from the Perspective of the Rome Statute
• Christopher P Evans, Remedying the Limitations of the CTBT? Testing under the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
• Kathryn Greenman, Common Article 3 at 70: Reappraising Revolution and Civil War in International Law
• Rachel Killean & Luke Moffett, What’s in a Name? ‘Reparations’ at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
• Jessica C Lai & Shmuel I Becher, Front-of-Pack Labelling and International Trade Law: Revisiting the Health Star Rating System
• Asli Ozcelik, Entrenching Peace in Law: Do Peace Agreements Possess International Legal Status?

Conference: The Development of Normative Powers of UN Investigative Mechanisms

One January 28, 2021, the University of Geneva, in collaboration with the Chinese Journal of International Law and the European Society of International Law, will host an online conference on "The Development of Normative Powers of UN Investigative Mechanisms." Program and registration information are here.

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 65, nos. 2-3, February-March 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Rebecca Cordell, The Political Costs of Abusing Human Rights: International Cooperation in Extraordinary Rendition
• Sarah Maxey, Limited Spin: When the Public Punishes Leaders Who Lie about Military Action
• Carla Martinez Machain, Exporting Influence: U.S. Military Training as Soft Power
• Nizan Feldman, Ehud Eiran, & Aviad Rubin, Naval Power and Effects of Third-Party Trade on Conflict
• Allan Dafoe, Sophia Hatz, & Baobao Zhang, Coercion and Provocation
• Yen-Sheng Chiang, Indirect Reciprocity for Mitigating Intergroup Hostility: A Vignette Experiment and an Agent-based Model on Intergroup Relations between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese
• Jun Koga Sudduth, Who Punishes the Leader? Leader Culpability and Coups during Civil War
• Jori Breslawski, The Social Terrain of Rebel Held Territory
• Heather Elko McKibben, & Amy Skoll, Please Help Us (or Don’t): External Interventions and Negotiated Settlements in Civil Conflicts
• Luwei Ying, How State Presence Leads to Civil Conflict
• Nam Kyu Kim, Previous Military Rule and Democratic Survival
• Carl Müller-Crepon, Philipp Hunziker, & Lars-Erik Cederman, Roads to Rule, Roads to Rebel: Relational State Capacity and Conflict in Africa
• Jon Echevarria-Coco & Javier Gardeazabal, A Spatial Model of Internal Displacement and Forced Migration
• Data Feature
• Wukki Kim, Justin George, & Todd Sandler, Introducing Transnational Terrorist Hostage Event (TTHE) Data Set, 1978 to 2018

Conference: Multiple Legalities: Conflict and Entanglement in the Global Legal Order

The projects on interface law at the Graduate Institute and on conditions of normative conflict at Humboldt University Berlin are jointly hosting a conference on "Multiple Legalities: Conflict and Entanglement in the Global Legal Order," to take place in a virtual format on January 13-15, 2021. The program is here. The conference will be live-streamed on Verfassungsblog. For more information please contact the conference organizers at hannah.birkenkoetter@rewi.hu-berlin.de.

Robinson: Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law

Darryl Robinson (Queen's Univ., Canada - Law) has published Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:

In Justice in Extreme Cases, Darryl Robinson argues that the encounter between criminal law theory and international criminal law (ICL) can be illuminating in two directions: criminal law theory can challenge and improve ICL, and conversely, ICL's novel puzzles can challenge and improve mainstream criminal law theory. Robinson recommends a 'coherentist' method for discussions of principles, justice and justification. Coherentism recognizes that prevailing understandings are fallible, contingent human constructs.

New Issue: International & Comparative Law Quarterly

The latest issue of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (Vol. 70, no. 1, January 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Roy Goode, Creativity and Transnational Commercial Law: From Carchemish to Cape Town
• Katie A Johnston, Identifying the Jus Cogens Norm in the Jus Ad Bellum
• Bryan Mercurio, Ross Buckley, & Erin Jiangyuan Fu, The Legitimacy of Capital Controls During A Retreat from Globalisation
• Shane Darcy, Accident and Design: Recognising Victims of Aggression in International Law
• Enrico Partiti, Polycentricity and Polyphony in International Law: Interpreting the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights
• Vid Prislan, Judicial Expropriation in International Investment Law
• Mmiselo Freedom Qumba, Assessing African Regional Investment Instruments and Investor–State Dispute Settlement
• Shorter Articles
• Giulio Bartolini, The Failure of ‘Core Capacities’ Under the WHO International Health Regulations
• Alessandra Spadaro, Repatriation of Family Members of Foreign Fighters: Individual Right or State Prerogative?

New Issue: Ethics & International Affairs

The latest issue of Ethics & International Affairs (Vol. 34, no. 4, Winter 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Essays
• Michael Doyle & Elie Peltz, Finding Refuge through Employment: Worker Visas as a Complementary Pathway for Refugee Resettlement
• Ş. İlgü Özler, The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Passing the COVID Test?
• Roundtable: International Institutions and Peaceful Change
• Kai He, T. V. Paul, & Anders Wivel, Introduction: International Institutions and Peaceful Change
• David A. Lake, Whither the Liberal International Order? Authority, Hierarchy, and Institutional Change
• Anders Wivel & T. V. Paul, Soft Balancing, Institutions, and Peaceful Change
• Kai He & Huiyun Feng, International Institutions, Institutional Balancing, and Peaceful Order Transition
• Toni Erskine, Intergovernmental Organizations and the Possibility of Institutional Learning: Self-Reflection and Internal Reform in the Wake of Moral Failure
• Trine Flockhart, The Liberal International Order and Peaceful Change: Spillover and the Importance of Values, Visions, and Passions
• Mark Beeson, The Regional Path to Peaceful Change: What the Asian and European Experiences Tell Us
• Review Essay
• Cian O'Driscoll, International Political Theory 2020: The Worst of Times, the Best of Times

New Issue: Rivista di Diritto Internazionale

The latest issue of the Rivista di Diritto Internazionale (Vol. 103, no. 4, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Articoli
• N. Ronzitti, Il caso della Enrica Lexie e la sentenza arbitrale nella controversia Italia-India
• A. Rasi, Lo sviluppo dei principi generali di diritto nel tempo
• M.E. Harris, The 2018 Escazú Agreement: Strengthening Public Participation and Human Rights in Environmental Matters
• Note e Commenti
• M. Castellaneta, La revisione della normativa italiana sulla sanzione del carcere nei casi di diffamazione a mezzo stampa dopo l’ordinanza n. 132/2020 della Corte costituzionale
• G. Grattarola, Il diritto alla residenza anagrafica dopo il decretolegge n. 130/2020

Nagy: Does WTO Law Protect Academic Freedom? It Depends on How You Use It

Csongor István Nagy (Univ. of Szeged - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on Does WTO Law Protect Academic Freedom? It Depends on How You Use It.

Evans & Modvig: Research Handbook on Torture: Legal and Medical Perspectives on Prohibition and Prevention

Malcolm D. Evans (Univ. of Bristol - Law) & Jens Modvig (DIGNITY - Danish Institute against Torture) have published Research Handbook on Torture: Legal and Medical Perspectives on Prohibition and Prevention (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This Research Handbook is of great importance in an era where torture, whilst universally condemned, remains endemic. It explores the nature of the international prohibition of torture and the various means and mechanisms which have been put in place by the international community in an attempt to make that prohibition a reality.

Edited by Chairs of the UN Committee against Torture and of the UN Subcommittee for Prevention of Torture, this Research Handbook considers both the legal and medical dimensions of torture, as well as societal and philosophical perspectives. Contributions from experts with personal experience of working with torture victims and survivors in medical, legal and political settings survey practice within the UN and regional human rights systems, international criminal and domestic legal settings, and in medical and rehabilitative contexts. These expert perspectives combine to offer a unique range of insights into the realities of tackling torture in the contemporary world.

Call for Papers: PhD Workshop on International Law

The International Law Section of the Society of Legal Scholars has issued a call for papers for a virtual PhD workshop on international law, to take place April 30, 2021. The call is here.

New Issue: International Interactions

The latest issue of International Interactions (Vol. 46, no. 6, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Michael J. Soules, Women in uniform: the opening of combat roles in state militaries
• Katherine Sawyer & Talbot M. Andrews, Rebel recruitment and retention in civil conflict
• Elizabeth J. Menninga, Complementary mediation: Exploring mediator composition in civil wars
• Rong Wang & Aimei Yang, The Structure and Evolution of the International Human Rights Network:Unpacking the Influences of Countries’ Contextual Factors and Network Configurations
• Efe Tokdemir, Seden Akcinaroglu, H. Ege Ozen & Ekrem Karakoc, ‘Wars of Others’: National Cleavages and Attitudes towards External Conflicts
• Doron Ella, Categorization in international organizations
• Eyal Rubinson & Tal Sadeh, Perceived to slack: secondary securitization and multilateral treaty ratification in Israel
• Research Note
• Nick Dietrich & Kristine Eck, Known unknowns: media bias in the reporting of political violence

John, Gulati, & Köhler: The Elgar Companion to the Hague Conference on Private International Law

Thomas John (Grotius Chambers), Rishi Gulati (London School of Economics and Political Science), & Ben Köhler (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law) have published The Elgar Companion to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This comprehensive Companion is a unique guide to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to developing multilateral legal instruments pertaining to personal, family and commercial legal situations that cross national borders. The Companion is a critical assessment of, and reflection on, past and possible future contributions of the HCCH to the further development and unification of private international law.

Written by international experts who have all directly or indirectly contributed to the work of the HCCH, chapters analyse its structure and working methods, as well as explore its significant achievements in the areas of international family law, civil procedure, legal co-operation, commercial and finance law. The contributors also discuss the many challenges both the HCCH and other global organisations are facing, including the advent of regionalism and renewed nationalism.

Call for Papers: ASIL International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group Works-in-Progress Workshop

The ASIL International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group has issued a call for papers for a virtual works-in-progress workshop. The deadline is January 15, 2021. Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS
INTERNATIONAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS INTEREST GROUP
2021 WORKS-IN-PROGRESS CONFERENCE
Friday, February 5, 2021

The International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group (ICTIG) of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) is pleased to announce a call for papers. ICTIG will be holding a Works-in-Progress Conference on Friday, February 5, 2021. The conference will be entirely virtual and will be hosted by the UIC John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois.

We are accepting submissions on any topic related to international courts or tribunals.

DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION

Please email an abstract (of 500 words or less) in Word or PDF format to fords@uic.edu. The deadline to submit an abstract is January 15, 2021. Decisions will be made by January 22, 2021. If your paper is selected for presentation, please be prepared to submit a draft of your paper on January 29, 2021. We anticipate selecting between six and eight papers for presentation.

WORKS-IN-PROGRESS

“Work-in-progress” means scholarship that has reached a stage at which it is substantial enough to merit serious discussion and critique but that has not yet appeared in print (and can still be revised after the workshop, if it has already been accepted for publication.)

THE CONFERENCE

The accepted papers will not be presented by their authors at the workshop. Rather, each paper will be introduced and discussed first by a commentator before opening the discussion to the other participants. Each of the participants is expected to have read and to be prepared to discuss all the papers. Participants may also be asked to serve as the commentator for one of the other papers. The author of each paper will be given an opportunity to respond and ask questions at the end.

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Due to the ongoing pandemic, this will be an entirely virtual conference. All presentations and discussion will take place via Zoom meeting (or some similar system). Participants will be provided more details before the conference. There is no registration fee.

For any questions or inquiries please contact Professor Stuart Ford at fords@uic.edu.

Call for Applications: Candidates for Adjudicators in EU Trade Agreements

The European Commission and the EU Member States have issued a call for applications for candidates for adjudicators in EU trade agreements. Here's the call:

Candidates for adjudicators in EU trade agreements

On 18 December 2020 the European Commission and the EU’s Member States initiated a call for candidates to be appointed as adjudicators in EU trade agreements. The aim is to establish a pool of highly qualified individuals from which to draw persons to act as adjudicators in particular state-to-state dispute settlement proceedings or to appoint them to rosters of adjudicators (which is the fall-back option for state-to-state dispute settlement in EU agreements where there is no agreement between the Parties on adjudicators for a particular dispute). The EU is seeking both 3rd country nationals to act as chairpersons and persons with the nationality of an EU Member State. This initial call covers arbitrators for State-to-state dispute settlement and for panellists in trade and sustainable development disputes. A call will be made at a later date for adjudicators for investor-state disputes.

Applications can be made either to the European Commission or to Member State authorities and should be submitted before 23:00 Brussels time on 1st February 2021. Applications will be screened by Member States and/or a Selection Panel (which the Commission has just established) to ensure that candidates have both the expertise and the required high ethical standards to act as adjudicators. The Commission will also shortly proceed to seek candidates for the Selection Panel. Once candidates have been screened they will be placed in a pool, and the Commission will draw from that pool to appoint adjudicators in specific disputes or to propose nominees for rosters under specific agreements. For more information on the process, including how to apply see here.

This initiative is taken to ensure that the EU’s bilateral dispute settlement mechanisms, when needed, operate as effectively as possible. It also provides the Commission the chance to address the lack of gender balance in its practice to date. At the same time as initiating the call, the Commission adhered to the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge as regards its dispute settlement activities in the field of trade and investment.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Global Labs of International Commercial Dispute Resolution

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on "Global Labs of International Commercial Dispute Resolution." The symposium includes an introduction by Anthea Roberts and contributions by Pamela K. Bookman and Matthew S. Erie, Giesela Rühl, Julien Chaisse and Xu Qian, Guiguo Wang and Rajesh Sharma, S.I. Strong, and Victoria Shannon Sahani.

Ronen: Palestine in the ICC: Statehood and the Right to Self-determination in the Absence of Effective Control

Yaël Ronen (Academic Center for Science and Law - Law; Hebrew Univ. - Minerva Center for Human Rights) has posted Palestine in the ICC: Statehood and the Right to Self-determination in the Absence of Effective Control (Journal of International Criminal Justice, forthcoming). Here’s the abstract:

This article examines two propositions relating to the role of the right to self-determination with regard to statehood, as put forward by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). One proposition is that the right to self-determination can compensate for a shortfall in effective control that might otherwise bar recognition of the territory as a state. The other proposition is that when effective control is lacking because of illegal obstruction of the realization of the right to self-determination, recognition of statehood may be an appropriate response regardless of the facts. The article argues that these propositions are neither substantiated in existing law, nor can they be said to be matters of the progressive development of the law. For this, the article analyses instances where statehood was allegedly recognized prior to the consolidation of effective control and which are cited as reflecting the propositions. It shows that these instances do not support the propositions. With respect to the second proposition, the article argues that it is inadvisable as lex ferenda, nor applicable in the Palestine case.

New Issue: Revista Tribuna Internacional

The latest issue of Revista Tribuna Internacional (Vol. 9, no. 18, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Artículos
• Magdalena Bas Vilizzio, Releyendo a Susan Strange en clave de solución de controversias inversor-Estado
• Carlos Cerda Dueñas, El interés de la justicia en el examen preliminar de la Corte Penal Internacional sobre la situación en Afganistán
• Sofia Mormandi, Isabel Vanesa Retamozo Enrique, & María Laura Civale, La Argentina y el terrorismo transnacional en el ámbito regional
• Gonzalo Astuni, Mariano Rabaia, Francisco Brocca, Ludmila Denise Ponce, & Matías Gasave, Ciberseguridad y Terrorismo
• Ensayos
• Pablo Urquízar & Barbara Cortés, Roles y actores del sector Defensa a la luz de la ley N° 21.255, Ley Chilena Antártica

Wheatley: Revisiting the Doctrine of Intertemporal Law

Steven Wheatley (Lancaster Univ. - Law) has posted Revisiting the Doctrine of Intertemporal Law (Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, forthoming). Here's the abstract:

There is a tension in the doctrine of intertemporal law outlined by Max Huber in the Island of Palmas case. The first branch demands that the legality of an act be judged by the law in force at the time the act occurs; the second that we take into account any change in the law over time. We see the problem in the 2019 Chagos Archipelago proceedings. The UK argued that the detachment of the Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 was not unlawful, because it was not regarded as unlawful at the time. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) disagreed, deciding that the detachment was unlawful at that time, but it relied on the 1970 Declaration on Friendly Relations to confirm this conclusion. This article explains why the ICJ’s use of dynamic logic to reach its decision was correct—and what this tells us about the intertemporal doctrine.

Lecture: Blokker on "The United Nations Security Council at 75"

On January 25, 2021, Niels Blokker (Lieden Univ. - Law) will deliver a lecture on "The United Nations Security Council at 75," the inaugural lecture of the Essex Public International Law Lecture Series. Details are here.

Hakimi: What Might (Finally) Kill the Jus ad Bellum?

Monica Hakimi (Univ. of Michigan - Law) has posted What Might (Finally) Kill the Jus ad Bellum? Here's the abstract:

There is a long tradition of international relations and legal scholars warning of the demise of the jus ad bellum—the body of international law that governs when states may use force across national borders. I argue in this Lecture, presented at The University College London Faculty of Laws in October 2020, that these warnings have mostly been wrong. The reason they have been wrong is that they have misdiagnosed or at least grossly overstated the source of the threat. Worse, they have diverted attention away from the kinds of challenges that might actually push the contemporary jus ad bellum to the breaking point—and that we might now confront.

Zammit Borda: Histories Written by International Criminal Courts and Tribunals: Developing a Responsible History Framework

Aldo Zammit Borda (Anglia Ruskin Univ.) has published Histories Written by International Criminal Courts and Tribunals: Developing a Responsible History Framework (Asser Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

This book argues for a more moderate approach to history-writing in international criminal adjudication by articulating the elements of a “responsible history” normative framework. The question of whether international criminal courts and tribunals (ICTs) ought to write historical narratives has gained renewed relevance in the context of the recent turn to history in international criminal law, the growing attention to the historical legacies of the ad hoc Tribunals and the minimal attention paid to historical context in the first judgment of the International Criminal Court.

The starting point for this discussion is that, in cases of mass atrocities, prosecutors and judges are inevitably understood to be engaged in writing history and influencing collective memory, whether or not they so intend. Therefore, while writing history is an inescapable feature of ICTs, there is still today a significant lack of consensus over the proper place of this function. Since Hannah Arendt articulated her doctrine of strict legality, in response to the prosecutor’s expansive didactic approach in Eichmann, the legal debate on the subject has been largely polarised between restrictive and expansive approaches to history-writing in mass atrocity trials. What has been noticeably missing from this debate is the middle ground. The contribution this book seeks to make is precisely to articulate a framework that occupies that ground. The book asks: what are the lenses through which judges of ICTs interpret historical events, what kind of histories do ICTs write? and what kinds of histories should ICTs produce? Its arguments for a more moderate approach to history-writing are based on three distinct, but interrelated grounds: (1) Truth and Justice; (2) Right to Truth; and (3) Legal Epistemology.

deGuzman & Oosterveld: The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Court

Margaret M. deGuzman (Temple Univ. - Law) & Valerie Oosterveld (Western Univ. - Law) have published The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Court (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This comprehensive Companion examines the achievements and challenges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s first permanent international criminal tribunal. It provides an overview of the first two decades of the ICC’s existence, investigating the dominant narratives and counter-narratives that have emerged about the institution and its work.

In this timely work, an international team of scholars and experts evaluate the ICC’s actual and potential role in the world by exploring some of the central issues related to its creation, mandate, and operations. Chapters address topics ranging from the negotiation dynamics surrounding the drafting of the Rome Statute, to the roles of the Office of the Prosecutor, judges, defence and victims, as well as key controversies around peace and justice, selectivity of cases and situations, and gender-sensitivity.