Żenkiewicz & Guarin Duque: Local Communities and International Investment Law

Maciej Żenkiewicz (Nicolaus Copernicus Univ - Law) & Gustavo Guarin Duque (Universidad Externado de Colombia; Saarland Univ.) have posted Local Communities and international Investment Law. Here's the abstract:

This paper delves into the intricate relationship between Local Communities (LCs) and International Investment Law, highlighting the blurred distinctions between LCs and Indigenous Peoples. It explores various legal regimes potentially violated in this context and the consequent rights to be invoked by different stakeholders. The study further elucidates available remedies under both national courts and the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system, emphasizing the roles of third-party participation, amicus curiae, counterclaims, and investor jurisdictions. The latter parts of the study focus on the importance of local participation, consultation, benefit-sharing, and multi-actor contracts as mechanisms to protect LC interests. It underscores the crucial roles played by states, investors, arbitral tribunals, and the international community in advancing LC protection. This working paper serves as a foundation for the ongoing debate, emphasizing that a collective effort is essential to ensure justice and protection for LCs within the investment law framework.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 34, no. 3, August 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Open Access: No Closed Matter; In This Issue; In This Issue – Reviews
• Articles
• Stewart Manley, Pardis Moslemzadeh Tehrani, & Rajah Rasiah, The (Non-)Use of African Law by the International Criminal Court
• Helga Molbæk-Steensig & Alexandre Quemy, Judicial Independence and Impartiality: Tenure Changes at the European Court of Human Rights
• Gus Waschefort, The Alchemy of the Right to Life during the Conduct of Hostilities: A Normative Approach to Operationalizing the ‘Supreme Right’
• Roaming Charges Places with a Soul: Salon
• EJIL Debate!
• Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, Ayan Garg, & Shubhangi Agarwalla, In Defence of Future Generations: A Reply to Stephen Humphreys
• Peter Lawrence, International Law Must Respond to the Reality of Future Generations: A Reply to Stephen Humphreys
• Stephen Humphreys, Taking Future Generations Seriously: A Rejoinder to Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, Ayan Garg and Shubhangi Agarwalla, and Peter Lawrence
• Critical Review of Governance
• Lena Riecke, Unmasking the Term 'Dual Use' in EU Spyware Export Control
• Book Reviews
• Diane Desierto, reviewing Tom Ginsburg, Democracies and International Law
• Tom Ruys, reviewing Agatha Verdebout, Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force: The Narrative of ‘Indifference’
• Ramona Vijeyarasa, reviewing Ruth Rubio-Marín, Global Gender Constitutionalism and Women’s Citizenship
• Chris Whomersley, reviewing Stefan Talmon (ed.), German Practice in International Law (2019)
• Cecily Rose, reviewing Fulvia Staiano, Transnational Organized Crime: Challenging International Law Principles on State Jurisdiction
• The Last Page
• Else Lasker-Schüler (transl. Franziska Wolf), Nachklänge/Echoes

New Issue: International Journal of Refugee Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (Vol. 35, no. 1, March 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Jane McAdam, Turning Points in International Protection: Onwards and Upwards, or U-Turns and Roundabouts?
• Hilary Evans Cameron, Risk and the Reasonable Refugee: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections
• Karin Åberg, A Requirement of Shame: On the Evolution of the Protection of LGB Refugees
• Georgia Cole, Applying the ‘Ceased Circumstances’ Cessation Clause: More Politics than Law?
• Aishwarya Birla, Evaluating the Indian Refugee Law Regime: How Has the Judiciary Responded to Refugee Claims in Light of International Law Obligations, and How Can It Do Better?
• Rebecca J Garfinkel, Dignity Deployed: An Examination of Refugee Rights through Domestic Dignity Jurisprudence

Call for Submissions: Cyber Law Toolkit

A call for submissions has been issued for the 2024 update of the Cyber Law Toolkit, a dynamic interactive web-based resource for legal practitioners and scholars working on international law and cyber operations. The call is here.

Paulsen: The Past, Present, and Potential of Economic Security

Mona Paulsen (London School of Economics - Law) has posted The Past, Present, and Potential of Economic Security. Here's the abstract:

This article responds to industrial economies’ ever-frequent invocation of economic security to indefinitely justify activities that impair other states’ trade within the post-war global economic order. It makes two crucial contributions to the discourse. Through richly detailed archival research, the first contribution is to show how governments have long grappled with state interventions on critical materials, unpacking questions of self-sufficiency, conservation, and defeating foreign economic competitors within the embryonic postwar global economic order. I expose complications by assuming the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a site for security through rules-based trade by probing the dispute between the US and Czechoslovakia, exploring how Czechoslovakia faced increased insecurity of supply owing to US controls on defence-capable materials. Through historical examination, I disprove contentions that Cold War-era trade institutions are no longer fit for purpose. After that, I investigate the underexplored influence of the Korean War upon GATT contracting parties and reveal the importance of equitable distribution of strategic materials in what one US congressperson called a ‘super-government’ cartel. I redescribe the contingent character of these legal structures, showing the functions (and limits) of economic planning and military preparedness when governments and firms – fresh off the Second World War experience – demanded economic security and access to strategic supplies. The second contribution is normative – showing the potential to govern economic security strategies within existing World Trade Organization intuitional structures. Drawing on my historical contribution, I develop a conceptual framework that dissects economic security into four categories and explains how governments can – and should – address security ambitions without abandoning coordination and collective goals for the future.

Conference: Fortieth Investment Treaty Forum Public Conference

On November 10, 2023, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law will host, in person and online, the Fortieth Investment Treaty Forum Public Conference. The theme is: "Territory in International Investment Law." The program is here.

Morris: The Concept of International Law in the Early Advisory Opinions of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), 1922–1930

P. Sean Morris (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) has posted The Concept of International Law in the Early Advisory Opinions of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), 1922–1930 (in The Hope of Ages is in the Process of Realization: Establishing a World Court, 1920 – 1922, Henri Waele & Christian Tams eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter examines the employment of international law as a concept in the early Advisory Opinions of the PCIJ (1922–1930). After a short review of the gradual evolution of the broader idea of the law of nations in the works of Christian Wolff and Jeremy Bentham, the central argument is that, even when the PCIJ invoked international law as a term or as an interpretative mechanism, this was often in relation to either the broader international legal environment of the 1920s, or general principles of international law. The majority of the Court’s early Advisory Opinions do not display any references to scholarship, and as such rarely invoked international law as a concept. This appears to reflect an effort to align with the shifting paradigms of the day concerning the law of nations, and the ‘new’ international law of the twentieth century. The analysis suggests further that the judicial practice consisted of a ‘jurisprudential mode’ which eventually gave way to one more closely premised on ‘mutual transactions’.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 41, no. 3, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue on Corporate Human Rights Responsibilities
• Janne Mende, Corporate Human Rights Responsibilities: Rethinking the Public-Private Divide
• Markus Krajewski, Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Laws: Blurring the Lines between State Duty to Protect and Corporate Responsibility to Respect?
• Antoine Duval, Ruggie’s Double Movement: Assembling the Private and the Public Through Human Rights Due Diligence
• Lottie Lane, Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: Corporate Responsibility in AI Governance Initiatives
• Benedikt Lennartz, Business Actors’ Interest in Harder and Softer Regulation of Human Rights Due Diligence

Roundtable: The MONUSCO Intervention Brigade at Ten

On Ocotber 25, 2023, the International Law at Westminster group will host, in person and online, a roundtable on "The MONUSCO Intervention Brigade at Ten." Details are here.

New Issue: Journal of International Arbitration

The latest issue of the Journal of International Arbitration (Vol. 40, no. 5, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Kevin Chan, A New Era of Maritime Arbitration: Ex Machina Determinations
• Harry Burnett & Peter Brabant, Political Risk and Its Key Role in Mining Disputes Around the World
• Larina Mokaled, Arbitrating Investment Disputes in Time of Geopolitical Unrest: Focus on Investment Protection in Russia
• Janghwan Chung, ZF Auto. v. Luxshare: Supreme Court’s Withdrawal of Judicial Assistance for Discovery from Private Arbitration
• Qianwen Zhang & Jiani Li, The Validity of Arbitration Agreements Providing for Arbitration in Mainland China Administered by Overseas Arbitration Institutions

Call for Submissions: Cambridge International Law Journal

The Cambridge International Law Journal invites submissions for the first issue of its thirteenth volume. Here's the call:

The Editorial Board of the Cambridge International Law Journal is pleased to invite submissions for Volume 13(1), to be published in June 2024.

The journal accepts the following types of submissions that engage with current themes in international law:

• Articles between 6,000 and 12,000 words including footnotes;
• Case notes, including substantive analysis, not exceeding 3,000 words including footnotes; and
• Book reviews on recently published works not exceeding 2,500 words including footnotes. Those interested in submitting a book review are kindly requested to send first a short (250–500 words) book review proposal to editors@cilj.co.uk.

Submissions are subject to double-blind peer review. The Journal’s Editorial Board reviews all pieces, and select articles are sent to the Academic Review Board, which consists of distinguished international law scholars and practitioners.

Submissions

Submissions for Volume 13(1) must be received through the online Submittable platform by 11:59 pm (BST) on Friday, 27 October 2023.

Please list the word count of the text and the footnotes on your manuscript.

All copies must be submitted in Word (.doc) or (.docx) format and must conform to our style guidelines, which are available at the following links:

• OSCOLA Fourth edition: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012.pdf
• OSCOLA: Citing International Law Sources: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_2006_citing_international_law.pdf

For full submission instructions, please visit www.elgaronline.com/cilj.

We also accept submissions for the CILJ Blog on a rolling basis. Blog articles may be submitted at any time here.

Further information can be obtained from the Editors-in-Chief at editors@cilj.co.uk.

Helin Laufer and Liyu Feng

Editors-in-Chief for Cambridge International Law Journal (Volume 13)

Kulick: Interpreting the Customary Rules on State Responsibility – Text, No Text, Hypertext

Andreas Kulick (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen) has posted Interpreting the Customary Rules on State Responsibility – Text, No Text, Hypertext (in The Rules of Interpretation of Customary International Law, P Merkouris, P Pazartzis & LA Sicilianos eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Interpreting customary international law poses various challenges. First and foremost, custom itself is an unwritten source of international law, which, however, may find expression in various written texts that may serve as the interpretive material from which to glean content and meaning of an individual customary rule. The law of state responsibility is a prime example, begging the question how to deal with several interconnected ‘texts’ – the ARSIWA, the Commentary, other ILC work, individual expressions of state practice and opinio juris and the actual unwritten customary norm hovering over all of them – and what rules should guide their interpretation. In this chapter, I draw on insights from linguistic and literary studies as well as media theory to tackle custom’s complex textuality. Its lack of a fixed textual centre, the plurality of numbers and forms of relevant expressions of culture, its openness to change, etc., so I argue, very much resembles a hypertextual structure – a specific form of intertextuality, of interconnections of semiotic signs. Hypertext is the ‘text’ displayed on an electronic digital device that references it with other texts via so-called hyperlinks. Hypertext consists of various blocks of ‘texts’, i.e. signs (written text, pictures, music, tables, diagrams, animations, videos, etc.), that are linked to each other. Hypertext is variable, it is ‘de-centered’ and it is interactive, among others: all attributes that custom shares.

Viewing custom as hypertext offers several insights. Most importantly, as its textuality differs considerably from that of a treaty, this casts doubts on whether interpreting a customary norm’s text, as a rule, should follow the methodology of treaty interpretation. The latter is based on a clear-cut voluntaristic premise that is reflected in the textual structure of the interpretive materials: the treaty text is at the centre, the other relevant ‘texts’ form different layers of the periphery. A customary norm lacks such a fixed centre and hence a hierarchical structuring of its ‘texts’. Yet, custom’s variable structure also allows for the addition of focal points: texts that, although not fixed textual centres, assume heightened interpretive authority. Such special authority derives from thorough vetting processes that the genesis of these texts underwent: either by states themselves or, additionally, by expert bodies that states accept as bestowed with particular expertise and representativeness. The ILC’s work on state responsibility is a case in point.

The variety of texts that custom provides as interpretive material requires setting micro and meta rules of interpretation. Micro rules pertain to the interpretive methodology of each specific text or set of texts: Treaty texts follow the methodology set out in Art. 31-33 VCLT, domestic legislation is to be interpreted according to the domestic rules of statutory interpretation, unilateral acts follow their own methodology, etc. I develop certain guideposts for an interpretive methodology of the ILC work on state responsibility, taking into account the specific nature and interconnectedness of its various texts. Meta rules of custom interpretation consist of the factors determining focal points and the tools to weigh potentially differing interpretive outcomes of micro rule interpretation.