Saturday, June 30, 2018

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 52, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Dignity and end-of-life issues. Some open questions in light of the European Court of Human Rights’ recent case-law
    • Introduced by Flavia Zorzi Giustiniani
    • Jean Morange, Les dangers d’un droit à l’euthanasie
    • Daria Sartori, End-of-life issues and the European Court of Human Rights. The value of personal autonomy within a ‘proceduralized’ review

New Issue: Revista Iberoamericana de Derecho Internacional y de la Integración

The latest issue of the Revista Iberoamericana de Derecho Internacional y de la Integración (no. 8, June 2018) is out. The table of contents is here.

Friday, June 29, 2018

New Volume: Annuaire français de relations internationales

The latest volume of the Annuaire français de relations internationales (Vol. 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Concepts, doctrines, positions
    • Chloé Berger, Apports et limites de l’approche girardienne des rivalités mimétiques à l’analyse des conflits
    • Jean-Marc Coicaud, Le droit international et la question de la justice
    • Jean-Marie Collin, L’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies ouvre la porte à un traité d’interdiction des armes nucléaires
    • Manuel Eynard, La coutume internationale est-elle un mythe ?
    • Hugo Meijer, Pour un renouveau des études de sécurité. L’Initiative européenne pour les études de sécurité
    • Pierre Razoux, Nouveau panorama géopolitique en Afrique du Nord
    • Serge Sur, Guerre et violence armée : droit en question, politique en échec
  • Moyen-Orient
    • Philippe Bou Nader, Le cadre politico-juridique des services de renseignement libanais. Doctrines, cadre juridique et agenda politique
    • Rachid Chaker, La rivalité irano-saoudienne. De l’opposition théologique à l’affrontement politique
    • Nabil El Khoury, Les représentations politiques de la diplomatie française dans les médias pro-iraniens au Liban, avant et après l’accord nucléaire
  • Europes
    • Antoine Beausoleil, La Finlande sur la scène internationale. Du neutralisme en héritage au multilatéralisme en action
    • Bernard Cubertafond, La crise conceptuelle de l’Union européenne
    • Andrzej Szeptycki, La guerre d’information russe contre l’Occident. Le cas de l’Ukraine
  • Migrants, réfugiés
    • Julien Théron, Les réfugiés syriens, enjeu stratégique du conflit syrien
    • Dia Jacques Gondo, La protection des réfugiés par la Constitution ivoirienne
    • Gérard-François Dumont, L’immigration en Europe et en France dans les années 2010

New Volume: Recueil des Cours

Volume 388 of the Recueil des Cours, Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law is out. Contents include:
  • Volume 388
    • Michael Joachim Bonell, The Law Governing International Commercial Contracts: Hard Law Versus Soft Law
    • Burkhard Hess, The Private-Public Divide in International Dispute Resolution

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Elander: Figuring Victims in International Criminal Justice: The case of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Maria Elander (La Trobe Univ. - Law) has published Figuring Victims in International Criminal Justice: The case of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Routledge 2018). Here's the abstract:
Most discourses on victims in international criminal justice take the subject of victims for granted, as an identity and category existing exogenously to the judicial process. This book takes a different approach. Through a close reading of the institutional practices of one particular court, it demonstrates how court practices produce the subjectivity of the victim, a subjectivity that is profoundly of law and endogenous to the enterprise of international criminal justice. Furthermore, by situating these figurations within the larger aspirations of the court, the book shows how victims have come to constitute and represent the link between international criminal law and the enterprise of transitional justice. The book takes as its primary example the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), or the Khmer Rouge Tribunal as it is also called. Focusing on the representation of victims in crimes against humanity, victim participation and photographic images, the book engages with a range of debates and scholarship in law, feminist theory and cultural legal theory. Furthermore, by paying attention to a broader range of institutional practices, Figuring Victims makes an innovative scholarly contribution to the debates on the roles and purposes of international criminal justice.

ASIL 2018 Annual Meeting Audio Tracks

Audio tracks of many of the sessions of the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law are now available on the ASIL website (here - scroll down to "Session Audio Tracks") or through SoundCloud (here).

Tevini: Regional Economic Integration and Dispute Settlement in East Asia

Anna G Tevini (Shearman & Sterling LLP) has published Regional Economic Integration and Dispute Settlement in East Asia: The Evolving Legal Framework (Hart Publishing 2018). Here's the abstract:

The accession of the People's Republic of China to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 significantly transformed the global economy both de facto and de jure. At the regional level, China's WTO accession served as an important catalyst for the establishment of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) in East Asia. This was a novel development for the region, since East Asian States had previously followed a largely informal, market-driven approach to regional economic integration. By contrast, rules-based economic integration involving East Asian States was traditionally limited to multilateral integration under the GATT/WTO framework.

This book systematically analyses and explains the development, nature and challenges of rules-based regional economic integration in East Asia with particular attention to the region's first four RTAs. While also addressing the socio-economic, historical and political factors influencing the development of RTAs in East Asia, the book focuses on the legal institutions governing economic integration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as under the ASEAN–China Comprehensive Economic Co-Operation Agreement (ACFTA), the Japan–Singapore New Age Economic Partnership Agreement (JSEPA), and the Mainland China–Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA). The book provides a systematic, comparative account of the scope, depth and (hard law versus soft law) quality of rules-based economic integration achieved under these four RTAs in the areas of trade in goods and services, investment liberalisation and protection, labour movement, and dispute settlement.

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 22, no. 6, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Maurice Eisenbruch, The cloak of impunity in Cambodia I: cultural foundations
  • Kjersti Skarstad, Ensuring human rights for persons with intellectual disabilities? Self-determination policies and the use of force in the case of Norway
  • Janine Natalya Clark, De-centring trauma: conflict-related sexual violence and the importance of resilience discourse
  • Maurice Eisenbruch, The cloak of impunity in Cambodia II: justice

New Issue: International & Comparative Law Quarterly

The latest issue of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (Vol. 67, no. 3, July 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Ian Cram, Protocol 15 and Articles 10 and 11 ECHR—The Partial Triumph of Political Incumbency Post-Brighton?
    • Gabrielle Appleby & Alysia Blackham, The Shadow of the Court: The Growing Imperative to Reform Ethical Regulation of Former Judges
    • Barrie Sander, History on Trial: Historical Narrative Pluralism Within and Beyond International Criminal Courts
    • Yarik Kryvoi, Economic Crimes in International Investment Law
    • Benjamin Hayward, Bruno Zeller, & Camilla Baasch Andersen, The CISG and the United Kingdom—Exploring Coherency and Private International Law
    • Luke Chircop, A Due Diligence Standard of Attribution in Cyberspace
    • Anton Moiseienko, The Ownership of Confiscated Proceeds of Corruption Under the UN Convention Against Corruption
    • Sungyong Kang, Rethinking the Global Anti-Money Laundering Regulations to Deter Corruption
  • Shorter Article
    • Meliz Erdem & Steven Greer, Human Rights, the Cyprus Problem and the Immovable Property Commission

New Volume: Recueil des Cours

Volume 387 of the Recueil des Cours, Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law is out. Contents include:
  • Volume 387
    • Yves Lequette, Les mutations du droit international privé: vers un changement de paradigme? Cours général de droit international privé

Hettche: Die Beteiligung der Legislative bei Vorbehalten zu und Kündigung von völkerrechtlichen Verträgen

Juliane Hettche has published Die Beteiligung der Legislative bei Vorbehalten zu und Kündigung von völkerrechtlichen Verträgen (Mohr Siebeck 2018). Here's abstract:
Die von der Bundesrepublik Deutschland abgeschlossenen völkerrechtlichen Verträge haben sich seit Inkrafttreten des Grundgesetzes vervielfacht und betreffen viele Rechtsbereiche, die ehemals dem nationalen Gesetzgeber überlassen waren. Der Abschluss völkerrechtlicher Verträge erfolgt nach dem Grundgesetz durch die Exekutive unter Beteiligung der Legislative. Zur Beteiligung der Legislative bei der Einlegung von Vorbehalten zu und der Kündigung von völkerrechtlichen Verträgen enthält das Grundgesetz keine explizite Regelung. Juliane Hettche legt die vorhandenen Regelungen des Grundgesetzes nach Wortlaut, Historie, Systematik und Teleologie aus. Sie überträgt die Grundsätze, die das Zusammenwirken von Legislative und Exekutive im Innenverhältnis prägen, auf das Außenverhältnis. Daraus leitet sie sowohl Zustimmungs- als auch Initiativrechte der Legislative bei der Einlegung von Vorbehalten zu und der Kündigung von völkerrechtlichen Verträgen her.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 19, no. 3, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: The Future of Transatlantic Economic Governance in the Age of the BRICS
    • Julie A. Maupin & Marina Trunk-Fedorova, Special Issue: The Future of Transatlantic Economic Governance in the Age of the BRICS
    • Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, Citizens and Transatlantic Free Trade Agreements: How to Reconcile American ‘Constitutional Nationalism’ with European ‘Multilevel Constitutionalism’?
    • Maria Anna Corvaglia, TTIP Negotiations and Public Procurement: Internal Federalist Tensions and External Risks of Marginalisation
    • Ilaria Espa & Kateryna Holzer, Negotiating 21st Century Rules on Energy: What Is at Stake for the European Union, the United States and the BRICS?
    • Beatriz Barreiro Carril, How Can China Influence the Transatlantic Governance of Cultural Products in the Digital Age?
    • Geraldo Vidigal & Beatriz Stevens, Brazil’s New Model of Dispute Settlement for Investment: Return to the Past or Alternative for the Future?
    • Elisabetta Cervone, Structural Banking Reforms in the Age of the BRICS: Transatlantic Cooperation Within a Multilateral Framework
    • Chien-Huei Wu, Global Economic Governance in the Wake of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: Is China Remaking Bretton Woods?
    • Aike I. Würdemann, The BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement: A Subversive Power Against the IMF’s Conditionality?

Waterlow & Schuhmacher: War Crimes Trials and Investigations: A Multi-Disciplinary Introduction

Jonathan Waterlow (Univ. of Oxford - War Crimes Research Network) & Jacques Schuhmacher (Univ. of Oxford - War Crimes Research Network) have published War Crimes Trials and Investigations: A Multi-Disciplinary Introduction (Palgrave Macmillan 2018). Here's the abstract:
This book represents the first multi-disciplinary introduction to the study of war crimes trials and investigations. It introduces readers to the numerous disciplines engaged with this complex subject, including: Forensic Anthropology, Economics and Anthropometrics, Legal History, Violence Studies, International Criminal Justice, International Relations, and Moral Philosophy. The contributors are experts in their respective fields and the chapters highlight each discipline’s major trends, debates, methods and approaches to mass atrocity, genocide, and crimes against humanity, as well as their interactions with adjacent disciplines. Case studies illustrate how the respective disciplines work in practice, including examples from the Allied Hunger Blockade, WWII, the Guatemalan and Spanish Civil Wars, the Former Yugoslavia, and Uganda. Including bibliographical essays to offer readers crucial orientation when approaching the specialist literature in each case, this edited collection equips readers with what they need to know in order to navigate a complex, and until now, deeply fragmented field.

New Issue: Revista Costarricense de Derecho Internacional

The latest issue of the Revista Costarricense de Derecho Internacional (No. 7, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Diego Alexandre-García Fernández, Jurisdictional Difficulties of International Arbitration Tribunals when Addressing Price Review Disputes Concerning Gas Supply Agreements
  • Sara Scordo, The Arbitrability of Corporate Disputes: Latin America and Western Europe in Comparative Perspective
  • Herman M. Duarte, El poder de discriminar y los derechos de las minorías LGBTI
  • Mila Jazmín Cantar, El derecho a la identidad de género y su respeto en Facebook en relación con la legislación argentina

Helfer: Populism and International Human Rights Institutions: A Survival Guide

Laurence Helfer (Duke Univ. - Law) has posted Populism and International Human Rights Institutions: A Survival Guide. Here's the abstract:
Confronting recalcitrant and even hostile governments is nothing new for international human rights courts, treaty bodies, and other monitoring mechanisms. Yet there is a growing sense that the recent turn to populism in several countries poses a new type of threat that international human rights law (IHRL) institutions are ill equipped to meet. The concerns range in scope and intensity—from criticisms of specific rulings or legal doctrines, to predictions of backlash against particular courts or review bodies, to warnings that major sections of the institutional edifice of IHRL are in danger of collapse. Part 1 of this essay identifies several facilitating conditions that have, until recently, supported IHRL institutions. Part 2 considers several distinctive challenges that populism poses to those institutions. Part 3 identifies a range of legal and political tools that might be deployed to address those challenges and explores their efficacy and potential risks. Part 4 concludes that IHRL institutions should adopt survival strategies for the age of populism and it preliminarily sketches what those strategies might look like.

Roberts: Incremental, Systemic, and Paradigmatic Reform of Investor-State Arbitration

Anthea Roberts (Australian National Univ. - School of Regulation & Global Governance) has posted Incremental, Systemic, and Paradigmatic Reform of Investor-State Arbitration (American Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Although the legitimacy of investor-state arbitration has come under fire, states have not (yet) converged on which reforms to pursue. In simplified terms, three main camps have emerged to date:

1. Incrementalists view the criticisms of the current system as overblown and argue that investor-state arbitration remains the best option available. Hence, they favor retaining the existing dispute resolution system but instituting modest reforms that would redress specific concerns.

2. Systemic reformers see merit in retaining investors’ ability to file claims directly on the international level, but view investor-state arbitration as a seriously flawed system for dealing with such claims. They champion more significant, systemic reforms, such as replacing investor-state arbitration with a multilateral investment court and appellate body.

3. Paradigm shifters dismiss the existing system as irrevocably flawed and in need of wholesale replacement. They reject the utility of investors’ making international claims against states, whether before arbitral tribunals or international courts. They embrace a variety of alternatives, such as domestic courts, ombudsmen, and state-to-state arbitration.

Against this backdrop, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) gave one of its working groups a three-staged mandate to investigate the possible reform of investor-state dispute settlement, which required it, first, to identify and consider concerns about investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS); second, to consider whether reform was desirable in light of any identified concerns; and, third, if reform was desirable, to develop relevant solutions to be recommended to the Commission.

This essay (1) conceptualizes the three main reform approaches that have been advocated to date and identifies the likely strategies of, and risks faced by, the different reform champions; and (2) analyzes UNCITRAL’s role in these reforms as both a venue and an actor navigating a complex series of relationships with other key stakeholders. Pointing to the future, I conclude by identifying the likelihood of ongoing pluralism with respect to different institutional processes for resolving investment disputes and sketching how actors might proceed to develop flexibility both among and within different reform options.

Goldenziel: Checking Rights at the Border: Detention of Migrants in International and Comparative Law

Jill I. Goldenziel (Marine Corps Univ. - Command and Staff College) has posted Checking Rights at the Border: Detention of Migrants in International and Comparative Law (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Human rights laws, both international and domestic, present a challenge to the sovereign rights of states. The right to determine who may enter a state is one of the fundamental attributes of sovereignty. Under international law, however, states cannot return a migrant with a potentially valid asylum claim to a place where his life will be in danger, and cannot return any migrant to a place where he might be tortured. States often detain migrants while processing their asylum claims, and pending deportation if those claims should fail. Yet international law, and many states’ domestic laws, prohibit prolonged detention and restrict detention conditions. As migration flows and detention rates have swelled globally, high courts have increasingly decided cases involving the rights of detained migrants. On February 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a critical decision on this issue in Jennings v. Rodriguez, allowing thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers to be detained indefinitely, without bail hearings, while remanding the case for consideration of their constitutional claims. This article compares court cases involving detention of migrants in the U.S., Australia, and Europe to determine how states can legally comply with human rights norms while preserving their right to protect their borders. Based on these cases, the article proposes best practices for state compliance with international law on detention. This comparison illuminates how courts strike a delicate balance between human rights and state sovereignty where national security interests are at stake.

Megiddo: The U.S. Approach to International Law: A View from Below

Tamar Megiddo (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem - Law) has posted The U.S. Approach to International Law: A View from Below. Here's the abstract:

Despite its central contribution to the construction of the global legal order, the United States has long been perceived to exclude itself from its reach. Its exceptionalist image has been reinforced by statements of political leaders, federal law provisions and court decisions. This article argues, however, that in order to appropriately assess a state’s approach to international law, one must consider not only the position of its formal government, but also the interpretation, application, and challenge of international law by sub-state actors.

Studying a U.S. policy-making process initiated pursuant to a World Trade Organization ruling, the article surveys interventions by government officials, consumers, producers and civil society organizations. It shows, contrary to the exceptionalist image, that U.S. actors of all stripes invoked and relied on international law extensively, thereby carving a space for it as a non-negligible consideration in the process. The article thus submits that accounting for non-state stakeholders is imperative in evaluating the regard for international law in a state and possibly also the domestic impact of international law.

Inaugural Volume: Nigerian Yearbook of International Law

The inaugural volume of the Nigerian Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Part I International Law and Regional Systems
    • Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, Compliance with Judgments and Decisions: The Experience of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: A Reassessment
  • Part II Contemporary Challenges/Emerging Issues
    • David Baragwanath, Responding to Terrorism: Definition and Other Actions
    • Daniel David Ntanda Nsereko, The Evolution of the Status of the Individual Under International Law
    • Péter Kovács & Tamás Vince Ádány, Admission into Diplomatic Buildings As an Alternative or Substitute to Diplomatic Asylum?
    • Patricia O’Brien, International Law and Daunting Contemporary Crises to Human Security and the Rule of Law
    • Dakas C. J. Dakas, Interrogating Colonialism: Bakassi, the Colonial Question and the Imperative of Exorcising the Ghost of Eurocentric International Law
    • Obiora Chinedu Okafor, The International Law of Secession and the Protection of the Human Rights of Oppressed Substate Groups: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
  • Part III Criminal Law
    • David Re, International Crimes: A Hybrid Future?
    • Chile Eboe-Osuji, The ICC and the African Court and the Extended Notion of Complementarity of International Criminal Jurisdictions
    • William Schabas, Fragmentation or Stabilisation? Recent Case Law on the Crime of Genocide in Light of the 2007 Judgment of the International Court of Justice
    • Udoka Owie, The Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Question of Head of State Immunity in International Law: Revisiting the Decision in Prosecutor v Charles Ghankay Taylor
  • Part IV Natural Resources/Environmental Law
    • Rhuks Ako, Mainstreaming Environmental Justice in Developing Countries: Thinking Beyond Constitutional Environmental Rights
    • Engobo Emeseh, Environmental Victims, Access to Justice and the Sustainable Development Goals
    • Damilola S. Olawuyi & Temitope Tunbi Onifade, Promoting Functional Distributive Justice in the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Fund System: Lessons from Alaska and Norway

Garcia: La reconnaissance du statut d'Etat à des entités contestées : approches de droits international, régional et interne

Thierry Garcia (Université Grenoble Alpes - Law) has published La reconnaissance du statut d'Etat à des entités contestées : approches de droits international, régional et interne (Pedone 2018). Contents include:
  • Jean d’Aspremont, The International Law of Statehood and Recognition : A Post-Colonial Invention
  • Antonello Tancredi, Evolution historique des critères de reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Catherine Maia, Les critères de l’obligation de non-reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Maurizio Arcari, Reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées et responsabilité internationale
  • Béatrice Bonafé, La CIJ et la reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Emilie Legris & Dimitri Walas, La reconnaissance de la qualité d’Etat à « Daesh » dans le cyberespace
  • Anne Hamonic & Cécile Rapoport, L’Union européenne et la reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Alexis Marie, La Cour de justice et les entités contestées : entre prudence et frilosité Mihaela Anca Ailinca, La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme et la reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Djacoba liva S. Tehindrazanarivelo & Makane Moïse Mbengue, L’Union africaine et la reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Sabine Lavorel, Les juridictions interaméricaines de protection des droits de l’Homme et le statut contesté des peuples autochtones
  • Constance Chevallier-Govers, L’ASEAN et la reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées
  • Laurent Trigeaud, Les reconnaissances d’Etat devant le Parlement français
  • Alina Miron, La reconnaissance du statut d’Etat à des entités contestées au regard des autorités juridictionnelles françaises
  • Paolo Palchetti, Juge interne et entités territoriales contestées : entre prérogatives des organes politiques et application du droit international
  • Louis Balmond, Conclusions

Call for Papers: Environmentally-Induced Migration and Human Rights’ Protection: The Point of View of International and European Law

The Interest Group on the International and European Law of Migration and Asylum of the Società Italiana di Diritto internazionale e di Diritto dell’Unione europea has issued a call for papers for a conference on "Environmentally-Induced Migration and Human Rights’ Protection: The Point of View of International and European Law / Migrazioni indotte da cause ambientali e tutela dei diritti umani: la prospettiva del diritto internazionale ed europeo." The call is here.

Clark: A Conceptual History of Recognition in British International Legal Thought

Martin Clark (LSE - Law) has posted A Conceptual History of Recognition in British International Legal Thought (British Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
This article examines the development of the concept of recognition in the writings of British jurists. It first outlines methodologies of conceptual history as applied to international legal concepts, before examining four strands of development of the concept of recognition from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. It shows how the concept of recognition moved from examining intra-European diplomatic disagreements, to a focus on Christianity, civilisation and progress that barred non-European communities, to a late colonial-era emphasis on technicalities of government and territory, and eventually a state-centric account that normalised inferiority into difference, before emerging in the interwar period as a ‘basic concept’ of international law: intensely debated and closely tied to a range of political projects. The article concludes with reflections on why British thinking turns away from recognition in the 1950s, as the decolonising world turns to a new international law and self-determination.

Rasulov: A Marxism for International Law: A New Agenda

Akbar Rasulov (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) has posted A Marxism for International Law: A New Agenda (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
What can Marxist theory contribute to the discipline of international legal studies? Can one be a Marxist and an international lawyer at the same time? What place is there for international legal scholarship in Marxist politics? How can Marxist international law theory position itself vis-à-vis other critical legal traditions? Does Marxism have any theoretical gaps that it needs to fill? How does a Marxist approach to international law differ from a New Left one? In this review essay, I propose to explore these and other related questions by examining one of the most important recent contributions to the Marxist debate about international law, the new edition of B.S. Chimni’s International Law and World Order. My aim in these pages is to reveal and bring to the surface its general critical method, some of the less obvious aspects of its underlying theoretical project, its disciplinary ambition as well as its overall place in the broader landscape of contemporary international law thought, including its relationship with other works of Marxist international law theory.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Dothan: The Motivations of Individual Judges and How They Act as a Group

Shai Dothan (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts) has posted The Motivations of Individual Judges and How They Act as a Group (German Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
States have a significant influence on the selection of judges to international courts. This raises the concern that judges will be biased in favor of their home states, a concern backed by some empirical research. To counter that danger, international courts usually sit in large and diverse panels. Scholars have argued that this gives judges only rare occasions to tip the balance in favor of their home states. The problem begins, however, when judges start forming coalitions among themselves, giving judges with national biases a practical possibility to change the result of cases. To assess the magnitude of this threat to judicial independence, the paper draws on decades of scholarship in the field of judicial behavior. By understanding how judges behave, scholars can come closer to deciphering the true impact of judicial selection to international courts on international judgments.

New Volume: Netherlands Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 48, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Shifting Forms and Levels of Cooperation in International Economic Law: Structural Developments in Trade, Investment and Financial Regulation
    • Panayotis M. Protopsaltis, The Development of the US and the EU Preferential Trade Agreement Networks: A Tale of Power and Prestige
    • Gerhard Erasmus & Trudi Hartzenberg, From the Tripartite to the Continental Free Trade Areas: Designs, Outcomes and Implications for African Trade and Integration
    • Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan, From TRIPS to FTAs and Back: Re-Conceptualising the Role of a Multilateral IP Framework in a TRIPS-Plus World
    • Fernando Dias Simões, External Consultants as Actors in European Trade and Investment Policymaking
    • Rafael Leal-Arcas, Feja Lesniewska, & Filippos Proedrou, Prosumers: New Actors in EU Energy Security
    • Ohiocheoya Omiunu, The Evolving Role of Sub-National Actors in International Economic Relations: Lessons from the Canada-European Union CETA
    • Gabriel Webber Ziero, The Potential of Transnational Regulations: The Interactions Between Traditional and Non-Traditional Sources of International Economic Law
    • Svetlana Chobanova, International Regulatory Cooperation in the Field of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures: Drawing Multilateral Lessons from the Regional Dimension
    • Maksim Usynin & Szilárd Gáspár-Szilágyi, The Growing Tendency of Including Investment Chapters in PTAs
    • Abhinayan Basu Bal & Trisha Rajput, Trade in the Digital Era: Prospects and Challenges for an International Single Window Environment
    • Monique Egli Costi, Between Shifts and Continuum in Cooperation: The International Securities Regulatory Regime and its Gradual Evolution

Provost: L’attaque directe d’enfants-soldats en droit international humanitaire

René Provost (McGill Univ. - Law) has posted L’attaque directe d’enfants-soldats en droit international humanitaire (Canadian Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Le fait que des enfants se joignent aux forces armées ou à des groupes armés non étatiques est une terrible réalité qui résiste aux efforts de la communauté internationale pour l’éliminer. La participation directe aux hostilités par des enfants-soldats constitue possiblement l’aspect le plus troublant de cette réalité, en ce qu’elle soulève la possibilité de devoir attaquer directement ces enfants. Le droit international humanitaire reste à ce jour plutôt discret quant à cette facette de la participation des enfants aux conflits armés, laissant les forces armées improviser leur réaction. Les Forces armées canadiennes ont adopté en 2017 ce qui est présenté comme la première doctrine militaire sur les enfants-soldats. Le présent texte propose une analyse de cette doctrine à la lumière de la réglementation de l’emploi de la force contre les enfants-soldats en droit international humanitaire, pour déterminer si les enfants peuvent jamais devenir des combattants à part entière, à quelles conditions ils peuvent être considérés comme civils participant directement aux hostilités, et quelles limites le droit humanitaire impose quant aux choix des moyens et mesures de guerre employés.

The fact that children are drawn to join the ranks of armed forces or non-state armed groups is a scourge that persists despite concerted efforts to eradicate the practice. No facet of this reality is perhaps more shocking than children’s direct participation in hostility, in that it raises the spectre of combatants directly targeting children. International humanitarian law has been largely silent on this specific aspect of child soldiering, leaving armed forces to improvise their stance when confronted with child soldiers on the battlefield. The Canadian Armed Forces in 2017 adopted what is said to be the first official military doctrine on child soldiers. This article analyzes this doctrine in light of the regulation of the use of force against child soldiers under international humanitarian law. It assesses whether children can ever be full-fledge combatants, when they can be considered civilians directly participating in hostilities, and, if children can be directly targeted, what limits humanitarian law imposes on the means and measures of war employed against them.

Perrone & Schneiderman: A Critique of International Economic Law: Depoliticization, Inequality, Precarity

Nicolás M. Perrone (Durham Univ. - Law) & David Schneiderman (Univ. of Toronto - Law) have posted A Critique of International Economic Law: Depoliticization, Inequality, Precarity (in Research Handbook on Critical Legal Theory, Emilios Christodoulidis, Ruth Dukes & Marco Goldoni eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
By purporting to depoliticize markets, international economic law complicates solutions to precarity and inequality within and between states and regions. Separating out markets from ordinary politics, the novel legal orders of trade and investment choose winners and losers, determining who will adapt to whom so as to render their policy goals most efficacious. In so doing, trade and investment law expresses preferences about how political and social life should be organized, rendering solutions to pressing social problems more difficult to address. This chapter interrogates these two legal regimes, arguing that they exhibit a similar tilt that favours global capital, precipitating similar legitimacy problems, and kindred responses that aim to manage the fall out. They reveal, in other words, startling comparable trajectories that rely on similar techniques to manage resistance. International economic law’s plan of action turns out to be unified: to deflect critique, disarm states, and weaponize legal rules. We conclude that, so long as international economic law does not take precarity and inequality seriously, its trade and investment regimes will remain vulnerable to political blowback.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Call for Papers: Recent Developments in IHL and Detention Law and Practice

The Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel and the Occupied Territories have issued a call for papers for their 13th Annual Conference on International Humanitarian Law, to take place November 12-13, 2018. The theme is: "Recent Developments in IHL and Detention Law and Practice." The call is here.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Krumney: Die Immunität der Vereinten Nationen

Jakub Krumrey has published Die Immunität der Vereinten Nationen (Mohr Siebeck 2018). Here's the abstract:
Die Vereinten Nationen sind eine Organisation über allem Recht. Dieser Eindruck könnte sich aufdrängen, möchte man die Vereinten Nationen vor einem nationalen Gericht für ihr Fehlverhalten im Rahmen ihrer Friedensmissionen zur Verantwortung ziehen. Denn sogar angesichts schwerster Menschenrechtsverletzungen, können sich die Vereinten Nationen noch auf ihre Immunität berufen. Das mussten die Hinterbliebenen eines Völkermordes im Srebrenica-Verfahren schmerzlich erfahren. Nach Artikel 105 UN-Charta jedoch genießen die Vereinten Nationen nur solche Immunitäten, »die zur Verwirklichung ihrer Ziele notwendig sind«. Ihre Immunität scheint daher funktional begrenzt. Kann und soll die Immunität die Vereinten Nationen daher auch vor dem Vorwurf schützen, Menschenrechte in eklatanter Weise verletzt zu haben? Jakub Krumrey geht dieser Frage nach und untersucht, ob zumindest alternative Rechtsschutzmöglichkeiten für die Anspruchsteller bestehen.