Saturday, July 9, 2022

Inaugural Volume: German Practice in International Law

The inaugural volume of German Practice in International Law (Vol. 1, 2019), edited by Stefan Talmon (Univ. of Bonn - Law) is out. Here's the abstract:
Customary international law is based on State practice. This book presents the international law practice of Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and a powerhouse of the European Union. That practice makes an important contribution to the creation and development of customary international law. It is the first and only presentation in English of German practice in the field of international law. The 2019 volume also provides comprehensive coverage of Germany's membership of the United Nations Security Council. The book combines a case study approach, providing analysis and commentary on Germany's practice, with a classic digest of primary materials, including diplomatic correspondence, statements and court decisions.

New Issue: International Affairs

The latest issue of International Affairs (Vol. 98, no. 4, July 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Feminist Interrogations of Global Nuclear Politics
    • Shine Choi & Catherine Eschle, Rethinking global nuclear politics, rethinking feminism
    • Anne Sisson Runyan, Indigenous women's resistances at the start and end of the nuclear fuel chain
    • Hebatalla Taha, Atomic aesthetics: gender, visualization and popular culture in Egypt
    • Anand Sreekumar, Feminism and Gandhi: imagining alternatives beyond Indian nuclearism
    • Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Masculinity and the Cuban Missile Crisis: gender as pre-emptive deterrent
    • Emma Rosengren, Gendering Sweden's nuclear renunciation: a historical analysis
    • Laura Rose Brown & Laura Considine, Examining ‘gender-sensitive’ approaches to nuclear weapons policy: a study of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
    • Rebecca H Hogue & Anaïs Maurer, Pacific women's anti-nuclear poetry: centring Indigenous knowledges
  • Articles
    • Jeffrey A Friedman, Is US grand strategy dead? The political foundations of deep engagement after Donald Trump
    • Jamal Barnes & Samuel M Makinda, Testing the limits of international society? Trust, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific security
    • Ric Neo & Chen Xiang, State rhetoric, nationalism and public opinion in China
    • Deborah Brautigam, China and Zambia: creating a sovereign debt crisis
    • Henrik Stålhane Hiim, Revisiting nuclear hedging: ballistic missiles and the Iranian example
    • Eray Alim, Russia's power projection into Syria and its interactions with local states
    • Nina Wilén, The impact of security force assistance in Niger: meddling with borders
    • Megan Daigle, Deirdre N Duffy, & Diana López Castañeda, Abortion access and Colombia's legacy of civil war: between reproductive violence and reproductive governance

Butler & Wessel: EU External Relations Law: The Cases in Context

Graham Butler
(Aarhus Univ. - Law) & Ramses A Wessel (Univ. of Groningen - Law) have published EU External Relations Law: The Cases in Context (Hart Publishing 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Marking the 50th anniversary of the influential ERTA doctrine, this book analyses and contextualises the entire breadth of the jurisprudence of EU external relations law through a systematic, case-by-case account of the field.

The entire framework of EU external relations law has been built from the ground up by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union. At the beginning of the field's emergence, the legal questions to be answered concerned the division of powers and competence between, firstly, the Member States and that of the Union; and secondly, the division of powers and competence between the different institutions of the Union. Questions on such matters continue to be asked, but more contemporarily, new legal questions have arisen that have been in need of adjudication, including questions concerning the autonomy of Union law; the relationship between the Union and other international organisations; the relationship between Union law and international law; the scope and breadth of international agreements; amongst others.

The book features established academic scholars, judges, agents of institutions and Member States, and legal practitioners in the field of EU external relations law, analysing over 90 cases in which the Court has legally shaped the theory and practice of the external dimension of legal Europe.

Friday, July 8, 2022

New Issue: Stanford Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Stanford Journal of International Law (Vol. 58, no. 1, Winter 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Scott Titshaw, Inheriting Citizenship
  • Jingchen Zhao & Shuangge Wen, Corporate Social Accountability

Call for Papers: Beyond State Consent to International Jurisdiction

The State Consent to International Jurisdiction project at PluriCourts, University of Oslo, has issued a call for papers for an online conference on "Beyond State Consent to International Jurisdiction." The conference is tentatively scheduled for September 29-30, 2022. The call is here.

Thursday, July 7, 2022

New Issue: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (Vol. 22, no. 2, 2021) is out. Contents include:
  • Margaret A. Young, Judge James Crawford AC SC FBA (1948-2021) In Memoriam
  • Frances Anggadi, Reconceptualising the 'Ambulatory Character' of Baselines: The International Law Commission's Work on Sea-Level Rise and International Law
  • Juan Auz, 'So, This Is Permanence': The Inter-American Human Rights System as a Liminal Space for Climate Justice
  • Malcolm Jorgensen, The Jurisprudence of the Rules-Based Order: The Power of Rules Consistent with but Not Binding under International Law
  • Callum Musto & Efthymios Papastavridis, Tackling Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing through Port State Measures
  • Penelope J. Ridings, Labour Standards on Fishing Vessels: A Problem in Search of a Home?
  • Donald R. Rothwell, The Antarctic Treaty at Sixty Years: Past, Present and Future
  • Michel Rouleau-Dick, Competing Continuities: What Role for the Presumption of Continuity in the Claim to Continued Statehood of Small Island States?

New Issue: International Human Rights Law Review

The latest issue of the International Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 11, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Jeremy Julian Sarkin & Eryn Sarkin, Reforming the International Court of Justice to Deal with State Responsibility for Conflict and Human Rights Violations
  • Marius Pieterse, Towards a Right to the City? The Slow Convergence of Rights to Housing and Land in South African Constitutional Jurisprudence
  • Alexandra Fowler & Mohamed Radan, Violations of the Right to Property in Libya and the Promise of Transitional Justice
  • Hojjat Salimi Turkamani, The European Court of Human Rights’ Approach to Causes of Iranians’ Asylum Applications in the light of Non- Refoulement Principle
  • Muyiwa Adigun, Babatunde Raphael Ojebuyi, Joshua Akinyemi, Kolawole Wahab, Albert Akpalu, Fred S. Sarfo, Lukman F. Owolabi, Rabiu Musbahu, Abiodun Bello, Reginald Obiako, Mayowa Ogunronbi, Arti Singh, Michelle Nichols, Carolyn Jenkins, Ayodele Jegede, Rajesh Kalaria, Mayowa Owolabi, Bruce Ovbiagele, Oyedunni Arulogun, & Rufus Akinyemi, Human Rights Implications of Stroke Biobanking and Genomics Research in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Ronagh J.A. McQuigg, Tkhelidze v. Georgia: Domestic Abuse and the European Court of Human Rights

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

New Issue: Harvard International Law Journal

The latest issue of the Harvard International Law Journal (Vol. 63, no. 1, Winter 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Margo A. Bagley, “Just” Sharing: The Virtues of Digital Sequence Information Benefit-sharing for the Common Good
  • Gabriella Blum & John C. P. Goldberg, The Unable or Unwilling Doctrine: A View from Private Law
  • Sam Halabi & Kumanan Wilson, The Independence of National Focal Points Under the International Health Regulations (2005)
  • Timothy Webster, Japan’s Transnational War Reparations Litigation: An Empirical Analysis

Shankar: A Slippery Sovereignty: International Law and the Development of British Cochin

Devika Shankar (Univ. of Hong Kong - History) has published A Slippery Sovereignty: International Law and the Development of British Cochin (Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 820-844, July 2022). Here's the abstract:
British Cochin was a port in southwestern India surrounded by princely states. This article uses a dispute surrounding its limits to interrogate the role international law played in generating novel forms of political claim-making among European and non-European powers at the turn of the twentieth century. Cochin was located in an area where both physical and political boundaries were hard to define. Situated at the tip of a narrow coastline surrounded by water, it was also lodged amid territories belonging to two princely states—Cochin State and Travancore. Its ever-shifting coastline and proximity to princely states forced colonial authorities to adopt a flexible approach to the port’s boundaries, allowing the tiny princely state of Cochin to become progressively more involved with the British port’s development over the nineteenth century. The article starts by examining the forces that shaped these entanglements, and then explores a territorial dispute involving British Cochin to illuminate the ways in which, during the twentieth century’s first quarter, both the colonial administration and the Cochin State deployed the language of international law to try to extend their powers over the port. By highlighting the Cochin State’s partially successful attempts at claiming sovereignty over the waters surrounding the harbor in order to become involved with the development of a port in British India, this article shows how international law emerged as a site through which semi-sovereign territories began testing and even extending the limits of their sovereignty.

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Marchuk & Wanigasuriya: The ICC and the Russia-Ukraine War

Iryna Marchuk (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) & Aloka Wanigasuriya (Univ. of Newcastle (Australia) - Law) have posted an ASIL Insight on The ICC and the Russia-Ukraine War.

New Issue: Netherlands International Law Review

The latest issue of the Netherlands International Law Review (Vol. 69, no. 1, May 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Kostiantyn Gorobets, Solidarity as a Practical Reason: Grounding the Authority of International Law
  • Leoni Ayoub, Judicial Activism in the Evolution of a Judicial Function for the International Courts: The Role of Compétence de la Compétence
  • Cecily Rose, Enforcing the ‘Community Interest’ in Combating Transnational Crimes: The Potential for Public Interest Litigation
  • Daley J. Birkett, Another Hole in the Wall? Evaluating the Legality of Egypt’s 2017 Airstrikes Against Non-State Targets in Libya Under the Jus ad Bellum
  • Christopher P. Evans, The Contours and Limits of Environmental Remediation Under the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
  • Mark Weston Janis, Britain and European Human Rights Law: An Author’s Apology

Rogers: Reconceptualizing the Party-Appointed Arbitrator

Catherine A. Rogers (Bocconi Univ. - Law) has posted Reconceptualizing the Party-Appointed Arbitrator (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Despite the popularity of the age-old practice, several prominent arbitrators and industry leaders have proposed eliminating party-appointed arbitrators. These critics contend that party-appointment injects bias into a tribunal that is supposed to be impartial.

Various empirical studies seem to confirm the uncomfortable contradiction between the rhetoric of impartiality and the purportedly biased conduct of party-appointed arbitrators. Most of these empirical claims, however, are deeply flawed both in both their substance and methodology. More fundamentally, these claims also ignore Legal Realism’s insight that decisionmaker “bias” (or reliance on extra-legal factors) is an inevitable consequence of law’s inherent indeterminacy.

If some forms of bias are inevitable, the key inquiry is not whether bias exists, but more nuanced questions: Which forms of bias are legitimate? Who decides which forms of bias are legitimate? And, How do we police the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate forms of bias?

This Article answers those questions with respect to party-appointed arbitrators.

Rejecting both critiques and defenses, this Article instead makes an affirmative case for party-appointed arbitrators. This Article reconceptualizes party-appointed arbitrators as an essential structural check against various forms of cognitive bias that necessarily exist among all arbitrators on all on arbitral tribunals. Arbitrators’ cognitive biases cannot be eliminated, even by eliminating party-appointed arbitrators. They can, however, be bounded and counter-balanced by reconceiving party-appointed arbitrators as a type of Devil’s Advocate that guards against cognitive biases that distort tribunal decisionmaking.

In this reconceptualized role, party-appointed arbitrators provide a check against individual- and group-based cognitive biases, ensure representativeness on the tribunal, establish a structural counterweight to the opposing party-appointed arbitrator. This reconceptualized role portends specific impartiality obligations that are both more conceptually coherent and more consistent with actual practice and expectations.

New Issue: Cambridge International Law Journal

The latest issue of the Cambridge International Law Journal (Vol. 11, no. 1, June 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Federica I Paddeu & Christian J Tams, Encoding the law of State responsibility with courage and resolve: James Crawford and the 2001 Articles on State Responsibility
  • Cymie R Payne, Responsibility to the international community for marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction
  • Sze Hong Lam, Should the ICC accept Taiwan’s delegation of ad hoc criminal jurisdiction? A debate on Taiwan’s functional statehood in the context of Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute
  • Sarah Lupi, Is the time right to make ‘provision of weapons’ an international crime?
  • Yilin Wang, A critical reflection on the gap-filling function of general principles of law
  • Tibisay Morgandi, Parent company liability, forum non conveniens and substantial justice

New Issue: Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies (Vol. 9, no. 2, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Maximilian Ernst, Control Through Cooperation? Assessing China's Economic and Military-Strategic Interests in the South China Sea
  • Stefan Kirchner, Nuccio Mazzullo, Ayonghe Akonwi Nebasifu, Pamela Lesser, Paula Tulppo, Katri-Maaria Kyllönen, & Katharina Heinrich, Towards a Holistic Cross-Border Environmental Governance in the European Arctic
  • Alik Naha, Geostrategic Significance of the Bay of Bengal in India's Maritime Security Discourse
  • Saidatul Nadia Abd Aziz & Salawati Mat Basir, South China Sea: ASEAN Mechanism on Maritime Disputes and the Rise of Indo Pacific Region
  • Sriparna Pathak & Obja Borah Hazarika, Reasons and Reactions to the Galwan Clash: An Indian Perspective

Monday, July 4, 2022

New Issue: Revista de Direito Internacional

The latest issue of Revista de Direito Internacional (Vol. 19, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Crônicas
    • Ivette Esis, Andrés Delgado, Gabriel Briceño, Gricel Martínez Cisneros, Manuel A. Gómez, Gilberto Guerrero-Rocca, Nicolás Vassallo, María Gabriela De Abreu Negrón, Karen Longaric, & Fabián Villeda Corona, Revisión de laudos arbitrales de inversión 2020: 2º Encuentro Anual (Santiago de Chile, 07-08/06/2021)
    • Lucas Carlos Lima, As medidas cautelares da Corte Internacional de Justiça no caso Ucrânia e Federação Russa
    • Eshan Dauhoo, The Challenges faced by Women Legal Academics (Panel Discussion)
  • International Law and Climate Litigation
    • Sandrine Maljean-Dubois, International law as fuel for climate change litigation
    • Cristiane Derani & Patricia Grazziotin Noschang, The jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in cases of territorial damage caused to States by climate change
    • Danielle de Andrade Moreira, Carolina de Figueiredo Garrido, & Maria Eduarda Segovia Barbosa Neves, Litigância climática e licenciamento ambiental: consideração da variável climática à luz dos tratados internacionais sobre o clima
    • Gonzalo Aguilar Cavallo, Cristian Contreras Rojas, & Jairo Enrique Lucero Pantoja, Cambio climático y acceso a la información y participación ambiental
    • Fernanda de Salles Cavedon-Capdeville, & Diogo Andreola Serraglio, Vidas em movimento: os sistemas de proteção dos Direitos Humanos como espaços de justiça para os migrantes climáticos
    • Letícia Albuquerque, Gabrielle Tabares Fagundez, & Roger Fabre, Emergência Climática e Direitos Humanos: o caso do Fundo Clima no Brasil e as obrigações de Direito Internacional
    • Julia Stefanello Pires & Danielle Anne Pamplona, Perspectivas da litigância climática em face de empresas: o caso Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell
    • Yen Thi Hong Nguyen & Dung Phuong Nguyen, The efforts to respond to climate change and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the hardest-affected countries: Vietnam case analysis
    • Délton Winter de Carvalho, Constitucionalismo Climático como fundamento transnacional aos litígios climáticos
  • Artigos
    • Gilmara Benevides C. S. Damasceno, O compromisso do Brasil com a Agenda 2030 da ONU para a proteção do patrimônio cultural e o combate ao tráfico ilícito de bens culturais
    • Danielle Mendes Thame Denny, Bioeconomy and the Nagoya Protocol
    • Aírton Guilherme Berger Filho & Bruna Gomes Maia, The inclusion of the digital sequence information (DSI) in the scope of the Nagoya Protocol and its consequences
    • Norberto Milton Paiva Knebel, Mateus de Oliveira Fornasier, & Gustavo Silveira Borges, Political economy of smart cities and the Human Rights: from corporative technocracy to sensibility
    • João Luís Nogueira Matias & Gabriel Braga Guimarães, Os impactos econômicos positivos da migração na Europa: a oportunidade que não pode ser perdida
    • Glorimar Leon Silva & Juan Jorge Faundes Peñafiel, El derecho humano a la identidad cultural de los migrantes, fuentes internacionales y recepción en Chile
    • Thiago Carvalho Borges, O monitoramento e fiscalização do cumprimento das sentenças da Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos e a relação heterárquica entre o direito internacional e o direito brasileiro
    • Vitalii A. Zavhorodnii, Oksana Orel, Galyna Muliar, Olga I. Kotlyar, & Volodymyr Zarosylo, Application of Article 5 of the ECHR to the detention of a person who has committed a criminal offense
    • Armin Von Bogdandy & Ebert Franz, O Banco Mundial frente ao Constitucionalismo Transformador Latino-Americano: panorama geral e passos concretos
    • João Carlos Souto & Patrícia Perrone Campos Mello, Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos: lições do “term” 2019-2020 e uma breve homenagem a Ruth Bader Ginsburgh
    • Carina Barbosa Gouvêa & Pedro H. Villas Bôas Castelo Branco, Revisão judicial abusiva e a atuação do Supremo Tribunal Federal nas ADPFs entre março de 2020 e fevereiro de 2021
    • Arno Dal Ri Junior, O princípio das nacionalidades no banco de provas da ciência do Direito Internacional brasileira: confrontos acerca da teoria de Pasquale Stanislao Mancini no novo continente

New Issue: Revista Internacional de Derechos Humanos

The latest issue of Revista Internacional de Derechos Humanos (Vol. 12, no. 2, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Gisela Ferrari & C. Ignacio de Casas, Editorial: El conflicto ruso-ucraniano y el sistema europeo de derechos humanos
  • Cecilia Gebruers, The Right to Development at a Crossroad: “Aggressive Development” or “A World where Many Worlds Fit”?
  • Jordi Feo, La relación de la industria extractiva canadiense con los pueblos indígenas en Colombia (2011-2019)
  • Carmina Jasso Lopez, Derechos humanos y seguridad pública en México: El papel de las tecnologías de vigilancia

New Issue: INTER – Revista de Direito Internacional e Direitos Humanos da UFRJ

The latest issue of INTER – Revista de Direito Internacional e Direitos Humanos da UFRJ (Vol. 5, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Priscila Luciene Santos De Lima, Alcelyr Valle Da Costa Neto, & Flavia Jeane Ferrari, A Importância Do Compliance E Da Governança Corporativa À Luz Da Regulação Internacional
  • Renato Pezoa Huerta, Acerca De La Evolución Histórica Del Conocimiento De Embarque Desde El Derecho Internacional Y El Derecho Marítimo Chileno
  • Luís Alexandre Carta Winter, Alcântara –História De Uma Catástrofe Anunciada: As Tentativas E Os Fracassos, Na Ausência De Políticas De Cooperação, No Âmbito Do Mercosul
  • André Luiz Valim Vieira, Convenção De Viena Sobre Direito Dos Tratados Entre Estados E Organizações Internacionais: Tramitação Legislativa Nacional E Vigência Internacional Para O Brasil
  • Krúpskaya Rosa Luz Ugarte & Roxana Diestra Huerta, La Corte Interamericana De Derechos Humanos Y Su Relación Con La Corte Penal Internacional
  • Ana Elizabeth Villalta Vizcarra, Las Reservas En El Derecho Internacional
  • Ygor Pierry Piemonte Ditão, O Ativismo Judicial No Brasil E Na Argentina: As Ilusões Do Judiciário E Seu Reflexo Na Integração Regional
  • Daniel Raupp, O Direito Fundamental A Um Meio Ambiente Ecologicamente Equilibrado Na Constituição Dos Estados Unidos Da América
  • Vinícius Cássio Ferreira De Souza, Os Tribunais Mistos Vs. A Soberania Estatal: Um Estudo Das Contribuições De Um Novo Modelo De Justiça Para Os Desafios Do Século Xxi
  • Antonio Elian Lawand Junior & Talida Balaj, Preventing Conflict: China’s Claim To The South China Sea And Mechanisms For Peace.

Chong: International Law for Freshwater Protection

Agnes Chong
(Univ. of Hong Kong - Law) has published International Law for Freshwater Protection (Brill | Nijhoff 2022). Here's the abstract:
International Law for Freshwater Protection traces the development of international water law on fresh water protection and demonstrates how the regime focuses on the utilisation and rights of sovereign states over the protection and sustainable growth of shared water resources. The evolving jurisprudence influenced by environmental law highlights the regime’s insufficient focus on the environmental protection of watercourses. This book argues that existing rules, mechanisms and norms within international law can address the regime’s imbalance and establish how these might be applied to improve freshwater protection.

New Issue: International Organizations Law Review

The latest issue of the International Organizations Law Review (Vol. 19, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Special Issue: Reforming the International Health Regulations
    • Gian Luca Burci, Lisa Forman, & Steven J. Hoffman, Introduction to a Special Issue on Reforming the International Health Regulations
    • Gian Luca Burci & Stefania Negri, The International Health Regulations as a WHO Constitutional Instrument: Internal Governance and Regime Interactions
    • Lisa Forman, Sharifah Sekalala, & Benjamin Mason Meier, The World Health Organization, International Health Regulations and Human Rights Law
    • Mark Eccleston-Turner & Pedro A. Villarreal, The World Health Organization’s Emergency Powers: Enhancing Its Legal and Institutional Accountability
    • Roojin Habibi et al., The Stellenbosch Consensus on Legal National Responses to Public Health Risks: Clarifying Article 43 of the International Health Regulations
    • Margherita M. Cinà et al., The Stellenbosch Consensus on the International Legal Obligation to Collaborate and Assist in Addressing Pandemics: Clarifying Article 44 of the International Health Regulations
    • Stefania Negri & Mark Eccleston-Turner, One Health and Pathogen Sharing: Filling the Gap in the International Health Regulations to Strengthen Global Pandemic Preparedness and Response
    • Pedro A. Villarreal, Roojin Habibi, & Allyn Taylor, Strengthening the Monitoring of States’ Compliance with the International Health Regulations
    • Steven J. Hoffman, Roojin Habibi, Pedro Villarreal, & Sophie Campbell, Mending Dispute Resolution under the International Health Regulations

Caserta & Madsen: The Situated and Bounded Rationality of International Courts: A Structuralist Approach to International Adjudicative Practices

Salvatore Caserta (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts) & Mikael Madsen (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) have posted The Situated and Bounded Rationality of International Courts: A Structuralist Approach to International Adjudicative Practices (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
Understanding international judicial behaviour requires developing a perspective that considers both individual and collective action. On the one hand, individual judges are marked by their background and trajectory before international judicial appointment; on the other hand, when appointed to international courts they enter a particular social setting and group dynamic. The paper provides an interpretive, structural theory of judicial behaviour that allows to understand international judicial action and the resulting judicial institutional practices. The paper explains this double structuration of international judicial behaviour by first reconsidering and amending the notion of habitus originally developed by Pierre Bourdieu and secondly applying this idea to the practice of the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Erie: The Problem of Method in the Study of Transnational Dispute Resolution

Matthew S. Erie (Univ. of Oxford) has posted The Problem of Method in the Study of Transnational Dispute Resolution (in Comparative and Transnational Dispute Resolution, Shahla Ali ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
There are, broadly speaking, two general ways to study transnational dispute resolution, understood as international arbitration, transnational litigation, and business mediation. The first is the “legal-formalistic” approach and the second is the “social scientific” one. The former emphasizes doctrine and the different types of rules that comprise specific dispute resolution regimes. The second is empirical, uses quantitative or qualitative data, and focuses less on rules and more on structures of power and hierarchy, or the space, networks, and ritual, through which such rules operate. While there is no one “right” way to study transnational dispute resolution and these methods inform different types of research projects or questions, these two methods are largely seen as at odds, with the legal-formalistic approach predominant in the legal academy. As part of a broader effort to foreground the question of method in the study of transnational dispute resolution, this chapter opts for a different perspective by borrowing from the anthropology of experts to suggest that “para-ethnography” is one way to build synergies between the legal-formalistic approach and the social scientific one. Specifically, this chapter draws on data collected for a larger project on “new legal hubs” (NLHs), “one stop shops” for cross-border commercial dispute resolution, in financial centres, promoted as an official policy by nondemocratic or hybrid (i.e., democratic and authoritarian) states, located primarily in Asia. NLHs showcase the native theories of dispute resolution experts who design, manage, and operate such hubs. Juxtaposing their theories and processes of knowledge production, on the one hand, with those of scholars, on the other hand, requires considering both formal rules and contextual questions of power, hierarchy, and space, thus presenting a more holistic view of transnational dispute resolution.

Siatitsa: Serious Violations of Human Rights: On the Emergence of a New Special Regime

Ilia Siatitsa
(Privacy International) has published Serious Violations of Human Rights: On the Emergence of a New Special Regime (Oxford Univ. Press 2022). Here's the abstract:

This book analyses the use of the expression 'serious violations of human rights', and similar ones, such as 'gross' or 'grave', in international practice. It highlights some of the recurring responses and consequences to such violations and suggests that a new special regime - eponymous to the above-mentioned expression - was formed.

This special regime is understood as substantively limited to a very specific issue-area of human rights violations. Within this regime, a series of monitoring mechanisms and procedures are in place to highlight, document, and record such violations; specific measures are taken to enforce compliance; and certain consequences arise focused on remedying the victims of such violations. As such, this special regime is comprised of at least four thinly interconnected components: the substantive, the monitoring, the enforcement, and the remedial ones.

This monograph constitutes a first step towards the recognition of such a regime, allowing far more constructive and coherent elaboration in the future. Practice around this category of violations may well evolve in a different direction than the one suggested here. However, what becomes apparent from this work is that the serious violations of human rights are a key notion in the international legal order as it allows the international community to depict those factual situations requiring its attention and action.

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Sobenes, Mead, & Samson: The Environment through the Lens of International Courts and Tribunals

Edgardo Sobenes
, Sarah Mead, & Benjamin Samson have published The Environment through the Lens of International Courts and Tribunals (Asser Press 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
This book brings together leading and emerging scholars and practitioners to present an overview of how regional, international and transnational courts and tribunals are engaging with the environment. With the natural world under unprecedented pressure, the book highlights the challenges and opportunities presented by international dispute resolution for the protection of the environment and the further development of international environmental law. Presented in three parts, this contributed volume addresses how courts and tribunals engage with environmental matters (Part I); how courts and tribunals are resolving key issues common to environmental litigation (Part II); and future opportunities and developments in the field (Part III).

Conference: The Political Economy of International Organization

On July 7-9, 2022, the 14th annual conference on "The Political Economy of International Organization" will be held at the University of Oxford. The program is here.

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 21, no. 3, July 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • WTO at a Crossroads: The WTR 20th Anniversary Issue
    • Judith L. Goldstein, Douglas A. Irwin, & Alan Sykes, 20th Anniversary Issue
    • Patrick Low, The WTO in Crisis: Closing the Gap between Conversation and Action or Shutting Down the Conversation?
    • William J. Davey, WTO Dispute Settlement: Crown Jewel or Costume Jewelry?
    • Krzysztof Pelc, Counterfactuals and Contingency in WTO Dispute Settlement History
    • Chad P. Bown, Trump Ended WTO Dispute Settlement. Trade Remedies are Needed to Fix it
    • Robert Gulotty, WTO Subsidy Disciplines
    • Henry Gao, China's Changing Perspective on the WTO: From Aspiration, Assimilation to Alienation
    • Petros C. Mavroidis & André Sapir, The WTO at the Crossroads: How to Avoid the China Syndrome?
    • Stephanie J. Rickard, Economic Geography, Politics, and the World Trade Regime
    • Kathleen Claussen, Next-Generation Agreements and the WTO