Young: Human Rights Originalism

Katharine Young (Boston College - Law) has posted Human Rights Originalism (Georgetown Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Are human rights to be found in living instruments and practices that adapt to changing circumstances, or must they be interpreted according to their original meaning? That question, so heavily debated in the context of the rights of the U.S. Constitution, was never seriously on the table until 2020. But when former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for “fresh thinking” about human rights, and its connection with “our nation’s founding principles,” he brokered a return to two landmark instruments of human rights—the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. His Commission on Unalienable Rights obliged, presenting the familiar tropes of fixed sources, venerated authorship, and national identity, in order to accomplish a drastically different presentation of the meaning of human rights. The end result is an act of fusion—the powerful political and cultural valence of America’s constitutional originalism, applied to the human rights of American foreign policy.

This Article identifies this innovation as “human rights originalism.” Although the Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights has, at least for now, been shelved, human rights originalism may be one of the most enduring legacies of the Trump Administration. As an interpretive theory, human rights originalism promises many of the same benefits as its constitutional counterpart—simplicity, popular reach, and control of rights’ unruliness and proliferation—this time wrested from unaccountable United Nations institutions and experts rather than courts. As a substantive departure from contemporary human rights, human rights originalism elevates the importance of religious freedom and property rights, and provides a selective diminishment of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and racial equality, mirroring and further cementing current trends in originalist constitutional doctrine. The four standard epistemic communities that supply “meaning” to human rights—in the international, comparative, transnational, and philosophical domains—are all rejected by originalism, just as those domains are themselves inimical to it.

This homegrown form of human rights argument is significant for human rights law and foreign policy, but so too is it significant for originalism itself. In propelling originalism into the uncompromisingly global domain of human rights, originalism’s proponents expose the nationalism and exceptionalism that are perhaps its most unsettling features. At the same time, originalism’s own malleability is highlighted in its adaptiveness to the modern administrative state and the promises of the postwar period.

New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 23, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Thomas Cottier, Linking the Traits of International Economic Law
• Special Issue: Ocean Governance and Sustainable Development of the Blue Economy
• Tarique Faiyaz & Abdullah Al Arif, Towards a Blue Revolution in the Bay of Bengal: Tackling Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Through Effective Regional Cooperation
• Lorena Carvajal-Arenas, The Blue Economy in Small-Scale Fisheries – An Ocean-Land Interface Perspective: The Case of Chile as Support for a Generalizable Analysis for Latin America
• Mariela de Amstalden, Seafood Without the Sea: Article 20 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the ‘Justifiability Test’ and Innovative Technologies in a Sustainable Blue Economy
• Leïla Choukroune & James J. Nedumpara, Blue Trade and Forced Labour: Breaking the Resounding Silence of International Economic Law
• Sam Luttrell, Matthew Di Marco, & Amelia Hirst, Deep Seabed Mining: Dispute Resolution Mechanisms for Non-State Actors

New Issue: International Journal of Transitional Justice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice (Vol. 15, no. 3, November 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• M Brinton Lykes & Hugo van der Merwe, Apologies for and Acknowledgements of Historical Violence and Struggles for Justice
• Articles
• Robin Hickey & Rachel Killean, Property Loss and Cultural Heritage Restoration in the Aftermath of Genocide: Understanding Harm and Conceptualising Repair
• Emily Willard, Beyond Transitional Justice: Learning from Indigenous Maya Mam Resistance in Guatemala
• Daniel Posthumus & Kelebogile Zvobgo, Democratizing Truth: An Analysis of Truth Commissions in the United States
• Nicolas Lemay-Hébert & Rosa Freedman, Appraising the Socio-Economic Turn in Reparations: Transitional Justice for Cholera Victims in Haiti
• Juliana González Villamizar & Pascha Bueno-Hansen, The Promise and Perils of Mainstreaming Intersectionality in the Colombian Peace Process
• Brigitte Herremans & Tine Destrooper, Stirring the Justice Imagination: Countering the Invisibilization and Erasure of Syrian Victims’ Justice Narratives
• Aminata Ndow, Knowing What I Know Now: Youth Experiences of Dictatorship and Transitional Justice in the Gambia
• Ciara Laverty & Dieneke de Vos, Reproductive Violence as a Category of Analysis: Disentangling the Relationship between ‘the Sexual’ and ‘the Reproductive’ in Transitional Justice
• Annika Björkdahl & Louise Warvsten, Friction in Transitional Justice Processes: The Colombian Judicial System and the ICC
• Kevin Hearty, Truth Beyond the ‘Trigger Puller’: Moral Accountability, Transitional (In)Justice and the Limitations of Legal Truth
• Review Essay
• Padraig McAuliffe, Complicity or Decolonization? Restitution of Heritage from ‘Global’ Ethnographic Museums

Rachovitsa: Léon Mugesera: A Convicted Genocidaire Seeking Justice before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights?

Mando Rachovitsa (Univ. of Groningen - Law) has posted Léon Mugesera: A Convicted Genocidaire Seeking Justice before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights? (Harvard Human Rights Journal Online). Here's the abstract:

This Article discusses the Léon Mugesera v. Republic of Rwanda judgment issued by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR), in November 2020, concerning Léon Mugesera, a convicted genocidaire from Rwanda. In 2016, Mugesera was convicted by the Rwandan courts of incitement to genocide and sentenced to life in prison for giving the infamous Mugesera speech, an inflammatory anti-Tutsi speech which was broadcasted on public radio in November 1993, a few months before the outbreak of the genocide in Rwanda. He appealed the Rwandan decision in the Court of Appeal and also resorted to the ACtHPR alleging violations of the right to a fair trial, the right to the respect of the human dignity, the right to his physical and mental integrity, and the right to family under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). A few months before the ACtHPR issued its judgment, the Rwandan Court of Appeal found Mugesera guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and persecution as a crime against humanity, among other crimes, and upheld the life sentence imposed on him.

The ACtHPR’s Mugesera judgment is of particular interest for three reasons. First, Léon Mugesera is the second case, following Ingabire Victoire Umuhoza v. Republic of Rwanda, in which the ACtHPR has found that Rwanda violated the ACHPR. Both cases involved aspects of Rwanda’s genocidal past. Second, Rwanda did not appear before the ACtHPR to defend itself and the Court had to address the difficulties posed by the respondent state’s absence with regard to deciding the merits of the case. Third, the ACtHPR awarded the applicant a considerable amount of money for pecuniary reparations, bringing to the fore the question of whether one’s prior conviction to inciting ethnic hatred and persecution as a crime against humanity could, or should, preclude such compensation.

This Article starts off with discussing the personal jurisdiction of the ACtHPR and it subsequently turns to explain the merits of the complaints raised by the applicant. The analysis proceeds to critically reflect upon the ACtHPR’s approach with regard to cases of non-appearance of the respondent state and awarding reparation for moral damages.

New Issue: International Organization

The latest issue of International Organization (Vol. 76, no. 1, Winter 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Chin-Hao Huang & David C. Kang, State Formation in Korea and Japan, 400–800 CE: Emulation and Learning, Not Bellicist Competition
• Cameron Ballard-Rosa, Layna Mosley, & Rachel L. Wellhausen, Coming to Terms: The Politics of Sovereign Bond Denomination
• Leonardo Baccini, Mattia Guidi, Arlo Poletti, & Aydin B. Yildirim, Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Institutions
• Robert Gulotty & Dorothy Kronick, The Arbitrage Lobby: Theory and Evidence on Dual Exchange Rates
• Kevin Russell & Nicholas Sambanis, Stopping the Violence but Blocking the Peace: Dilemmas of Foreign-Imposed Nation Building After Ethnic War
• Christopher W. Blair, Erica Chenoweth, Michael C. Horowitz, Evan Perkoski, & Philip B.K. Potter, Honor Among Thieves: Understanding Rhetorical and Material Cooperation Among Violent Nonstate Actors
• Review Essay
• Jorg Kustermans & Rikkert Horemans, Four Conceptions of Authority in International Relations
• Research Notes
• Randall W. Stone, Yu Wang, & Shu Yu, Chinese Power and the State-Owned Enterprise
• Tamar Mitts, Countering Violent Extremism and Radical Rhetoric

New Issue: Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law and Policy

The latest issue of the Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law and Policy (Vol. 16, no. 2, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Chang-fa Lo & Tang-Kai Wang, From Addressing Trade Distortion to Correcting Environmental Distortion: The Fisheries Subsidies Negotiation as the Turning Point of the WTO’s Task
• Sherzod Shadikhodjaev, Steel Overcapacity and the Global Trading System
• Qingjiang Kong & Li Chen, Will China Redefine International Trade Norms?
• Fernando Dias Simões, Pandemics, Travel Restrictions, and the Distancing from International Law
• Raymond Yang Gao, The Role of Public International Law in Integrating Human Rights Considerations in Investment Treaty Arbitration
• Ying-Jun Lin, The Interaction Between Adjudicators and Legislative States Behind the Balancing Analysis in International Trade Law and Investment Law
• Pei-kan Yang, Reinforcing Dispute Settlement Mechanism Under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as an Option to Solve Trade/Investment-Related Tobacco Disputes
• Liping Huang, Establishing Extraterritorial Jurisdiction of Home State for Investor Accountability: English and Dutch Anchoring Mechanism and an IIA Complement or Alternative
• Sadiya S. Silvee & Ximei Wu, International Food Law: Historical Development and Need of Comprehensive Law

Werner: Repetition and International Law

Wouter Werner (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam - Law) has published Repetition and International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022). Here's the abstract:

Acts of repetition abound in international law. Security Council Resolutions typically start by recalling, recollecting, recognising or reaffirming previous resolutions. Expert committees present restatements of international law. Students and staff extensively rehearse fictitious cases in presentations for moot court competitions. Customary law exists by virtue of repeated behaviour and restatements about the existence of rules. When sources of international law are deployed, historically contingent events are turned into manifestations of pre-given and repeatable categories. This book studies the workings of repetition across six discourses and practices in international law. It links acts of repetition to similar practices in religion, theatre, film and commerce. Building on the dialectics of repetition as set out by Søren Kierkegaard, it examines how repetition in international law is used to connect concrete practices to something that is bound to remain absent, unspeakable or unimaginable.

New Issue: Humanity

The latest issue of Humanity (Vol. 12, no. 3, Winter 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and "The Third World": An Alternative History of the End of Ideology Debate
• Stacey Hynd, Constructing the Child Soldier Crisis: Violence, Victimhood, and the Development of Transnational Advocacy Against the Recruitment and Use of Children in Conflict, Circa 1970–2000
• Dossier: Deexceptionalizing Displacement
• Heath Cabot & Georgina Ramsay, Deexceptionalizing Displacement: An Introduction
• Bridget Anderson, Methodological De-Nationalism: De-Exceptionalizing Displacement, Re-Exceptionalizing Citizenship
• Michelle Munyikwa, Locating Refuge: Racialized Displacement and the Spatial Politics of Belonging
• Nicole Constable, Simultaneous Citizen and Noncitizen: Displacement, Precarity, and Passports in Hong Kong
• Susan Bibler Coutin, Jennifer M. Chacón, Stephen Lee, Sameer Ashar, & Jason Palmer, Shapeshifting Displacement: Notions of Membership and Deservingness Forged by Illegalized Residents
• Heike Drotbohm, "Not A Cozy Dwelling": Exploring Aspirational Anxieties and the Politics of Displacement in São Paulo's Squats
• Georgina Ramsay, Displacement and the Capitalist Order of Things

Manthey: Amnestiegesetze und Rule of Law im Völkerrecht

Leslie Manthey has published Amnestiegesetze und Rule of Law im Völkerrecht: Die völkerrechtliche Einhegung innerstaatlicher Amnestien: Verrechtlichung des Politischen oder Politisierung des Rechts? (Mohr Siebeck 2022). Here's the abstract:

Im internationalen Diskurs hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten ein Wandel beim Blick auf nationale Amnestien für Völkerstraftaten und schwere Menschenrechtsverletzungen stattgefunden: Während Amnestien Mitte der 1980er Jahre als Instrumente für den Schutz der Menschenrechte galten, scheint ihr Erlass seit Ende des Kalten Krieges keine Option mehr zu sein. Eine dogmatische Untersuchung offenbart allerdings, dass sich Amnestien – mit Ausnahme bestimmter regionaler Menschenrechtsabkommen – trotzdem in vielen Bereichen der völkerrechtlichen Einhegung widersetzen. Leslie Manthey erklärt dies mithilfe eines Ansatzes, der Recht als Form der politischen Imagination versteht. Die internationale Strafjustiz mit ihrem Anspruch auf Überwindung innerstaatlicher Amnestien, präsentiert demnach eine Botschaft, die in der Behauptung des Rechts gegenüber dem Politischen besteht. Wie die Genealogie der Menschenrechte, kann dieses Unterfangen in einer dialektischen Gegenbewegung in sein Gegenteil umschlagen und selbst zur politischen Utopie werden. Dies zeigt sich insbesondere in der Amnestiedebatte.

New Issue: Legal Issues of Economic Integration

The latest issue of Legal Issues of Economic Integration (Vol. 49, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• From the Board: Finalising the Sustainable Finance Regulatory Agenda
• Monica Thomas, To Waive or not to Waive: International Patent Protection and the Covid-19 Pandemic
• Augustin Chapuis-Doppler & Vincent Delhomme, Regulating Composite Platform Economy Services: Examining the Applicable Legal Framework in Light of Recent Judicial Developments
• Morgan Blaschke-Broad, International Abuses, EU Solutions: Using EU Structures to Address the Challenges of International Antitrust
• Julien Chaisse & Xueliang Ji, Stress Test for EU’s Investment Court System: How Will Investments Be Protected in the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment?

New Issue: Rivista di Diritto Internazionale

The latest issue of the Rivista di Diritto Internazionale (Vol. 104, no. 4, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Articoli
• A. Gianelli, The Notion of General Principles of International Law at the Time of Its Codification
• C. Ceretelli, Beyond the Silence of the International Court of Justice on Abuse of Process
• Note e Commenti
• F. Vismara, L’Organizzazione mondiale delle dogane: caratteri, funzioni e attività normativa
• Necrologio
• P. Mori, Ricordo di Giuseppe Tesauro
• Panorama
• F. Salerno, Sulla natura della sentenza internazionale che delimita i confini marittimi
• A. Leandro, Verso una zona economica esclusiva italiana
• L. Salvadego, La decisione della Corte penale internazionale nel caso Ongwen e la rilevanza delle cause di esclusione della responsabilità individuale
• M. Buscemi, Le recenti sanzioni adottate dall’Organizzazione per la proibizione delle armi chimiche nei confronti della Siria
• A. Di Blase, La genitorialità della coppia di sesso femminile in tre recenti sentenze della Corte di cassazione

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

The Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law, a publication of the Institute of International Legal Studies University of the Philippines Law Center and the International Committee of the Red Cross, has issued a call for submissions for its 2022 volume. The call is here. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Workshop: Paparinskis on "Crippling Compensation after the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo Case"

On February 23, 2022, the Athens PIL Discussion Group will host an online discussion with Martins Paparinskis (Univ. College London - Law) on "Crippling Compensation after the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo Case." Details are here.

de Londras: The Practice and Problems of Transnational Counter-Terrorism

Fiona de Londras (Univ. of Birmingham - Law) has published The Practice and Problems of Transnational Counter-Terrorism (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022). Here's the abstract:

The attacks of 9/11 kickstarted the development of a pervasive and durable transnational counter-terrorism order. This has evolved into a vast institutional architecture with direct effects on domestic law around the world and a number of impacts on everyday life that are often poorly understood. States found, fund and lead institutions inside and outside the United Nations that develop and consolidate transnational counter-terrorism through hard and soft law, strategies, capacity building and counter-terrorism 'products'. These institutions and laws underpin the expansion of counter-terrorism, so that new fields of activity get drawn into it, and others are securitised through their reframing as counter-terrorism and 'preventing and countering extremism'. Drawing on insights from law, international relations, political science and security studies, this book demonstrates the international, regional, national and personal impacts of this institutional and legal order. Fiona de Londras demonstrates that it is expansionary, rights-limiting and unaccountable.

Negishi: Conventionality Control of Domestic Law: Constitutionalised International Adjudication and Internationalised Constitutional Adjudication

Yota Negishi (Seinan Gakuin Univ. - Law) has published Conventionality Control of Domestic Law: Constitutionalised International Adjudication and Internationalised Constitutional Adjudication (Nomos 2022). Here's the abstract:

Through gaining lessons from the doctrine of constitutionality control, the book deals principally with conventionality control achieved by judicial adjudicators. This monograph fills the gap in comparative international human rights law by analysing the practice of conventionality control in Europe and Latin America. Based on the empirical data, the author normatively envisions a ‘trapezium’ model of conventionality control with the features of openness, substantivism and human-centrism, which overcomes the limits of the closed, formalist, and State-centric ‘pyramid‘ model.

New Issue: Revue Générale de Droit International Public

The latest issue of the Revue Générale de Droit International Public (Vol. 125, no. 4, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Robert Charvin, Observations sur le droit à la santé, à l’occasion de la pandémie du Covid-19 : l’OMS, le nationalisme sanitaire des Etats, l’industrie pharmaceutique
• Etienne Marque, Quelle place pour la Rule of Capture dans l’exploitation des gisements offshore africains?
• Note
• Armen Harutyunyan, Quelques questions concernant la méthodologie de l’approche de la CEDH au problème de la juridiction des Etats

New Issue: Journal of International Arbitration

The latest issue of the Journal of International Arbitration (Vol. 39, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Kimberley A. Wade & Ula Cartwright-Finch, The Science of Witness Memory: Implications for Practice and Procedure in International Arbitration
• Cameron Ford, The Lost Precedents of Arbitration
• Patrick Leonard & Hayley O’Donnell, Arbitration in Derivatives Contracts
• Lucia Bizikova, On Route to Climate Justice: The Greta Effect on International Commercial Arbitration
• Alice Stocker, De-biasing Counsel: A Call for Agile Minds in Arbitration
• Saudin J. Mwakaje & Nuhu S. Mkumbukwa, The New Arbitration Law in Tanzania: An Appraisal of Its Salient Features and Implications for Investment Disputes Settlement

Slim: Solferino 21: Warfare, Civilians and Humanitarians in the Twenty-First Century

Hugo Slim (Univ. of Oxford - Las Casas Institute for Social Justice) has published Solferino 21: Warfare, Civilians and Humanitarians in the Twenty-First Century (Hurst 2022). Here's the abstract:

War is at a tipping point: we’re passing from the age of industrial warfare to a new era of computerised warfare, and a renewed risk of great-power conflict. Humanitarian response is also evolving fast—‘big aid’ demands more and more money, while aid workers try to digitalise, preparing to meet ever-broader needs in the long, big wars and climate crisis of the future.

This book draws on the founding moment of the modern Red Cross movement—the 1859 Battle of Solferino, a moment of great change in the nature of conflict—to track the big shifts already underway, and still to come, in the wars and war aid of our century. Hugo Slim first surveys the current landscape: the tech, politics, law and strategy of warfare, and the long-term transformations ahead as conflict goes digital. He then explains how civilians both suffer and survive in today’s wars, and how their world is changing. Finally, he critiques today’s humanitarian system, citing the challenges of the 2020s.

Inspired by Henri Dunant’s seminal humanitarian text, Solferino 21 alerts policymakers to the coming shakeup of the military and aid professions, illuminating key priorities for the new century. Humanitarians, he warns, must adapt or fail.

New Issue: GlobaLex

The latest issue of GlobaLex (January/February 2022) includes the following:

• Md. Toriqul Islam, A Brief Introduction to the Right to Privacy – An International Legal Perspective
• Cyril Emery, United Nations Administrative Law

Events at the Centre for International Law and Human Rights at Lancaster University

The Centre for International Law and Human Rights at Lancaster University Law School is organising the following events:

• Tsvetelina van Bentham (Oxford University) and Duncan Hollis (Temple University), ‘Threatening Force in Cyberspace’, Thursday, 24 February 12.30-13.30 (GMT) https://tinyurl.com/vanBenthemHollis
• Christy Shucksmith-Wesley and Rebecca Hall (Nottingham University), ‘Health and Disasters: International Law and Disaster Risk Reduction’, Thursday, 10 March 12.00-13.00 (GMT) https://tinyurl.com/ShucksmithWesleyHall
• Katharina Rogalla von Bieberstein (International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions, Copenhagen), ‘Establishing the International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions (ICARS): Tackling the Silent Pandemic of Antimicrobial Resistance in Low- and Middle-Income Countries’, Thursday, 17 March 12.00-13.00 (GMT) https://tinyurl.com/RogallavonBieberstein

New Issue: International Theory

The latest issue of International Theory (Vol. 14, no. 1, March 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
  • Sarah Teo, Toward a differentiation-based framework for middle power behavior
  • Lee McConnell, Opportunity and impasse: social change and the limits of international legal strategy
  • Sinan Chu, Whither Chinese IR? The Sinocentric subject and the paradox of Tianxia-ism
  • Quentin Bruneau, Converging paths: bounded rationality, practice theory and the study of change in historical international relations
• Book Symposium: Alexander Wendt, Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology
• Toni Erskine, Stefano Guzzini, & David A. Welch, Preface
• Alexander Wendt, Why IR scholars should care about quantum theory, part I: burdens of proof and uncomfortable facts
• Andrew H. Kydd, Our place in the universe: Alexander Wendt and quantum mechanics
• Fred Chernoff, ‘Truth’, ‘justice’, and the American wave… function: comments on Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science
• Sergei Prozorov, Otherwise than quantum
• Friedrich Kratochwil, The strange fate of the morphed ‘rump materialism’: a comment on the vagaries of social science as seen through Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science
• Kimberly Hutchings, Empire and insurgency: the politics of truth in Alexander Wendt's Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology
• Alexander Wendt, Why IR scholars should care about quantum theory, part II: critics in the PITs

New Issue: Vereinte Nationen

The latest issue of Vereinte Nationen (Vol. 69, no. 6, 2021). Contents include:

• Schwerpunkt: UNgleiche Nationen
• Albert Denk, Ein internationales Ziel zur Reduzierung von Ungleichheit
• Drei Fragen an | Emma Webb
• Valentin Lang, Vereint in Ungleichheit
• Steffen Bauer, Klima der Ungerechtigkeit
• Im Diskurs
• »Die Menschen möchten das Rad zurückdrehen.« Interview mit Christine Schraner Burgener, ehemalige UN-Sondergesandte für Myanmar
• Michael Bohnet, Standpunkt | Was nottut: nachhaltige Wirtschaftskooperation
• Ben Christian, Notwendige ›Heuchelei‹

New Issue: Global Responsibility to Protect

The latest issue of Global Responsibility to Protect (Vol. 14, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Bina D’Costa, Tigray’s Complex Emergency, Expulsions and the Aspirations of the Responsibility to Protect
• Cecilia Jimenez-Damary, The International Response to the Situation in Tigray: A Concerted Effort by Both the Humanitarian and Human Rights Communities
• Fisseha Fantahun Tefera, The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2417 on Starvation and Armed Conflicts and Its Limits: Tigray/Ethiopia as an Example
• Jonathan Fisher, #HandsoffEthiopia: ‘Partiality’, Polarization and Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict
• Samuel Ayele Bekalo, The Potential Impacts of the Stability/Instability of the Tigray Region and the Whole of Ethiopia on the Wider East and Horn of Africa
• Zain Maulana & Edward Newman, Contesting the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ in Southeast Asia: Rejection or Normative Resistance?
• Felicity Mulford, Circumventing the Responsibility to Protect in Yemen: Rhetorical Adaptation and the United Nations Security Council
• James Pattison, Beyond Imperfection: The Demands of the International Responsibility to Protect
• Uğur Ümit Üngör, ‘Grim Optimism’: Protecting Civilians from Atrocities
• Susanne Karstedt, The Usage and Usefulness of History
• Luke Glanville, An Imperfect Response to My Critics

New Issue: Swiss Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Swiss Review of International and European Law (Vol. 31, no. 5, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• 4th Young European Law Scholars Conference
• Christina Neier, Odile Ammann, Reto Walther, Marisa Beier & Katja Achermann, Back to Beginnings: Revisiting the Preambles of European Treaties
• Nicholas Otto, A Matter of Democracy? How (Not) to Interpret Provisions on Institutions and Procedures in EU Constitutional Law. On the Interpretation-Guiding Function of Preambles in EU Law
• Darren Harvey, Brexit and a Breach of Good Faith?
• Nicole Nickerson, Is Europe Failing Its "Humanist Inheritance"? - Critical Normative Humanism and EU Immigration Law
• Stefano Angeleri, The Descriptive Value and Normative Force of the Preambles to the Treaties making up the European Social Charter System

Riepl: Russian Contributions to International Humanitarian Law

Michael Riepl has published Russian Contributions to International Humanitarian Law: A contrastive analysis of Russia’s historical role and its current practice (Nomos 2022). Here's the abstract:

Has Russia turned from “Paul to Saul” with regards to international humanitarian law (IHL)? This book aims to answer this question by contrasting the past and the present. Firstly, it offers a comprehensive account of the remarkable Russian contributions to IHL since 1850. Secondly, it analyses Russia’s current approach to IHL, drawing on a wide range of legislation, case law, diplomatic records, and military practice. Finally, the author contrasts the past and the present – not without embedding his findings in the changed context of our time. The book is aimed at international law experts as well as people interested in legal history. Its author is an IHL researcher and practitioner with extensive experience in the post-soviet world.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Shaffer's "Governing the Interface of U.S.-China Trade Relations”

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on Gregory Shaffer's article "Governing the Interface of U.S.-China Trade Relations.” The symposium includes an introduction by Harlan Grant Cohen and contributions by Robert Howse, Henry Gao, Jingyuan (Joey) Zhou, and Kristen Hopewell.

De Lucia, Oude Elferink, & Nguyen: International Law and Marine Areas beyond National Jurisdiction: Reflections on Justice, Space, Knowledge and Power

Vito De Lucia (UiT the Arctic Univ. of Norway), Alex Oude Elferink (Utrecht Univ. - Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea), & Lan Ngoc Nguyen (Utrecht Univ. - Law) have published International Law and Marine Areas beyond National Jurisdiction: Reflections on Justice, Space, Knowledge and Power (Brill | Nijhoff 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The legal regime of marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) has received much attention in the last decades. The ongoing process in regards of an agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in ABNJ, initiated in the early 2000s (BBNJ process) is crucial evidence of this. However, this process reflects entrenched interests and political and legal structures, muting other voices and alternative approaches. International Law and Marine Areas beyond National Jurisdiction investigates competing constructions of ABNJ and their role in the creation and articulations of legal principles, which provides a broader perspective on the BBNJ process.

New Volume: Indian Journal of International Economic Law

The latest volume of the Indian Journal of International Economic Law (Vol. 13, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Mohsen al Attar & Alexander Reay, Tales of Economic Warfare: The Plunder of Venezuela
• Oliver Ruppel & Yannick Hoppe, Enforcement & Direct Effect of WTO Law under European & South African Law
• Yong Shik Lee, Law, Institution, and State Industrial Promotion
• Charlotte Sieber-Gasser, Smriti Kalra, & Aditi Vishwas Sheth, Sustainable Development Goals v Non-Discrimination in WTO Law
• Panagiotis Delimatsis, Global Trade-Enabling Law
• Kenneth Holland, Trump Administration’s Critique of WTO & Implications for International Trading System
• Neeraj Rajan Sabitha & Petros C Mavroidis, Patriot Games India & China: Brinkmanship in Realm of Apps
• James Claxton, Luke Nottage & Ana Ubilava, Mandatory Investor-State Conciliation Before Arbitration
• Anushree Malaviya, Interpreting the ‘National Treatment’ Obligation Under GATS

New Issue: Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme

The latest issue of the Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme (No. 129, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• C. De Terwangne, L’illégalité nuancée de la surveillance numérique : la réponse des juridictions belge et française à l’arrêt La Quadrature du Net de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne
• A. Jousten & F. Bouhon, Le musellement de l’opposition parlementaire en Turquie au regard des droits fondamentaux
• P.J. Pararas, Indices d’un régime autoritaire en Grèce pendant la période 2010-2019
• T. Larrouturou, Panorama d’une année de contentieux français « invisible » devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme
• S. Platon, La présomption Bosphorus après l’arrêt Bivolaru et Moldovan de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme : un bouclier de papier ?
• V. Junod, Whistleblowing : des frontières fluctuantes
• F. Dubuissson, La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme face à la surveillance de masse
• C. Pettiti, La liberté d’expression du salarié sous la protection de la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme
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Bradley, Goldsmith, & Hathaway: The Rise of Nonbinding International Agreements: An Empirical, Comparative, and Normative Analysis

Curtis Bradley (Univ. of Chicago - Law), Jack Landman Goldsmith (Harvard Univ. - Law), & Oona A. Hathaway (Yale Univ. - Law) have posted The Rise of Nonbinding International Agreements: An Empirical, Comparative, and Normative Analysis. Here's the abstract:

The Article II treaty process has been dying a slow death for decades, replaced by various forms of “executive agreements.” What is only beginning to be appreciated is the extent to which both treaties and executive agreements are increasingly being overshadowed by another form of international cooperation: nonbinding international agreements. Not only have nonbinding agreements become more prevalent, but many of the most consequential (and often controversial) U.S. international agreements in recent years have been concluded in whole or in significant part as nonbinding international agreements. Despite their prevalence and importance, nonbinding international agreements are not currently subject to any of the domestic statutory or regulatory requirements that apply to binding agreements. As a result, they are not centrally monitored or collected within the executive branch, and they are not systematically reported to Congress or disclosed to the public.

This Article focuses on three of the most important types of nonbinding international agreements concluded by the United States: (1) high-level formal agreements; (2) joint statements and communiques; and (3) nonbinding agreements concluded by administrative agencies. After describing these categories and their history, the Article presents the first empirical study of U.S. nonbinding agreements, drawing on two new databases that together include more than 2100 nonbinding agreements. Based on this study, the Article argues that many of the concerns that prompted Congress to regulate binding executive agreements starting in the 1970s also apply to nonbinding agreements. Finally, drawing in part on insights obtained from a comparative assessment of the practices and reform discussions taking place in other countries, the Article suggests legal changes designed to enhance coordination and accountability.