New Issue: Journal of International Arbitration

The latest issue of the Journal of International Arbitration (Vol. 39, no. 5, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Rekha Rangachari, Fatima Aslam, Kabir Duggal, & Adeel Wahid, It Is Not a BIT Race, It Is a BIT Marathon: Comparing Pakistan’s and India’s Evolving Approach to Investment Policy
• Dirk Wiegandt, Blockchain and Smart Contracts and the Role of Arbitration
• Lisa-Marie Ross & Kathrin Asschenfeldt, Recent Developments of Third Party Joinder in International Arbitration
• Mark Mangan & Lukas Lim, The Pursuit of Net Zero Arbitration With the Aid of Carbon Emissions Scorecards
• Marie-Laure Bizeau & Aleksandra Fedosova, ‘Forum of Necessity’: Using French Law’s ‘Juge d’appui’ in Foreign-Seated Arbitrations as a Cure for Denial of Justice

Oberleitner: Research Handbook on International Law and Human Security

Gerd Oberleitner (Universität Graz - Law) has published Research Handbook on International Law and Human Security (Edward Elgar Publishing 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This comprehensive Research Handbook considers the place of human security, both in practice and as a concept within international law, examining the preconditions for and consequences of applying human security to international legal thinking and practice. It also proposes a future international law in which human security is central to the law’s purpose.

Contributions by leading authors in the field critically engage with 25 years of human security practice in different areas of international law and explore the challenges, successes and setbacks of realising human security in a state-based international legal order whilst re-conceptualizing central elements of international law from a human security perspective. Organised around six core themes, the Research Handbook shows how human security can be used as an overarching framework to preserve peace, protect people and counter vulnerability through international law.

New Issue: International Interactions

The latest issue of International Interactions (Vol. 48, no. 4, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Lessons from a Conflict Escalation Prediction Competition
• Håvard Hegre, Paola Vesco & Michael Colaresi, Lessons from an escalation prediction competition
• Felix Ettensperger, Forecasting conflict using a diverse machine-learning ensemble: Ensemble averaging with multiple tree-based algorithms and variance promoting data configurations
• Hannes Mueller & Christopher Rauh, Using past violence and current news to predict changes in violence
• David Randahl & Johan Vegelius, Predicting escalating and de-escalating violence in Africa using Markov models
• Iris Malone, Recurrent neural networks for conflict forecasting
• Thomas Chadefaux, A shape-based approach to conflict forecasting
• Fulvio Attinà, Marcello Carammia & Stefano M. Iacus, Forecasting change in conflict fatalities with dynamic elastic net
• Christian Oswald & Daniel Ohrenhofer, Click, click boom: Using Wikipedia data to predict changes in battle-related deaths
• Konstantin Bätz, Ann-Cathrin Klöckner & Gerald Schneider, Challenging the status quo: Predicting violence with sparse decision-making data
• Vito D’Orazio & Yu Lin, Forecasting conflict in Africa with automated machine learning systems
• Benjamin J. Radford, High resolution conflict forecasting with spatial convolutions and long short-term memory
• Andreas Lindholm, Johannes Hendriks, Adrian Wills & Thomas B. Schön, Predicting political violence using a state-space model
• Cornelius Fritz, Marius Mehrl, Paul W. Thurner & Göran Kauermann, The role of governmental weapons procurements in forecasting monthly fatalities in intrastate conflicts: A semiparametric hierarchical hurdle model
• Patrick T. Brandt, Vito D’Orazio, Latifur Khan, Yi-Fan Li, Javier Osorio & Marcus Sianan, Conflict forecasting with event data and spatio-temporal graph convolutional networks
• Lisa Hultman, Maxine Leis & Desirée Nilsson, Employing local peacekeeping data to forecast changes in violence
• Jonas Vestby, Jürgen Brandsch, Vilde Bergstad Larsen, Peder Landsverk & Andreas Forø Tollefsen, Predicting (de-)escalation of sub-national violence using gradient boosting: Does it work?
• Paola Vesco, Håvard Hegre, Michael Colaresi, Remco Bastiaan Jansen, Adeline Lo, Gregor Reisch & Nils B. Weidmann, United they stand: Findings from an escalation prediction competition

Mackenzie-Gray Scott: State Responsibility for Non-State Actors: Past, Present and Prospects for the Future

Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott (Univ. of Oxford - Bonavero Institute of Human Rights) has published State Responsibility for Non-State Actors: Past, Present and Prospects for the Future (Hart Publishing 2022). Here's the abstract:

This book investigates how state responsibility can be determined for the wrongdoing of non-state actors. Every day, people, businesses and societies around the world pay a price arising from interactions between states and non-state actors. From insurrections that attempt to create new governments, to states arming belligerent proxies operating overseas, to companies damaging natural environments or providing suspect services, the impact of such situations are felt in numerous ways. They also raise many questions relating to responsibility. In answering these, State Responsibility for Non-State Actors provides a picture of what the law governing this area is, what it could be, and what it should be in light of past histories, present realities and future prospects.

Johns, Langer, & Peters: Migration and the Demand for Transnational Justice

Leslie Johns (Univ. of California, Los Angeles), Máximo Langer (Univ. of California, Los Angeles), & Margaret E. Peters (Univ. of California, Los Angeles) have published Migration and the Demand for Transnational Justice (American Political Science Review, Vol. 116, no. 4, pp. 1184–1207, November 2022). Here’s the abstract:

Domestic courts sometimes prosecute foreign nationals for severe crimes—like crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, and war crimes—committed on foreign territory against foreign nationals. We argue that migrants can serve as agents of transnational justice. When migrants move across borders, as both economic migrants and refugees, they often pressure local governments to conduct criminal investigations and trials for crimes that occurred in their sending state. We also examine the effect of explanatory variables that have been identified by prior scholars, including the magnitude of atrocities in the sending state, the responsiveness of the receiving state to political pressure, and the various economic and political costs of prosecutions. We test our argument using the first multivariate statistical analysis of universal jurisdiction cases, focusing on multiple stages of prosecutions. We conclude that transnational justice is a justice remittance in which migrants provide accountability and remedies for crimes in their sending states.

New Issue: Ocean Development & International Law

The latest issue of Ocean Development & International Law (Vol. 53, nos. 2-3, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Yen-Chiang Chang, Toward Better Maritime Cooperation—A Proposal from the Chinese Perspective
• José Manuel Sobrino-Heredia, The European Union as a Maritime Security Actor in the Gulf of Guinea: From Its Strategy and Action Plan to the New Concept of “Coordinated Maritime Presences”
• Alexander Lott & Shin Kawagishi, The Legal Regime of the Strait of Hormuz and Attacks Against Oil Tankers: Law of the Sea and Law on the Use of Force Perspectives
• Haoran Cui & Yubing Shi, A Comparative Analysis of the Legislation on Maritime Militia Between China and Vietnam
• Sandrine W. de Herdt, Transparency in the Process of Implementing Article 76 of the UNCLOS: Peering Inside
• Richard Barnes, An Advisory Opinion on Climate Change Obligations Under International Law: A Realistic Prospect?
• Hyun Jung Kim & Anne Thida Norodom, An Appraisal of Article 300 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
• Natalie Klein, Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea: An Endeavor to Connect Law of the Sea and International Human Rights Law
• Marcin Kałduński, Resolving Maritime Delimitation Disputes by Agreement: The Danish–Polish Boundary in the Area of the Island of Bornholm

Call for Papers: Developing Robust and Sustainable Ocean Regimes for Uncertain Futures

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on “Developing Robust and Sustainable Ocean Regimes for Uncertain Futures,” to be held April 28, 2023, at the Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University. The call is here.

New Issue: American Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the American Journal of International Law (Vol. 116, no. 4, October 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial Comment
• Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk & Monica Hakimi, Russia, Ukraine, and the Future World Order
• Agora Essays: The War in Ukraine and the Future of the International Legal Order
• Alyssa S. King & Pamela K. Bookman, Traveling Judges
• Marissa Jackson Sow, Ukrainian Refugees, Race, and International Law's Choice Between Order and Justice
• Anastasiya Kotova & Ntina Tzouvala, In Defense of Comparisons: Russia and the Transmutations of Imperialism in International Law
• Anton Moiseienko, Trading with a Friend's Enemy
• Himanil Raina, A Unified Understanding of Ship Nationality in Peace and War
• Anatole Boute, Weaponizing Energy: Energy, Trade, and Investment Law in the New Geopolitical Reality
• Jie (Jeanne) Huang, Conflicting Declarations Under the Hague Service Convention Amid the Russo-Ukrainian War: Dilemmas and Preliminary Solutions
• Martina Buscemi, Outcasting the Aggressor: The Deployment of the Sanction of “Non-participation”
• Elena Chachko & Katerina Linos, Ukraine and the Emergency Powers of International Institutions
• Nikola R. Hajdin, Responsibility of Private Individuals for Complicity in a War of Aggression
• David L. Sloss & Laura A. Dickinson, The Russia-Ukraine War and the Seeds of a New Liberal Plurilateral Order
• Henning Lahmann, Ukraine, Open-Source Investigations, and the Future of International Legal Discourse
• Current Developments
• Rob McLaughlin, The Law of the Sea and PRC Gray-Zone Operations in the South China Sea
• International Decisions
• Winston Anderson, Arbitral Award of 3 October 1899 (Guyana v. Venezuela)
• Sherzod Shadikhodjaev, United States—Safeguard Measure on Imports of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products
• Michelle Foster, D.Z. v. Netherlands, UN Doc.
• Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law
• President Biden Signs National Security Memorandum on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Associated Labor Abuses
• The United States and Its Partners Struggle to Implement Global Tax Agreement
• The United States Launches the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity
• State Department Issues First U.S. Strategy to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to Atrocities
• Former President of Honduras Extradited to the United States
• New U.S. Anti-Personnel Landmine Policy Adopted
• Recent Books on International Law
• Rosalind Dixon & David Landau, reviewing Abusive Internationalism? On Democracies and International Law, by Tom Ginsburg
• Samuel Moyn, reviewing International Law and the Politics of History, by Anne Orford
• William Schabas, reviewing Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II, by Francine Hirsch
• Richard Falk, reviewing Confronting Apartheid: A Personal History of South Africa, Namibia and Palestine, by John Dugard
• Alfred de Zayas, reviewing Imagining Justice for Syria, by Beth Van Schaack

Conference: Are the EU Member States Still Sovereign States Under International Law?

On December 15-16, 2022, the European Papers Jean Monnet Network will hold a conference on "Are the EU Member States Still Sovereign States Under International Law?," at the Sapienza University of Rome. Program and registration are here.

Call for Submissions: Polish Yearbook of International Law

The Polish Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its next volume (vol. 42, 2022). The deadline is January 31, 2023. The call is here.

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 28, no. 4, December 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Naomi Egel & Steven Ward, Hierarchy, revisionism, and subordinate actors: The TPNW and the subversion of the nuclear order
• Marius Wishman & Charles Butcher, Beyond ethnicity: historical states and modern conflict
• Hoo Tiang Boon, International identity construction: China’s pursuit of the responsible power identity and the American Other
• Tobias Berger, Worldmaking from the margins: interactions between domestic and international ordering in mid-20th-century India
• Line Engbo Gissel, The standardisation of transitional justice
• Peg Murray-Evans & Peter O’Reilly, Complex norm localization: from price competitiveness to local production in East African Community pharmaceutical policy
• Amy King, Power, shared ideas and order transition: China, the United States, and the creation of the Bretton Woods order
• Sarah V. Percy & Wayne Sandholtz, Why norms rarely die
• Anette Stimmer & Jess Gliserman, Disentangling norms, morality, and principles: the September 2019 Brexit rebellion
• Mathias Koenig-Archibugi & Luka Bareis, Do international parliaments matter? An empirical analysis of influences on foreign policy and civil rights

de Vries-Zou: Common Convictions and the Interpretation of Custom

Ivo Tarik de Vries-Zou (Univ. of Groningen) has posted an ESIL Reflection on Common Convictions and the Interpretation of Custom.

Conference: Toward a Human Right to Claim Innocence

On November 2-4, 2022, an online conference will be held on "Toward a Human Right to Claim Innocence." Program and registration are here.

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

The International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group of the American Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for a works-in-progress workshop on February 3, 2023, in Chicago. The call is here.

New Issue: La Comunità Internazionale

The latest issue of La Comunità Internazionale (Vol. 77, no. 3, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Articoli e Saggi
• Annalisa Ciampi, Progresso tecnologico e fonti di diritto internazionale
• Giuseppe Gallo, I cavi sottomarini e il diritto internazionale: quale protezione per le cosiddette “arterie” della globalizzazione?
• Osservatorio Diritti Umani
• Koen De Feyter, The Convention on the Right to Development: Drafting a New Global Human Rights Treaty
• Pietro Pustorino & Elena Terrizzi, Discrimination against Women and Gender Stereotypes Under the “CEDAW”: A Direct Protection of the LGBT Rights in Flamer-Caldera v. Sri Lanka?
• Osservatorio Europeo
• Giulia Borghesi, Fabio Giudice, Cesare Imbriani, & Piergiuseppe Morone, The EU Sustainable Finance Strategy: Some Perspectives on Climate Diplomacy
• Valeria Di Comite, La protezione temporanea accordata dall’Unione europea alle persone in fuga dall’Ucraina: aspetti positivi ed elementi critici della decisione (UE) 2022/382
• Note e Commenti
• Angela Maria Gallo, La surrogazione di maternità come reato universale e alcuni obblighi internazionali dell’Italia

Call for Submissions: Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization

The journal Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization has issued a call for submissions for its volume 3, no. 2 on the topic "New order or world disorder?" The call is here.

Conference: IV Jornadas Chilenas de Derecho Antártico

On November 9-10, 2022, the Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Chile will host the IV Jornadas Chilenas de Derecho Antártico. The program is here. Registration is here.

Cowell: Defensive Relativism: The Use of Cultural Relativism in International Legal Practice

Frederick Cowell (Birkbeck, Univ. of London) has published Defensive Relativism: The Use of Cultural Relativism in International Legal Practice (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 2022). Here's the abstract:

Defensive Relativism describes how governments around the world use cultural relativism in legal argument to oppose international human rights law. Defensive relativist arguments appear in international courts, at the committees established by human rights treaties, and at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The aim of defensive relativist arguments is to exempt a state from having to apply international human rights law, or to stop international human rights law evolving, because it would interfere with cultural traditions the state deems important. It is an everyday occurrence in international human rights law and defensive relativist arguments can be used by various types of states. The end goal of defensive relativism is to allow a state to appear human rights compliant while at the same time not implementing international human rights law.

Drawing on a range of materials, such as state reports on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and cases from the European Court of Human Rights involving freedom of religion, this book provides a definitive survey of defensive relativism. Crucially, Frederick Cowell argues, defensive relativism is not about alternative practices of human rights law, or debates about the origins or legitimacy of human rights as a concept. Defensive relativism is instead a variety of tactical argument used by states to justify ignoring international human rights law. Yet, as Cowell concludes, defensive relativism can’t be removed from the law, as it is a reflection of unresolved tensions about the nature of what it means for rights to be universal.

Pauwelyn: Taking Stakeholder Engagement in International Policy-Making Seriously: Is the WTO Finally Opening-Up?

Joost Pauwelyn (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies) has posted Taking Stakeholder Engagement in International Policy-Making Seriously: Is the WTO Finally Opening-Up? Here's the abstract:

In the face of multiple global challenges, in many IOs major policy-making initiatives are under way. In the last two years alone, the WHO started negotiations on a pandemic treaty, the UN kicked off talks on a plastics pollution treaty and the WTO is engaged in ground-breaking initiatives on topics ranging from e-commerce and investment facilitation to plastic pollution and fossil fuel subsidies. In all of these talks and discussions, a central question is how to fairly and effectively engage external stakeholders. While lagging behind for decades, the WTO has also woken up to the potential of more actively engaging stakeholders in international trade policy-making, both to make better policies and mitigate implementation challenges. This contribution describes the ground-breaking steps taken in a number of Member-led informal discussions and dialogues: the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD) and the Informal Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade (IDP). The objective of this contribution is to describe and applaud recent developments and initiate a discussion on how the process can be made more inclusive and robust and, potentially, also be extended to formal WTO activities. In this context, the WHO’s ongoing negotiations on a new pandemic treaty are used to offer an interesting point of comparison.

van Aaken & Sarel: Framing Effects in Proportionality Analysis: Experimental Evidence

Anne van Aaken (Univ. of Hamburg) & Roee Sarel (Univ. of Hamburg) have posted Framing Effects in Proportionality Analysis: Experimental Evidence. Here's the abstract:

Proportionality analysis (PA), which is widely used by national and international courts to balance between conflicting public goals or private rights, is typically considered to be a rational process. But is it? Does the framing of the legal case affect the decision-making of (judicial) actors? And if so, are legal professionals more or less likely to be affected by the framing?

We analyze theoretically and experimentally how features of PA might influence the outcome of the decision through behavioral effects, such as biases, heuristics, and framing. In the experiment, subjects conduct a PA for legal cases that vary only in their framing, where the wording is designed to nudge subjects to either support or oppose the legal act that is challenged as disproportional. We contrast three groups of subjects: administrative judges, law students, and non-law students.

Our analysis yields three key findings. First, we find evidence of framing effects in PA; second, the effects are mitigated by legal training (non-law students are the most susceptible, followed by law students and then judges) and third, judges demonstrate only weak bias in PA, but do fall prey to other unrelated behavioral effects. The findings thus highlight the importance of framing effects but also the potentially debiasing effect of legal training and professional expertise when in a professional context.

New Issue: International Criminal Law Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 22, nos. 5-6, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Transforming Evidence and Proof in International Criminal Trials
• Karen McGregor Richmond, Transforming Evidence and Proof in International Criminal Trials
• Nancy Amoury Combs, Evidentiary Deficiencies in International Criminal Law: Tracing the Trajectory from Ignored to Integral to Irrelevant
• Karen McGregor Richmond, Towards a Normative Assessment of Probative Value in International Criminal Adjudication
• Michelle Coleman, Right Without Remedy? The Development of the Presumption of Innocence at the International Criminal Court
• Demetra Fr. Sorvatzioti, Free Evaluation of Evidence: Does the ICC need a Law of Evidence?
• Diletta Marchesi, Intercepted Communications in the Ongwen Case: Lessons to Learn on Documentary Evidence at the icc
• Rafael Braga da Silva, Updating the Authentication of Digital Evidence in the International Criminal Court
• Kristina Hellwig, The Potential and the Challenges of Digital Evidence in International Criminal Proceedings
• Hillary Hubley, Bad Speech, Good Evidence: Content Moderation in the Context of Open-Source Investigations
• Karen McGregor Richmond & Sebastiano Antonio Piccolo, Between Fact and Opinion: The Sui Generis Approach to Expert Witness Testimony in International Criminal Trials
• Carola Lingaas, Dehumanising Ideology, Metaphors, and Psychological Othering as Evidence of Genocidal Intent
• Sigurd D’hondt, Juan Pablo Pérez-León-Acevedo, & Elena Barrett, The Indeterminacy of Precedent: Negotiating the Admissibility of Victim Participant Testimony before the International Criminal Court
• Alessandra Cuppini, Victims’ Proactive Role in the Evidence-Gathering Process at the icc: Toward an Expressivist Justice Model
• Anne Herzberg, The Role of UN Documentation in Shaping Narratives at the International Criminal Court and the Implications for the Rights of the Accused
• Tonny Raymond Kirabira, Technology as a Key Tool for the Prosecution of International Crimes: Lessons from Uganda
• Courtney Martin, Treaty-Based Regulation and Evidence-Extradition Agreements as Critical Tools in the Fight against International Criminal Wrongdoing
• Attila Nagy, Kosovo Specialist Chambers Jurisdiction and the International Criminal Court