Lecture: Boisson de Chazournes on “The Request for an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Climate Change: Continuity and Evolution”

On September 26, 2024, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes (Univ. of Geneva - Law) will give a lecture (a masterclass), via Zoom, on “The Request for an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Climate Change: Continuity and Evolution,” hosted by the Brazilian Branch of the International Law Association and the Graduate Program in Law at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in partnership with Stylus Curiarum – Research Group on International Courts and Tribunals. The discussant will be Lucas Carlos Lima (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - Law). Details are here.

Howley: Overlapping Individual and Interstate Claims in International Law

Jessica Howley has published Overlapping Individual and Interstate Claims in International Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

Mechanisms for individuals to bring claims under international law have become increasingly common in recent decades, particularly in human rights and investment law. Nonetheless, when the International Law Commission codified the law of State responsibility, it largely ignored the bringing of international claims by individuals, and the relationship between such claims and those brought on the interstate level. Overlapping Individual and Interstate Claims in International Law is the first dedicated monograph examining this relationship - one that is of mounting importance on both a practical and theoretical level.

This work provides a comprehensive survey of the potential for overlapping individual and interstate claims to arise. It underlines issues of fairness, consistency, and interference with autonomy that can result when multiple claimants vie to have their claims determined before different forums. The author analyses in detail how treaty provisions and various rules and principles of international law can be expected to regulate such overlapping claims, considering, among others, the local remedies rule, the rule precluding double recovery, res judicata, waiver, and certain circumstances precluding wrongfulness. The book clarifies the nature of international claims, including in the theoretically muddled field of diplomatic protection, and highlights undertheorized foundations of topical debates concerning the use of countermeasures and self-defence outside of the interstate arena. It concludes with a human rights-oriented proposal for resolving the complex policy issues to which these overlapping claims give rise.

Kilibarda: Recognition of States in International Law

Pavle Kilibarda (Univ. of Geneva) has published Recognition of States in International Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

Although the recognition of States is a common occurrence in international relations and retains a central position in discussions of international law, its nature and legal effects have remained controversial well into the twenty-first century. While some believe that recognition plays a fundamental role in the creation of statehood, others deny recognition any legal value. Regardless, debates surrounding any case where statehood is disputed will sooner or later turn to the matter of recognition, or lack thereof, by other States.

This book challenges the widespread views of statehood as an absolute or empirical fact and of recognition as merely declaratory in the creation of States as the primary and original persons of international law. Drawing upon a comparative analysis of contested States ranging from Palestine and Kosovo to Somaliland and Eastern Ukraine, this book seeks to ascertain the normative value and the effects of the act of recognition in various situations, distinguishing between: cases where statehood may be inferred from applicable rules of international law, cases where statehood could only be explained by recognition, and cases where the establishment of a State is prevented by international legal norms. In addition to discussing a range of issues related to recognition, this book provides an up-to-date overview of the history of recognition, the positions of various governments, and a broad, critical summary of domestic and international jurisprudence.

New Issue: International Organization

The latest issue of International Organization (Vol. 78, no. 2, Spring 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Austin Carson, Eric Min, & Maya Van Nuys, Racial Tropes in the Foreign Policy Bureaucracy: A Computational Text Analysis
• Derek Bolton, Security, Society, and the Perennial Struggles over the Sacred: Revising the Wars of Religion in International Relations Theory
• Lars-Erik Cederman, Yannick I. Pengl, Luc Girardin, & Carl Müller-Crepon, The Future Is History: Restorative Nationalism and Conflict in Post-Napoleonic Europe
• Aníbal Pérez-Liñán & Angie K. García Atehortúa, Oversight Hearings, Stakeholder Engagement, and Compliance in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
• Research Notes
• Taylor J. Damann, Dahjin Kim, & Margit Tavits, Women and Men Politicians’ Response to War: Evidence from Ukraine
• Deniz Aksoy, Ted Enamorado, & Tony Zirui Yang, Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Chinese Public Support for War

Ohlin: War's Rustic Code of Honor

Jens David Ohlin (Cornell Univ. - Law) has posted War's Rustic Code of Honor (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

With armed conflict raging all around, international law generally, and the law of war specifically, has come under renewed scrutiny. Do we live in a rules-based international order, and does law regulate and constrain battlefield behavior? Previous explorations of this controversy have used empirical analysis or jurisprudential investigations. But an illuminating answer to this question may come from an unlikely source -- the world of opera. Drawing inspiration from the Italian opera Cavalleria Rusticana, a melodrama about a rural village gripped by seduction, betrayal, and a fatal duel, this Article argues that war is governed by a rustic code of honor, based on norms that are often described as chivalry. The relationship between the ancient tradition of chivalry and the modern Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) is not new, but this Article's novel contribution hangs not on invoking the concept of chivalry, but rather on highlighting its "rustic" qualities. Using this framework of rusticity, this Article explores the variety of meanings that rusticity can have and shows that they provide a compelling framework for identifying not just the shortcomings of the law of war, as an allegedly primitive legal system, but also the great virtues of the law of war as a robust system of normative regulation -- an alternate meaning of "rustic" but an equally important one. As in the plot of the opera, where chivalry constitutes the only meaningful constraint on behavior in its rural village far from central legal authority, chivalry in war is a pre-legal norm deeply embedded in the psyche of its participants and in its distant location, divorced from civil authority. In both contexts, chivalry ripens into a full-blown system that is deserving of the label of "law," as imperfect as it is. What emerges is a portrait of the law of war that is at once realistic and even-handed, rather than caricatured in either direction by its critics or boosters. Yes, the law of war is rustic in the sense that it is distant, primitive, and unsophisticated. But the law of war is also rustic in the sense that it is simple, uncomplicated, robust, distilled to its core, and ultimately effective because it is tailored, in bespoke fashion, for its unique context. This is War's Rustic Code of Honor.

Dothan: Staging an Intervention for Rogue States

Shai Dothan (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) has posted Staging an Intervention for Rogue States. Here's the abstract:

In recent years, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is beginning to play a larger role in world politics. The court has interpreted the erga omnes partes doctrine as giving every state that is a member of some treaties creating ICJ jurisdiction the right to start a case against any other member of that treaty. When the treaty deals with salient political issues, like the Genocide Convention, other states often join the process by intervening in the proceedings. The idea that states should act as guardians of humanity isn't new. It was tried before in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and failed. States either chose not to bring cases because they feared the political backlash involved or they used their standing for political paybacks. This paper argues that the attempts to position states as guardians of humanity and use the collective pressure of the international community to guide rogue states into compliance with international law are unlikely to succeed. Insights from the social sciences suggest that a small community composed of complex actors with a variety of interests, some of which are clandestine, can easily spread falsehoods among its members. The community of states is such a network. In light of this, one can expect that the community of states participating in politically salient ICJ cases will not be guided by the truth.

Conference: The Scope of Litigation under the UNCLOS

On November 21-22, 2024, the Judicial Jurisdiction Project – a joint project of the Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea and the Utrecht University Centre for Water, Oceans and Sustainability Law at Utrecht University School of Law – will host a conference on “The Scope of Litigation under the UNCLOS – Where Are We Now and Where May We Be Going?,” in Utrecht. The program is here. Those who wish to register must provide, by November 1, 2024, a statement (max. 250 words) explaining their interest in the topic of judicial jurisdiction (in the law of the sea) and their expectations for the conference. Details are available here.

Webinar: Legal Education During Armed Conflict

On September 23, 2024, the Clinical Legal Education Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in collaboration with the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa will hold a webinar on "Legal Education During Armed Conflict." Details are here.

Call for Papers: Workshop on Race and International Relations

The International Race and Rights Lab at the University of Notre Dame has issued a call for papers for its third workshop on "Race and International Relations," to take place March 27-28, 2025, in South Bend. The call is here.

Mavronicola: The Case Against Human Rights Penality

Natasa Mavronicola (Univ. of Birmingham - Law) has published The Case Against Human Rights Penality (Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 44, no. 3, Autumn 2024). Here's the abstract:

This article seeks to make the human rights case against human rights penality—that is, against the reliance upon and foregrounding of penal mechanisms in the protection of (certain) human rights. The rationale for the alliance between human rights and state penality has at least three central dimensions: effectiveness, accountability and equal protection. In particular, the mobilisation of criminal law (enforcement) and punishment is often treated as the most effective means of preventing and/or redressing human rights violations. Moreover, the criminal process and sanction are often understood as the pinnacle of accountability for serious human rights violations. Finally, the egalitarian rationale for human rights penality views it as redistributing protection to under-protected persons. While remaining committed to human rights, I unpack (some of) the ways in which human rights penality ultimately fails to uphold and even undermines the principles that it has been promoted as fulfilling within the human rights frame.