Call for Papers: Southeast Asia and its (Re-)Engagement with International Law – Challenges and Perspectives

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on “Southeast Asia and its (Re-)Engagement with International Law – Challenges and Perspectives,” to take place November 21-22, 2024, in The Hague. The call is here.

New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 25, no. 3, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Xu Qian, Redefining International Law Paradigms: Charting Cybersecurity, Trade, and Investment Trajectories within Global Legal Boundaries
• Ksenia Polonskaya & Jean-Michel Marcoux, Sustainable Development as a Wicked Problem in Investment Arbitration: Narratives and Discontents
• Atif M. Alenezi, Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Investment Law Arbitration: an Analysis of Regulatory Framework Implications
• Senai W. Andemariam, Isaias T. Berhe, & Henok G. Gebrezgabiher, Addressing Environmental Protection Gaps in Sino-African Bilateral Investment Treaties

Fox: Invitations to Intervene After the Cold War: Toward a New Collective Model

Gregory H. Fox (Wayne State Univ. - Law) has posted Invitations to Intervene After the Cold War: Toward a New Collective Model (in Max Planck Trialogues on the Law of Peace and War, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The argument supporting a right to intervene at a government’s request would seem straightforward. The UN Charter endows states with a virtually absolute right to bar outside forces from entering upon their territory. But governments, as the state’s agent, have broad discretion to exercise this right or not to do so; and, if not, to invite foreigners to assist in any actions they could lawfully undertake themselves. That choice is simply an example of states’ general ability to consent to actions otherwise considered unlawful. Consent – so the argument goes – precludes the wrongfulness of the foreigners’ presence and vitiates any violation of the state’s territorial integrity.

Despite this appealing logic, few scholars believe the claim accurately describes contemporary international law. But there is even less agreement on the alternatives. This chapter will focus on two aspects of consensual interventions that recent scholarship has not addressed at length.

First, it asks whether any of the various theories of consent find support in a comprehensive assessment of post-Cold War practice. To my knowledge, no effort has been made to compile all examples of consensual intervention after the end of the Cold War and examine systematically how the United Nations, regional organizations and leading states have reacted. The discussion of this practice will rely on a new dataset compiled for this purpose.

Second, the chapter focuses particular attention on the practice of the UN Security Council. The data reveal that the Council has issued resolutions or Presidential Statements on an overwhelming proportion (82%) of consensual interventions since 1990. Many scholars have focused on the international community’s inability to agree on factual aspects of contested interventions. These include whether an invitation was in fact issued, whether the inviting party exercised effective control over a state and whether a conflict had reached the level of a ‘civil war’. But controversies over these factual predicates for a valid invitation are rendered largely irrelevant through collective determinations by the Council, which enjoys an authority to characterize legally significant facts and to distinguish between lawful and unlawful uses of force.

New Issue: Swiss Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Swiss Review of International and European Law (Vol. 34, no. 2, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Robert Kolb, Questions diverses de droit international public
• Daniel Girsberger & Dirk Trüten, Beitritt der Schweiz zum Haager Gerichtsstandsübereinkommen: Bedeutung für das schweizerische Internationale Zivilprozessrecht und Einordnung in das internationale Regelungsumfeld
• Filip Batselé, The Unknown Innovator: Switzerland and the Beginning of the Investment Treaty Regime

New Issue: Leiden Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law (Vol. 37, no. 2, June 2024) is out. Contents include:

• International Legal Theory
• Gail Lythgoe, Eradicating the exceptional: The role of territory in structuring international legal thought
• Xiaohang Chen, Deciphering l’esprit d’internationalité: The 1872 Alabama arbitration and the pacifist antithesis of modern international law profession
• Michael Elliot, Revisiting Jessup and the imperial origins of transnational law
• Giovanni Mantilla, From treaty to custom: Shifting paths in the recent development of international humanitarian law
• International Law and Practice
• Xuexia Liao, Delimitation methodology for the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles: Three-stage approach as a way forward?
• Rozemarijn J. Roland Holst, Exploiting the deep seabed for the benefit of humankind: A universal ideology for sustainable resource development or a false necessity?
• Bjørn Kunoy, Dislodging the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism: Analysis of Article 281 of UNCLOS
• Lorenzo Cotula & Nicolás M. Perrone, Seeing Santurbán through ISDS: A sociolegal case study of Eco Oro v. Colombia
• Medes Malaihollo & Lottie Lane, Mapping out due diligence in regional human rights law: Comparing case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
• International Criminal Courts and Tribunals
• Alessandra Cuppini, The ‘ideal victim’: A cage for victims’ narratives at the International Criminal Court
• Cristina Fernández-Pacheco Estrada, Gravity of the crime and early release: A comparative study of early release practices in international tribunals