Most Interesting 2021: Krieger, Law-Making and Legitimacy in International Humanitarian Law

The second in our series "Most Interesting 2021":

Heike Krieger, Law-Making and Legitimacy in International Humanitarian Law (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021)

The changing nature of modern armed conflicts poses deep challenges to IHL, affecting compliance and the effectiveness of the regime. This observation permeates almost all discussions on IHL. But are compliance and effectiveness the only (and the best) lenses through which to assess the contemporary challenges of IHL and to question its status as a legal regime? This book brings to the foreground legitimacy as analytical lens to engage normatively with the contemporary challenges of IHL. This is indeed a novel and underexplored perspective on IHL that merits great attention.

The volume uses legitimacy as criterium to analyse law-making processes in IHL. Law-making is convincingly being understood in a broad sense, covering not only treaty-making but also involving judicial practice and the making of manuals on IHL. The volume explores a broad spectrum of processes and actors involved in IHL law-making processes, suggests a convincing framework for approaching current IHL developments, and at the same time also provides a new way to think about the potential and the limits of the IHL regime.

Rachele Marconi
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in International Law
University of Macerata
Visiting Fellow
Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law

New Issue: Journal on the Use of Force and International Law

The latest issue of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (Vol. 8, no. 2, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Article
• Simona Ross, U.S. justifications for the use of force in Syria through the prism of the Responsibility to Protect
• ‘Arria Formula’ Meeting Contributions
• James A. Green, Introduction to contributions on the February 2021 ‘Arria formula’ meeting of the UNSC
• Adil Ahmad Haque, The use of force against non-state actors: all over the map
• Naz K. Modirzadeh & Pablo Arrocha Olabuenaga, A conversation between Pablo Arrocha Olabuenaga and Naz Khatoon Modirzadeh on the origins, objectives, and context of the 24 February 2021 ‘Arria-formula’ meeting convened by Mexico

Tigre & Lichet: The CRC Decision in Sacchi v. Argentina

Maria Antonia Tigre (Columbia Univ. - Sabin Center for Climate Change Law) & Victoria Lichet (Global Pact for the Environment Coalition) have posted an ASIL Insight on The CRC Decision in Sacchi v. Argentina.

Most Interesting 2021: Reiners, Transnational Lawmaking Coalitions for Human Rights

Many thanks to all those who submitted their choices for most "interesting, important, or influential" article or book published in 2021. As a reminder, the call was open exclusively to junior scholars. Beginning today, I will post the submissions. Each post will include the article and/or book and a statement from the recommender explaining the reason why they believe the article/book is interesting, important, or influential. The full series will be available at the label "Most Interesting 2021." Here's the first post:

Nina Reiners, Transnational Lawmaking Coalitions for Human Rights (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021)

This fascinating and well-written book provides an in-depth study of the lawmaking process at the UN human rights treaty bodies. It looks at the importance of informal collaborations in developing treaty interpretations. Empirically the book focuses on the debates and the General Comment on the ‘Right to Water’. However, by going beyond the study of formal processes, Reiners demonstrates the crucial role of various actors, including NGO representatives and human rights professionals in the actual lawmaking process. Reiners identifies, conceptualises, and studies these actors working together as ‘Transnational Law Making Coalitions’.

The book achieves the study with the help of an innovative theoretical framework. It provides several detailed case studies and new and original data. This book is fascinating not only for the empirical insights it provides but also for the novel conceptualisation of transnational lawmaking coalitions. The book also appeals to scholars of International Law interested in the lawmaking process beyond the formal aspects and International Relations scholars interested in the practical workings of the UN human rights treaty bodies. But it also appeals to those interested in human rights or international organisations more generally. It is a stellar example of an interdisciplinary work that bridges International Law and International Relations in a meaningful way, from which scholars from both disciplines can benefit.

Sassan Gholiagha
Visiting Researcher
WZB Berlin

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 28, no. 6, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Matthias Thiemann, Carolina Raquel Melches & Edin Ibrocevic, Measuring and mitigating systemic risks: how the forging of new alliances between central bank and academic economists legitimize the transnational macroprudential agenda
• Oliver Levingston, Minsky’s moment? The rise of depoliticised Keynesianism and ideational change at the Federal Reserve after the financial crisis of 2007/08
• James D. G. Wood & Valentina Ausserladscheider, Populism, Brexit, and the manufactured crisis of British neoliberalism
• Skylar Brooks, What finance wants: explaining change in private regulatory preferences toward sovereign debt restructuring
• David L. Blaney, Provincializing economics: Jevons, Marshall and the colonial imaginaries of free trade
• Damian Raess, The demand-side politics of China’s global buying spree: managers’ attitudes toward Chinese inward FDI flows in comparative perspective
• Peter Knaack & Julian Gruin, From shadow banking to digital financial inclusion: China’s rise and the politics of epistemic contestation within the Financial Stability Board
• Rahel Kunz, Julia Maisenbacher & Lekh Nath Paudel, The financialization of remittances: governing through emotions
• Nils Röper, Between substantive and symbolic influence: diffusion, translation and bricolage in German pension politics
• Erik Peinert, Cartels, competition, and coalitions: the domestic drivers of international orders
• Matthias Diermeier, Judith Niehues & Joel Reinecke, Contradictory welfare conditioning—differing welfare support for natives versus immigrants
• Abby Innes, The limits of institutional convergence: why public sector outsourcing is less efficient than Soviet enterprise planning
• Serena Merrino, Currency and settler colonialism: the Palestinian case
• David James Gill, Rethinking sovereign default

Call for Papers: Deconstructing International Law

The Maastricht Study Group for Critical Approaches to International Law has issued a call for papers for a conference on "Deconstructing International Law," to be held in a hybrid online/offline format at Maastricht University, Netherlands, on April 7, 2022. The call is here.

New Issue: London Review of International Law

The latest issue of the London Review of International Law (Vol. 9, no. 2, July 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Kate Grady, Symposium Introduction: The 2003 Iraq War: history, legacy, resistance
• Robert Knox, International law, politics and opposition to the Iraq War
• Matthew Craven, The tyranny of strangers: transformative occupations old and new
• Gina Heathcote, Maritime demarcation in the Gulf after 2003
• Kate Grady, War and order: rethinking criminal accountability for the Iraq War
• Books etc.
• Madelaine Chiam, Public invocations of international law and legacies of the Iraq War

New Volume: Anuario Iberoamericano de Derecho Internacional Penal

The latest volume of the Anuario Iberoamericano de Derecho Internacional Penal (Vol. 9, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Sección de Artículos de Investigación desde el Derecho Internacional Penal
• Libia Arenal Lora, La regulación jurídica de los crímenes contra el medio ambiente en el derecho internacional: desafíos para la definición del ecocidio como un crimen internacional
• Juan Carlos Caita Moreno, El Potestad Jurisdiccional de la Corte Penal Internacional: El caso de Israel y Palestina, ¿estatolatría beligerante o falta de competencia?
• Ensayos seleccionados del XI Certamen Blattmann, Odio Benito y Steiner
• Laura Daniela Useche Acevedo, La Reponsabilidad de Crecer en el Conflicto
• Silvina Sánchez Mera, La Persona Civil y los Legados Esencialistas en la Corte Penal Internacional
• Alejandro Sánchez Frías, El interés de la justicia en el Estatuto de Roma: un análisis a partir de las decisiones en la situación de Afganistán
• Wendy Pena González, Ensayos seleccionados del V Certamen de Estudios Críticos sobre la Justicia
• ¿Un Derecho penal «de» la comunidad? Joel Moris Fernando Ramírez Mendoza, Bases para una Justicia Restaurativa-Transicional en Colombia problemas sobre la implementación de lo “restaurativo” en la JEP
• Daniela Sodini, ¿Es posible la reparación integral a víctimas de trata de personas mediante una acción civil in forma pauperis?
• Osvaldo R. Burgos, Círculo de moralidad, exclusión jurídica y capitalismo de vigilancia Una reflexión sobre nuestros patrones de juicio

Besson: Reconstructing the International Institutional Order: Inaugural Lecture delivered on Thursday 3 December 2020

Samantha Besson (Collège de France) has published Reconstructing the International Institutional Order: Inaugural Lecture delivered on Thursday 3 December 2020 (Collège de France 2021).

Call for Submissions: Special Issue on "International Climate Litigation"

The Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "International Climate Litigation." The call is here.

New Issue: Global Studies Quarterly

The latest issue of the Global Studies Quarterly (Vol. 1, no. 4, December 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Research Articles
• Grant Dawson, Classical Realism, Status, and Emotions: Understanding the Canada/Saudi Arabia Dispute and Its Implications for Global Politics
• Debak Das, “The Courtroom of World Opinion”: Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises
• Jens Steffek & Philip Wegmann, The Standardization of “Good Governance” in the Age of Reflexive Modernity
• Jaakko Heiskanen, In the Shadow of Genocide: Ethnocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and International Order
• Sharifah Munirah Alatas, A Malaysian Perspective on Foreign Policy and Geopolitics: Rethinking West-Centric International Relations Theory
• Mathis Lohaus, Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar, & Olivia Ding, Bifurcated Core, Diverse Scholarship: IR Research in Seventeen Journals around the World
• Naheem Jabbar & Usman Ali, “Like a Hair Drawn from Flour”: Everyday Militarization and Female Recruitment for Church Security Teams in Pakistan
• Joseph Torigian, A New Case for the Study of Individual Events in Political Science
• Rafael Duarte Villa, Fabrício H Chagas-Bastos, & Camila de Macedo Braga, Going beyond Security Community and Balance of Power: South America's Hybrid Regional Security Governance
• Kandida Purnell, Bodies Coming Apart and Bodies Becoming Parts: Widening, Deepening, and Embodying Ontological (In)Security in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Research Notes
• A Burcu Bayram & Marcus Holmes, The Logic of Negative Appeals: Graphic Imagery, Affective Empathy, and Foreign Development Aid

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 56, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Americo Beviglia Zampetti, Patrick Low, & Petros C. Mavroidis, Consensus Decision-Making and Legislative Inertia at the WTO: Can International Law Help?
• Ahmed Essa Al-Sulaiti, WTO Members Can Save Their ‘Crown Jewel’: A View from the Arab World
• Weihuan Zhou, Demystifying Australia: China Trade Tensions
• James Scott & Rorden Wilkinson, China and the WTO, Redux: Making Sense of Two Decades of Membership
• Revisiting the Debate on Import-Led Substitution and Export-Led Industrialization: Where Is India Heading Under Self-Reliant India?
• Hyo Won Lee & Youngwan Kim, Who Uses the Special and Differential Treatment Provisions of the WTO?
• Xiaoyan Wang & Xinzhe Song, Terroir and Trade War: Reforming China’s Legislation on Generic Terms Under the nfluence of the EU and US

New Issue: Security Studies

The latest issue of Security Studies (Vol. 30, no. 4, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Frances Yaping Wang, Barking Without Biting: Understanding Chinese Media Campaigns During Foreign Policy Disputes
• Kit Rickard & Kristin M. Bakke, Legacies of Wartime Order: Punishment Attacks and Social Control in Northern Ireland
• Hyun-Binn Cho, Nuclear Coercion, Crisis Bargaining, and The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict of 1969
• Jan Stockbruegger, US Strategy and the Rise of Private Maritime Security
• Katherine Irajpanah & Kenneth A. Schultz, Off the Menu: Post-1945 Norms and the End of War Declarations
• Oil and War: An Exchange

New Issue: Journal of Conflict & Security Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict & Security Law (Vol. 26, no. 3, Winter 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Mika Hayashi, NATO’s Nuclear Sharing Arrangements Revisited in Light of the NPT and the TPNW
• Mateusz Piątkowski, War in the Air from Spain to Yemen: The Challenges in Examining the Conduct of Air Bombardment
• Scarlett McArdle & Christy Shucksmith-Wesley, International Non-State Humanitarian Actors outside of the International Legal System: Can there be any Legal Consequences for Humanitarian Actors?
• Marco Odello, The Enrica Lexie Incident and the Status of Anti-Piracy Security Personnel on Board

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 66, no. 1, January 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Raymond Kuo & Brian Dylan Blankenship, Deterrence and Restraint: Do Joint Military Exercises Escalate Conflict?
• Magnus Lundgren, Kseniya Oksamytna, & Vincenzo Bove, Politics or Performance? Leadership Accountability in UN Peacekeeping
• Aseem Mahajan, Reuben Kline, & Dustin Tingley, Collective Risk and Distributional Equity in Climate Change Bargaining
• Justin Conrad, Liana Eustacia Reyes, & Megan A. Stewart, Revisiting Opportunism in Civil Conflict: Natural Resource Extraction and Health Care Provision
• Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Marius Mehrl, Indirect Governance at War: Delegation and Orchestration in Rebel Support
• Data Set Feature
• Guy Schvitz, Luc Girardin, Seraina Rüegger, Nils B. Weidmann, Lars-Erik Cederman, & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, Mapping the International System, 1886-2019: The CShapes 2.0 Dataset
• Hanne Fjelde & Kristine Höglund, Introducing the Deadly Electoral Conflict Dataset (DECO)

New Issue: Korean Journal of International and Comparative Law

The latest issue of the Korean Journal of International and Comparative Law (Vol. 9, no. 2, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Regional Cooperation and Marine Environmental Protection Under the UNCLOS Regime
• Markiyan Z. Kulyk, Advancement of the Duty to Cooperate in Marine Environmental Protection in the Jurisprudence of ITLOS
• Nilufer Oral, Implementing the Duty to Cooperate under the 1982 UNCLOS for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction under a New BBNJ Agreement
• Margaret A. Young, Protection of the Marine Environment: Rights and Obligations in Trade Agreements
• James Harrison, Towards Integrated Management of Regional Marine Protected Area Networks: A Case Study of Regime Interaction in the Southern Ocean
• Minchul Kim, Cutting the Gordian Knot: Is an Effective Cooperation Regime for Marine Scientific Research in Northeast Asia Feasible?
• Sookyeon Huh, Marine Scientific Research in Japan’s Practice
• Nong Hong, China’s Approach to Marine Scientific Research: Legislation, Policy and Practice
• Irini Papanicolopulu, Maritime Spatial Planning and Protection of the Marine Environment
• Lan Ngoc Nguyen, Jurisdiction and Applicable Law in the Settlement of Marine Environmental Disputes under UNCLOS
• Tomas Heidar, The Contribution of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to the Protection of the Marine Environment

Dumberry: Rebellions and Civil Wars: State Responsibility for the Conduct of Insurgents

Patrick Dumberry (Univ. of Ottawa - Law) has published Rebellions and Civil Wars: State Responsibility for the Conduct of Insurgents (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

This book analyses all relevant questions of State responsibility and attribution arising from the conduct of rebels and governments in the context of civil wars and rebellions aiming at the establishment of a new government or the creation of a new State. Based on a comprehensive analysis of both old and recent State practice, and case law, including investment awards, as well as the works of scholars and the International Law Commission, the book identifies ten basic rules which can be used by States and international tribunals. It explains the history, content and scope of application of the specific solutions adopted in Article 10 of the International Law Commission Articles on State responsibility to address particular problems. The book also critically revisits some of the solutions that have been put forward by tribunals and scholars, and examines a number of questions which have never been addressed by them before.

Hansen-Magnusson & Vetterlein: The Routledge Handbook on Responsibility in International Relations

Hannes Hansen-Magnusson (Cardiff Univ.) & Antje Vetterlein (Univ. of Münster) have published The Routledge Handbook on Responsibility in International Relations (Routledge 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

What does responsibility mean in International Relations (IR)? This handbook brings together cutting-edge research on the critical debates about responsibility that are currently being undertaken in IR theory.

This handbook both reflects upon an emerging field based on an engagement in the most crucial theoretical debates and serves as a foundational text by showing how deeply a discussion of responsibility is embedded in broader questions of IR theory and practice. Contributions cover the way in which responsibility is theorized across different approaches in IR and relevant neighboring disciplines and demonstrate how responsibility matters in different policy fields of global governance. Chapters with an empirical focus zoom in on particular actor constellations of (emerging) states, international organizations, political movements, or corporations, or address how responsibility matters in structuring the politics of global commons, such as oceans, resources, or the Internet.

SFDI: L’espace extra-atmosphérique et le droit international : Colloque de Toulouse

The Société française pour le Droit International has published L’espace extra-atmosphérique et le droit international : Colloque de Toulouse (Pedone 2021). The table of contents is here.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 48, no. 1, January 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Stephane J. Baele & Thierry Balzacq, International rituals: An analytical framework and its theoretical repertoires
• Federica Bicchi, Communities of practice and what they can do for International Relations
• Clionadh Raleigh, Hyun Jin Choi, & Daniel Wigmore-Shepherd, Inclusive conflict? Competitive clientelism and the rise of political violence
• Jaremey R. McMullin, Hustling, cycling, peacebuilding: Narrating postwar reintegration through livelihood in Liberia
• Henrique Tavares Furtado, Confronting the gated community: Towards a decolonial critique of violence beyond the paradigm of war
• Rory Cormac, Calder Walton, & Damien Van Puyvelde, What constitutes successful covert action? Evaluating unacknowledged interventionism in foreign affairs
• Marysia Zalewski, Theorising sexual violence in global politics: Improvising with feminist theory
• Mona Lilja, Pushing resistance theory in IR beyond ‘opposition’: The constructive resistance of the #MeToo movement in Japan
• Alexandra Phelan & Jacqui True, Navigating gender in elite bargains: Women's movements and the quest for inclusive peace in Colombia
• Ekatherina Zhukova, Malena Rosén Sundström, & Ole Elgström, Feminist foreign policies (FFPs) as strategic narratives: Norm translation in Sweden, Canada, France, and Mexico

Le Moli: Human Dignity in International Law

Ginevra Le Moli (Leiden Univ. - Law) has published Human Dignity in International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

Over the past two centuries, the concept of human dignity has moved from the fringes to the centre of the international legal system. This book is the first detailed historical, theoretical and legal investigation of human dignity as a normative value, the intellectual sources that shaped its legal recognition, and the main legal instruments used to give it expression in international law. Ginevra Le Moli addresses the broad historical and philosophical developments relating to the legal expression of dignity and the doctrinal geography of human dignity in international law, with a focus on international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law. The book fills a major lacuna in the literature by providing a comprehensive account of dignity within international law that draws on an extensive documentary and archival basis and a vast body of decisions of international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies.

New Volume: European Yearbook on Human Rights

The latest volume of the European Yearbook on Human Rights (Vol. 2021) is out. The table of contents is here.

Call for Papers: Multidisciplinary Forum on Longtermism and the Law

The 2022 Multidisciplinary Forum on Longtermism and the Law is seeking proposals for its conference at the University of Hamburg and online from June 9-11, 2022. Submissions are due February 15, 2022. The call is here.

O'Brien: Gender Dimensions of Forced Marriage in International Criminal Law

Melanie O'Brien (Univ. of Western Australia - Law) has posted Gender Dimensions of Forced Marriage in International Criminal Law (in Gender and International Criminal Law, Indira Rosenthal, Valerie Oosterveld & Susana SáCouto eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Forced marriage in the atrocity context in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Uganda and Mali has been addressed by various international criminal courts and tribunals. This chapter examines the gendered dimensions of the crime as charged or convicted in the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It demonstrates that these courts have not necessarily recognised the gendered nature of forced marriage, and that the specific targeting of girls and women for forced marriage needs to be acknowledged by courts as a gendered crime. This chapter situates the discussion within a human rights law framework, starting from the perspective that forced marriage is a violation of human rights, such as the right to family, and noting whether the courts incorporate human rights law concepts into their forced marriage judgements.

Gao: China’s Changing Perspective on the WTO: From Aspiration, Assimilation to Alienation

Henry S. Gao (Singapore Management Univ. - Law) has posted China’s Changing Perspective on the WTO: From Aspiration, Assimilation to Alienation. Here's the abstract:

Twenty years after it became a Member of the WTO, China’s image in popular perception has shifted from the biggest success story of the world trading system to its biggest challenge. In the past few years, tons of research have been conducted on what other WTO Members should or could do to deal with the China challenge, but not much attempt has been made to understand the Chinese perspective on its WTO Membership. Focusing only on the China challenge without understanding the Chinese perspective is rather problematic as it treats China as a passive object rather than an active subject, one with significant economic and political clouts in the world trading system today. This paper fills the research gap by providing the first systemic review of this important yet ignored question, which in my view, would be the key to address the China challenge. The paper argues that the Chinese perspective on the WTO has changed from viewing it as the symbol for its aspiration to integrate into the world economy, to trying to assimilate the Chinese economic system with that of the market-based multilateral trading system, to increasing alienations with the core values of WTO in response to the attacks on its economic system. The paper concludes with lessons drawing from China’s changing perspective, especially on how to manage the China challenge in the multilateral trading system.