Saturday, January 28, 2023

Sparks: Self-Determination in the International Legal System: Whose Claim, to What Right?

Tom Sparks
(Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) has published Self-Determination in the International Legal System: Whose Claim, to What Right? (Hart Publishing 2023). The book is available open access here. Here's the abstract:
This open access book brings conceptual clarity to the study and practice of self-determination, showing that it is, without doubt, one of the most important concepts of the international legal order. It argues that the accepted categorisation of internal and external self-determination is not helpful, and suggests a new typology. This new framework has four categories: the polity-based, secessionary, colonial, and remedial forms. Each will be distinguished by the grounds, or the legitimacy-claim, on which it is based. This not only ensures consistency, it moves the question out of the purely conceptual realm and addresses the practical concerns of those invoking self-determination. By presenting international lawyers with a typology that is both theoretically consistent and more practically useful, the author makes a significant contribution to our understanding of this keystone of international law.

Delimatsis, Dimitropoulos, & Gourgourinis: State Capitalism and International Investment Law

Panagiotis Delimatsis
(Tilburg Univ. - Law), Georgios Dimitropoulos (Hamad Bin Khalifa Univ. - Law), & Anastasios Gourgourinis (National and Kapodistrian Univ. of Athens - Law) have published State Capitalism and International Investment Law (Hart Publishing 2023). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
This book explores how State capitalism affects and reshapes international investment law. It sheds new light on the various ways States actively influence business and commercial activity globally by using sovereign investors such as state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds or pension funds. With a diverse group of contributors from a broad range of countries, the book offers a fresh and timely look into the fundamentals of State capitalism, focusing in particular on its actors and processes, the contextual elements that surround it, and the new political economy that comes with it.

Hamman & Hølleland: Implementing the World Heritage Convention: Dimensions of Compliance

Evan Hamman
(Queensland Univ. of Technology - Law) & Herdis Hølleland (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research) have published Implementing the World Heritage Convention: Dimensions of Compliance (Edward Elgar Publishing 2023). Here's the abstract:

As the World Heritage Convention enters its 50th year, questions are being raised about its failures and successes. This topical book draws together perspectives across law and heritage research to examine the Convention and its implementation through the novel lens of compliance.

The book challenges the widely held view that managing the ‘world’s heritage’ is a non-regulatory, incentive-based task with limited sanctioning options. Combining theoretical perspectives with deep technical analysis and historical investigation, the book tackles the compliance question through an examination of 12 diverse cases.

Analysing past World Heritage properties like the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary (Oman) and Dresden Elbe Valley (Germany), as well as at-risk properties, like the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), Group of Monuments at Hampi (India) and Everglades National Park (United States), chapters trace the evolution and application of key non-compliance mechanisms like Reactive Monitoring, the In Danger List, and the Deletion procedure. In so doing, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of the Convention's compliance architecture and the tools available to respond to instances of non-compliance.

Akinkugbe & Majekolagbe: International Investment Law and Climate Justice: The Search for a Just Green Investment Order

Olabisi D. Akinkugbe (Dalhousie Univ. - Law) & Adebayo Majekolagbe (Dalhousie Univ. - Law) have published International Investment Law and Climate Justice: The Search for a Just Green Investment Order (Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 46, p. 169, 2023). Here's the abstract:
Efforts are underway to craft responses to the climate crisis within the international investment order. This Article highlights international investment law (“IIL”) and international climate law (“ICL”) as two basic governance contexts within which investment- related responses to climate change are being designed. There is, however, a multilevel—normative and institutional—dissonance between both regimes that makes for an asymmetric integration of the regimes at best, or worse still, the escalation of the injustices which have characterized both. While similar in their recognition of international investment as an important tool for responding to climate change, assumptions and approaches under both regimes are different. Both regimes, however, are responsible for the entrenchment of climate injustice. This Article re-envisions climate justice through a Third World Approaches to International Law (“TWAIL”) lens and provides recommendations on the actualization of a just green investment order. Drawing on TWAIL, we argue that treaty proposals that simply emphasize making IIL compatible with international climate frameworks for green investments, despite their relevance for the transition to a green economy, overlook structural normative dynamics which have perpetuated historical injustice, skewed power relations, and contributed to diverse tragedies of the commons. To avoid cascading into a new regime of inequities, we argue that IIL reform and investment-related measures under the ICL regime must center on climate justice and a nuanced interpretation of historical responsibility.

Ferrari, Rosenfeld, & Kotuby: Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards: A Concise Guide to the New York Convention's Uniform Regime

Franco Ferrari
(New York Univ. - Law), Friedrich Rosenfeld (HANEFELD), & Charles T. Kotuby, Jr. (Univ. of Pittsburgh - Law) have published Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards: A Concise Guide to the New York Convention's Uniform Regime (Edward Elgar Publishing 2023). Here's the abstract:

This incisive book is an indispensable guide to the New York Convention's uniform regime on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Framing the Convention as a uniform law instrument, the book analyses case law from major arbitration jurisdictions to explain its scope of application, the duty to recognize arbitral agreements and awards as well as their limitations, and the procedure and formal requirements for enforcing arbitral awards.

Combining insight from arbitration practice with perspectives from private international law, the book underlines the importance of the Convention’s foundation in a treaty of international law, arguing that this entails a requirement to interpret the key concepts it sets forth based on international law rules of interpretation. However, it also demonstrates where municipal laws are relevant and discusses the private international law principles through which these instances can be identified.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 40, no. 3, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Noemí Pérez Vásquez, Last On the List: The Protection of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Timor-Leste’s Transitional Justice Process
  • Charlotte Ludt, Margunn Bjørnholt & Birgitta Niklasson, Speaking the Unspeakable: Disclosures of Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Asylum Credibility Assessments
  • Gabriela Mezzanotti & Alyssa Marie Kvalvaag, Indigenous Peoples on the Move: Intersectional Invisibility and the Quest for Pluriversal Human Rights for Indigenous Migrants from Venezuela in Brazil
  • Padraig McAuliffe, The Ambivalent Status of Socio-Economic Rights in Human Rights-Based Approaches to Development

New Issue: European Journal of International Relations

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Relations (Vol. 29, no. 1, March 2023) is out. Contents include:
  • Henning Tamm & Allard Duursma, Combat, commitment, and the termination of Africa’s mutual interventions
  • Iosif Kovras, Technologies of justice: forensics and the evolution of transitional justice
  • Chiara Ruffa & Sebastiaan Rietjens, Meaning making in peacekeeping missions: mandate interpretation and multinational collaboration in the UN mission in Mali
  • Lennart Maschmeyer, Subversion, cyber operations, and reverse structural power in world politics
  • Miles M. Evers, Discovering the prize: information, lobbying, and the origins of US–Saudi security relations
  • Neil C. Renic, Superweapons and the myth of technological peace
  • Amir Lupovici, Ontological security, cyber technology, and states’ responses
  • Tuncer Beyribey, Terrorism as a conceptual site for power struggles: problematization of terrorism in Turkey in the 1970s
  • Aidan Hehir, ‘An expensive commodity’? The impact of hope on US foreign policy during the ‘unipolar moment’
  • Stéphanie Martel & Aarie Glas, The contested meaning-making of diplomatic norms: competence in practice in Southeast Asian multilateralism

Friday, January 27, 2023

New Issue: Harvard International Law Journal

The latest issue of the Harvard International Law Journal (Vol. 63, no. 2, Summer 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Reuven Avi-Yonah, Young Ran Kim, & Karen Sam, A New Framework for Digital Taxation
  • Jose-Miguel Bello y Villarino, International Anticorruption Law, Revisited
  • Janie A. Chuang, The International Organization for Migration and New Global Migration Governance
  • Angela Huyue Zhang, Agility Over Stability: China's Great Reversal in Regulating the Platform Economy

Hsu: Dispute Settlement for ASEAN Businesses under the Belt and Road Initiative: New Possibilities and Directions

Locknie Hsu
(Singapore Management Univ. - Law) has published Dispute Settlement for ASEAN Businesses under the Belt and Road Initiative: New Possibilities and Directions (Edward Elgar Publishing 2022). Here's the abstract:

This forward-looking book examines dispute resolution issues in the context of Belt and Road Initiative dealings between parties in ASEAN member States, China and other trade partners. It discusses a range of commercial dispute issues and economic agreements including free trade agreements and investment agreements, both bilateral and regional.

Locknie Hsu presents research on dispute settlement options and emerging issues for ASEAN businesses relating to projects and transactions undertaken in relation to the Belt and Road Initiative. She translates these options and issues into opportunities in economic treaty negotiations, utilization of national and regional dispute settlement institutions and better handling of emerging issues (such as environment-related claims and technology applications in dispute resolution) and in legal capacity-building in ASEAN. The book explores findings from academic research, empirical information, selected Case Studies (on environmental and other claims in ASEAN and beyond) and salient legal and technological developments, to provide insights and lessons that make this original book a rich and useful legal and research resource.

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Vidmar, McGibbon, & Raible: Research Handbook on Secession

Jure Vidmar
(Maastricht Univ.), Sarah McGibbon (Maastricht Univ.), & Lea Raible (Univ. of Glasgow) have published Research Handbook on Secession (Edward Elgar Publishing 2022). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Combining both theoretical and practical insights, the Research Handbook on Secession addresses a wide range of legal issues surrounding secessions. It considers both well-known examples such as Kosovo and Bangladesh alongside less frequently discussed cases including Somaliland and Palestine, offering state-of-the-art analysis of international law on statehood, secession, self-determination and related topics. Featuring contributions from a range of international scholars and experts, the Research Handbook discusses what a state is, distinguishes between declarations of independence and secessions, and examines the differences between secessions and the dissolution of states. Chapters provide both international law and comparative constitutional perspectives on issues of secession, inviting the reader to think afresh about the role of international law in territory and statehood. The Research Handbook also argues for the possibility that combining insights from international and constitutional law in particular could move the debate forward.

Conference: Law in the Age of Modern Technologies

On February 10, 2023, the conference “Law in the Age of Modern Technologies” will take place at the University of Milan in hybrid form. Details are here.

Lecture: Koskeneimi on "To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth Legal Imagination and International Power 1300–1870"

On February 8, 2023, the Centre for European and International Legal Affairs at Queen Mary University of London and the Sheffield Centre for International and European Law will co-host a lecture, in person and online, by Martti Koskenniemi on "To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth Legal Imagination and International Power 1300–1870." Details and registration are here.

Bourgeois & Labuda: When May UN Peacekeepers Use Lethal Force to Protect Civilians? Reconciling Threats to Civilians, Imminence, and the Right to Life

Hanna Bourgeois (KU Leuven) & Patryk I. Labuda (Univ. of Amsterdam) have posted When May UN Peacekeepers Use Lethal Force to Protect Civilians? Reconciling Threats to Civilians, Imminence, and the Right to Life (Journal of Conflict and Security Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
UN Security Council now regularly deploys peacekeeping missions with robust mandates to protect civilians and encourages their proactive implementation, including by using force. While this turn to robust civilian protection is usually celebrated, the legal parameters of using force are rarely scrutinised, with scholarship focused on self-defence and UN policy to justify mandate implementation. By analysing the relationship between peacekeeping mandates and international law in light of the shift from defensive to proactive peacekeeping, this article argues that the legality of using force for civilian protection purposes must be reconciled not only with Security Council resolutions but also with human rights law, which imposes strict temporal conditions for lawful deprivations of the right to life outside the conduct of hostilities. Drawing on the UN’s current practice of protecting civilians in hostile environments, this article attempts to reconcile proactive civilian-oriented peacekeeping with the concept of imminence as understood in human rights law.

Webinar: Book Launch of Dienelt's Armed Conflicts and the Environment

On February 2, 2023, the Law Interest Group of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association, together with the IUCN-WCEL Environmental Security and Conflict Law Specialist Group and the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights of the University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, will host a the launch of Anne Dienelt’s Armed Conflicts and the Environment: Complementing the Laws of Armed Conflict with Human Rights Law and International Environmental Law. Registration is here.

Webinar: Compensation and Valuation in Investment Treaty Claims: How to Account for Climate Change?

On February 2, 2023, the Centre for International Law at the Natonal University of Singapore will host a webinar on "Compensation and Valuation in Investment Treaty Claims: How to Account for Climate Change?" Details are here.

New Issue: American Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the American Journal of International Law (Vol. 117, no. 1, January 2023) is out. Contents include:
  • Articles
    • Robert Howse & Joanna Langille, Continuity and Change in the World Trade Organization: Pluralism Past, Present, and Future
    • Andrej Lang, Alternatives to Adjudication in International Law: A Case Study of the Ombudsperson to the ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Regime of the UN Security Council
  • Current Developments
    • Sean D. Murphy, Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens) (Revisited) and Other Topics: The Seventy-Third Session of the International Law Commission
  • International Decisions
    • Jaemin Lee, Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda)
    • Jacquelene W. Mwangi, Request for Advisory Opinion by the Pan African Lawyers Union (Palu) on the Compatibility of Vagrancy Laws with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and Other Human Rights Instruments Applicable in Africa, No. 001/2018
  • Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law
    • The United States Recognizes the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment
    • Signatories of the U.S.-Led Artemis Accords Meet in Person for the First Time
    • The United States Establishes Fund for the Afghan People from Frozen Afghan Central Bank Assets
    • The United States Announces Export Controls to Restrict China's Ability to Purchase and Manufacture High-End Chips
  • Recent Books on International Law
    • Fleur Johns, Disastrous Law: International Law and the Shock-absorption of Disaster, reviewing International Law in Disaster Scenarios: Applicable Rules and Principles, by Flavia Zorzi Giustiniani; Law and Disaster: Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown in Japan, by Shigenori Matsui; and All is Well: Catastrophe and the Making of the Normal State, by Saptarishi Bandopadhyay
    • Karen J. Alter, reviewing Veiled Power: International Law and the Private Corporation 1886–1981, by Doreen Lustig
    • David Kaye, reviewing Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, by Samuel Moyn
    • Ksenia Polonskaya, reviewing Identity and Diversity on the International Bench: Who Is the Judge?, by Freya Baetens
    • David P. Stewart, reviewing Lex Pacificatoria, Jus Post Bellum, or Just “Good Practice”? - International Law and Peace Settlements, edited by Marc Weller, Mark Retter and Andrea Varga; and Lawyering Peace, by Paul Williams

Abel: International Investor Obligations: Towards Individual International Responsibility for the Public Interest in International Investment Law

Patrick Abel
has published International Investor Obligations: Towards Individual International Responsibility for the Public Interest in International Investment Law (Nomos 2022). Here's the abstract:

International investment law has been criticised for years: Do investors enjoy international rights without corresponding responsibility? This book challenges this view. On the contrary, treaty and arbitration practice is already subject to dynamics introducing international investor obligations, systematised by this book as direct and indirect obligations. Inter alia, these relate to the protection of human rights and the environment. This development may potentially reorient the field towards the principle of sustainable development and may even turn it into an international instrument to regulate investors’ behaviour. The book situates these findings in the broader context of general international law.

Das internationale Investitionsschutzrecht steht seit Jahren in der Kritik: Genießen Investoren internationale Rechte ohne korrespondierende Verantwortlichkeit? Dieses Buch stellt diese Sicht infrage. Vielmehr lassen sich der Vertrags- und Schiedspraxis bereits heute Investorenpflichten entnehmen, die das Buch normtheoretisch als direkte und indirekte Pflichten erschließt. Diese verpflichten Investoren etwa auf Menschenrechte und Umweltschutz. Sie sind potentiell geeignet, das Rechtsgebiet verstärkt auf das Ziel nachhaltiger Entwicklung auszurichten und Investorenverhalten international zu regulieren. Das Buch stellt diese Entwicklung in den allgemeineren Kontext der seit 1945 stattfindenden Individualisierung des Völkerrechts.

Call for Papers: The European Union and the Interpretation of Customary International Law

EUDIPLO & TRICI-Law have issued a call for papers for a workshop on "The European Union and the Interpretation of Customary International Law," to be held on April 28, 2023, at the University of Groningen. The call is here.

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Efrat: Intolerant Justice: Conflict and Cooperation on Transnational Litigation

Asif Efrat
(Reichman Univ. - Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy) has published Intolerant Justice: Conflict and Cooperation on Transnational Litigation (Oxford Univ. Press 2023). Here's the abstract:

In a globalized world, national legal systems often face dilemmas of international cooperation: Should our citizens stand trial in foreign courts that do not meet our standards? Should we extradite offenders to countries with a poor human rights record? Should we enforce rulings issued by foreign judges whose values are different from our own? Intolerant Justice argues that ethnocentrism--the human tendency to divide the world into superior in-groups and inferior out-groups--fuels fear and mistrust of foreign justice and sparks domestic political controversies: while skeptics portray foreign legal systems as dangerous and threatening, others dismiss these concerns.

The book traces this dynamic in a range of fascinating cases, including the American hesitation to allow criminal trials of troops in the courts of NATO countries, the dilemma of extradition to China, and the European wariness toward U.S. civil judgments. Despite the growing role of law and courts in international politics, Intolerant Justice suggests that cooperation among legal systems often meets resistance and shows how this resistance can be overcome.

Cohen: The Plural Sources of Customary International Law

Harlan Grant Cohen (Univ. of Georgia - Law) has posted The Plural Sources of Customary International Law (in Interpretation of CIL: Methods, Interpretative Choices and the Role of Coherence, Panos Merkouris, Andreas Follesdal, Geir Ulfstein, Pauline Westerman, Marina Fortuna, & Kostiantyn Gorobets eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
When faced with the inevitable task of interpreting customary international law, what should a court do and what should it consider? Courts and scholars struggle to find an answer in doctrine, as contentious debates demonstrate. But what if the answer is not in doctrine, but in theory? What if fights over interpreting custom really reveal deep disagreement about the nature, source, and authority of custom? This chapter argues that interpreting custom requires a theory (or perhaps theories) of custom. It requires looking behind international law’s doctrine of sources and asking why we consider custom a source of law at all. But exploring the stories we tell to answer that question, this chapter identifies at least three different, competing, perhaps even contradictory concepts of customary international law in common use. Referred to here as Negotiated Law, Legislated Law, and Adjudicated Law, each draws on different sources of legitimacy, operates according to different logics, dictates different methods of interpretation, and favors different methods for resolving disputes. The difficulty for court interpreting custom is thus first figuring out which 'custom' they are interpreting. Only after answering that question, can they figure out what method to apply and what justifications to invoke.

Call for Papers: Legitimate Aims and Ulterior Purposes in International Human Rights Law

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on "Legitimate Aims and Ulterior Purposes in International Human Rights Law," to be held at the Hertie School on June 2, 2023. The call is here.

Ford: Funding the ICC for Its Third Decade

Stuart Ford (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago - Law) has posted Funding the ICC for Its Third Decade. Here's the abstract:

This paper looks at the International Criminal Court's budget at the beginning of its third decade of operation. It reviews the ICC's 2023 budget as well as a number of issues that have long-term financial implications for the court. The Assembly of State Parties agreed to a 12% increase in the ICC's budget for 2023. This is the largest percentage increase the court has received since the early years of its operations (2002-2007) and is driven by an increase in the court's workload. It is investigating new situations and trying more cases than ever and needs the resources to carry out its mandate to provide an effective forum for trying the "most serious crimes of concern to the international community."

Alongside this record budget, however, there are a number of issues that have worrying long-term financial implications for the court. The Prosecutor's decision to rely on voluntary contributions and secondments from member states is probably unsustainable in the long-term and raises the risk that the court's work will be further politicized. The ICC has delayed maintenance on its building and has millions of Euros of backlogged maintenance requirements, yet the Assembly of State Parties was unable to agree on a solution. Finally, and most worryingly, the Court has a serious problem getting member states to pay their contributions. The ICC is now owed more than 44 million Euros in past-due contributions and risks running out of money in 2023. This could cause a complete shutdown of the court and the problem only gets worse every year as the amount in arrears grows.

New Issue: Journal on the Use of Force and International Law

The latest issue of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (Vol. 9, no. 2, 2022) is out. Contents include:
  • Jennifer Trahan, Vetoes and the UN Charter: the obligation to act in accordance with the ‘Purposes and Principles’ of the United Nations
  • Chris O’Meara, Reconceptualising the right of self-defence against ‘imminent’ armed attacks
  • Fatima Mashi, Sofie Hamdi & Mohammad Salman, ‘Operation Olive Branch’ in Syria’s Afrin District: towards a new interpretation of the right of self-defence?
  • Gal Cohen, Mixing oil and water? The interaction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello during armed conflicts
  • Antonio Bultrini, The cross-strait relationship between China and Taiwan in light of international law: not quite a mere domestic affair … 
  • Patrick M. Butchard & Jasmin Johurun Nessa, Digest of State Practice: 1 January – 30 June 2022

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Call for Submissions: Canadian Yearbook of International Law

The Canadian Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions. Please note that submissions for each annual volume are encouraged by January 31. The call is here.

Call for Submissions: Irish Yearbook of International Law

The Irish Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its volume 16 (2021-22). Here's the call:

Call for Submissions

An annual, peer reviewed publication, the Irish Yearbook of International Law is committed to the publication of articles of general interest in international law as well as articles that have a particular connection to, or relevance for, Ireland. The Yearbook is edited by Richard Collins (QUB), James Gallen (DCU), and Bríd Ní Ghráinne (Maynooth University), is published by Hart-Bloomsbury, and is also available on HEIN Online.

The Editors are currently welcoming book review proposals and paper submissions pertaining to any area of international law. In particular, the Editors welcome papers that address the role of Ireland at the United Nations Security Council, elected in 2020 as a non-permanent member for 2021 and 2022. The IYBIL Student Prize will be awarded to the best paper submission written by an individual enrolled in a degree programme at the time of submission. Papers are due on 31 March and review proposals are due by 21 February.

The sixteenth volume (2021-22) of the Yearbook will be dedicated to the memory of one of Ireland’s leading international lawyers, and former Legal Adviser at the Department of Foreign Affairs, James Kingston.

For more information can be found here.

Monday, January 23, 2023

Conference: 38th Biennial Conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht

The 38th Biennial Conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht will take place on March 15-17, 2023, at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen. The theme is: "Koloniale Kontinuitäten im internationalen Recht." The program is here.