Conference: The Private Side of Transforming our World – UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Role of Private International Law

On September 9-11, 2021, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law will host a conference in a hybrid format on "The Private Side of Transforming our World – UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Role of Private International Law." Registration is here.

New Issue: International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics

The latest issue of International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics (Vol. 21, no. 3, September 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Tianbao Qin, The evolution and challenges in China’s implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity: a new analytical framework
• Gulzhazira Ilyassova, Aigul Nukusheva, Leila Arenova, Guldana Karzhassova, & Marzhangul Akimzhanova, Prospects of legal regulation in the field of electronic waste management in the context of a circular economy
• Artem Anyshchenko & Jennifer Yarnold, From ‘mad cow’ crisis to synthetic biology: challenges to EU regulation of GMOs beyond the European context
• Achim Hagen, Juan-Carlos Altamirano-Cabrera, & Hans-Peter Weikard, National political pressure groups and the stability of international environmental agreements
• Ted Gleason, Examining host-State counterclaims for environmental damage in investor-State dispute settlement from human rights and transnational public policy perspectives
• Harilaos N. Psaraftis & Thalis Zis, Impact assessment of a mandatory operational goal-based short-term measure to reduce GHG emissions from ships: the LDC/SIDS case study
• Salpie S. Djoundourian, Response of the Arab world to climate change challenges and the Paris agreement
• Tiziano Distefano & Simone D’Alessandro, A new two-nested-game approach: linking micro- and macro-scales in international environmental agreements
• Ewa Krogulec, Jacek Gurwin, & Mirosław Wąsik, Cost of groundwater protection: major groundwater basin protection zones in Poland
• Klaudijo Klaser, Lorenzo Sacconi, & Marco Faillo, John Rawls and compliance to climate change agreements: insights from a laboratory experiment

Ali: Transnational Dispute Settlement Norms: Soft Law and the Role of UNCITRAL's Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific

Shahla F. Ali (Univ. of Hong Kong - Law) has published Forming Transnational Dispute Settlement Norms: Soft Law and the Role of UNCITRAL's Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021). Here's the abstract:

This thought-provoking book examines whether regional centres associated with global legal institutions facilitate expanded citizen engagement in global soft law making. Through an analysis of empirical research into the role of decentralized soft law making in the East Asian region, it investigates the influence of such regional centres in overcoming representational deficits in the design of cross-border dispute settlement norms.

Shahla F. Ali analyses survey data, in-depth case studies and UNCITRAL participation records to provide a comprehensive view of the contributions of Asia Pacific states in the development and refinement of UNCITRAL dispute settlement instruments. She argues that this has corresponded with the emergence of a new form of decentralized transnational legal ordering, advancing representation and legal innovation at both regional and global levels. The book concludes that these findings support the expansion of regional centres in areas with historically limited representation in global law making.

New Issue: Ethics & International Affairs

The latest issue of Ethics & International Affairs (Vol. 35, no. 2, Summer 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Roundtable: The Responsibility to Protect in a Changing World Order
• Michael Ignatieff, The Responsibility to Protect in a Changing World Order: Twenty Years since Its Inception
• Adrian Gallagher & Nicholas J. Wheeler, Trust or Perish? The Responsibility to Protect and Use of Force in a Changing World Order
• Cristina G. Stefan, The Responsibility to Protect: Locating Norm Entrepreneurship
• Luke Glanville & James Pattison, Where to Protect? Prioritization and the Responsibility to Protect
• Jennifer M. Welsh, The Security Council's Role in Fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect
• Features
• Daniele Amoroso & Guglielmo Tamburrini, Toward a Normative Model of Meaningful Human Control over Weapons Systems
• Patricia Goff, Inclusive Trade: Justice, Innovation, or More of the Same?
• Review Essay
• Andrea C. Simonelli, Climate Displacement and the Legal Gymnastics of Justice: Is It All Political?

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 25, no. 7, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Echoes from the Woods: At the Crossroads of Forest Struggles and Human Rights in Postcolonial India
• Rahul Ranjan & Prakash Kashwan, Echoes from the woods: at the crossroads of forest struggles and human rights in postcolonial India
• Anjana Singh, State, forest and Adivasis at crossroads: Netarhat field firing range and contestations over rights
• Eva Davidsdottir, Our rights are carved in stone: the case of the Pathalgadi movement in Simdega, Jharkhand
• Shaunna Rodrigues, Excluded Areas as the limit of the political: the murky boundaries of Scheduled Areas in India
• Arpitha Kodiveri, Our land is banked: forest rights, consent and the invention of a legal exception as land banks
• Gunjan Wadhwa, (Un)Doing rights: Adivasi participation in governance discourses in an area of civil unrest in India
• Prakash Kashwan, Ishan Kukreti & Rahul Ranjan, The UN declaration on the rights of peasants, national policies, and forestland rights of India’s Adivasis

Arato: The Elastic Corporate Form in International Law

Julian Arato (Brooklyn Law School) has posted The Elastic Corporate Form in International Law (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The modern corporate form is marked by a set of basic hallmarks across national legal systems — such as separate personality, limited liability, and managerial control. These basic features are central to the success of the corporation as a vehicle for efficiently organizing capital at scale and managing risk. And their commonality across legal orders makes the corporate form reliable for stakeholders across borders, including owners, creditors, and governments. These features explain the prevalence of corporations in cross-border investment projects.

Yet in international law, the corporate form has begun to break down. This has been most surprising and impactful in the law of foreign investment, where one would expect the stability and efficiency of corporate formalities to matter most. The prime driver is investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), a treaty-based system which allows corporate investors to sue sovereign states in independent and highly enforceable international arbitration. ISDS tribunals have varied wildly in their respect for basic corporate formalities. The cases exhibit a plasticity in the corporate form that undermines the basic expectations of, and relationships among, all stakeholders — with costs for shareholders, management, creditors, governments and peoples.

This Article makes four main contributions. First, it identifies a fundamental but overlooked elasticity in how international law grapples with corporate law. Second, I show how this distorts the corporate form, with inefficient and unfair consequences. Ex ante, it drives up the costs of doing business for all concerned — the opposite of what investment treaties are designed to achieve. Ex post, it tends to allow a privileged class to secure more than they paid for. Third, I offer a coherent, if troubling, account of ISDS’ inconsistent formalism. The pattern of cases cannot be explained doctrinally or functionally. The best account is rather an ex post story of tribunals consistently expanding claimants’ access to arbitration — at the expense of investors’ and states’ ex ante interests in enhancing transactional efficiency. Finally, I argue that this account points toward a broader divergence between the stated purposes of ISDS and its practical functions. This regime is regularly pitched as a vehicle for promoting efficient investment, but this goal has been gradually subordinated to concerns of expanding (privileged) access to justice through claims to damages. From the perspective of international law, the basic structure of the corporate form is being sacrificed at the altar of investors’ private right of action.

Hsieh: Shaping New Interregionalism: The EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement and Beyond

Pasha L. Hsieh (Singapore Management Univ. - Law) has posted Shaping New Interregionalism: The EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement and Beyond (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The article examines the theoretical concept of interregionalism in the context of the evolving framework between the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). As the EU’s first free trade agreement (FTA) with an ASEAN country, the EU-Singapore FTA is a pathfinder agreement that signifies a new phase of interregionalism and the EU’s new Asia strategy after the Treaty of Lisbon. The article argues that the innovative designs of the EU-Singapore FTA will shape the normative development of EU-ASEAN relations in the post-pandemic era. It also cautions that a comparative analysis of EU and US agreements reveals deficiencies in the FTA that requires remedies. To buttress the contention, key provisions on ASEAN cumulative rules of origin, banking and legal services and non-tariff barriers are analyzed in light of contemporary Asian agreements. The research further provides insight into the effectiveness of new-generation rules on geographical indications, competition, and investor-state arbitration and mediation. Hence, the findings contribute to the understanding of interregionalism and the EU’s Asia-Pacific trade and investment agreements from global and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Gathii & Puig: The West and the Unraveling of the Economic World Order: Thoughts from a Global South Perspective

James Thuo Gathii (Loyola Univ. Chicago - Law) & Sergio Puig (Univ. of Arizona - Law) have posted The West and the Unraveling of the Economic World Order: Thoughts from a Global South Perspective (in Is the International Legal Order Unraveling?, David L. Sloss ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The disenchantment with the current international economic order is real and it is not new; the problems lie deep. We need an inclusive and legitimate way to eliminate the inequities built within the global economic order. Resolving these structural issues will require unprecedented reforms that make international economic law more equitable and democratic and address its racist origins. For that reason, we depart from the proposal in David Sloss’s introduction to this book to the extent it is predicated on preserving “a rules-based international order that is consistent with liberal, democratic values.” We propose instead a deeper engagement with the legacies of colonial dispossession and postcolonial exploitation of the Global South that lie at the heart of the current global economic order. That deeper engagement can provide a foundation for a more profound and progressive transformation of international economic law.

Beaucillon: Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions

Charlotte Beaucillon (Univ. of Lille - Law) has published Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021). Here's the abstract:

Providing a unique analytical framework to capture a diverse, fragmented and highly evolving practice, the Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions is the key original reference work covering how sanctions have indisputably become central instruments of foreign policy.

This discerning Research Handbook combines a series of case studies and cross-cutting analyses. It reflects the levers and evolution of international law and practice in the field, as well as covering important topics over multiple disciplines, particularly in international law and international relations. Featuring diverse contributions from a selection of esteemed scholars, the Research Handbook’s chapters provide an unprecedented analysis of the evolution of diplomatic, legal and business practices and tackle topical legal issues arising from unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions.

Call for Papers: Building a Sustainable Future: New Asian Regionalism in International Economic Law

A call for papers has been issued for the seventh Asian International Economic Law Network conference, which is to take place online December 9-10, 2021. The theme is: "Building a Sustainable Future: New Asian Regionalism in International Economic Law." The call is here.

New Issue: Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law

The latest issue of the Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (Vol. 30, no. 2, July 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The Amazon Rainforest
• Ricardo Pereira & Beatriz Garcia, Editorial: The legal protection of the Amazon rainforest
• Maria Antonia Tigre, COVID-19 and Amazonia: Rights-based approaches for the pandemic response
• Justine Bendel & Tim Stephens, Turning to international litigation to protect the Amazon?
• Ricardo Pereira, Public participation, indigenous peoples’ land rights and major infrastructure projects in the Amazon: The case for a human rights assessment framework
• Joana Setzer & Délton Winter de Carvalho, Climate litigation to protect the Brazilian Amazon: Establishing a constitutional right to a stable climate
• Beatriz Garcia, Lawrence Rimmer, Leticia Canal Vieira, & Brendan Mackey, REDD+ and forest protection on indigenous lands in the Amazon
• Maria-Augusta Paim, Zero deforestation in the Amazon: The Soy Moratorium and global forest governance
• Regular Articles
• Stefan Mayr, Birgit Hollaus, & Verena Madner, Palm oil, the RED II and WTO law: EU sustainable biofuel policy tangled up in green?
• Timo Gerres, Manuel Haussner, Karsten Neuhoff, & Alice Pirlot, To ban or not to ban carbon-intensive materials: A legal and administrative assessment of product carbon requirements
• Hilmer J. Bosch, Joyeeta Gupta, & Hebe Verrest, A water property right inventory of 60 countries
• Case Note
• Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh & Ashleigh McCoach, The State of the Netherlands v Urgenda Foundation: Distilling best practice and lessons learnt for future rights-based climate litigation

Call for Papers: Sanctions and Africa: an International Law and Politics Conference

Coventry University, the Graduate Institute Geneva, and the University of Pretoria have issued a call for papers for a conference on “Sanctions and Africa: An International Law and Politics Conference,” to be held December 9-10, 2021, in person in London and online. The call is here.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: The Anthropology of International Law

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on "The Anthropology of International Law." The symposium includes an introduction by Annelise Riles and contributions by Rachel Sieder, Galit A. Sarfaty, Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, Mark Goodale, and Maria Sapignoli.

Webinar Series: Biodiversity Law and Governance

The Centre for Environmental Law of Macquarie University has announced the second session of its webinar series on "Biodiversity Law and Governance." The program is here. The first lecture will be delivered by Holly Doremus (Univ. of California, Berkeley - Law) on August 25, 2021. Details and registration are here.

Call for Papers: Business and Human Rights (Early Career Scholars)

The IFIM Law School has issued a call for papers for early career scholars for a research colloquium on "Business and Human Rights," to take place virtually on October 23, 2021. The call is here.

Zeller, Mohanty, & Garimella: Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards and the Public Policy Exception

Bruno Zeller (Univ. of Western Australia - Law), Gautam Mohanty (Jindal Global Law School), & Sai Ramani Garimella (South Asian Univ. - Law) have published Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards and the Public Policy Exception: Including an Analysis of South Asian State Practice (Springer 2021). Here's the abstract:

The book presents arguments derived from primary sources related to international arbitration in South Asian jurisdictions, a list of the same is made available therein. The book is a research statement on the contemporary concerns within international commercial arbitration, especially related to enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Importantly, the book through a unique methodology of interface, presents the gratuitous nature of Article 34 of the UNCITRAL Model Law when read with Article V of the New York Convention, especially the plea to the States within Article VII of the same Convention to ease the restrictions and the process of enforceability of foreign arbitral awards. The book also articulates another important and immediate need with regard to international arbitration – the delimitation of public policy exception to recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. It critiques the jurisprudence related to arbitration in jurisdictions spread across different geographic regions, thereby enabling the reader to gain an insight into their practices, apart from ensuring a comparative perspective. The book addresses the primary concern related to international arbitration – enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and the grounds for challenges articulated within the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law. It addresses these grounds, and articulates the necessity for carving the criteria for the application of public policy exception.

Call for Papers: Challenges and Trends on Migration

IFIM Law School, in collaboration with Centre for Peace Studies, Bangladesh, has issued a call for papers for an online conference on "Challenges and Trends on Migration." The call is here.

Soirila: The Law of Humanity Project: A Story of International Law Reform and State-making

Ukri Soirila (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) has published The Law of Humanity Project: A Story of International Law Reform and State-making (Hart Publishing 2021). Here's the abstract:

This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the role of humanity in international law, offering a fresh perspective to a discussions with global implications. The 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed the sporadic emergence of a new vision of global law. Although the vision has taken many different forms, all instances of it have been uniform in the attempt of radically altering how we understand international law by seeking to posit the human as the primary subject of the international legal order and humanity as its main source of legitimacy. Together, this book calls these instances “the law of humanity project”. In so doing, it also paints a picture of and critically assesses a particular moment in the history of international law – a moment which may have already come to a sudden end as a consequence of the current populist backlash in world politics, but during which it seemed inevitable that the law of humanity vision would come to play an increasingly important role in world affairs.