Saturday, January 12, 2019

Lauterpacht Centre Friday Lunchtime Lecture Series for Lent Term 2019

Here's the schedule for the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law's Lent Term 2019 Friday Lunchtime Lectures:
  • January 18, 2019: Mark Drumbl (Washington and Lee Univ.), From Timbuktu to The Hague and Beyond: The War Crime of Intentionally Attacking Cultural Property
  • January 25, 2019: Louise Mallinder (Queen’s Univ. Belfast), Instigator or Inhibitor? The Role of International Law in Dealing with the Legacy of the Northern Ireland Conflict
  • February 1, 2019: Christopher Greenwood (formerly, Judge, International Court of Justice), International Courts and Tribunals: Is there Strength in Diversity?
  • February 8, 2019: Malcolm Shaw (Essex Court Chambers), Some Reflections on Territorial Sovereignty Today
  • February 15, 2019: Miles Jackson (Univ. of Oxford), Instrumental International Criminal Justice
  • February 22, 2019: Laurel Fletcher (Univ. of California, Berkeley), Let’s Talk About the Boteros: Law, Memory, and the Torture Memos at Berkeley Law
  • March 1, 2019: James Loeffler (Univ. of Virginia), Double Amnesia: Zionism and Human Rights in History and Memory
  • March 8, 2019: Petros C Mavroidis (Columbia Univ.), What is the WTO Agreement on TBT All About?

Buchan: Cyber Espionage and International Law

Russell Buchan (Univ. of Sheffield - Law) has published Cyber Espionage and International Law (Hart Publishing 2018). Here's the abstract:
The advent of cyberspace has led to a dramatic increase in state-sponsored political and economic espionage. This monograph argues that these practices represent a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security and assesses the extent to which international law regulates this conduct. The traditional view among international legal scholars is that, in the absence of direct and specific international law on the topic of espionage, cyber espionage constitutes an extra-legal activity that is unconstrained by international law. This monograph challenges that assumption and reveals that there are general principles of international law as well as specialised international legal regimes that indirectly regulate cyber espionage. In terms of general principles of international law, this monograph explores how the rules of territorial sovereignty, non-intervention and the non-use of force apply to cyber espionage. In relation to specialised regimes, this monograph investigates the role of diplomatic and consular law, international human rights law and the law of the World Trade Organization in addressing cyber espionage. This monograph also examines whether developments in customary international law have carved out espionage exceptions to those international legal rules that otherwise prohibit cyber espionage as well as considering whether the doctrines of self-defence and necessity can be invoked to justify cyber espionage. Notwithstanding the applicability of international law, this monograph concludes that policymakers should nevertheless devise an international law of espionage which, as lex specialis, contains rules that are specifically designed to confront the growing threat posed by cyber espionage.

Friday, January 11, 2019

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 63, no. 1, January 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Sirianne Dahlum & Tore Wig, Educating Demonstrators: Education and Mass Protest in Africa
    • Alexander De Juan & Eva Wegner, Social Inequality, State-centered Grievances, and Protest: Evidence from South Africa
    • Nils Hägerdal, Ethnic Cleansing and the Politics of Restraint: Violence and Coexistence in the Lebanese Civil War
    • Christian Houle, Social Mobility and Political Instability
    • Peter S. Henne & Jason Klocek, Taming the Gods: How Religious Conflict Shapes State Repression
    • Tobias Heinrich & Matt W. Loftis, Democracy Aid and Electoral Accountability
    • Sam R. Bell, K. Chad Clay, & Amanda Murdie, Join the Chorus, Avoid the Spotlight: The Effect of Neighborhood and Social Dynamics on Human Rights Organization Shaming
    • Jin Mun Jeong & Dursun Peksen, Domestic Institutional Constraints, Veto Players, and Sanction Effectiveness
    • Neil Narang & Rupal N. Mehta, The Unforeseen Consequences of Extended Deterrence: Moral Hazard in a Nuclear Client State
    • Robert Johns & Graeme A. M. Davies, Civilian Casualties and Public Support for Military Action: Experimental Evidence

Call for Papers: Actors in International Investment Law: Beyond Claimants, Respondents and Arbitrators

A call for papers has been issued for a colloquium on "Actors in International Investment Law: Beyond Claimants, Respondents and Arbitrators," to take place September 26-27, 2019, at the Université Paris 2 Panthéon Assas. The call is here.

Maia, Akandji-Kombé, & Harelimana: L'apport de l'Afrique à la justice internationale pénale

Catherine Maia (Université Lusófona de Porto), Jean-François Akandji-Kombé (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), & Jean-Baptiste Harelimana have published L'apport de l'Afrique à la justice internationale pénale (L'Harmattan 2018). Here's the abstract:
Quel est l'apport de l'Afrique au mouvement de pénalisation qui traverse le droit international ? Telle est la question à laquelle cet ouvrage propose d'apporter des éclairages au travers de contributions de plusieurs experts.

New Addition to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added a lecture to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. It was given by Jean Michel Arrighi on “La Organización de los Estados Americanos: Algunos Temas Actuales.”

Conference: The Legacy of the League of Nations

On January 31, 2019, the Centre for European Law and Internationalisation at the University of Leicester will hold a conference on "The Legacy of the League of Nations." The program is here.

Oxford Public International Law Discussion Group for Hilary Term 2019

Here's the schedule for the Oxford Public International Law Discussion Group for Hilary Term 2019:
  • January 17, 2019: Joanna Dimmock (White & Case), The Extra Territorial Reach of the Prosecutor in England & Wales
  • January 24, 2019: Delphine Dogot (Sciences Po), The Legal Metamorphosis of War
  • January 31, 2019: Malcolm Evans (Univ. of Bristol), The Uncertain Future(s) of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies
  • February 7, 2019: Robert McCorquodale (Univ. of Nottingham), Do the Multilateral Development Banks have International Human Rights and Humanitarian Legal Obligations?
  • February 14, 2019: Gabriela Frei (Jesus College, Oxford), 1919: The Making of a New International Legal Order?
  • February 21, 2019: Seline Trevisanut (Utrecht Univ.), Regime Interaction in Ocean Governance
  • February 28, 2019: Susan Marks (London School of Economics), Three Liberty Trees
  • March 7, 2019: Jansen Calamita (National Univ. of Singapore), The Internalization of Investment Treaties and the Rule of Law Promise

Call for Papers: EUI Doctoral Forum on International Law

The Law Department of the European University Institute has issued a call for papers for an intensive one-day doctoral forum on international law, which will take place June 10, 2019, in Florence, and sponsored by the European Society of International Law. The call is here.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Azari: La demande reconventionnelle devant la Cour internationale de justice

Hadi Azari (Université Kharazmi) has published La demande reconventionnelle devant la Cour internationale de justice (L'Harmattan 2018). Here's the abstract:
La demande reconventionnelle est une action en justice ; une conclusion du défendeur qui poursuit des avantages autres que le simple rejet de la prétention du demandeur. Admise dans toutes les juridictions, devant la Cour internationale de Justice, elle présente des caractéristiques particulières que cet essai a pour vocation d'analyser et de mettre en lumière. Selon la jurisprudence, une demande reconventionnelle est une demande autonome et indépendante. Formée par le défendeur, elle est à la fois un moyen de défense et une demande incidente. Pour être recevable, elle doit relever de la compétence de la Cour et entretenir une connexité directe avec la demande principale. Toutefois, la question est de savoir si la Cour peut refuser une demande reconventionnelle et, inversement, l'accepter quand la connexité fait défaut.

Contesse: Settling Human Rights Violations

Jorge Contesse (Rutgers Univ. - Law) has posted Settling Human Rights Violations (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In the past few decades, human rights courts have been widely established around the world, sparking the interest of legal scholars who devote significant attention to state accountability for human rights violations. Academic centers exclusively dedicated to the study of international courts have appeared, and conferences on the role of international adjudication now abound. International law has become a juricentric discipline.

With the enormous attention afforded to the international human rights judiciary, critical aspects of non-judicial human rights decision-making are often neglected. One understudied mechanism is that of friendly settlements, whereby victims of human rights violations, acting under the “good offices” of regional human rights bodies, enter into direct negotiations with respondent states toward a consensual resolution to a human rights dispute. Despite its prolific use in regional human rights regimes, legal scholars have largely neglected the friendly settlement mechanism. This Article fills that gap. Drawing on a review of all friendly settlements executed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as well as interviews with Commission personnel (including two of its former presidents), state officials from six Latin American countries, members of non-governmental organizations, and petitioners, this Article comprehensively analyzes the general practice of settling human rights disputes. The Article identifies various motivations underlying the practice: states avoid the “naming and shaming” that comes with human rights litigiousness; victims more quickly obtain reparations; and human rights bodies alleviate their backlog.

But friendly settlements also raise serious—and unnoticed—challenges. The Article unearths both normative and practical concerns with settling human rights violations and considers a novel alternative. It proposes an improved form of friendly settlement that (i) distinguishes between and affords differentiated procedural treatment to disputes concerning individual violations and those seeking structural remedies, and (ii) delegates negotiation and compliance functions to local authorities. With these improvements, the Article concludes, human rights settlements can play a critical role in holding states accountable, along with—and even more than—human rights adjudication.

New Issue: International Affairs

The latest issue of International Affairs (Vol. 95, no. 1, January 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • World Politics 100 Years After the Paris Peace Conference
    • Margaret MacMillan, Anand Menon, & Patrick Quinton-Brown, Introduction: world politics 100 years after the Paris peace conference
    • Barry Eichengreen, Versailles: the economic legacy
    • Glenda Sluga, Remembering 1919: international organizations and the future of international order
    • Oona A. Hathaway & Scott J. Shapiro, International law and its transformation through the outlawry of war
    • Joseph S. Nye, Jr, The rise and fall of American hegemony from Wilson to Trump
    • Jane Burbank & Frederick Cooper, Empires after 1919: old, new, transformed
    • Lawrence Freedman, The rise and fall of Great Power wars
    • Yuen Foong Khong, Power as prestige in world politics
    • Rosemary Foot, Remembering the past to secure the present: Versailles legacies in a resurgent China
    • Erik Jones & Anand Menon, Europe: between dream and reality?
    • Margaret MacMillan & Patrick Quinton-Brown, The uses of history in international society: from the Paris peace conference to the present

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 22, no. 10, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: Peremptory International Legal Norms and the Democratic Rule of Law
    • Sonja Grover, Introduction
    • Alise Coen, International order, the rule of law, and US departures from refugee protection
    • Ryan Alford, The harbinger theory of terrorism and the rule of law: the danger of ‘balancing’ non-derogable rights against security when relying on threat assessments produced by self-interested intelligence agencies
    • Mariette Brennan & Miriam Cohen, Citizenship by descent: how Canada’s one-generation rule fails to comply with international legal norms
    • Oscar Gakuo Mwangi, Securitisation, non-refoulement and the rule of law in Kenya: the case of Somali refugees
    • Denise González-Núñez, The widespread use of torture in Mexico and its impacts on the rule of law
    • Ridvan Peshkopia, Drin Konjufca, Erblin Salihu & Jonida Lika, EU membership conditionality in promoting acceptance of peremptory human rights norms: a case study in Albania considering public opinion

Dornbusch: Kampfführungsrecht im internationalen Cyberkrieg

Julia Dornbusch has published Kampfführungsrecht im internationalen Cyberkrieg (Nomos 2018). Here's the abstract:

Der ‚Cyberkrieg’ ist ein hoch brisantes Thema im sicherheitspolitischen Diskurs. Bisher hat sich kein Zwischenfall zugetragen, der durch die Staatengemeinschaft als bewaffneter Konflikt im rechtlichen Sinne anerkannt und ausschließlich mit Cyberangriffen geführt wurde. Und auch wenn ein solcher Cyberkrieg im engeren Sinne zurzeit als unwahrscheinlich gehandelt wird, haben die Staaten das Potenzial und die Gefahr des Einsatzes von Mitteln und Methoden der Cyberkriegsführung erkannt.

Die Arbeit zeigt, dass gegenwärtige Computernetzwerkoperationen selten als völkerrechtliche Gewaltanwendung zu qualifizieren sind, die einen internationalen bewaffneten Konflikt auslösen. Zudem wird herausgearbeitet, inwiefern die kampfführungsrechtlichen Vorgaben, die vor dem Hintergrund des Einsatzes konventioneller Waffengewalt entstanden sind, auch im Bereich der Cyberkriegsführung Schutz garantieren können.

Cyber warfare is an issue of extreme importance in the current debate on security policy. So far, there has been no cyber incident that states have acknowledged as an armed conflict in the legal sense. And even if, nowadays, a war exclusively fought with cyber attacks seems unrealistic, states have recognised the potential as well as the threat that cyber warfare poses to modern information societies. The book demonstrates that computer network operations are unlikely to amount to a use of force or an international armed conflict. In addition, the book examines the question whether the ‘conventional’ rules of conduct of hostilities offer a comprehensive protection with regard to cyber warfare.

New Issue: Asian Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Asian Journal of International Law (Vol. 9, no. 1, January 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Notes and Comments
    • Sergey Sayapin, The General Principles of International Criminal Law in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan
    • Wan Pun Lung, International Law before the Courts of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China—Twenty Years On
    • Jacqueline Joyce F. Espenilla, Judicial Fact-Finding Initiatives in the South China Sea Arbitration
  • Articles
    • Prabhakar Singh, Of International Law, Semi-colonial Thailand, and Imperial Ghosts
    • Eliana Cusato, Overcoming the “Logic of Exception”: A Critique of the UN Security Council’s Response to Environmental Damage from the 1990–91 Gulf War
    • Prabhash Ranjan, Police Powers, Indirect Expropriation in International Investment Law, and Article 31(3)(c) of the VCLT: A Critique of Philip Morris v. Uruguay
    • James Ransdell, Institutional Innovation by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
  • Symposium on Onuma Yasuaki’s “International Law in a Transcivilizational World”
    • Antony Anghie, Editorial Preface
    • Lauri Mälksoo, Civilizational Diversity as Challenge to the (False) Universality of International Law
    • Ming Li, The Transcivilizational Perspective: A Legitimate and Feasible Approach to International Law
    • Gustavo Gozzi, Transcivilizational International Law Against the System of International Relations: Onuma Yasuaki’s Normative Choice
    • W. Michael Reisman & Tomo B. Takaki, How Shall We Fashion International Legal Goals and Criteria for Appraisal in a World of Many Civilizations and Cultures? Review of Onuma Yasuaki’s International Law in a Transcivilizational World
    • Florian Couveinhes Matsumoto, The End of the History of Liberalism and the Last “Transcivilizational” Man? Onuma’s Attempt to Define a “New” International Law

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Burton: Searching for the Eastern Carelia Principle

Philip Burton (Univ. of Manchester - Manchester International Law Centre) has posted an ESIL Reflection on Searching for the Eastern Carelia Principle.

Gathii: The Agenda of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL)

James Thuo Gathii (Loyola Univ. Chicago - Law) has posted The Agenda of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) (in International Legal Theory: Foundations and Frontiers, Jeffrey Dunoff & Mark Pollack eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter examines the first twenty-one years of Third Approaches to International Law Scholarship (TWAIL) from 1997 to 2018. It provides the first comprehensive attempt to count TWAIL articles, book chapters and books in that period and connects this scholarship to prior scholarship on international law from the Third World.

In so doing, it traces TWAIL’s varied origins and discusses its scholarly production in the last 21 years in Part One. In Part two, it discusses the main themes of TWAIL scholarship and the strands within them. Part Three discusses criticisms of TWAIL scholarship and makes responses to them.

The chapter argues that TWAIL scholarship has three major themes. First, how TWAIL scholarship traces the role of international law in constituting order and disorder. The second theme is the centrality of history in international law, and third, TWAIL’s commitment to reforming and remaking international law.

In addition, the chapter critically appraises criticisms of TWAIL scholarship. These are: First, some historians have charged TWAIL scholars with anachronism or ‘presentism’. Second, some mainstream international law scholars have argued that TWAIL scholarship is nihilistic and lacks methodological clarity. A third set of criticisms have argued in favor of expanding the subject of TWAIL scholarship to include themes such as indigenous peoples and hierarchical caste systems, so that TWAIL scholarship can capture other forms of hierarchies, particularly those that predate colonialism. A fourth criticism is that TWAIL’s resistance to international law scholarship and international law itself, occupies the same terrain as international law and as such it cannot offer an alternative.

Most importantly, this chapter shows that TWAIL scholarship provides a substantive critique of both the politics and the scholarship of international law, in addition to exploring the extent to which international law has legitimated global processes of marginalization and domination of the peoples of the third world, as well as how third world peoples and countries can overcome these challenges.

Call for Papers: Primeira Conferência Latinoamericana Sobre Direitos Humanos e Empresas

A call for papers has been issued for the Primeira Conferência Latinoamericana Sobre Direitos Humanos e Empresas, to be held May 2-3, 2019, at the Universidad del Rosario e Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá. The call is here.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Lieblich: At Least Something: The UN Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, 1957–1958

Eliav Lieblich (Tel Aviv Univ. - Law) has posted At Least Something: The UN Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, 1957–1958 (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In late 1956, The UN faced a remarkable test, as the USSR invaded and crushed a burgeoning rebellion in Hungary, then a Soviet satellite. After the USSR disregarded repeated UN calls to withdraw, the UN General Assembly established, in January 1957, a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to investigate the crisis.

This Article explores the forgotten story of the Special Committee on Hungary as a case study for the effects of commissions of inquiry. This commission is of special interest for several reasons. Namely, it was one of the first mandated by a UN body to investigate a specific conflict, not least a Cold War struggle, in which a superpower was directly involved. Furthermore, it was clear from the beginning that the Committee was not likely to compel, in itself, the USSR to change its behavior. Moreover, 1956 was a time of global political transformation, as the non-aligned movement emerged as a key player in UN politics, and, accordingly, became a target in the Cold War battle for influence. Under such circumstances, the effects of COIs are complex and difficult to gauge.

While the Committee did not lead to the USSR's withdrawal from Hungary, it had many unforeseen and conflicting effects. These are grouped, in the Article, into two categories – effects relating mainly to times of ideological conflict and political transformation; and effects that relate to parallel multilateral efforts and institutional dynamics. Among other effects, the Article demonstrates how, under such political circumstances, COIs can create new points of contention, and cause backlash precisely from those that they seek to influence. Having cascading and conflicting effects, the central conclusion is that COIs do not lend themselves easily to clean and linear theories. A recognition of the field’s inherent complexity is therefore needed in any attempt to study this international phenomenon.

New Issue: World Politics

The latest issue of World Politics (Vol. 71, no. 1, January 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Research Articles
    • Calvert W. Jones, Adviser to The King: Experts, Rationalization, and Legitimacy
    • Yanilda González, The Social Origins of Institutional Weakness and Change: Preferences, Power, and Police Reform in Latin America
    • Alexandru Grigorescu & Çağlayan Başer, The Choice between Intergovernmentalism and Nongovernmentalism: Projecting Domestic Preferences to Global Governance
    • Jonathan Bendor & Jacob N. Shapiro, Historical Contingencies in the Evolution of States and Their Militaries

Monday, January 7, 2019

New Issue: Swiss Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Swiss Review of International and European Law (Vol. 28, no. 3, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Lucius Caflisch, The contemporary law of international watercourses: Some aspects and problems
  • José Manuel Velasco Retamosa, International Jurisdiction Rules in Matters of Succession in the European Context

Call for Submissions: German Yearbook of International Law

The German Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its forthcoming volume 62 (2019). The deadline is September 1, 2019. Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS

The German Yearbook of International Law (GYIL) is Germany’s oldest yearbook in the field of public international law. The GYIL is published annually by the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel and contains contributions on topics addressing all aspects of public international law. We aim to provide a platform for scholars of international law – both inside and outside Germany – to publish new research advancing public international legal discourse as well as analysis of current issues. The GYIL consists of a number of sections, including a ‘Forum’ section for which prominent scholars are invited to discuss newly developing topics in international law and a ‘Focus’ section for which a group of experts are invited to write articles examining in-depth various aspects of a topic chosen in advance by the Editors. The ‘German Practice’ section gives authors an opportunity to discuss recent State practice in Germany relevant to international law. This section presents shorter reports rather than extended essays. The GYIL also publishes English-language summaries of exceptional German doctoral and post-doctoral theses in the fields of public international law and European law.

The General Articles section of the GYIL is open to submissions from the entire academic community and is independently peer-reviewed by a board of renowned experts. All work submitted will be scrutinised based on its intellectual quality and its advancement of academic discourse. With this Call for Papers, the Editors welcome submissions for the General Articles section of volume 62 (2019) of the GYIL, inviting interested parties to submit contributions for consideration for inclusion in the forthcoming edition.

The paper should be 10,000-12,500 words inclusive of footnotes and conform with the house style of the GYIL (available on our website). Submissions, including a brief abstract, statement of affiliation, and confirmation of exclusive submission, should be sent by 1 September 2019 to the Assistant Editors of the GYIL via e-mail: yearbook@wsi.uni-kiel.de.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Investor Responsibility: The Next Frontier in International Investment Law

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on “Investor Responsibility: The Next Frontier in International Investment Law.” The symposium includes an introduction by James Gathii and Sergio Puig and contributions by Andrew Sanger, Jean Ho, Nicolás M. Perrone, Mavluda Sattorova, Jackson Shaw Kern, and Tomoko Ishikawa.

New Issue: Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The latest issue of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (Vol. 51, no. 4, October 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Shahla F. Ali, Practitioners’ Perception of Court-Connected Mediation in Five Regions: An Empirical Study
  • Maria L. Banda, Climate Adaptation Law: Governing Multi-Level Public Goods Across Borders
  • Shai Dothan, When Immediate Responses Fail
  • Amanda Bloch Kernan, Sustaining the Growth of Mobile Money Services in Developing Nations: Lessons from Overregulation in the United States

New Issue: Revista Tribuna Internacional

The latest issue of Revista Tribuna Internacional (Vol. 7, no. 14, 2018) is out. Contents include:
  • Artículos
    • Pablo Nilo Donoso, Implicancias para la solución de controversias inversionista-Estado a raíz de la sentencia del caso Achmea
    • Gonzalo José Arias Acuña, One country two systems. Competition regime in Mainland China and Hong Kong, which one is more conducive to western-foreign investors?
  • Ensayos
    • Claudia Cárdenas Aravena, La remisión de la situación de Venezuela a la Corte Penal Internacional ¿Una medida efectiva o efectista por parte de los Estados Americanos?

Sunday, January 6, 2019

New Issue: Global Trade and Customs Journal

The latest issue of Global Trade and Customs Journal (Vol. 14, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • George-Dian Balan, On Fissionable Cows and the Limits to the WTO Security Exceptions
  • Hao Wu, Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters
  • Malte Wilke & Hinrich Rüping, The Criminal Provisions of German and UK Export Control and Sanctions Law
  • Gustavo Adolfo Guarin Duque, Interpreting WTO Rules in Times of Contestation (Part 2): A Proposed Interpretation of Article XXI(b)ii–iii of the GATT 1994 in the Light of the Vienna Convention of the Law of the Treaties