Research Platform: EGSTradeHub.org

Nicolette Butler (Univ. of Manchester - Law) and Jasem Tarawneh (Queen Mary Univ. of London - Law) have launched a new online repository for information related to international trade in environmental goods and services (EGS): EGSTradeHub.org. Here's a description:

EGSTradeHub.org is a new one-stop resource bringing together academic research, legal materials, policy documents, institutional resources, events, reports, and commentary relating broadly to Environmental Goods and Services (EGS), trade and environment, and climate-aligned trade governance. Developed by Dr Nicolette Butler (University of Manchester) and Dr Jasem Tarawneh (Queen Mary University of London), the platform is designed to help users navigate what is often a fragmented and difficult-to-access landscape by consolidating a wide range of materials into a single, searchable, and regularly updated resource.

The Hub serves as a key resource for academics, students, policymakers, negotiators, practitioners, NGOs, and others working across international trade, environmental governance, and sustainable development. The project team also warmly welcomes suggestions and contributions of relevant publications, reports, events, databases, and other materials to help ensure the resource remains comprehensive and up to date. The website is available here.

Call for Headnotes: International Institutional Practice Regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic

Oxford International Organizations (OXIO), a database of annotated documents pertaining to the law of international organizations, has issued a call for headnotes on "International Institutional Practice Regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic." Here's the call:

International organizations have been actively involved in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, covering issues ranging from governance in the health sector to the sovereign debt payment obligations of countries whose economy has been significantly affected. These actions are producing a rich collection of documents of international organizations. In actively addressing the challenges, the documents have stirred up debates and critiques that are of particular relevance to the law and practice of international organizations. OXIO is seeking to publish new headnotes regarding such new and current institutional practice (including but not limited to that of the World Health Organization) relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oxford International Organizations (OXIO) is a database of annotated documents pertaining to the law of international organizations. The database is a unique and important repository, and the first of its kind, for acts and practices of international organizations which are of central importance to enquiries into international law, including international institutional law, and which have never been consolidated in one single tool. Learn more about the database on the About OXIO page.

Replies to the call should be addressed to oxio.editors@gmail.com and n.rusli@rug.nl.

New Website: GPIL – German Practice in International Law

A new website on German Practice in International Law has been established. Here's the idea:

GPIL – German Practice in International Law publishes case studies on German State practice in the field of public international law. Each case study presents the German position on a particular question of public international law and puts that position in its wider factual and political context. Where applicable, it also records the reactions of other States and provides a legal assessment of the German position. Case studies are based on decisions by German courts, diplomatic notes, official government statements, answers to parliamentary questions, government reports, or statement before international organizations. All documents or extracts thereof not otherwise available in English are translated into English. In this manner it hopes to provide non-German speaking scholars and practitioners with a ready source of current information on the views and practice of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany in the field of public international law.

GPIL covers the full spectrum of public international law ranging from air and space law to the use of force. The material is arranged in 35 broad subject categories. A Search facility allows for a full-text search of all records. The material is presented without hyperlinks or references as many of the original documents will be in German. A fully referenced version of all entries will be published annually in book form.

If you are interested in State practice, please check out GPIL and subscribe to the newsletter.

Oxford International Organizations

Today, Oxford University Press launched Oxford International Organizations (OXIO), an online research database led by editors-in-chief Jean d’Aspremont (Univ. of Manchester & Sciences Po), Catherine Brölmann (Univ. of Amsterdam), & Iain Scobbie (Univ. of Manchester). Here's the idea:

International organizations have been with us for a long time. They are now cardinal actors in international life, law and politics, a critical role which was probably not fully anticipated at their inception in the mid-nineteenth century.

It is frequently acknowledged that, especially since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, the role of organizations has increased exponentially. Today over 600 international intergovernmental organizations are active in virtually all areas of human activity, including (but not at all limited to) environmental protection; peace and security; health; trade; food and agriculture; technology; human rights; rail transport; and space travel. Organizations are platforms for State action, but they also operate as independent actors. Indeed, next to States, organizations are key participants in international legal affairs. In the same vein, many of the resolutions, decisions, statements and drafts produced by international organizations have lasting relevance for the development and interpretation of international law and its main rules. In addition, international organizations and their institutional structure have themselves been elevated into an important object of study and numerous scholarly works on international organizations are produced every year. Issues of international norm-creation, decision-making, and immunity of organizations before domestic courts, to name but a few, continue to be topical and extensively studied.

While there is general agreement on the increasing role played by international organizations, the actual extent of this role and the implications thereof remain the object of intense debate in legal and scholarly commentaries. Indeed, organizations today seem to be simultaneously acclaimed and abhorred; deemed to be the guardian of the international order and the cause of international disorder; taken as the monitors of fundamental rights and the villains of the international rule of law. By the same token, there is a wide range of understandings of what constitutes an ‘international organization’, ranging from an inter-state treaty regime to an autonomous constitutional subject with its own legal order. In this sense, international organizations and their contribution to global governance have perhaps never been as discussed and contested as they are today.

It is in this context that Oxford International Organizations (OXIO) has been built, with the aim of providing practitioners, scholars, legal advisers, policy-makers, and observers of international relations with the most precise, holistic and up-to-date picture of the acts of international organizations possible, and with an increased understanding of the contribution of these organizations. OXIO is the first database for analyzing and understanding key documents of international organizations. Each document is accompanied by a concise expert commentary. In order to capture the full bearing of international organizations on various substantive areas of international law as well as on the field of international institutional law in particular, OXIO includes, but is not limited to, resolutions and decisions of organizations, draft normative texts prepared within the framework of organizations, and constituent instruments of organizations. It also contains court decisions relevant for the institutional law of organizations as well as, occasionally, a treaty to which an organization is a party, where this brings light to issues of institutional law. Until now, there have been no such collection of documents spanning all organizations and areas of international law. OXIO is a unique repository which brings together a variety of documents that have never been consolidated in one single tool – a tool that will be constantly updated with the latest documents and acts of international organizations.

For the sake of OXIO, ‘international organization’ refers to an intergovernmental organization established between states or other international legal actors by a treaty or other instrument possessing at least some permanence of structure. ‘Non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) are excluded from the scope of OXIO. Yet, OXIO is keen to take into account the fringes of the intergovernmental category so defined. Thus, a document of the G20 (an intergovernmental platform with probably an insufficient degree of permanence to qualify as a traditional ‘international organization’) could be relevant for an OXIO headnote. The same holds for a document pertaining to a ‘public-private partnership’ (where the private party-component would preclude it from qualifying as a traditional ‘international organization’).

The Editors are proud to introduce OXIO to the community of all those who are interested in international organizations, and commend Oxford University Press for facilitating the creation of such an innovative and unprecedented database which will allow practitioners, scholars, legal advisers, policy-makers and observers of international relations and global governance to have at their disposal the most extensive, consolidated and updated database on international organizations and their contribution to international life, law, and politics.

The Editors-in-Chief

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two interviews to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law in commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of the International Court of Justice. They were with Judge Ronny Abraham on “La Cour internationale de Justice à l'aube de son soixante-dixième anniversaire” and Philippe Couvreur on “Le déroulement du procès devant la Cour internationale de Justice.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Maurice Mendelson on “Customary International Law” and Kimberley Trapp on “State Responsibility for International Terrorism.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Malgosia Fitzmaurice on “Whaling: the Gordian Knot of International Law” and Antonios Tzanakopoulos on “Domestic Courts in International Law.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Piet Eeckhout on “The European Union and International Law” and Philippa Webb on “The Law of State Immunity: Overview, Specific Aspects and Future Prospects.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Concepción Escobar Hernández on “Inmunidad de jurisdicción penal extranjera de los funcionarios del Estado” and Françoise J. Hampson on “Reservations to Human Rights Treaties.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by John Norton Moore on “The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: One of the Greatest Achievements in the International Rule of Law (Shabtai Rosenne Memorial Lecture)” and Theodor Meron on “The Mechanism: A New Model of International Criminal Tribunal.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added three lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Djamchid Momtaz on “La sécession en droit international”; August Reinisch on “The Evolution of WTO Dispute Settlement”; and Michael Wood on “International Law and the Use of Force: What Happens in Practice?”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added two courses and seven lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. The courses were given by Laurence Boisson de Chazournes on “Droit international de l'environnement” and Makane Mbengue on “Introduction au droit de l'OMC.” The lectures were given by André Nollkaemper on “Shared Responsibility in International Law”; Mohamed Bennouna on “La Cour internationale de Justice et les droits de l'homme”; Peter Tomka on “The Special Agreement as a Way of Submitting Disputes to the International Court of Justice”; and Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade on “The Human Person and International Justice,” “L’humanisation du droit international,” “The Founding Fathers of International Law,” and “Le système interaméricain de protection des droits de l'homme.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

Three new lectures have been added to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Guy S. Goodwin-Gill on “Migrants’ Rights,” Bing Bing Jia on “The Regime of International Straits: Current State of the Law,” and Lea Brilmayer on “The Problem of Secession in International Law.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

Two new lectures have been added to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Hassan B. Jallow on “Fair Trial in International Criminal Justice” and by Sean D. Murphy on “Crimes against Humanity.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

Three new lectures have been added to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Judge Kenneth Keith on “The International Court of Justice - The Reflections of One Judge as He Leaves Office” and “Interpreting in International Courts and Tribunals” and by Antonios Tzanakopoulos on “The United Nations Security Council Sanctions.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

Two new lectures have been added to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. They were given by Marko Milanovic on “The Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties” and by Dire Tladi on “Immunities and the Obligation to Cooperate under the Rome Statute.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

I noted recently some additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. Two more lectures have now been added. They were given by Judge Vagn Joensen on “An Introduction to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and its Impact on the Rule of Law in Rwanda” and Professor David D. Caron on "Understanding Why International Courts and Tribunals Look and Act as They Do.”

New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new lectures and introductory notes to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website, which provides high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients around the world free of charge. The latest lectures were given by Professor Dapo Akande on "The Immunity of State Officials from Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction" and by Professor Guy S. Goodwin-Gill on "Expulsion in Public International Law." The latest introductory notes - introductions to particular legal instruments prepared by an eminent international law scholar or practitioner with special expertise on the subject - include the following: "Statute of the International Court of Justice" by Judge Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade and "Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations" by Judge Giorgio Gaja.

International Crimes Database

On November 12, 2013, the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague will launch the International Crimes Database. This platform offers a comprehensive database on international crimes adjudicated by national, international and internationalized courts and will provide access to a range of information not just for lawyers and judges but also for students, academics, families and communities of victims of crimes, among others. Details concerning the launch event are available here.

Website: La compétence universelle en droit belge

Those interested in universal jurisdiction may want to check out this website on La compétence universelle en droit belge. Here's a description:

La compétence universelle se définit comme la compétence exercée par un Etat qui poursuit les auteurs de certains crimes, quel que soit le lieu où le crime a été commis, et sans égard à la nationalité des auteurs ou des victimes.

Peu d'Etats exercent effectivement cette compétence, même si de nombreuses législations nationales la prévoient. C'est pourquoi la Belgique, qui a adopté en 1993 une loi visant la répression des infractions graves aux Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 et aux Protocoles additionnels I et II du 8 juin 1977, plus communément appelée "loi de compétence universelle" et qui l'a mise en oeuvre, a fait office de pionnière. Cette loi a été modifiée à deux reprises, avant d'être abrogée le 5 août 2003. La compétence universelle subsiste toutefois en droit belge. Des dispositions ont été incorporées au Code pénal et au Code de procédure pénale en ce sens. Mais ces dispositions, qui reprennent en partie celles de l'ancienne loi, en restreignent substantiellement la portée.

Le présent dossier documentaire vise à alimenter le débat auquel l'adoption et la mise en oeuvre de cette loi ont donné lieu, en permettant l'accès à un certain nombre de documents de base relatifs à la législation en cause et à ses mises en application devant les tribunaux. Une approche de droit comparé est également proposée, avec des pages consacrées aux développements intervenus dans ce domaine dans deux autres Etats: l’Espagne et la France.