Saturday, June 1, 2019

Davitti: Investment and Human Rights in Armed Conflict: Charting an Elusive Intersection

Daria Davitti (Univ. of Nottingham - Law) has published Investment and Human Rights in Armed Conflict: Charting an Elusive Intersection (Hart Publishing 2019). Here's the abstract:
This book analyses the way in which international human rights law (IHRL) and international investment law (IIL) are deployed – or fail to be deployed – in conflict countries within the context of natural resources extraction. It specifically analyses the way in which IIL protections impact on the parallel protection of economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) in the host state, especially the right to water. Arguing that current responses have been unsatisfactory, it considers the emergence of the 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework and the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (jointly the Framework) as a possible analytical instrument. In so doing, it proposes a different approach to the way in which the Framework is generally interpreted, and then investigates the possible applicability of this 'recalibrated' Framework to the study of the IHRL-IIL interplay in a host country in a protracted armed conflict: Afghanistan. Through the emblematic example of Afghanistan, the book presents a practical dimension to its legal analysis. It uniquely portrays the elusive intersection between these two bodies of international law within a host country where the armed conflict continues to rage and a full economic restructuring is taking place away from the public eye, not least through the deployment of IIL and the inaction – or merely partial consideration – of IHRL. The book will be of interest to academics, policy-makers, and practitioners of international organisations involved in IHRL, IIL and/or deployed in contexts of armed conflict.

Palombino: Duelling for Supremacy: International Law vs. National Fundamental Principles

Fulvio Maria Palombino (Università degli Studi di Napoli 'Federico II' - Law) has published Duelling for Supremacy: International Law vs. National Fundamental Principles (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
It is a settled rule of international law that a State may not rely on the provisions of its 'internal law' as justification for failing to comply with international obligations. However, the judiciaries of most countries, including those with a high record of compliance with international norms, have increasingly felt the need to preserve the area of fundamental principles, where the State's inclination to retain full sovereignty seems to act as an unbreakable 'counter-limit' to the limitations deriving from international law. This volume explores this trend by adopting a comparative perspective, addressing the question of how conflicts between international law and national fundamental principles are dealt with and resolved within a specific legal system. The contributing authors identify common tendencies and fundamental differences in the approaches and evaluate the implications of this practice for the future of the principle of supremacy of international law.

Mukherjee: The “Right to Wage War” against Empire: Anticolonialism and the Challenge to International Law in the Indian National Army Trial of 1945

Mithi Mukherjee (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder - History) has published The “Right to Wage War” against Empire: Anticolonialism and the Challenge to International Law in the Indian National Army Trial of 1945 (Law & Social Inquiry, Vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 420-443, May 2019). Here's the abstract:
This Article treats the Indian National Army Trial of 1945 as a key moment in the elaboration of an anticolonial critique of international law in India. The trial was actually a court-martial of three Indian officers by the British colonial government on charges of high treason for defecting from the British Indian Army, joining up with Indian National Army forces in Singapore, and waging war in alliance with Imperial Japan against the British. In this trial, the defense made the radical claim that anticolonial wars fought in Asia against European powers were legitimate and just and should be recognized as such under international law. The aim of this Article is to draw attention to the understudied role of anticolonial movements in challenging the premises of international law in the aftermath of World War II.

Dannenbaum: War Crimes and Just War Theory

Tom Dannenbaum (Tufts Univ. - Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) has posted War Crimes and Just War Theory (in The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan & Larry Alexander eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Revisionist just war theory has gained considerable traction in recent years, debunking longstanding principles in the morality of war. This development cannot be ignored by war crimes lawyers. Philosophers on both sides of these debates, as well as many lawyers, understand the attacked principles to provide the moral underpinning of the contemporary war crimes regime. This perceived tension is erroneous. A panoramic view of the applicable law reveals it to be more revisionist in its moral posture than is ordinarily recognized. First, increasing recognition of the applicability of international human rights law in armed conflict reflects growing skepticism of the normative exceptionalism of war. Second, the criminalization of aggression reflects the moral inequality of combatants. Third, the legal distinction between civilians and combatants is understood best through a combination of individual liability and necessity — principles that can be accommodated in more nuanced ways as human rights law gains traction. Gaps remain, but there is more common ground between international law and revisionist theory than either lawyers or theorists tend to recognize.

Friday, May 31, 2019

New Volume: Anuario Español de Derecho Internacional

The latest volume of the Anuario Español de Derecho Internacional (Vol. 35, 2019) is out. The table of contents is here.

Mulesky & Sandholtz: Do Human Rights Treaty Obligations Matter?

Suzie Mulesky (Univ. of Southern California - International Relations) & Wayne Sandholtz (Univ. of Southern California - International Relations) have posted Do Human Rights Treaty Obligations Matter? Here's the abstract:
Why do some human rights treaties receive rapid and near universal commitment from states while others take decades for the majority of states to ratify? Little scholarship to date has analyzed the effects of treaty design, in particular, the substance of treaty obligations, on the likelihood of ratification. We analyze new data that code every provision of ten global human rights treaties for the strength and precision of the obligations they contain. We classify obligations that are strong, precise, and that require domestic action as “demanding.” We hypothesize that treaties containing more of these demanding obligations would be seen as more costly to ratify because they imply potentially greater policy adaptation or compliance costs. Event history analyses are consistent with that hypothesis. The addition of 15 demanding treaty obligations decreases the likelihood of ratification by nearly 20 percent, similar to the effect of moving from democracy to autocracy. This effect is consistent when controlling for various treaty, state, and global level factors that may also influence a state’s decision to ratify.

d'Aspremont: Critical Histories of International Law and the Repression of Disciplinary Imagination

Jean d'Aspremont (Sciences Po - Law; Univ. of Manchester - Law) has posted Critical Histories of International Law and the Repression of Disciplinary Imagination (London Review of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
This article engages with international lawyers’ growing historiographical appetites. It makes the argument that the critical histories that have come to populate the international legal literature over the last decades continue to be organised along the very lines set by the linear historical narratives which they seek to question and disrupt. It makes a plea for radical historical critique, that is, for critical histories that move beyond the markers, periodisation and causal sequencing they seek to displace or disrupt and that embrace a consciously interventionist history-writing attitude with a view to unbridling disciplinary imagination.

Sinclair: Forging Modern States with Imperfect Tools: United Nations Technical Assistance for Public Administration in Decolonized States

Guy Fiti Sinclair (Victoria Univ. of Wellington - Law) has posted Forging Modern States with Imperfect Tools: United Nations Technical Assistance for Public Administration in Decolonized States (Humanity, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
This article examines United Nations (UN) programs of technical assistance for public administration as a ‘technology of stateness’ during the postwar period of decolonization (roughly 1945-1965). Drawing on the wider modernization and development literature as well as original research in the UN Archives, the article shows how the Public Administration Division of the UN’s Technical Assistance Administration connected with a larger network of actors interested in promoting public administration reforms in decolonized states, including other international organizations, private actors (including charitable foundations and professional associations), state agencies, and national elites. The article further analyzes the rationalities and technologies advanced by UN technical assistance in this field, finding a complex picture whereby the advice given and actions taken by UN officials suggested both a tendency towards centralization of state of power and a movement of power away from the state. In doing so, the article highlights continuities between postwar development and the ‘neoliberal’ practices of development management that emerged towards the end of the twentieth century.

Garcia: Consent and Trade: Trading Freely in a Global Market

Frank J. Garcia (Boston College - Law) has published Consent and Trade: Trading Freely in a Global Market (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). Here's the abstract:
In a time of changing trade norms, when free trade seems to be giving way to new kinds of nationalism, some fundamental questions about trade are still not being asked. Is trade consensual or coercive? Is 'free trade' as currently practiced really free? If not, what difference can trade law make in addressing economically oppressive practices that nationalistic trade policies cannot? In this book Garcia offers an examination of trade law's roots in consensual exchange, highlighting the central role of consent in differentiating trade from legally facilitated coercion, exploitation or predation. The book revisits the premise of consensual exchange which underlies the rhetoric of 'free trade', and then examines the social and political conditions that are a necessary part of a more genuine trade law system, in service of the idea that recovering consent in trade law can promote human flourishing on a global scale.

Jackson: Virtuous Accomplices in International Criminal Law

Miles Jackson (Univ. of Oxford - Law) has posted Virtuous Accomplices in International Criminal Law. Here's the abstract:
Humanitarian actors sometimes have to decide whether to render assistance in situations that put them at risk of liability for aiding and abetting under international criminal law. This is the problem of the virtuous accomplice – the idea that knowingly contributing to the wrongdoing of others might, exceptionally, be the right thing to do. This article explains why the problem arises and clarifies its scope, before turning to criminal law in England and Wales and Germany to assess potential solutions. It argues that the best approach is to accept a defence of necessity – of justified complicity – and shows that such an argument works in international criminal law.

Blum: The Paradox of Power: The Changing Norms of the Modern Battlefield

Gabriella Blum (Harvard Univ. - Law) has posted The Paradox of Power: The Changing Norms of the Modern Battlefield (Houston Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

We live in a paradox of power: our capabilities of inflicting destruction through military means are unparalleled in human history; yet, for liberal democracies, contemporary military practices are the most restrained they have ever been, at least as far as effects of military operations on civilians go.

This article describes the ways in which laws, norms, and technology have come together to produce the paradox of power. It begins with the observation that the international laws that govern resort to force by states (the jus ad bellum) have had only limited effect on states’ initiation or continuation of war, including by liberal democracies. Yet, the international laws that govern the conduct of war (the jus in bello), in combination with prevailing norms and advanced technology, have had substantial effects on how liberal democracies fight their wars. The combination of ongoing, open-ended wars that are harder to fight while complying with contemporary norms of warfare produce a set of unique challenges for liberal democracies.

The article consider possible trends that might change the paradox of power, as well as the longer-term implications of the current state of affairs. Ultimately, the article reiterates the importance of asking questions about why we go to war, of restoring jus ad bellum question, even if we have been able to make significant progress on the jus in bello.

Call for Papers: Il diritto dei trattati a 50 anni dall’adozione della Convenzione di Vienna

A call for papers has been issued for the XVI Incontro di studio fra i giovani cultori delle materie internazionalistiche, which will be held at the Università degli Studi di Trieste, on September 30-October 1, 2019. The theme is: "Il diritto dei trattati a 50 anni dall’adozione della Convenzione di Vienna." The call is here.

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Conference: International Law in Times of Trade Wars and Global Environmental Problems: Protection or Protectionism?

On May 31-June 1, 2019, the National Research University Higher School of Economics, gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development, the ESIL Interest Group on International Environmental Law, and the ASIL Interest Group on Intellectual Property Law will hold a conference on "International Law in Times of Trade Wars and Global Environmental Problems: Protection or Protectionism?," in Moscow. The program is here.

Call for Papers: The Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the 'Age of Exits': Challenges and Perspectives

The Constitutional Court of the Indonesia, in collaboration with The Hague University of Applied Sciences, have issued a call for papers for a conference on "The Protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the 'Age of Exits': Challenges and Perspectives," to be held November 21-22, 2019, in The Hague. The call is here.

New Issue: Humanity

The latest issue of Humanity (Vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Benjamin Thomas White, A Grudging Rescue: France, the Armenians of Cilicia, and the History of Humanitarian Evacuations
  • Jo Guldi, World Neoliberalism as Rebellion From Below?: British Squatters and the Global Interpretation of Poverty, 1946–1974
  • Jason Zhu, Chinese Humanism: From Revolution to Redemption
  • Amy Kapczynski, The Right to Medicines in an Age of Neoliberalism
  • Erica Bornstein, The Report: A Strategy and Nonprofit Public Good
  • Nicholas Mulder, The Rise and Fall of Euro-American Inter-State War

Conference: G2 Annual Conference on WTO and Global Economic Regulation

On June 7-8, 2019, the G2 Annual Conference on WTO and Global Economic Regulation will be held in Geneva. The program is here.

Conference: Versailles and Rights: A Centenary Appraisal

On June 3-4, 2019, the Helsinki Col­legium for Ad­vanced Stud­ies and the Karelian Institute of the University of Eastern Finland will hold a conference on "Versailles and Rights: A Centenary Appraisal," in Helsinki. The program is here. Here's the idea:

he Versailles conference and the founding of the League of Nations in 1919-1920 had, as a major task, the objective of reorganising the territories of Eastern Europe and the Middle East following the collapse of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires. While much of the emphasis of the Versailles deliberations (and of subsequent scholarship) was on the new territorial arrangements, the conference also added impetus and international legal significance to discourses about minority rights. Different principles of national rights – self-determination, territorial or personal autonomy, federalism – were brought to the table and debated. The process also borrowed from pre-existing discourses, and fed into broader discussions about Rights at a time when Women’s rights and human rights were also achieving significant progress. The discourses about Rights established under the Versailles process set the tone for the policies of the League of Nations, and went on to inform discussions about Rights ever since.

This international conference will revisit the issue of Rights at the Versailles conference itself; the antecedents to Versailles in discussions about rights in the early twentieth century; the implementation of the Versailles principles in the 1920s; and the legacy of Versailles on Rights discussions and policies over the subsequent 100 years.

Conference: Migration/International Legal Regulation​

On June 27-29, 2019, the Slovene Branch of the International Law Association will host an ILA Regional Conference on "Migration/international Legal Regulation​," in Portorož. The program is here.

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Call for Papers: The contribution of the case-law of international courts and tribunals to the development of international law

The Portuguese Branch of the International Law Association has issued a call for papers for an ILA Regional Conference on "The contribution of the case-law of international courts and tribunals to the development of international law," to be held September 19-20, 2019, at the University of Minho Law School, in Braga. The call is here.

Klabbers & Palombella: The Challenge of Inter-Legality

Jan Klabbers (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) & Gianluigi Palombella (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies) have published The Challenge of Inter-Legality (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
The sovereignty of states to enact and enforce laws within their jurisdictions has been recognized since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. There are now, however, accepted global legal norms that transcend national sovereignty and hold states accountable for not including their domestic legal regimes. This volume is the first book-length treatment to describe and explain how legal orders can be interwoven, and what to do about it. Coining the term 'inter-legality', this volume provides essays on the history, primary areas of inter-legality, the concept of jurisdiction, and normative developments prompted by inter-legality. Bringing together a wide range of contributors who stem from a variety of different academic backgrounds, this book aims to answer three questions: does inter-legality occur with some regularity? How does it affect traditional legal concepts such as 'jurisdiction' or 'legal order' or 'responsibility'? And what are the normative implications?

New Issue: Review of International Organizations

The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 14, no. 2, June 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Populist Nationalism
    • Mark Copelovitch & Jon C. W. Pevehouse, International organizations in a new era of populist nationalism
    • David H. Bearce & Brandy J. Jolliff Scott, Popular non-support for international organizations: How extensive and what does this represent?
    • Christina J. Schneider, Euroscepticism and government accountability in the European Union
    • Soo Yeon Kim & Gabriele Spilker, Global value chains and the political economy of WTO disputes
    • Leonardo Baccini, Iain Osgood, & Stephen Weymouth, The service economy: U.S. trade coalitions in an era of deindustrialization
    • Nikitas Konstantinidis, Konstantinos Matakos, & Hande Mutlu-Eren, “Take back control”? The effects of supranational integration on party-system polarization
    • Inken von Borzyskowski & Felicity Vabulas, Hello, goodbye: When do states withdraw from international organizations?

Ricard: La conservation de la biodiversité dans les espaces maritimes internationaux : Un défi pour le droit international

Pascale Ricard has published La conservation de la biodiversité dans les espaces maritimes internationaux : Un défi pour le droit international (Pedone 2019). Here's the abstract:

Le régime juridique relatif à la conservation de la biodiversité dans les zones maritimes internationales est actuellement au cœur des discussions entre États au sein des Nations Unies. En effet, la Convention des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer, véritable «Constitution des océans», ne permet pas d’assurer une conservation effective de la biodiversité dans la Zone et en haute mer.

En 1982, lorsqu’elle a été adoptée, la notion de « biodiversité » n’existait pas encore, la Convention s’y référant alors uniquement de manière indirecte. Certaines ressources comme les ressources génétiques marines ne sont ainsi pas couvertes par la Convention, de même que certaines activités, ou outils de protection tels que les aires marines protégées. De plus, la division des océans en différentes zones aux régimes juridiques distincts et fragmentés ne permet pas aux États de mettre en œuvre leurs obligations conventionnelles de manière efficace. L’adoption d’un nouvel accord de mise en œuvre de la Convention dans le cadre des Nations Unies pourrait permettre, dans une certaine mesure, de pallier ces diverses insuffisances. Cependant, l’issue des négociations reste encore incertaine.

Finalement, il convient d’observer que seule une approche plus globale, fondée sur la reconnaissance de l’existence d’une obligation générale de conservation de la biodiversité dans les zones maritimes internationales, pourrait permettre de dépasser les limites inhérentes à une approche exclusivement spatiale de la conservation de la biodiversité dans des espaces communs à tous les États, aux régimes distincts voire opposés.

Le présent ouvrage s’attache à montrer que les outils nécessaires pour permettre une conservation plus effective de la biodiversité dans les zones maritimes internationales existent, bien que leur utilisation leur articulation mutuelle constitue, à l’heure actuelle, un véritable défi pour le droit international.

New Issue: Asian International Arbitration Journal

The latest issue of the Asian International Arbitration Journal (Vol. 15, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Eunice Chua, Enforcement Of International Mediated Settlement Agreements In Asia: A Path Towards Convergence
  • Stavroula Angoura, Arbitrator’s Impartiality Under Article V(1)(D) Of The New York Convention
  • Judy Li Zhu, Time To Loosen Up On Ad Hoc Arbitration In China?

New Issue: Global Environmental Politics

The latest issue of Global Environmental Politics (Vol. 19, no. 2, May 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Kate O’Neill & Peter M. Haas, Being There: International Negotiations as Study Sites in Global Environmental Politics
  • Hannah Hughes & Alice B. M. Vadrot, Weighting the World: IPBES and the Struggle over Biocultural Diversity
  • Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya & Laura Zanotti, Making Influence Visible: Innovating Ethnography at the Paris Climate Summit
  • Jonathan Pickering, Deliberative Ecologies: Complexity and Social–Ecological Dynamics in International Environmental Negotiations
  • Matthew Paterson, Using Negotiation Sites for Richer Collection of Network Data
  • Joana Castro Pereira & Eduardo Viola, Catastrophic Climate Risk and Brazilian Amazonian Politics and Policies: A New Research Agenda
  • Peter Ferguson, Discourses of Resilience in the Climate Security Debate
  • Elena V. McLean & Tatyana Plaksina, The Political Economy of Carbon Capture and Storage Technology Adoption
  • Benjamin Brown & Samuel J. Spiegel, Coal, Climate Justice, and the Cultural Politics of Energy Transition

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Bar-Gill & Blum: Defenses

Oren Bar-Gill (Harvard Univ. - Law) & Gabriella Blum (Harvard Univ. - Law) have published Defenses (Texas Law Review, Vol. 97, no. 5, p. 881, April 2019). Here's the abstract:

Effective defenses that are designed to protect civilians in war have significant implications for policy planning, military strategy, international relations, domestic politics, and economics. Defenses can increase or decrease overall humanitarian welfare.

Surprisingly, existing legal scholarship has focused almost exclusively on offensive action, failing to consider the effects of defenses on the strategic interactions between armed rivals or the humanitarian consequences of defenses. The implications of defenses for the interpretation and application of the international legal rules on the use of force have also gone largely unexplored. We set out to fill this significant gap.

We study the operation of defensive systems in both asymmetric rivalries and symmetric rivalries, and consider the interplay between defenses and offensive measures. We analyze how defensive systems are likely to affect parties’ wartime conduct and the potential consequences for the welfare of civilians on both sides of the conflict. A central motivating observation is that defenses have the potential of safeguarding not only the lives of the defending party’s civilians but also those on the opposing side. Our analysis further considers how international law, and especially the principle of proportionality, might affect parties’ choices with regard to investments in defenses. Counterintuitively, we caution that under some circumstances an overly restrictive application of the principle of proportionality might deter investment in defenses, thereby decreasing overall humanitarian welfare.

To make our theoretical models more concrete, we draw on several realworld examples: the Israeli antiballistic missile system, Iron Dome; the deployment of antimissile defenses by Japan and the United States to meet the threat from North Korea; and the race between the two Cold War protagonists to develop superior intercontinental antiballistic missile systems, which eventually led to the 1972 U.S.–U.S.S.R. Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

AJIL Unbound Symposium: Nyarko's “Giving the Treaty a Purpose: Comparing the Durability of Treaties and Executive Agreements"

AJIL Unbound has posted a symposium on Julian Nyarko's article “Giving the Treaty a Purpose: Comparing the Durability of Treaties and Executive Agreements." The symposium includes an introduction by Harlan Grant Cohen and contributions by Edward T. Swaine, Barbara Koremenos, and Margaret L. Taylor.

de Beco, Quinlivan, & Lord: The Right to Inclusive Education in International Human Rights Law

Gauthier de Beco (Univ. of Huddersfield), Shivaun Quinlivan (National Univ. of Ireland, Galway), & Janet E. Lord (Harvard Univ. - Law) have published The Right to Inclusive Education in International Human Rights Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
Education is a fundamental human right that is recognised as essential for the attainment of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. It was not until 2006, on the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), that the right to inclusive education was codified. This volume fills a major gap in the literature on the right of disabled people to education. It examines the theoretical foundations and core content of the right to inclusive education in international human rights law, and explores the various ways of implementing this right through an exploration of legal strategies and mechanisms. With contributions by leaders in the field, this volume advances scholarship on the core content of the right to inclusive education by examining the content and practice of the right at the national, regional and international levels.

New Issue: International Studies Quarterly

The latest issue of the International Studies Quarterly (Vol. 63, no. 2, June 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Helge Holtermann, Diversionary Rebel Violence in Territorial Civil War
  • Margaret J Foster & David A Siegel, Pink Slips from the Underground: Changes in Terror Leadership
  • Jack Paine, Economic Grievances and Civil War: An Application to the Resource Curse
  • Sharan Grewal, Military Defection During Localized Protests: The Case of Tataouine
  • Anette Stimmer, Beyond Internalization: Alternate Endings of the Norm Life Cycle
  • Margaret E Peters, Immigration and International Law
  • David Ciplet, Means of the Marginalized: Embedded Transnational Advocacy Networks and the Transformation of Neoliberal Global Governance
  • Jeff D Colgan & Nicholas L Miller, Rival Hierarchies and the Origins of Nuclear Technology Sharing
  • Daniel Krcmaric, Information, Secrecy, and Civilian Targeting
  • Mark Shirk, The Universal Eye: Anarchist “Propaganda of the Deed” and Development of the Modern Surveillance State
  • Nick Dietrich & Charles Crabtree, Domestic Demand for Human Rights: Free Speech and the Freedom-Security Trade-Off
  • Matthew D Fails, Fuel Subsidies Limit Democratization: Evidence from a Global Sample, 1990–2014
  • Bernd Beber, Michael J Gilligan, Jenny Guardado, & Sabrina Karim, The Promise and Peril of Peacekeeping Economies
  • Timm Betz, Tariff Evasion and Trade Policies
  • José Kaire, Compensating Autocratic Elites: How International Demands for Economic Liberalization Can Lead to More Repressive Dictatorships
  • Alexander Lee & Jack Paine, What Were the Consequences of Decolonization?
  • Subhasish Ray, History and Ethnic Conflict: Does Precolonial Centralization Matter?
  • Christopher Whyte, Can We Change the Topic, Please? Assessing the Theoretical Construction of International Relations Scholarship

New Issue: La Comunità Internazionale

The latest issue of La Comunità Internazionale (Vol. 74, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Storia del Diritto Internazionale
    • Robert Kolb, La Société des Nations et son droit cent ans après
  • Articoli e Saggi
    • Ugo Villani, La funzione consultiva della Corte internazionale di giustizia
    • Sabrina Vannuccini, Quis interpretabitur nei casi di «doppia pregiudizialità»? La precisazione della Corte costituzionale nella sentenza n. 269/2017 e le reazioni della Corte di cassazione
  • Note e Commenti
    • Alessandro Rosanò, Listening to the wind of change? I rapporti problematici tra Consiglio d’Europa e Federazione russa quanto alla tutela dei diritti umani e l’eterno ritorno del dominio riservato
    • Claudia Candelmo, Il fenomeno della corruzione nelle Organizzazioni internazionali: esperienze europee e strumenti internazionali di contrasto Nucera

New Issue: Diritti umani e diritto internazionale

The latest issue of Diritti umani e diritto internazionale (Vol. 13, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Studi
    • Massimo Starita, Il dovere di soccorso in mare e il diritto di obbedire al diritto (internazionale) del comandante della nave privata
    • ‘Il diritto di essere cittadini del Paese in cui si è nati’: riflessioni interdisciplinari sulla (perdurante) necessità della riforma della legge italiana sulla cittadinanza
    • Pietro Gargiulo, Introduzione
    • Gianluca Bascherini, Brevi considerazioni storico-comparative su cittadinanza, ius sanguinis e ius soli nella vicenda italiana
    • Serena Forlati, Ius soli, ius culturae e diritto internazionale
    • Pietro Franzina, Sangue, suolo e cultura: declinazioni dell’idea di appartenenza nel diritto internazionale privato
  • Interventi
    • Stefan Talmon, The Procedural Obligation Under Article 2 ECHR to Investigate and Cooperate with Investigations of Unlawful Killings in a Cross-border Context
    • Simone Carrea, The ECHR in the Cyberspace: Does the Power to Infringe Always Entail the Duty to Protect?
    • Deborah Russo, I trattati sui diritti umani nell’ordinamento italiano alla luce delle sentenze n. 120 e 194 del 2018 della Corte costituzionale
    • Maria Ferrara, La Corte di giustizia dell’Unione europea e lo ‘strano caso’ dei Principi di Yogyakarta
  • Osservatorio
    • Elena Corcione, Diritti umani, cambiamento climatico e definizione giudiziale dello standard di condotta
    • Ludovica Poli, Il caso Cappato e la questione della dignità nel morire dinanzi alla Corte costituzionale
    • Laura Salvadego, Diritto di accedere alla giustizia, esigenze di politica giudiziaria e mancata esecuzione di sentenze ‘pilota’ della Corte europea dei diritti umani: il caso Burmych
    • Lucia Della Torre, Comitato ONU contro la tortura e rinvii ‘Dublino’ dalla Svizzera verso l’Italia

New Issue: Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé

The latest issue of the Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé (Vol. 96, no. 2, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • J-B. Kossi Galley, Le contentieux territorial entre les philippines et la chine en mer de chine méridionale
  • G. Dufour, La compétence de l’OMC en matière de change : le cas des dévaluations monétaires compétitives au regard de l’article XV du GATT
  • R. Jafferali, M. Lacroix, A-N. Buciuman, M-H. Dufour, T. De Ravel D'esclapon, N. Kilgus, R. Morbach, G. Terlizzi, & F. Sabrinni, La vulnérabilité en droit économique — Résolution en droit comparé d’un cas pratique relatif à l’ignorance de la réglementation urbanistique lors de l’acquisition d’un immeuble
  • A.D. Ntolo Nzeko, Le pouvoir constituant originaire et le pouvoir constituant dérivé dans les états d’Afrique noire francophone

New Issue: Rivista di Diritto Internazionale

The latest issue of the Rivista di Diritto Internazionale (Vol. 102, no. 1, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Articoli
    • P. Rossi, Controversie di lavoro e immunità degli Stati esteri: tra codificazione e sviluppo del diritto consuetudinario
    • M. Ventura, Condizionalità e realizzazione progressiva degli obblighi internazionali nelle relazioni esterne dell’Unione Europea
  • Note e Commenti
    • K. Gavrysh, Lo stato di emergenza e la dottrina del vacuum nella prassi della Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo
    • M. Gervasi, The ILC Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties Put to the Test in the Hossam Ezzat Case before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
    • C. Zonile, La regolamentazione internazionale ed europea di contrasto all’uso di valute virtuali da parte della criminalità transnazionale
  • Panorama
    • C. Favilli, Il Re è morto, lunga vita al Re! Brevi note sull’abrogazione del permesso di soggiorno per motivi umanitari
    • E. Branca, Il ruolo dell’Italia nella « guerra dei droni » statunitense: una prima analisi degli accordi bilaterali che regolano l’uso della base militare aeronavale di Sigonella
    • D. Amoroso, Alla ricerca dell’elemento umano: rinnovato il mandato del Gruppo di esperti governativi sui sistemi d’arma autonomi letali

Chen & Hough: Researching Third-Party Funding in Investor-State Dispute Settlement

Sherry Xin Chen (Boston College - Law) & Kirrin Hough have posted Researching Third-Party Funding in Investor-State Dispute Settlement (GlobaLex, May 2019).

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 63, no. 6, July 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Jonathan Markowitz, Christopher Fariss, & R. Blake McMahon, Producing Goods and Projecting Power: How What You Make Influences What You Take
  • Richard Hanania, Are Liberal Governments More Cooperative? Voting Trends at the UN in Five Anglophone Democracies
  • Mark D. Ramirez & Reed M. Wood, Public Attitudes toward Private Military Companies: Insights from Principal–agent Theory
  • Daniel Silverman, What Shapes Civilian Beliefs about Violent Events? Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
  • James R. Hollyer, B. Peter Rosendorff, & James Raymond Vreeland, Why Do Autocrats Disclose? Economic Transparency and Inter-elite Politics in the Shadow of Mass Unrest
  • Friedhelm Hentschel, Unraveling Secessions
  • Data Set Features
    • Nicholas Sambanis & Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, Sovereignty Rupture as a Central Concept in Quantitative Measures of Civil War
    • D. Scott Bennett, Paul Poast, & Allan C. Stam, NewGene: An Introduction for Users

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 45, no. 3, July 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Ayelet Banai & Eszter Kollar, Reading bedtime stories to compatriots: Reconciling global equality of opportunity and self-determination
  • Jacob Eriksson, Coercion and third-party mediation of identity-based conflict
  • Irene Fernández-Molina, Bottom-up change in frozen conflicts: Transnational struggles and mechanisms of recognition in Western Sahara
  • Henry Radice, Saving ourselves? On rescue and humanitarian action
  • Andreas Møller Mulvad, Xiism as a hegemonic project in the making: Sino-communist ideology and the political economy of China’s rise
  • Forum: The Implications of Trump's Presidency
    • Jan Selby, The Trump presidency, climate change, and the prospect of a disorderly energy transition
    • Sophie Harman & Sara E. Davies, President Donald Trump as global health’s displacement activity
    • Frederick W. Mayer & Nicola Phillips, Global inequality and the Trump administration
    • James Sperling & Mark Webber, Trump’s foreign policy and NATO: Exit and voice

Monday, May 27, 2019

New Issue: Climate Law

The latest issue of Climate Law (Vol. 9, nos. 1-2, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: The Paris Rulebook
    • Jolene Lin & Alexander Zahar, Introduction to the Special Issue on the Paris Rulebook
    • Meinhard Doelle, The Heart of the Paris Rulebook: Communicating ndcs and Accounting for Their Implementation
    • Hao Zhang, Implementing Provisions on Climate Finance Under the Paris Agreement
    • Benoit Mayer, Transparency Under the Paris Rulebook: Is the Transparency Framework Truly Enhanced?
    • Gu Zihua, Christina Voigt & Jacob Werksman, Facilitating Implementation and Promoting Compliance With the Paris Agreement Under Article 15: Conceptual Challenges and Pragmatic Choices
    • Alexander Zahar, Collective Progress in the Light of Equity Under the Global Stocktake
    • Steinar Andresen, The Paris Agreement and its Rulebook in a Problem-Solving Perspective
    • Marjan Peeters, EU Climate Law: Largely Uncharted Legal Territory

New Issue: International Security

The latest issue of International Security (Vol. 43, no. 4, Spring 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Whither the Liberal International Order?
    • Kai Quek & Alastair Iain Johnston, Can China Back Down? Crisis De-escalation in the Shadow of Popular Opposition
    • John J. Mearsheimer, Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order
    • Charles L. Glaser, A Flawed Framework: Why the Liberal International Order Concept Is Misguided
    • Eliza Gheorghe, Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market
    • Marina E. Henke, Buying Allies: Payment Practices in Multilateral Military Coalition-Building
    • J.C. Sharman, Power and Profit at Sea: The Rise of the West in the Making of the International System
  • Correspondence
    • Peter D. Feaver, Hal Brands, Rebecca Friedman Lissner, & Patrick Porter, The Establishment and U.S. Grand Strategy

Wongkaew: Protection of Legitimate Expectations in Investment Treaty Arbitration: A Theory of Detrimental Reliance

Teerawat Wongkaew (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thailand) has published Protection of Legitimate Expectations in Investment Treaty Arbitration: A Theory of Detrimental Reliance (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). Here's the abstract:
This book evaluates the core of the concept of legitimate expectations from first principles in moral philosophy. It adopts an unconventional approach by examining this topic from a deep, philosophical perspective and delves into the debates on the binding nature of promise in moral philosophy. It then develops a doctrinal structure for the standard of protection. The author places the key premise of the book on the possibility of deriving firm conclusions from the debate and on creating a set of precise and prescriptive 'guidelines of the application of legitimate expectations'. The features of this book are threefold: first, a significant body of literature on moral philosophy is assimilated; second, core philosophical principles are extracted and expressed as a normative framework to resolve concrete cases; third, the author analysed a vast number of investment treaty awards against the underlying framework.

Cassan, Mercure, & Abdelwahab Bekhechi: Droit international du développement

Hervé Cassan, Pierre-François Mercure, & Mohammed Abdelwahab Bekhechi (formerly, World Bank) have published Droit international du développement (Pedone 2019). Here's the abstract:
Cette monographie analyse l’ensemble des relations juridiques existant entre les pays en développement et la communauté internationale. Elle étudie les mécanismes par lesquels l’impératif de développement s’incarne dans le droit international positif. Elle présente, de façon synthétique et ordonnée, le panorama des institutions du développement (Etats, organisations internationales, techniques juridiques). Elle aborde ensuite les règles qui président à l’action internationale pour le développement. Dans cette perspective, l’ouvrage met l’accent sur les trois grands axes autour desquels s’oriente cette action : les contrôles (souveraineté permanente sur les ressources naturelles, protection des investissements privés, atteintes au droit de propriété) les transferts (assistance technique, transferts de technologie, aides financières), les échanges (l’OMC, l’Accord de Cotonou, le commerce international des produits de base et des articles manufacturés).

Conference: Visions of Global Order, 1919: Peace, Law and Security after the First World War

On May 29-30, 2019, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow will host a conference on "Visions of Global Order, 1919: Peace, Law and Security after the First World War." The program is here.

Polanco: The Return of the Home State to Investor-State Disputes: Bringing Back Diplomatic Protection?

Rodrigo Polanco (Universität Bern - World Trade Institute) has published The Return of the Home State to Investor-State Disputes: Bringing Back Diplomatic Protection? (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019).
This book advances the idea that in order to address some of the criticisms against investor-state dispute settlement, a large majority of states have taken a 'normative' strategy, negotiating or amending investment treaties with provisions that potentially give more control and greater involvement to the contracting parties, and notably the home state. This is particularly true of agreements concluded in the past fifteen years. At the same time, there is a potential revival of the 'remnants' of diplomatic protection that are embedded in investment treaties since the beginning of the system. But why is the home state being brought back into a domain from which it was expressly excluded several decades ago? Why would a home state be interested in intervening in these conflicts? Is this 'new' role of the home state in foreign investment disputes a 'return' to diplomatic protection of its nationals, or are we witnessing something different?

Call for Submissions: Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict - Beyond the ILC (Reminder)

The Goettingen Journal of International Law has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict - Beyond the ILC." The call is here. The deadline is June 1, 2019.

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Sterio & Scharf: The Legacy of Ad Hoc Tribunals in International Criminal Law

Milena Sterio (Cleveland-Marshall College of Law) & Michael Scharf (Case Western Reserve Univ. - Law) have published The Legacy of Ad Hoc Tribunals in International Criminal Law: Assessing the ICTY's and the ICTR's Most Significant Legal Accomplishments (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
In the post-Nuremberg era two of the most important developments in international criminal law are the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Created through UN Security Council resolutions, with specific mandates to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law, the ICTY and the ICTR played crucial roles in the development of international criminal law. Through a series of chapters written by leading authorities in the field, The Legacy of Ad Hoc Tribunals in International Criminal Law addresses the history of the ICTY and the ICTR, and the important aspects of the tribunals' accomplishments. From examining the groundwork laid by the ICTY and the ICTR for greater international attention to crimes against humanity to the establishment of the International Criminal Courts, this volume provides a comprehensive overview of the impact and lasting roles of these tribunals.

Hughes: Moving from Management to Termination: A Case Study of Prolonged Occupation

David Hughes (Univ. of Michigan - Law) has posted Moving from Management to Termination: A Case Study of Prolonged Occupation (Brooklyn Journal of International Law, Vol. 44, no. 1, 2018). Here's the abstract:

In 2017, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories reached a half-century in duration. This reignited a conversation amongst legal scholars. In articles and books, lawyers questioned the efficacy of occupation law. They asked whether it had become an anachronism. Across Israel and the Palestinian territories, those that directly invoke the law of occupation sought a more effective means of adapting the law to meet the exigencies of a fifty-year-old occupation. The accompanying debates recalled questions concerning the legal treatment of prolonged occupation. This article seeks to fundamentally alter this recurring discourse.

Built around a detailed case study of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, I argue that as commonly interpreted, international law does not regulate – but instead – facilitates prolonged occupation. Referencing various historical moments, I describe when and how international law has been employed to entrench an occupying power’s control. These legal engagements are justified as responses to the exigencies of prolonged occupation. Such uses of international law, the article argues, are based on a common interpretative approach. This understands occupation as a fact or non-normative phenomenon. As a result, international law is unable to alter occupation. Instead, it may only manage it.

Identifying the motive of management as a causal factor, I argue that common responses to prolonged occupation may be necessary but when taken within the occupation framework’s traditional, non-normative confines they risk perpetuating occupation. They entrench a legal framework that is understood to neglect duration and curtail the inherent requirement of temporality. This interpretation of the occupation framework becomes susceptible to manipulation. In response, the article proposes a novel interpretative approach. This shifts the focus of the occupation framework. It emphasizes a conception of occupation as temporary and facilitates efforts to end the occupation. By recognizing that prolonged occupation constitutes an altered form of control, and grounding responses to this means of control in established legal principles, this amended normative approach identifies a legal basis under which an occupying power will be required to enable the conclusion of prolonged occupation. This reasserts the law of occupation’s relevancy and efficacy. It better aligns the purpose and function of occupation law with diplomatic objectives and international norms. And it shifts the discourse that accompanies prolonged occupation from management to termination.

New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 26, no. 2, 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Kristen Hopewell, US-China conflict in global trade governance: the new politics of agricultural subsidies at the WTO
  • Tom Chodor, The rise and fall and rise of the trans-pacific partnership: 21st century trade politics through a new constitutionalist lens
  • Timur Ergen & Sebastian Kohl, Varieties of economization in competition policy: institutional change in German and American antitrust, 1960–2000
  • Stefano Sgambati, The art of leverage: a study of bank power, money-making and debt finance
  • Andrea Binder, All exclusive: the politics of offshore finance in Mexico
  • Anita Hammer, Comparative capitalism and emerging economies: formal-informal economy interlockages and implications for institutional analysis

Caiado: Commitments and Flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: An Economically Informed Analysis

José Guilherme Moreno Caiado has published Commitments and Flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: An Economically Informed Analysis (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). Here's the abstract:
The ability of countries to promote and protect their domestic industries in the face of stiff global competition is an important consideration in any trading agreement. Member states of the World Trade Organization are expected to adhere to the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, but to what extent do the WTO Members have policy space to subsidize their industries? Using an economically informed framework, Caiado examines the flexibilities countries may find at the WTO to grant subsidies and impose tariffs to protect designated industries. By testing the Treaty system of entitlements and enforcement mechanisms against the theory of incomplete contract, this work offers a comprehensive analysis of the capacity of the SCM Agreement to achieve its goal: the concomitant regulation of opportunistic behavior and assurance of ex post flexibility.

Klein: Resolving Disputes under UNCLOS when the Coastal and User States are Disputed

Natalie Klein (Univ. of New South Wales - Law) has posted Resolving Disputes under UNCLOS when the Coastal and User States are Disputed (in Maritime Order and the Law in East Asia, Nong Hong & Gordon Houlden eds., 2018). Here's the abstract:
This chapter focuses on some distinct consequences for States where there is a land feature generating maritime zones over which sovereignty is disputed. The questions addressed are: What are the international legal consequences where a State is in occupation of an island (‘the occupying State’) but another State contests sovereignty (‘the disputing State’)? Can the State in occupation construct facilities on the island or in the waters surrounding that island? The constructions in the adjacent waters might include ports, or other docking facilities or other structures or installations outside the territorial sea for the purposes of research or resource exploration and exploitation. If the State in occupation proceeds with the exercise of its sovereignty over the disputed land, are there procedural steps or limits that should be taken into account to reduce the likelihood of legal challenge in the event of a dispute emerging under the UNCLOS dispute settlement procedure? A key lesson from the South China Sea arbitration is that the occupying State faces significant legal consequences if it is eventually determined not to be the coastal State with rights over the adjacent maritime area. The occupying State could expect that its actions may be challenged within the framework of the UNCLOS dispute settlement regime, even in the possible absence of a determination as to which State is the ‘coastal State’ or ‘user State’ under UNCLOS.

Jovanović: The Nature of International Law

Miodrag A. Jovanović (Univ. of Belgrade - Law) has published The Nature of International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019). Here's the abstract:
Jurisprudence has up until recently largely neglected international law as a subject of philosophizing. The Nature of International Law tries to offset against this deficiency by providing a comprehensive explanatory account of international law. It does so within an analytical tradition, albeit within the one which departs from the nowadays dominant method of the metaphysically-driven conceptual analysis. Instead, it adopts the prototype theory of concepts, which is directed towards determining typical features constitutive of the nature of international law. The book's central finding is that those features are: normativity, institutionalization, coercive guaranteeing, and justice-aptness. Since typical features are context sensitive, their specificities at the international level are further elucidated. The book, finally, challenges the often raised claim that fragmentation is international law's unique feature by demonstrating that international institutional actors, particularly adjudicative ones, largely perceive themselves as officials of a unified legal order.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 30, no. 1, February 2019) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial
    • JHHW, EJIL at 30; The EU – A Community of Fate, at Last; Vital Statistics; In this Issue; The Birth of EJIL
  • The EJIL Foreword
    • Martti Koskenniemi, Imagining the Rule of Law: Rereading the Grotian ‘Tradition’
  • Articles
    • Valentina Vadi, Perspective and Scale in the Architecture of International Legal History
    • Hannah Woolaver, From Joining to Leaving: Domestic Law’s Role in the International Legal Validity of Treaty Withdrawal
    • Claire E M Jervis, Jurisdictional Immunities Revisited: An Analysis of the Procedure Substance Distinction in International Law
  • The Theatre of International Law: An Occasional Series
    • Lorenzo Gradoni & Luca Pasquet, Dialogue Concerning Legal Un-certainty and Other Prodigies
  • The European Traditional in International Law
    • Tilmann Altwicker, International Law in the Best of All Possible Worlds: An Introduction to G.W. Leibniz’s Theory of International Law
  • Roaming Charges: Moments of History: 1989
  • Symposium: Regional Organization and Regional Integration
    • Damian Chalmers, Regional Organizations and the Reintegrating of International Law
    • Damian Chalmers & Julia Slupska, The Regional Remaking of Trade and Investment Law
    • Davor Jancic, Regional Parliaments and African Economic Integration
    • Päivi Johanna Neuvonen, Transforming Membership? Citizenship, Identity and the Problem of Belonging in Regional Integration Organizations
    • Floris de Witte, Integrating the Subject: Narratives of Emancipation in Regionalism
  • Critical Review of Jurisprudence
    • Petros C Mavroidis, Last Mile for Tuna (to a Safe Harbour): What Is the TBT Agreement All About?
  • Review Essays
    • Lauri Mälksoo, The Annexation of Crimea and Balance of Power in International Law
    • Eliav Lieblich, The Facilitative Function of Jus in Bello
  • Book Reviews
    • David Schneiderman, reviewing Jonathan Bonnitcha, Lauge N. Skovgaard Poulsen and Michael Waibel, The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime
    • Samantha Besson, reviewing José E. Alvarez, The Impact of International Organizations on International Law
    • Jacob Katz Cogan, reviewing Juan Pablo Scarfi, The Hidden History of International Law in the Americas: Empire and Legal Networks
  • The Last Page
    • The Quality of Portia