New Issue: Journal of International Arbitration

The latest issue of the Journal of International Arbitration (Vol. 38, no. 4, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Gary Born, The 1933 Directives on Arbitration of the German Reich: Echoes of the Past?
• Darius Chan & Sidharrth Rajagopal, To Stay or Not to Stay? A Clash of Arbitration and Insolvency Regimes
• Kabir Duggal, Peter L. Schmidt, & Rekha Rangachari, Evolution of 28 U.S.C. § 1783: An Unexplored Tool to Support International Arbitration?
• Bianca Böhme, Recent Efforts to Curb Investment Treaty Shopping: How Effective Are They?
• Joshua Paine, Global Telecom Holding v. Canada: Interpreting and Applying Reservations and Carve-Outs in Investment Treaties

Shaffer: Emerging Powers and the World Trading System: The Past and Future of International Economic Law

Gregory Shaffer (Univ. of California, Irvine - Law) has published Emerging Powers and the World Trading System: The Past and Future of International Economic Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

Victorious after World War II and the Cold War, the United States and its allies largely wrote the rules for international trade and investment. Yet, by 2020, it was the United States that became the great disrupter – disenchanted with the rules' constraints. Paradoxically, China, India, Brazil, and other emerging economies became stakeholders in and, at times, defenders of economic globalization and the rules regulating it. Emerging Powers and the World Trading System explains how this came to be and addresses the micropolitics of trade law – what has been developing under the surface of the business of trade through the practice of law, which has broad macro implications. This book provides a necessary complement to political and economic accounts for understanding why, at a time of hegemonic transition where economic security and geopolitics assume greater roles, the United States challenged, and emerging powers became defenders, of the legal order that the United States created.

New Issue: Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies (Vol. 8, no. 2, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Alex P. Dela Cruz, Marching Towards Exception: The Chinese Coast Guard Law and the Military Activities Exception Clause of the Law of the Sea Convention
• Clive Schofield, Options for Overcoming Overlapping Maritime Claims: Developments in Maritime Boundary Dispute Resolution and Managing Disputed Waters
• Christine E. Macaraig & Adam J. Fenton, Analyzing the Causes and Effects of the South China Sea Dispute: Natural Resources and Freedom of Navigation
• Nuno Morgado, Portugal as an Old Sea Power: Exploring the EU Membership as Geopolitical Design
• Nitin Agarwala, Maritime Sector as a Growth Engine for Vietnam: A Case Study
• Kyu-hyun Jo, The Shadow of Cold War Politics Over Territorial Sovereignty: The San Francisco Peace Treaty and Its Implications for Japan’s Territorial Disputes with Korea and China

Deplano & Tsagourias: Research Methods in International Law: A Handbook

Rossana Deplano (Univ. of Leicester - Law) & Nicholas Tsagourias (Univ. of Sheffield - Law) have published Research Methods in International Law: A Handbook (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This timely Handbook contains a wide-ranging overview of the diverse research methods used within international law. Providing an insightful examination of how international legal knowledge is analysed and adopted, this Handbook offers the reader a deeper understanding on the role and place of research methods in international legal theory, reasoning and practice.

Split into five parts, the chapters cover key topics across doctrinal, empirical, socio-legal, interdisciplinary research methods and methodology. The contributors also apply their knowledge and insight to explore the relationship between different research methods and their role in international legal theory, reasoning and practice. Covering a range of diverse subjects yet written

Webinar: New Developments in the Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights

On July 26, 2021, the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will host a webinar on "New Developments in the Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights" It will address recent developments in the extraterritorial application of human rights, question the transformative nature of recent cases on the outer limits of control-based extra-territorial jurisdiction, and shed light on the concept of special obligations with regard to specific rights and relations (such as duties to investigate, repatriate and rescue at sea). Participants will include: Dapo Akande, Helen Duffy, Benyam Dawit Mezmur, Marko Milanovic, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Dalia Palombo, Paulo Sérgio Pinto de Albuquerque, Yaël Ronen, Yuval Shany and Maria Varaki. Registration is here.

Call for Papers: International Law Without International Courts

The International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group of the American Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for a conference on "International Law Without International Courts," to take place December 16-17, 2021. The call is here.

McGrogan: Critical theory and human rights: From compassion to coercion

David McGrogan (Northumbria Univ. - Law) has published Critical theory and human rights: From compassion to coercion (Manchester Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

This book describes how human rights have given rise to a vision of benevolent governance that, if fully realised, would be antithetical to individual freedom. It describes human rights' evolution into a grand but nebulous project, rooted in compassion, with the overarching aim of improving universal welfare by defining the conditions of human well-being and imposing obligations on the state and other actors to realise them. This gives rise to a form of managerialism, preoccupied with measuring and improving the 'human rights performance' of the state, businesses and so on. The ultimate result is the 'governmentalisation' of a pastoral form of global human rights governance, in which power is exercised for the general good, moulded by a complex regulatory sphere which shapes the field of action for the individual at every turn. This, unsurprisingly, does not appeal to rights-holders themselves.

New Volume: Australian International Law Journal

The latest volume of the Australian International Law Journal (Vol. 26, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Daniel O'Neil, Not So Innocent Abroad: Eliminating the Facilitation Payments Exception in Australia and the United States' Foreign Bribery Provisions
• Adaena Sinclair-Blakemore, Indigenous Women's Rights in International Law: A Comparative Analysis of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Umair Ghori, Are Export Controls under the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM) Challenge Proof?
• Sarah Waring, The Territorial Scope of Investment Treaties: Applicability of International Investment Law to Space Mining Activities
• Manuel Gruber, Time for a Reappraisal? The Intertemporal Principle of International Law Examined
• Laura Hamblin, When TWAIL Met Civilian Protection: Analysing the Impact of the Kigali Principles in African Civil Conflict
• Sophie Li, When Do Medical Personnel Providing Biomedical Enhancements Participate Directly in Hostilities?
• Caitlyn McKenzie, Proposing a Model of Immunity for Peacekeepers: The Sovereignty/Justice Balance - What Sort of Immunity Should Peacekeepers Have If Justice Is to Be Achieved for Victims of War Crimes?
• Amanda Murphy, International Law Principles and the Protection of Private Rights under the Transitional Arrangements of the Maritime Boundaries Treaty between Australia and Timor-Leste

Call for Papers: Global Food Governance Conference

The Food Governance Node at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and the George Institute for Global Health, together with the Global Center for Legal Innovation on Food Environments at Georgetown University Law Center, have issued a call for papers for the 2021 Global Food Governance Conference, to be held online on December 13-15 2021. The conference will bring together lawyers, policymakers, nutritionists, and health scientists to explore how law, policy, and regulation can help address food system challenges at the local, national, regional, and global levels. The call is here.

McGuinness: Human Rights Reporting as Human Rights Governance

Margaret E. McGuinness (St. John's Univ. - Law) has posted Human Rights Reporting as Human Rights Governance (Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Contrary to the view that the rejection of human rights treaty membership has left the United States outside the formal international human rights system, the United States has played a key role in international human rights governance through congressionally mandated human rights monitoring and reporting. Since the mid- 1970s, congressional oversight of human rights diplomacy, which requires reporting on global human rights practices, has integrated international human rights law and norms into the execution of U.S. foreign policy. While the congressional human rights mandates have drifted from their original purpose to condition allocation of foreign aid, they have effectively embedded international human rights norms and law into congressional decision-making and the operations of executive branch agencies. Over the years, the reports issued pursuant to the mandates have also become an important international source of human rights fact-finding, influencing the ways in which courts, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international human rights institutions themselves interpret and apply human rights law. In this respect, congressional human rights reporting mandates—not congressional human rights treaty policy—have evolved as a driver of U.S. engagement with and interpretation of the protections of international human rights law.

This Article draws on a variety of sources, including diplomatic correspondence, interviews with government officials, caselaw in domestic courts, and reporting by international human rights NGOs, to explore the effects of the congressional human rights reporting mandates. It demonstrates that what was designed as unilateral policy to enforce human rights has affected the construction of the U.S. human rights identity within the international system and the international human rights system itself. Operating separately and in parallel to targeted human rights sanctions legislation, the human rights reporting mandates demonstrate the active and effective participation of the United States in international human rights governance.

Benvenisti: The International Law of Prolonged Sieges and Blockades: Gaza as a Case Study

Eyal Benvenisti (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has posted The International Law of Prolonged Sieges and Blockades: Gaza as a Case Study (International Law Studies, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In 2007, after Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip, the area was subjected to an Israeli land siege, complemented in 2009 by a sea blockade. Since then, the already-dire living conditions in the Strip have declined consistently and the area’s dependence on external aid has grown. This essay examines the duties of a military power in imposing what is effectively a years-long confinement of people and outlines a general argument for expanding the obligations of a party that imposes a prolonged siege or blockade. I consider these obligations in light of three potentially relevant legal frameworks: the law of occupation; international humanitarian law; and human rights law. In this essay, I argue that, although Gaza is no longer occupied, Israel, in exercising prolonged siege and blockade, must respect a set of obligations that encompass much more than simply not starving the besieged population or not cutting off their water supply. Paying attention only to the basic, biological needs of the besieged population ignores their human dignity because it reduces – in the eyes of the blockader – human existence to the intake of food and water. The essay concludes that the law should be interpreted as demanding that the besieger respect a wider scope of rights – including, among others, the right to enter and exit the besieged area – and, while it may limit such rights, such limitations must be compatible with the requirements of proportionality, taking into account the human toll caused by the extraordinary yet long-term situation.

New Issue: Humanity

The latest issue of Humanity (Vol. 12, no. 1, Spring 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Ria Kapoor, Removing the International from the Refugee: India in the 1940s
• Katharine White, Germany and Colonia Dignidad: Colonial Entanglement, Medical Humanitarianism, and Human Rights Abuses in Chile
• Valeska Huber & Jan C. Jansen, Dealing with Difference: Cosmopolitanism in the Nineteenth-Century World Of Empires
• Claude Markovits, Cosmopolitanism and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century British India
• Francisco A. Ortega, Postcolonial Cosmopolitan Republicanism: A Conceptual Approach to Nineteenth-Century New Granada/Colombia
• Martin Rempe, Respect!: Edward Wilmot Blyden and the Cosmopolitan Challenge
• Alison Bashford, The Family of Man: Cosmopolitanism and the Huxleys, 1850–1950
• Jürgen Osterhammel, Concluding Essay: Cosmopolitanism as Doctrine, Attitude, and Practice

Conference: 16th Conference of the European Society of International Law (Reminder)

The 16th Conference of the European Society of International Law will take place September 9-11, 2021, in Stockholm. The format will be hybrid, with panelists present onsite at the conference venue, while other participants can follow onsite or online. The program is here. Registration is now open here.

Blokker, Dam-de Jong, & Prislan: Furthering the Frontiers of International Law: Sovereignty, Human Rights, Sustainable Development - Liber Amicorum Nico Schrijver

Niels M. Blokker (Leiden Univ. - Law), Daniëlla Dam-de Jong (Leiden Univ. - Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies), & Vid Prislan (Univ. of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Center for International Law) have published Furthering the Frontiers of International Law: Sovereignty, Human Rights, Sustainable Development - Liber Amicorum Nico Schrijver (Brill | Nijhoff 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This rich collection focuses on the broad research interests of Professor Nico Schrijver, in whose honour it was created. Written by a wide range of international scholars affiliated with Leiden University's Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, the essays reflect Professor Schrijver's important contribution to academia and practice, particularly in the fields of sovereignty, human rights and sustainable development. The authors aim to reflect on changes in international law and on new developments in the diverse fields they explore. "Furthering frontiers" is the research theme of the Grotius Centre. Its exploration in this thought-provoking volume is a fitting homage to Nico Schrijver's achievements on the occasion of his retirement as Chair of Public International Law of Leiden University.

Freedman, Lemay-Hébert, & Wills: The Law and Practice of Peacekeeping: Foregrounding Human Rights

Rosa Freedman (Univ. of Reading), Nicolas Lemay-Hébert (Australian National Univ.), & Siobhán Wills (Ulster Univ.) have published The Law and Practice of Peacekeeping: Foregrounding Human Rights (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

In an increasingly complex world, it is more crucial than ever to have a full picture of how international peacekeeping can be a force for good, but can also have potentially negative impacts on host communities. After thirteen years of presence in Haiti, the highly controversial United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti has now withdrawn. The UN's legacy in Haiti is not all negative, but it does include sexual scandals, the divisive use of force to 'clean up' difficult neighbourhoods as well as a cholera epidemic, brought inadvertently by Nepalese peacekeepers that killed more than 8,000 Haitians and infected more than 600,000. This book presents a unique multi-disciplinary analysis of the legacy of the mission for Haiti. It presents an innovative account of contemporary international peacekeeping law and practice, arguing for a new model of accountability, going beyond the outdated immunity mechanisms to foreground human rights.

New Issue: International Peacekeeping

The latest issue of International Peacekeeping (Vol. 28, no. 4, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Lara Klossek & Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués, The Female ‘Boot on the Ground’: Indian Ambivalence Over Gender Mainstreaming in UN Peacekeeping Operations
• Timothy Donais & Eric Tanguay, Protection of Civilians and Peacekeeping’s Accountability Deficit
• Oldrich Bures & Eugenio Cusumano, The Anti-Mercenary Norm and United Nations’ Use of Private Military and Security Companies: From Norm Entrepreneurship to Organized Hypocrisy
• Karin Dyrstad, Kristin M. Bakke & Helga M. Binningsbø, Perceptions of Peace Agreements and Political Trust in Post-War Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland
• Edward Newman, Exploring the UK's Doctrine of Humanitarian Intervention
• Janosch Neil Kullenberg, Overlapping Agendas and Peacekeepers’ Ability to Protect

New Volume: Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional

The latest volume of the Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional (Vol. 14, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Virdzhiniya Petrova Georgieva, Hierarchy between Domestic and International Tribunals: Utopia or Near Future?
• Fabiola Jimenez Moran Sotomayor, La Autoridad Internacional de los Fondos Marinos y la explotación sostenible de la Zona
• Jacqueline Hellman, ¿Se encuentra la obligación internacional de rescate en declive ante las políticas estatales de “puertos cerrados”?
• Maria Andrea Bocanegra & Silvana Insignares Cera, Afectación de los derechos colectivos y de la seguridad alimentaria en el fallo de la Corte Internacional de Justicia caso Nicaragua c. Colombia
• Ruth Abril Stoffels & Rosario Ojinaga Ruiz, Los procesos de desvinculación y reintegración de las niñas asociadas con fuerzas o grupos armados: “thinking outside the box”
• Juan Sebastián Vera Sánchez, La cuestión probatoria de la falta de disposición cuando el Estado ha tenido el propósito de sustraer o blindar al individuo de su responsabilidad por los crímenes internacionales

New Volume: Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional

The latest volume of the Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional (Vol. 21, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Doctrina
• Gerhard Niedrist & Aida Figueroa Bello, Hacia una coordinación efectiva entre regímenes especializados para garantizar una interpretación armoniosa en el derecho internacional público moderno
• Alejandro Sánchez González, The Interaction between Convergent and Divergent Approaches of Global Law in the Field of Business and Human Rights
• Jesús E. Sanabria-Moyano, W. Ricardo Rodríguez-Beltrán, & R. E. Gutiérrez-Carvajal, Espacios convencionales de los derechos políticos en las sentencias de la Corte Interamericana a través de un sistema semiautomático de inteligencia artificial
• Elizabeth Jiménez Mora, The Core Elements of Representative Democracy within Inter-American Law
• Lucas Carlos Lima & Lucas Mendes Felippe, A expansão da jurisdição da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos através de opiniões consultivas
• Felipe Ignacio Paredes Paredes, Pueblos indígenas y tribales y derechos humanos en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: una mirada crítica
• Édgar Hernán Fuentes Contreras & Luz Eliyer Cárdenas Contreras, Deferencia a la soberanía nacional. Práctica y doctrina del margen de apreciación nacional en el Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos
• Amael Notini Moreira Bahia, A definição de cursos d’água internacionais e o caso Silala
• María Ángela Sasaki Otani, El derecho internacional de aguas desde una perspectiva latinoamericana: ¿convenciones universales, acuerdos regionales o mantener el statu quo en la región?
• Ricardo Abello-Galvis & Walter Arévalo-Ramírez, La inmunidad de las organizaciones internacionales y de sus funcionarios cuando son nacionales del Estado sede. Diferencias con la inmunidad diplomática y experiencias de la jurisprudencia internacional y colombiana
• Vinicius Hsu Cleto, O fundamento do direito internacional público: uma releitura da Vereinbarung
• Juan Carlos Velázquez Elizarrarás, Derecho internacional penal o derecho penal internacional: una discusión ociosa, a la luz de los principios establecidos en el Estatuto de Roma
• Davorin Lapaš, Sanctioning International Terrorist Organizations (ITOs): The Changing Paradigm of International Legal Personality?
• Xavier J. Ramírez García de León, Requirement of Mens Rea for War Crimes in the Light of the Development of Autonomous Weapons Systems
• Comentarios
• María Helena Carbonell Yánez, Teorías relativas al cumplimiento del derecho internacional público
• André Luiz Valim Vieira, Pacifismo e guerra no pensamento político internacional e a construção de um direito humano e fundamental à paz
• Ana M. Jara Gómez, Kosovo’s Constitutionalism and Some Notes on the Legitimacy of the Spanish Position
• Alexis Rodrigo Laborías, La controversia por el vertedero de residuos en la Cordillera de los Andes. Un estudio de caso acerca de la responsabilidad internacional por daño transfronterizo
• Gabriel Ferrer Ortega, Los primeros arbitrajes internacionales en materia ambiental
• Nuria González Martín, Birthright citizenship: reflexiones en torno a familias, menores y la nacionalidad por derecho de nacimiento en los Estados Unidos de América
• David Moussali Cole, ¿Son los Estados Unidos un paraíso fiscal?
• Rodrigo Lobato Oliveira de Souza, A multifacetária legitimidade da Soft Law e o caso do Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
• Daniel Ángel Borrillo & Víctor Luis Gutiérrez Castillo, Hacia un análisis sistémico del proceso probatorio en materia de asilo por motivo de orientación sexual e identidad de género en el derecho común europeo
• Pietro Sferrazza Taibi, Comentarios a los Principios Rectores para la Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas del Comité contra las Desapariciones Forzadas de Naciones Unidas
• Felipe Augusto Lopes Carvalho, Proteção multinível da liberdade sexual: crime de violação no direito internacional e o caso Bemba Gombo
• Claudia Regina de Oliveira Magalhães da Silva Loureiro, acklash contra o sistema interamericano de direitos humanos. Uma análise sobre o caso Venezuela
• Natalia Beltrán Orjuela & Leydi Marcela Palacios Segura, Estándares convencionales en procedimientos de personas migrantes
• Renata Bregaglio Lazarte & Paula Camino Morgado, Problemas en la frontera: retos migratorios en el Perú desde un enfoque interseccional de discapacidad
• Coyuntura Internacional
• Elena C. Díaz Galán, El Acuerdo de Paz para Colombia. Un singular mecanismo de consolidación de la paz