Call for Papers: Legal Aspects of Interactions between International Organizations and the Private Sector

The PRIVIGO project (“International Organizations between Mission and Market”), sponsored by the European Research Council and located at the Erik Castrén Institute, has issued a call for papers for a workshop on "Legal Aspects of Interactions between International Organizations and the Private Sector," to take place May 23, 2025, in Helsinki. The call is here.

New Issue: Journal of Global Health Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Global Health Law (Vol. 1, no. 2, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• John Coggon, Defining global health law
• Lisa Forman, The evolving international law standards governing restrictions of economic, social, and cultural rights during public health emergencies
• Luciano Bottini Filho, Interpreting the international right to health in global health priority-setting (or what lies beyond a fair procedure)
• Belinda Reeve & Roger Magnusson, Reducing unhealthy food and beverage advertising to children: a framework for strengthening performance, transparency and enforcement
• Essay
• Jennifer J. Prah, Theoretical and normative foundations for global health law
• Commentary
• Pedro A. Villarreal, The World Health Organization and the International Health Regulations of 2005: from emergency management to public health risk governance

Orrego Vicuña: International Law in Search of Rebalance

Francisco Orrego Vicuña has published International Law in Search of Rebalance (Brill | Nijhoff 2025). Here's the abstract:

Is the nature of international law today essentially different from the past five centuries, or does it reflect a gradual transformation within certain basic principles that remain unaltered? This book considers the profound structural changes of international law, in line with the requirements of globalization, and tracks the law’s evolution over the centuries with special regard to the dichotomy between idealism and pragmatism.

International law was the vocation and passion of Francisco Orrego Vicuña, who dedicated his life to the observation, study, teaching and practice of this important legal discipline. He was a privileged witness of the great advances and changes that international law has undergone in the last 50 years, and this book – with an Introduction by Rüdiger Wolfrum and Michael Wood and the assistance of Simon C. Milnes - is the result of years of work and research. It is, posthumously, his magnum opus.

Workshop: Virtual Workshop on the Law and Practice of International Organizations

On February 17, 2025, the International Organizations Interest Groups of the American Society of International Law and the European Society of International Law will hold their biannual virtual workshop of academic works-in-progress addressing the law or practice of international organizations. The plenary, with papers by Kristina Daugirdas/Tom Ginsburg and Charlotte Steinorth and Jacob Katz Cogan as the discussant, is open to the public. Workshop details are here. Please contact dpickard@debevoise.com or igioesil@gmail.com with any questions.

Morris: The Silent Peacemaker: Intellectual Property Rights and the Interwar International Legal Order, 1919–1939

P. Sean Morris (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) has published The Silent Peacemaker: Intellectual Property Rights and the Interwar International Legal Order, 1919–1939 (Brill | Nijhoff 2024). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This collection of essays explores the role intellectual property played in the interwar period and the expansion and protection of intellectual property rights. The geographical scope of the book is global so as to give perspectives from different regions on how intellectual property law developed. The topics covered range from a synopsis of intellectual property in Jewish works confiscated by the Nazis to how intellectual property can be understood as part of the evolution of inventors’ moral rights. This volume’s aim is to develop new narratives on the ideas and structures of intellectual property during the interwar period and on how those ideas and structures were held together by the competing forces of markets, ownership and political ideals of the international legal order at that time.

van Aaken, d'Argent, Mälksoo, & Vasel: The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Europe

Anne van Aaken (Univ. of Hamburg - Law), Pierre d'Argent (Univ. of Louvain - Law), Lauri Mälksoo (Univ. of Tartu - Law), & Johann Justus Vasel (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf - Law) have published The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Europe (Oxford Univ. Press 2024). The editors' introduction is here. Here's the abstract:

This handbook provides a comprehensive account of how international law is understood and practised in Europe, broadly defined for the purposes of the book as Council of Europe countries in the past and in the present. Its parts cover Europe’s values, intellectual traditions, and institutions as well as the approaches of individual European countries. A diverse group of leading scholars and practitioners of international law are led by three overarching questions: the successes and failures of the pacifying effect of international law; the diversity of international legal experiences and traditions within Europe; and the impact of European ideas on international law globally. By examining these questions, the book inevitably also discusses Europe’s changing role in the world and the impact of global influences on the understanding of international law in European countries. The book is a study of regionalism in international law but also a study of the impact of a region which, at least historically, has had an overwhelming influence on the development and interpretations of international law.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 42, no. 4, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• R2P and Atrocity Prevention at the United Nations: The Role of Small States
• Ellen Emilie Stensrud & Martin Mennecke, On the 20th anniversary of the responsibility to protect: Can small states save R2P from failure and oblivion?
• Ellen E. Stensrud, Bringing Realism to the Idealism of Small States: Norway and Atrocity Prevention at the UN Security Council
• Martin Mennecke, The UN Human Rights Council, Denmark, and R2P—the Perfect Match?
• Hanna Tuominen, Finland’s role in the promotion of Responsibility to Protect at the United Nations
• Jonas Fritzler, R2P Niche Diplomacy and Norm Development in Times of Politicization: A Look at Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden
• Sarka Kolmasova, The Czech Republic: Human Rights Defender, Yet No R2P Champion
• Vasilka Sancin, UN Security Council Membership as a Litmus Test for Slovenia’s Commitment to R2P
• Frank Okyere Osei, Small States as Norm Entrepreneurs: Unveiling Ghana's Agency in Atrocity Prevention
• George Okoth-Obbo, The role of Small States in advancing the Responsibility to Protect: personal reflections of a former United Nations mandate holder

Event: Protection of the Environment under International Law during Occupation

On February 5, 2025, Westminster Law School and the International Law at Westminster Research Group will host a discussion of Waad Abualrob's book Protection of the Environment under International Law during Occupation. Details are here.

Call for Papers: Towards a Global Ecological-Economic Legal Framework

The ESIL Interest Groups on International Environmental Law, on the European and International Rule of Law, and on International Economic Law are jointly organising a conference on “Towards a Global Ecological-Economic Legal Framework,” to take place June 6-7, 2025, at École Normale Supérieure – Paris Sciences et Lettres. The call is here.

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 23, no. 5, December 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Package Treaties
• Charlotte Sieber-Gasser & Noémie Laurens, Introduction to the Special Issue on Package Treaties
• Joost Pauwelyn & Charlotte Sieber-Gasser, Addressing Negative Effects of Trade Liberalization: Unilateral and Mutually Agreed Flanking Policies
• Richard Baldwin, Giovanni Donato, & Camille Reverdy, Identifying Spillovers of Trade Agreements through Impact Assessments: A New Database
• Kathleen Claussen, Operationalizing Package Treaties: A US Case Study
• Timothy Meyer, Second-Generation Flanking Policies: Addressing Extraterritorial and Non-Economic Costs of Trade Liberalization
• Gregory Shaffer, Addressing the Negative Externalities of Trade: Flanking Policies and the Role of Package Treaties
• Layna Mosley, B. Peter Rosendorff, A Domestic Political Economy of Package Treaties

Event: Marking the Publication of "The Incoherence of Human Rights in International Law"

On Feburary 27, 2025, the Manchester International Law Centre will host, in-person and online, a celebration of the publication of The Incoherence of Human Rights in International Law: Absence, Emergence and Limitations and its dedication to Surya P. Subedi. Details are here.

Call for Papers: Intellectual Property and Technical Cooperation in Africa: Law, Policy and Path

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Intellectual Property and Technical Cooperation in Africa: Law, Policy and Path," to take place August 20—21, 2025, at the University of Turku Faculty of Law. The call is here.

Rosenzweig & Pacholska: The use of facial recognition for targeting under international law

Ido Rosenzweig (Univ. of Haifa - Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions) & Magdalena Pacholska (Univ. of Haifa - Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions) have posted The use of facial recognition for targeting under international law (International Review of the Red Cross, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In the quest for “identity dominance” over the enemy, armed forces are increasingly leveraging biometrics for a variety of purposes. This paper focuses on the combat employment of one of them – facial recognition, which, unlike other biometrics, does not appear to have been widely utilized for targeting purposes yet. With the purchasing patterns of advanced militaries suggesting that such a development is around the corner, this paper assesses the compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) of the use of facial recognition technologies for targeting purposes. It peruses the applicable legal framework to demonstrate that IHL is neutral towards the use of new technologies and that the right to privacy under international human rights law does not preclude the use of biometrics in hostilities. The analysis zooms in on two specific use cases in which facial recognition is likely to be employed on the battlefield, namely (1) targeted killings against combatants and (2) targeted killings against civilians directly participating in hostilities. The paper closes with an acknowledgment that while facial recognition does have obvious operational benefits, it also has the potential to exacerbate targeting practices that stretch the limits of IHL.

New Volume: African Journal of International Economic Law

The latest volume of the African Journal of International Economic Law (Vol. 4, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Wojciech Giemza, Moonlighting Revisited: International Court of Justice Judges as Adjudicators in Investment Arbitration
• Stanley U. Nweke-Eze, Promoting African States as Seats of International Arbitration
• Adaeze Agatha Aniodoh & Abubakri Yekini, Prospects and Pitfalls of BITs and the Quest for a Multilateral Framework in Africa
• Morris K. Odeh, Rethinking the Pharmaceutical Knowledge- Economy: Patents, the TRIPS Agreement, and Skewed Utilitarianism in the Evolving Ideological Paradigms
• Annabel Nanjira & Nwamaka Okany, African Practice in International Economic Law 2022-2023