Ali, Balcerzak, Colombo, & Karton: Diversity in International Arbitration: Why it Matters and How to Sustain It

Shahla F. Ali (Univ. of Hong Kong), Filip Balcerzak (Adam Mickiewicz Univ.), Giorgio Fabio Colombo (Nagoya Univ.) & Joshua Karton (Queen’s Univ.) have published Diversity in International Arbitration: Why it Matters and How to Sustain It (Edward Elgar Publishing 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

After decades of focus on harmonization, which for too many represents no more than Western legal dominance and a largely homogeneous arbitration practitioner community, this ground-breaking book explores the increasing attention being paid to the need for greater diversity in the international arbitration ecosystem. It examines diversity in all its forms, investigating how best to develop an international arbitral order that is not just tolerant of diversity, but that sustains and promotes diversity in concert with harmonized practices.

New Issue: International Community Law Review

The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 25, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Nathanael Tilahun, The EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime: between Self Help and Global Governance
• Jamal Barafi & Ali Hadi Al-Obeidi, Legal Protection of the Right to be Forgotten on the Internet in European and Arab Legislation
• Joseph Orangias, The Nexus between International Law and Science: An Analysis of Scientific Expert Bodies in Multilateral Treaty-Making
• James R. Brakebill, Mugemangango v. Belgium: No Exceptions for “Old Democracies”

New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 24, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Freya Baetens, World Trade Organization Rules Before Investment Tribunals: Facilitating Cross-Fertilisation While Appreciating Particularities
• Henner Gött, Rules of the Organization: Article 5 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Relevance of European Union Law in
• Tania Voon & Dean Merriman, Incoming: How International Investment Law Constrains Foreign Investment Screening
• Pacôme Ziegler & Cristian Gallorini, The Case for the Ex-Post Valuation of Damages Under International Investment Law

Call for Submissions: Transnational Criminal Law Review

The Transnational Criminal Law Review has issued a call for submissions for its Volume 2, number 2. The call is here.

Sloss: Is the International Legal Order Unraveling?

David L. Sloss (Santa Clara Univ. - Law) has published Is the International Legal Order Unraveling? (Oxford Univ. Press 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This book grows out of the work of a study group convened by the American Branch of the International Law Association. The group had a mandate to examine threats to the rules-based international order and possible responses. The several chapters in the book-all of which are written by distinguished international law scholars--generally support the conclusion that the rules-based international order confronts significant challenges, but it is not unraveling--at least, not yet. Climate change is the biggest wild card in trying to predict the future. If the world's major powers--especially the United States and China--cooperate with each other to combat climate change, then other threats to the rules-based order should be manageable. If the world's major powers fail to address the climate crisis by 2040 or 2050, the other threats addressed in this volume may come to be seen as trivial in comparison.

Ishikawa: Corporate Environmental Responsibility in Investor-State Dispute Settlement: The Unexhausted Potential of Current Mechanisms

Tomoko Ishikawa (Nagoya Univ.) has published Corporate Environmental Responsibility in Investor-State Dispute Settlement: The Unexhausted Potential of Current Mechanisms (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022). Here's the abstract:

This book explores the potential of the current investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism to materialise the responsibility of foreign investors through the states' counterclaims and defences at the jurisdictional, merits, and quantum phases. In doing so, it seeks to incorporate the recent developments of ISDS in both international and domestic laws of certain jurisdictions on corporate responsibility, including the parent company's due diligence and legal effects of corporations' voluntary commitments. The book also reflects the interests and perspectives of the victims who suffered loss and injury due to investors' conduct. The author demonstrates that the current system does have the inherent potential to advance responsible investment, even though reforms are needed to overcome its limitations. Fully utilising this potential to reflect investor responsibility in IIA-based dispute settlement mechanisms will help to develop practices based on greater due diligence and responsible business conduct.

Murray & Long: Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights in Practice

Rachel Murray (Univ. of Bristol) & Debra Long (Univ. of Bristol) have pubilshed Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights in Practice (Edward Elgar Publishing 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Building upon the growing body of scholarship on the factors and actors that influence the extent to which states implement human rights law, this cutting-edge Research Handbook takes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the roles of actors within supranational human rights bodies, the decisions and judgements they make and the tools they use to facilitate human rights implementation.

Eminent scholars and practitioners in the field reflect on why states implement, or fail to implement, obligations and decisions from the supranational level. The Research Handbook reviews the relevant terminology, recent trends and the theoretical and methodological perspectives and strategies, before rethinking these explanations and offering original scholarship on human rights implementation. Chapters then consider the roles and interplay of various domestic and international actors involved in human rights implementation, including parliaments, national courts, civil society and treaty bodies. The Research Handbook concludes by assessing tools of implementation, including monitoring systems, the role of negotiations and diplomacy, compliance hearings and the use of IT for compliance.

New Issue: Journal of International Criminal Justice

The latest issue of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (Vol. 20, no. 5, November 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Giulia Pinzauti & Alessandro Pizzuti, Prosecuting Aggression against Ukraine as an ‘Other Inhumane Act’ before the ICC
• Manuel J Ventura, Accessory After the Fact at the International Criminal Court? Reconciling Article 25(3)(c) in Spanish of the Polylingual ICC Statute
• Symposium: The Protection of the Environment during Warfare: An International Environmental Law Perspective
• Jérôme de Hemptinne & Raphaël van Steenberghe, Foreword
• Raphaël van Steenberghe, The Interplay between International Humanitarian Law and International Environmental Law: Towards a Comprehensive Framework for a Better Protection of the Environment in Armed Conflict
• Karen Hulme, Using International Environmental Law to Enhance Biodiversity and Nature Conservation During Armed Conflict
• Mara Tignino & Tadesse Kebebew, The Legal Protection of Freshwater Resources and Related Installations during Warfare
• Andrew Norris, The Intersection of International Environmental Law and International Humanitarian Law at Sea
• Jérôme de Hemptinne, The Regulation of Hazardous Substances and Activities During Warfare
• Jérôme de Hemptinne, Concluding Observations on the Influence of International Environmental Law over International Criminal Law

Workshop: Beauty and Power: Aesthetics, History, and International Law

On October 19-20, 2023, the Graduate Institute will host a workshop on "Beauty and Power: Aesthetics, History, and International Law." Details are here.

New Issue: Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 22, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The International Criminal Court at 25: Reassessing Processes and Outcomes
• M. P. Broache, Kate Cronin-Furman, David Mendeloff & Jacqueline R. McAllister, The International Criminal Court at 25
• Oumar Ba, Constructing an international legal order under the shadow of colonial domination
• Lucrecia García Iommi, Nothing changed after Rome: Continuity in state support for the International Criminal Court
• Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm & Kirsten Ainley, The evolution of funding for the International Criminal Court: Budgets, donors and gender justice
• Genevieve Bates & Shauna N. Gillooly, Between negotiation and legitimation: The international criminal court and the political use of sovereignty challenges
• Courtney Hillebrecht & Hannah Roesch Read, The ICC beyond the courtroom: Activities, warnings, and impact
• M. P. Broache & Juhi Kore, Can the International Criminal Court prevent sexual violence in armed conflict?
• Jacqueline R. McAllister, Casting a shadow over war zones? Hard truths about the ICC’s efforts to deter wartime atrocities

Knox & Tronolone: Environmental Justice as Environmental Human Rights

John H. Knox (Wake Forest Univ. - Law) & Nicole Tronolone have posted Environmental Justice as Environmental Human Rights. Here's the abstract:

The movement for environmental justice in the United States, which has fought against environmental racism for forty years, is also a quest to bring the United States into compliance with international human rights law concerning the environment. This article seeks to clarify the relationship between the two, by assessing the U.S. environmental record in light of its obligations under international human rights law.

After setting out the most detailed restatement of environmental human rights law yet published in the scholarly literature, it conducts the first systematic evaluation of U.S. compliance with those norms. The article finds that while the United States does comply in some important ways, its record has some grave shortcomings and one gigantic gap: the failure to effectively address the disproportionate environmental burdens placed on African Americans, Native Americans, and other minorities. Human rights bodies have already characterized that failure as violating the United States' obligation to prevent racial discrimination.

The article concludes by observing how stronger bridges between the U.S. environmental justice movement and the international environmental human rights regime would benefit both sides. As a recent example, it highlights the U.S. decision in July 2022 to reverse its long-standing opposition to UN recognition of the human right to a healthy environment, which resulted at least in part from the increasing recognition by U.S. politicians that the language of environmental justice at home is the language of environmental human rights internationally.

Milanovic: Britain’s Contributions to Human Rights Law

Marko Milanovic (Univ. of Reading - Law) has posted Britain’s Contributions to Human Rights Law (British Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article, written for the centennial edition of the British Yearbook, assesses the various contributions made by the United Kingdom to the development of international human rights law (IHRL) in the last century and it focuses specifically on Britain’s contribution to the law and institutions of human rights as opposed to their enjoyment in practice. The initial focus of the article is on the political branches of the British State – its government and Parliament – in building the normative and institutional foundations of IHRL and in helping and promoting the work of these institutions. The article then looks at the contributions of the British judiciary and legal practitioners, which have been especially notable since the entry into force of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). Finally, the article looks at the contributions of British academics, who have played an outsized role in the scholarly study of IHRL when compared to those from most other States.

d'Aspremont: Consenting to International Law in Five Moves

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Manchester - School of Law; Sciences Po Law School) has posted Consenting to International Law in Five Moves (in Consenting to International Law, Samantha Besson ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter seeks to unpack 5 of the main discursive moves witnessed in the literature and case-law pertaining to the question of consent to international law. This chapter argues that these 5 specific discursive moves are performed by almost anyone engaging with the question of consent to international law, be such engagement on the more orthodox side or the more critical side of the argumentative spectrum. These five discursive moves correspond to the reproduction of a very modernist understanding of authority, the constitution of the very subject that is consenting, the anonymization of the author of consent, the reversal of the temporality of the legal discourse on consent and the adoption of very binary patterns of thought. This chapter shows that discursive moves made by international lawyers around the idea of consent bears heavily upon the type of political legitimacy, the type of geography, the type of responsibility, the type of temporality, and the type of hermeneutics, that international law is serving.

Conference: International Law and the SAARC Region in Times of Crisis

On March 1, 2023, the Faculty of Legal Studies of South Asian University will host a conference on "International Law and the SAARC Region in Times of Crisis," in New Delhi and online (hybrid). Program and details are here.