New Issue: Netherlands International Law Review

The latest issue of the Netherlands International Law Review (Vol. 70, no. 1, May 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Menno T. Kamminga, Confiscating Russia’s Frozen Central Bank Assets: A Permissible Third-Party Countermeasure?
• Daniela HeerdtLucas Roorda, Lessons Learned in Qatar: The Role of the Netherlands and Its Businesses in Addressing Human Rights Abuses in Mega-Sporting Events
• Medes Malaihollo, On Due Diligence and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in International Law: What a Māori World View Can Offer
• Ingeborg de Koningh, Consolidating International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law: Protection from Gender-Based Violence Against Women in Non-International Armed Conflict
• Louisa Handel-Mazzetti, Vyashti Ramlakhan, Daniëlla Dam-de Jong & Cedric Ryngaert, CAVV Symposium on Independent Advice on Public International Law
• Anna Meijknecht, Hague Case Law: Latest Developments

New Issue: Asia-Pacific Journal of Ocean Law and Policy

The latest issue of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Ocean Law and Policy (Vol. 8, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue (Part 2): 2022 APOLIA Conference: UNCLOS in Asia-Pacific – 40 Years and Onwards
• Margaret A. Young, Strengthening Capacity in Ocean Governance
• Esmeralda Colombo, Energy Storage Governance in the Asia-Pacific through the Law of the Sea Convention: Exploring Bottlenecks and Enablers of Regulating Offshore Wind Combined with Energy Storage
• Dita Liliansa, A Quest for Meaning: Interpretation of Article 73(3) of the Law of the Sea Convention by Indonesian Supreme Court
• Jacqueline F. Espenilla, A New WTO Protocol on Fisheries Subsidies: Potential Implications for the South China Sea Disputes
• Articles
• Nong Hong, China and the United States in the South Pacific Ocean: Will Strategic Competition or Practical Cooperation Drive the Future Development
• Nguyễn Hồng Thao, South China Sea: Battle of the Diplomatic Notes among China and Non-Claimant States

Call for Papers: Chemical and Biological Weapons: The Interconnectivity of Norms

The Justus-Liebig University Gieβen in collaboration with CBWNet have issued a call for papers for a conference on "Chemical and Biological Weapons: The Interconnectivity of Norms," to take place October 23-24, 2023, in Gieβen. The call is here.

New Issue: Swiss Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Swiss Review of International and European Law (Vol. 33, no. 2, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Andreas R. Ziegler & Rimdolmsom Jonathan Kabré, Contribution des avocats et conseils au règlement des différends inter- nationaux : étude à la lumière de la pratique devant la Cour internationale de Justice et le Tribunal international du droit de la mer
• Christina Neier, EWR/EFTA-Staaten in EU-Verwaltungseinrichtungen: Integration zur Homogenitätswahrung
• Madalina Diaconu, The «Macolin Convention» against Competition Manipulation: Promises, Achievements and Pitfalls

New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 24, no. 3, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Critiques of Investment Arbitration Reform
• Gus Van Harten & Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, Special Issue: Critiques of Investment Arbitration Reform - An Introduction
• Juan Carlos Boué, The Investor-State Dispute Settlement Damages Playbook: To Infinity and Beyond
• Surya Deva & Tara Van Ho, Addressing (In)Equality in Redress: Human Rights-Led Reform of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Mechanism
• Nicolás M. Perrone, Investment Treaty Law and Matters of Recognition: Locating the Concerns of Local Communities
• Frank J. Garcia & Brooke S. Guven, Designing a Multilateral Investment Court for Procedural Justice
• Daria Davitti & Paolo Vargiu, Litigation Finance and the Assetization of International Investment Arbitration
• Article
• Jörg Kammerhofer, Regulatory Expropriation – A New Hope: The Use of Legal Theory for Investment Law

Conference: Persistent imbalances in international trade and the prospects for sustainable development: Focus on the developing countries

On June 30-July 1, 2023, a conference on "Persistent imbalances in international trade and the prospects for sustainable development: Focus on the developing countries" will be held at the University of Ljubljana and online. The program is here. Registration for online participation is here.

New Volume: African Human Rights Yearbook

The latest volume of the African Human Rights Yearbook (Vol. 6, 2022) is out. Contents include

• Articles Focused on Aspects of the African Human Rights System and African Union Human Rights Standards / Articles Portant sur les Aspects du Système Africain des Droits de L’homme et les Normes des Droits de L’homme de L’Union Africaine
• Victor Ayeni & Andreas von Staden, Monitoring second-order compliance in the African human rights system
• Zelalem Mogessie Teferra, Provisional measures in international human rights law: the practice of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
• Koffi Arnaud Kpla, La notion d’intérêt dans la procédure contentieuse devant la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples
• Catherine Maia & AndréMarie Gbenou, A proibição e repressão da tortura no sistema africano dos direitos humanos: utopia ou má-fé dos Estados?
• Nyanda Williams Mkamwa, Les vaccinations obligatoires et les droits de l’homme en Afrique: l’urgence d’un encadrement juridique efficace au sein de l’Union africaine
• Mwiza Jo Nkhata, What counts as a ‘reasonable period’? An analytical survey of the jurisprudence of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights on reasonable time for filing applications
• Opal Masocha Sibanda, Towards a more effective and coordinated response by the African Union on children’s privacy online in Africa
• Simeu Christelle Corinne Kamgang, Le droit humain à l’eau: un droit dans l’ombre d’autres droits de l’homme dans le système africain de protection des droits de l’homme?
• Abdoulaye Sylla, Les réformes du système judiciaire de l’Union africaine: enjeux juridico-institutionnels sur la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples
• Wubeshet Tiruneh, Holding corporations liable for human rights abuses committed in Africa: the need for strengthening domestic remedies
• Special Focus on the African Union’s Theme for 2022: Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agro-Food Systems, Health and Social Protection Systems for the Acceleration of Human, Social And Economic Capital Development / Focus Spécial sur le Theme de L’Union Africaine Pour L’annee 2022: Renforcer la Résilience en Matière De Nutrition sur le Continent Africain: Accélérer le Développement du Capital Humain et de L’économie Sociale
• Ibrahim Banaru Abubakar, Poverty, policies, and politics: a rights-based approach to food insecurity in Africa
• Juliet Aimienrovbiye, The right to health in Nigeria and South Africa: the need for effective integration of food safety
• Charles A Khamala, Green crimes: the impact of genetically modified organisms on promoting food security in Kenya
• Case Commentaries / Commentaires de Decisions
• Têtêvi Didier Prince-Agbodjan, Bienvenu Criss-Dess Dongar, & Nouwagnon Olivier Afogo, Le retrait du consentement des États à l’office de la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples: déni du droit d’accès des citoyens à la justice régionale? Le cas Glory Cyriaque Hossou et un autre c. Bénin 323
• Adamantia Rachovitsa, The judicial function of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in default judgments: the developments set forth in the Léon Mugesera case
• Benjamin Kagina, Commentaire de l’arrêt de la Cour africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples dans l’affaire Anudo Ochieng Anudo c. Tanzanie
• Andrea Mensi, The South Africa High Court Baleni judgment: towards an indigenous right to consent?

Call for Papers: The African Renaissance in the Age of Globalization: What Role for International Investment Law?

The Department of Political Science of the University of Padua has issued a call for papers for a conference on "The African Renaissance in the Age of Globalization: What Role for International Investment Law?" to take place November 10-11, 2023, in Padua. The deadline is July 14, 2023. Details are here.

Call for Papers: Journal of International Economic Law Third Annual Junior Faculty Forum

The Journal of International Economic Law has issued a call for papers for its third annual Junior Faculty Forum, to be held by Zoom on September 15-16, 2023. The deadline is July 14, 2023. Details are here.

Fajardo: CEPAL, the “International Monetary Fund of the Left”? The Tale of Two Global Institutions

Margarita Fajardo (Sarah Lawrence College) has published CEPAL, the “International Monetary Fund of the Left”? The Tale of Two Global Institutions (American Historical Review, Vol. 128, no. 2, pp. 588–615, June 2023). Here's the abstract:

The article examines the entangled histories of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) during the post–World War II era. Born of the same global moment, within two decades of their foundation, these institutions had come to represent two opposing visions of world economic order. Yet their mutual antagonism was not a foregone conclusion, and their identities were not so defined from the start. The binary division between them—as well as the very terms of their debate—emerged not in the realm of abstract ideas but rather in their competition over influence in Latin America. Unlike the history of the UN, the story of the IMF continues to be told as one of projection—of power, ideas, and practices—and reception, of dominance by the North and resistance of the South. By looking at CEPAL and the IMF in tandem, as they converged, diverged, and shaped each other, this article shows the impact of a southern institution and Latin America on the northern institution and the structure of global governance. It contributes to our understanding of global institutional history and economic governance, precisely at a moment when global institutions have lost prestige and leverage.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Critical International Law and Technology

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on “Critical International Law and Technology.” The symposium includes an introduction by Fleur Johns and Gregor Noll and contributions by Geoff Gordon, Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi, and Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, Dorothea Endres, Luisa Hedler, and Kebene Wodajo, Gabriela Argüello, Matilda Arvidsson, and Niels Krabbe, Lovisa Häckner Posse and Hedvig Lärka, and Priya S. Gupta.

Abraham: Contesting the Universality of the Refugee Convention: Decolonization and the Additional Protocol

Itty Abraham (Arizona State Univ.) has published Contesting the Universality of the Refugee Convention: Decolonization and the Additional Protocol (Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 195–216, June 2023). Here's the abstract:

Recent scholarship has insightfully explored the colonial roots of the UN Refugee Convention of 1951. In this work I seek to extend this line of argument by situating the adoption of the Additional Protocol of the Refugee Convention (1967) in relation to the transformations of international order following the Second World War. Contra the conventional account, this article shows that the Additional Protocol was created in no small part due to fears that the UN Refugee Convention would be unable to claim universal status due to competing ‘regional’ refugee conventions. Breaking down four meanings of ‘universal’ and drawing on archival documents of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, I explore efforts by newly independent African and Asian countries to find voice in an exclusionary international order. Reading the Bangkok Principles and OAU Convention as collective subaltern resistance against efforts to discipline newly independent states offers new insights into contemporary international struggles and brings refugee studies into productive dialogue with critical international relations.

Roundtable: Advocating Against Gender-Based Violence Through International Law

On July 10, 2023, a roundtable will be held on "Advocating Against Gender-Based Violence Through International Law" at the University of Milan and online. The program is here. Registration is here.

New Issue: GlobaLex

The latest issue of GlobaLex (May/June 2023) includes:

• Sophie Lobey, The Council of Europe
• Julienne E. Grant, Researching Global Health Law

Webinar: Accountability for conflict-related environmental harm

The Law Interest Group of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and the IUCN-WCEL Environmental Security and Conflict Law Specialist Group will hold a webinar on "Accountability for conflict-related environmental harm" on July 5, 2023. Details are here.

Call for Papers: Western Sahara

A call for papers has been issued for the Second Conference of the Western Sahara Research Group, on October 16, 2023, at the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna. The conference's general themes are the international legal status of Western Sahara and the role of EU trade policy regarding Western Sahara. The conference will take place almost fifty years after the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. Contributions selected for the conference will be considered as chapters in a forthcoming book. The call is here.

Call for Submissions: Trade, Law and Development

The journal Trade, Law and Development has issued a call for submissions for its Winter 2023 issue (Vol. 15, no. 2). The call is here. The deadline is August 5, 2023.

New Issue: London Review of International Law

The latest issue of the London Review of International Law (Vol. 11, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Bonnie Honig, Toward a democratic theory of contagion: virality and performativity with Eve Sedgwick, JL Austin, Hortense Spillers, and Patricia Williams
• Renske Vos, The many beginnings of Operation Sophia: international law and literature in the governance of the EU
• Renata Nagamine & João Roriz, Rhetorical militarism, humanitarian law, and public space: a study on military interventions in Brazil
• Iavor Rangelov & Ruti Teitel, The justice archive: transitional justice and digital memory
• Books etc.
• Christine Schwöbel-Patel, Locating humanity in crimes against humanity
• Sinja Graf, Business as unusual: a materialist critique of international criminal justice
• Christine Schwöbel-Patel, Response to Graf
• Sinja Graf, Response to Schwöbel-Patel

Efrat & Yair: Should we sell arms to human rights violators? What the public thinks

Asif Efrat (Reichman Univ.) & Omer Yair (Reichman Univ.) have posted Should we sell arms to human rights violators? What the public thinks (Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Arms-exporting countries – even those that are liberal democracies – sell weapons to governments that violate human rights. Does the public support the provision of weapons to human rights violators? We examine public attitudes on arms exports through a survey experiment in Israel – a major arms exporter that is often criticized for arming repressive governments. Our analysis finds that human rights violations substantially increase the public’s opposition to the sale of arms – by 21 percentage points. Furthermore, opposition to the arms sale arises even when the recipient country carries economic or strategic importance. Overall, we find a public preference for arms exports constrained by ethical concerns – a preference that is often at odds with governments’ export practice. This study enhances our understanding of the domestic politics of the arms trade, which has received little scholarly attention, but increases in importance with rising public scrutiny and criticism of arms sales.

Call for Applications: International Institutions in the Face of International Crises (Centre for Studies and Research, Hague Academy of International Law)

Applications are open for the 2024 edition of the Centre for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations of the Hague Academy of International Law. The topic is: "International Institutions in the Face of International Crises." The call is here. The deadline is September 1, 2023.

Muir Watt: The Law's Ultimate Frontier: Towards an Ecological Jurisprudence: A Global Horizon in Private International Law

Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po - Law) has published The Law's Ultimate Frontier: Towards an Ecological Jurisprudence: A Global Horizon in Private International Law (Hart Publishing 2023). Here's the abstract:

This important book offers an ambitious and interdisciplinary vision of how private international law (or the conflict of laws) might serve as a heuristic for re-working our general understandings of legality in directions that respond to ever-deepening global ecological crises. Unusual in legal scholarship, the author borrows (in bricolage mode) from the work of Bruno Latour, alongside indigenous cosmologies, extinction theories and Levinassian phenomenology, to demonstrate why this field's specific frontier location at the outpost of the law – where it is viewed from the outside as obscure and from the inside as a self-contained normative world – generates its potential power to transform law generally and globally.

New Issue: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (Vol. 23, no. 2, December 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Bruno Arpi, Jeffrey McGee, Andrew Jackson & Indi Hodgson-Johnston, Legal Analysis of the Argentine and Australian Titles to Territory in Antarctica
• David Keane, Palestine v Israel and the Collective Obligation to Condemn Apartheid under Article 3 of ICERD
• Eve Massingham & Dale Stephens, Autonomous Systems, Private Actors, Outer Space and War: Lessons for Addressing Accountability Concerns in Uncertain Legal Environments
• Ash Murphy, Climate Insecurity: The Promise and Peril of Securitising Climate Change before the UN Security Council
• Andreas Schloenhardt & Madeleine Pitman, A New International Instrument against Wildlife Trafficking? An Appraisal of Current Proposals

Perrone: The International Trade Order

Nicolás M. Perrone (Universidad de Valparaíso - Law) has posted The International Trade Order (in The Oxford Handbook of International Law and Development, Luis Eslava, Ruth M Buchanan, & Sundhya Pahuja eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The importance of trade for international law and development discussions is hardly surprising; international trade is consistently represented as an effective strategy for development. However, assuming that trade and law can contribute to the Global South’s development requires accepting that they can — and may well have — contribute to the opposite: underdevelopment. This chapter argues that the most important laws for the capitalist industrialization of Western countries were not those of private property, contracts, or free trade but those related to colonial long-distance trade. A central claim is that the international trade regime that emerged from Western industrialization misses a vocabulary to modify or change the international division of labour. In other words, countries may or may not succeed in developing economically, but international trade law does little to help them — when it is not an obstacle.

Conference: Towards a multi-dimensional enhancement of a sustainable business environment in Asia

On July 8, 2023, the Japan Chapter of the Asian Society of International Law will hold its 14th Annual Conference at Yokohama National University. The theme is: "Towards a multi-dimensional enhancement of a sustainable business environment in Asia." Details are here.

Labuda: International Criminal Tribunals and Domestic Accountability: In the Court's Shadow

Patryk I. Labuda (Univ. of Zurich) has published International Criminal Tribunals and Domestic Accountability: In the Court's Shadow (Oxford Univ. Press 2023). Here's the abstract:

In the 1990s, the promise of justice for atrocity crimes was associated with the revival of international criminal tribunals (ICTs). More recently, however, there has been a renewed emphasis on domestic accountability for international crimes across the globe. In identifying a 'complementarity turn', a paradigm shift toward domestic accountability in the field of international criminal justice, this book investigates how the shadow of international criminal tribunals influences the treatment of serious crimes at the national level.

Drawing on research and interviews in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone, this book develops a tripartite framework to analyse how states and tribunals work with, despite, or against one another in the fight against impunity. While international prosecutors and judges use the principle of complementarity to foster cooperation and decrease tension with government actors, Patryk I. Labuda argues that too much deference by ICTs toward states reduces the likelihood of accountability and may enable national elites to consolidate authoritarian power.

By interrogating how international accountability stakeholders relate to their domestic counterparts, International Criminal Tribunals and Domestic Accountability advocates improvements to ICTs' institutional design and more dynamic interactions with states to strengthen the enforcement of international criminal law.