Hamid & Wouters: Rule of Law and Areas of Limited Statehood: Domestic and International Dimensions

Linda Hamid (KU Leuven - Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies & Institute for International Law) & Jan Wouters (KU Leuven - Law) have published Rule of Law and Areas of Limited Statehood: Domestic and International Dimensions (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This thought-provoking book addresses the legal questions raised by the nexus between the rule of law and areas of limited statehood, in which the State lacks the ability to exercise the full depth of its governmental authority. Working from an international law perspective, it examines the implications of limited statehood for the traditional State-based framing of the international legal order.

Featuring original contributions written by renowned international scholars, chapters investigate key issues arising at the junction between domestic and international rule of law and areas of limited statehood, as well as the alternative modes of governance that develop therein, both with and without the approval of the State. Contributors discuss the impact of contested sovereignty on the rule of law, international responsibility with regard to rebel governance in areas of limited statehood and the consequences of limited statehood for international peace and security.

Conference: 2021 ESIL Research Forum

The European Society of International Law's 2021 Research Forum will take place April 15-16, 2021, hosted by the University of Catania Law Department. The theme is: "Solidarity: the Quest for Founding Utopias of International Law." The program is here. Registration is open here.

New Issue: Chinese Journal of International Politics

The latest issue of the Chinese Journal of International Politics (Vol. 13, no. 4, Winter 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Xinyuan Dai, Challenges to the International Institutional Order
• Victor D Cha, Allied Decoupling in an Era of US–China Strategic Competition
• Jean-Marc F Blanchard & Ka Zeng, China’s Role in Global Economic Governance Revisited: Evidence from a Comparative Analysis of Chinese and Japanese BITs
• Brandon K Yoder, How Credible are China’s Foreign Policy Signals? IR Theory and the Debate about China’s Intentions
• Falin Zhang, Towards Rivalry or Concert? A China–US Financial Competition Triumvirate

New Issue: Nordic Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 90, no. 1, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Saeed Bagheri, Exploring the Legality of the Constitutional and Independence Referendums in Nagorno-Karabakh under International Law
• Marc Schack, Resisting Clarity: Scandinavian Ambiguity in the ‘Unable or Unwilling’-Debate
• Nikolas Feith Tan, The End of Protection: The Danish ‘Paradigm Shift’ and the Law of Cessation
• Yoshifumi Tanaka, Obligation to Conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in International Adjudication: Interaction between Law and Time

New Issue: International Journal of Refugee Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (Vol. 32, no. 3, October 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Vladislava Stoyanova, The Right to Leave Any Country and the Interplay between Jurisdiction and Proportionality in Human Rights Law
• Katia Bianchini, Identifying the Stateless in Statelessness Determination Procedures and Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom
• Javier Ochoa, South America’s Response to the Venezuelan Exodus: A Spirit of Regional Cooperation?
• Covid-19: A Watching Brief
• Laura van Waas & Ottoline Spearman, The Life-or-Death Cost of Being Stateless in a Global Pandemic
• Geoff Gilbert, Knowing All of the Law, All of the Time: Responding to COVID-19

Jones: The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare

Craig Jones (Newcastle Univ. - Geography) has published The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare (Oxford Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:

Over the last 20 years the world's most advanced militaries have invited a small number of military legal professionals into the heart of their targeting operations, spaces which had previously been exclusively for generals and commanders. These professionals, trained and hired to give legal advice on an array of military operations, have become known as war lawyers.

The War Lawyers examines the laws of war interpreted and applied by military lawyers to aerial targeting operations carried out by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israel military in Gaza. Drawing on interviews with military lawyers and others, this book explains why some lawyers became integrated in the chain of command whereby military targets are identified and attacked, whether by manned aircraft, drones and/or ground forces, and with what results.

This book shows just how important law and war lawyers have become in the conduct of contemporary warfare, and how it is understood. Jones argues that circulations of law and policy between the U.S. and Israel have expanded the scope of what constitutes a legitimate military target, contending that the involvement of war lawyers in targeting operations not only constrains military violence, but also enables, legitimises, and sometimes even extends it.

Kraska: Command Accountability for AI Weapon Systems in the Law of Armed Conflict

James Kraska (U.S. Naval War College) has posted Command Accountability for AI Weapon Systems in the Law of Armed Conflict (International Law Studies, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in weapon systems enhances the ability of operational forces to fuse multispectral sensors to understand the warfighting environment, positively identify, track, and select targets, and engage them with the most appropriate effects. The potential for AI to help close the “kill chain” has raised concern that this creates a gap in accountability between the decisions of humans and the acts of machines, with humans no longer accountable for decisions made during armed conflict. This study suggests that there is no gap because the military commander is always directly and individually accountable for the employment of all methods and means of warfare. The commander’s military accountability pervades the battlefield. This accountability inures to the force structure, weapon systems and tactics used in war, including the use of AI weapon systems. Military accountability is the foundation of military duty and includes the legal obligation to comply with the law of armed conflict or international humanitarian law. The commander is accountable to superior military and civilian leaders, and is subject to political, institutional, and legal sanctions enforced through military order and discipline, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The doctrine of the commander’s direct and individual accountability ensures that senior military leaders are answerable to and liable for breaches of law and leadership, including oversight, selection, and employment of autonomous weapon systems.

New Issue: Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies (Vol. 8, no. 1, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Kalu Kingsley Anele, The Potential Impact of Piracy on the ACFTA: A Nigerian Perspective
• Yu Long, The Role of the International Seabed Authority in the Implementation of “Due Regard” Obligation Under the LOSC: Addressing Conflicting Activities
• Julia Cirne Lima Weston, The Possibility of Litigation Regarding Liability of Flag States in the Case of Vessel-Based Pollution: Where We Stand in the Law of the Sea
• David Scott, Small Island Strategies in the Indo-Pacific by Large Powers
• Fred Jérémie Medou Ngoa, Cross-Border Exchanges and Political Identity Cleavages in Kyé-Ossi, Cameroon

New Issue: Transnational Dispute Management

The latest issue of Transnational Dispute Management (2021, no. 1) is out. This is a special issue on "Maritime Law Arbitration: Procedural and Substantive Issues." The table of contents is here.

New Issue: International Journal of Transitional Justice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice (Vol. 14, no. 3, November 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Hugo van der Merwe & M Brinton Lykes, Racism and Transitional Justice
• Articles
• Anushka Sehmi, Judicializing economic violence as means of dismantling the structural causes of atrocity in the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Hollie Nyseth Brehm, Louisa L Roberts, Christopher Uggen, & Jean-Damascene Gasanabo, ‘We Came To Realize We Are Judges’: Moral Careers of Elected Lay Jurists in Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts
• Mikkel Jarle Christensen, The Borderlands between Punitive and Non-punitive Transitional Justice: Distinct Elites and Diverging Patterns of Import/export
• James A Sweeney, Kenneth Andresen, & Abit Hoxha, Transitional Justice and Transitional Journalism: Case-Study on Kosovo
• Adam Kochanski, The Missing Picture: Accounting for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence during Cambodia’s ‘Other’ Conflict Periods
• Stephen Hopkins, The Politics of Apology and the Prospects for ‘Post-conflict’ Reconciliation: The Case of the Provisional Irish Republican Movement
• Cynthia M Horne, Transitional Justice and Temporal Parameters: Built-In Expiration Dates?
• Ruth Rubio-Marin & Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Transitional Justice Standards on Reparations for Women Subjected to Violence in the CEDAW Committee’s Evolving Legal Practice
• Joseph Geng Akech, Rethinking Transitional Justice in South Sudan: Critical Perspectives on Justice and Reconciliation
• Review Essay
• Ingrid Samset, Towards Decolonial Justice

New Issue: Global Environmental Politics

The latest issue of Global Environmental Politics (Vol. 21, no. 1, February 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Special Section: The Politics of Crises and Disasters
• Paul Wapner, Planetary Disasters: Wildness and the Perennial Struggle for Control
• Hamish van der Ven & Yixian Sun, Varieties of Crises: Comparing the Politics of COVID-19 and Climate Change
• Lauri Peterson, Silver Lining to Extreme Weather Events? Democracy and Climate Change Mitigation
• Timothy Fraser, Lily Cunningham, & Amos Nasongo, Build Back Better? Effects of Crisis on Climate Change Adaptation Through Solar Power in Japan and the United States
• Research Articles
• Miriam Matejova & Chad M. Briggs, Embracing the Darkness: Methods for Tackling Uncertainty and Complexity in Environmental Disaster Risks
• Chris Armstrong & Jack Corbett, Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, and Maritime Baselines: Responding to the Plight of Low-Lying Atoll States
• Kari De Pryck, Intergovernmental Expert Consensus in the Making: The Case of the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC 2014 Synthesis Report
• Alejandro Esguerra & Sandra van der Hel, Participatory Designs and Epistemic Authority in Knowledge Platforms for Sustainability
• Book Review Essay
• J. Samuel Barkin, Fishing Across Disciplines

Seminar Series: The Politics of International Law

The Centre for International and Public Law at the ANU College of Law will hold an online seminar series in the coming months on "The Politics of International Law." Program and registration information are here.

New Issue: London Review of International Law

The latest issue of the London Review of International Law (Vol. 8, no. 2, July 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Julia Dehm, Ben Golder, & Jessica Whyte, Introduction: ‘Redistributive Human Rights?’ symposium
• Roland Burke, The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and the retreat of a redistributive rights vision
• Kári Hólmar Ragnarsson, Humanising not transformative? The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and economic inequality in OECD countries 2008-19
• Zachary Manfredi, Against ‘ideological neutrality’: on the limits of liberal and neoliberal economic and social human rights
• Randi L Irwin, Contested language in the making and unmaking of Western Sahara’s extractive economy
• Books Etc.
• Mattia Pinto, Of sex and war: carceral feminism and its anti-carceral critique

New Issue: Chinese Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Chinese Journal of International Law (Vol. 19, no. 3, September 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Special Comment
• Sienho Yee, In Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations: A Proposal for the Formulation and Adoption of a “Declaration on the Principles of International Law concerning the Community of Shared Future for Mankind”
• Articles
• Dire Tladi, Populism’s Attack on Multilateralism and International Law: Much Ado About Nothing
• Nina H B Jørgensen & Regina E Rauxloh, Profiting from Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: A Case for the Resurrection of the Crime of Enforced Prostitution
• Jianjun Gao, The Exhaustion of Local Remedies Rule in the Settlement of Maritime Disputes: A Study of the Practice of the UNCLOS Tribunals
• Bjørn Kunoy, De Novo Delimitation Lines: A Constitutive Concept of Delimitation
• Jin Sun & Qiong Wu, The Hague Judgments Convention and How We Negotiated It
• Review Essay
• Sienho Yee, Knowledge and Strategy in International Litigation: A Review Essay on Hugh Thirlway’s The International Court of Justice, with Some Reference to Non-appearance

Achiume & Carbado: Critical Race Theory Meets Third World Approaches to International Law

Tendayi Achiume (Univ. of California, Los Angeles - Law) & Devon W. Carbado (Univ. of California, Los Angeles - Law) have posted Critical Race Theory Meets Third World Approaches to International Law (UCLA Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

By and large, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) exist in separate epistemic universes. This Article argues that the borders between these two fields are unwarranted. Specifically, the Article articulates six parallel ways in which CRT and TWAIL have exposed and challenged the racial dimensions of United States law and international law, respectively. It explores the related ways in which both CRT scholars and TWAIL scholars have: contested the legalization of white supremacy; marked and problematized the degree to which regimes of inclusion can operate as technologies of exclusion; staged important if non-identical critiques of colorblindness; engaged and repudiated neoliberal claims about racialized social responsibility and agency; confronted perceptions that both literatures exist outside the boundaries of the presumptively neutral scholarly conventions of constitutional law and international law, engendering either criticism or willful dis-attention or non-engagement by mainstream scholars; and remained invested in reconstruction and transformation of and within law, seeking to maximize its emancipatory potential for racial justice and equality even while remaining clear-eyed about the limits and costs of such engagement and the need to effectuate change in other arenas, such as social movements.

New Volume: South African Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the South African Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 44, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Elijah Sibanda, An Analysis of the Execution of Judgments and Follow-up Mechanism Under the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: Lessons from the European Human Rights System
• Ashraf Booley & Jacqueline van Schalkwyk, The Legal and Social Complexities Relating to Self-Determination: Internal and External Self-Determination and Obligation Erga Omnes
• Bright Kojo Nkrumah, The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and South Africans with Albinism: A Commentary
• Lindelwa Beaulender Mhlongo, Of Politics and Law: Analysing the Implications of the US-China Trade War on International Law and International Trade Law
• Stuart Casey-Maslen & Brenda Mwale, The Prohibition of Cyberterrorism as a Method of Warfare in International Law
• Noluthando Ncame, The Enigmatic Principle of Complementarity: A Negotiated Machinery for Implementing International Criminal Law
• Dunia Prince Zongwe, A Chronicle of How Judges Have Internalised International Law in Namibia
• Dayo Ayoade, Towards ‘Free, Prior, Informed Consent’ in Natural Resource Development Projects

Cullen, Kastner, & Richmond: The Politics of International Criminal Law

Holly Cullen (Univ. of Western Australia), Philipp Kastner (Univ. of Western Australia), & Sean Richmond (Carleton Univ.) have published The Politics of International Criminal Law (Brill | Nijhoff 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The Politics of International Criminal Law is an interdisciplinary collection of original research that examines the often noted but understudied political dimensions of International Criminal Law (ICL). As a nascent legal regime that seeks to regulate the longstanding power of states to manage war and crime, ICL faces challenges to its legitimacy, including disagreement over its aims and effectiveness; inequality in the work of its institutions; and opposition from dominant countries. The editors bring together eleven senior and emerging scholars and practitioners from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and North America to analyse these challenges from an illuminating range of theoretical and empirical perspectives. Taken together, the collection ultimately helps advance our understanding of the particularly charged relationship between law and politics in ICL.

Owens & Rietzler: Women's International Thought: A New History

Patricia Owens (Univ. of Oxford - International Relations) & Katharina Rietzler (Univ. of Sussex - History) have published Women's International Thought: A New History (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Women's International Thought: A New History is the first cross-disciplinary history of women's international thought. Bringing together some of the foremost historians and scholars of international relations working today, this book recovers and analyses the path-breaking work of eighteen leading thinkers of international politics from the early to mid-twentieth century. Recovering and analyzing this important work, the essays offer revisionist accounts of IR's intellectual and disciplinary history and expand the locations, genres, and practices of international thinking. Systematically structured, and focusing in particular on Black diasporic, Anglo-American, and European historical women, it does more than 'add women' to the existing intellectual and disciplinary histories from which they were erased. Instead, it raises fundamental questions about which kinds of subjects and what kind of thinking constitutes international thought, opening new vistas to scholars and students of international history and theory, intellectual history and women's and gender studies.

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 25, no. 2, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Özgür H. Çɪnar, Conscientious objectors seeking asylum: a comparative perspective
• Ala Al-Mahaidi, Securing economic livelihoods for Syrian refugees: the case for a human rights-based approach to the Jordan Compact
• José L. Gurría Gascón, Nhora Magdalena Benítez Bastidas & Ana María Hernández Carretero, Otherness, oppression and empowerment of the indigenous towns in the inter-Andean alley (Ecuador)
• Carla Winston, Truth commissions as tactical concessions: the curious case of Idi Amin
• Frederick Cowell, Reservations to human rights treaties in recommendations from the universal periodic review: an emerging practice?
• Philipp Wesche, Business actors and land restitution in the Colombian transition from armed conflict
• Rachel Killean, From ecocide to eco-sensitivity: ‘greening’ reparations at the International Criminal Court
• Anna Lawson & Angharad E. Beckett, The social and human rights models of disability: towards a complementarity thesis

Steinbrück Platise: Hands Tied? The Law Governing the World Health Organization

Mateja Steinbrück Platise (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) has posted Hands Tied? The Law Governing the World Health Organization (in Law and Practice of the World Health Organisation, Nigel D. White, Scarlett McArdle, & Stephanie Switzer eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Over recent years, many have called the WHO responsible for a number of failures in global health governance, in particular those concerning late or insufficient response to the spread of infectious diseases such as swine flu, Ebola or Covid-19. The present contribution therefore examines some of the main features of the law governing the WHO, in order to establish the scope of the organisation’s powers to act and the legal regime applicable in case of its failure to act. The analysis aims to show that the law constituting and empowering the WHO has not been the primary cause for the organisation’s conservative stance towards a more proactive, normative, inclusive and inter-sectoral governance. Thereby, the analysis also challenges the common assumption in international institutional law that the law that constitutes an international organisation at the same time also constrains it, and identifies some legal gaps in the relevant legal field. In particular, it demonstrates that this common approach is insufficient for establishing the organisation’s legal responsibility in case of its failure to act and, more generally, for pushing the organisation and its leadership towards a more effective and accountable functioning.

Call for Rapporteurs: Oxford Reports on UN Human Rights Law

Oxford University Press and the editors of the Oxford Reports on UN Human Rights Law have issued a Call for Rapporteurs. Here's the call.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: The Biden Administration and the International Legal Order

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on "The Biden Administration and the International Legal Order." The symposium includes an introduction by Gregory Shaffer and David L. Sloss and contributions by Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Judith Goldstein, Sarah H. Cleveland, H. Timothy Lovelace, Jens David Ohlin, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman, and Sarah Wetter, and Daniel Bodansky.

New Volume: Spanish Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Spanish Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 24, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• The Classics’ Corner
• Alejandro Rodríguez Carrión, International Law on the Threshold of the 21st Century
• Special contribution
• Antonio Remiro Brotóns, The Declaration of Principles turns fifty years: a rondó of sly power
• General Articles
• Marco Longobardo, «Super-Robust» Peacekeeping Mandates In Non-International Armed Conflicts Under International Law
• Miguel Checa Martínez, Brexit And Private International Law: Looking Forward From The UK But Actually Going Backward
• Alexis Berg-Rodríguez, Back On The Good Track: Historical Institutionalism And The New Political Model Between The Eu And Cuba
• Chema Suárez Serrano, From Bullets To Fake News: Disinformation As A Weapon Of Mass Distraction. What Solutions Does International Law Provide?
• Nerea Magallón Elósegui, Trade In Minerals And Human Rights: Towards Responsible Sourcing Of Minerals From Conflict Areas In Europe (Regulation (EU) 2017/821)
• Jerónimo Maillo, New Screening Of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) In Europe: A First Step Towards A New Paradigm?
• Ignacio Forcada Barona, Brexit And European Citizenship: Welcome Back To International Law
• Libia Arenal, Economic Crimes Against Humanity: A Legal Challenge For The Positive Regulation Of Crimes Against Humanity In Article 7 Of The Rome Statute
• Catalonia Secession before the Spanish Supreme Court
• Araceli Mangas Martín, A Decent Supreme Court Judgement
• Pedro Tent Alonso, Assessment, In Light Of EU Law, Of The Constitutional Framework From Which The Spanish Supreme Court Has Approached The Prosecution Of Catalan Separatist Leaders
• Helena Torroja Mateu, The «Right To Decide» In International Law As Ground For Exclusion Of Unlawfullness
• Santiago Ripol Carulla & Rafael Arenas García, Issues Related To European Human Rights Law: The European Court Of Human Rights
• Javier Roldán Barbero, The Catalonia Independence Process And EU Law (2017-2020)

Conference: The Peaceful Settlement of Cyber Disputes

On March 4-5, 2021, the Sheffield Centre for International and European Law at the University of Sheffield will host an online conference on "The Peaceful Settlement of Cyber Disputes." Registration is free but prior registration is required. The program and registration details can be found here.

Gattini, Garciandia, & Webb: Human Dignity and International Law

Andrea Gattini (Univ. of Padua - Law), Rosana Garciandia (King's College London - Law), & Philippa Webb (King's College London - Law) have published Human Dignity and International Law (Brill | Nijhoff 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Human dignity is a classical concept in public international law, and a core element of the human rights machinery built after the Second World War. This book reflects on the past, present and future of the concept of human dignity, focusing on the role of international lawyers in shaping the idea and their potential and actual role in protecting the rights of certain vulnerable groups of contemporary societies, such as migrant women at risk of domestic servitude, the LGB community and indigenous peoples.