Call for Papers: International (Climate Change) Law in the Post-Advisory Era: Taking Stock and Moving Ahead

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "International (Climate Change) Law in the Post-Advisory Era: Taking Stock and Moving Ahead," which will take place November 27-28, 2026, at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The call is here. The deadline is July 1, 2026.

Ebbesson & Langlet: Fifty Years of International Environmental Law: Developments since the 1972 Stockholm Conference

Jonas Ebbesson (Stockholms Universitet - Law) & David Langlet (Uppsala Universitet - Law) have published Fifty Years of International Environmental Law: Developments since the 1972 Stockholm Conference (Cambridge Univ. Press 2026). Here's the abstract:

This book explores the seminal importance of the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm 1972 – the Stockholm Conference – for the development of international environmental law. By bringing together world leading experts from academia and legal practice, the book charts the development of international environmental law in the 50 years since 1972 in the areas of nature and biodiversity, chemicals and waste, oceans and water, and atmosphere and climate, and with respect to structures and institutions, consumption and production, and human rights and participatory rights in environmental matters. It analyses how the ideas and concepts of the Stockholm Conference have influenced this development and explores the novel ideas that have emerged since then. It describes the approaches of the developed and developing countries in this process and the relationship between international environmental law and other areas of law, such as the law of the sea and international economic law.

Burchardt: The Authority of International Courts: A Behavioural Framework

Dana Burchardt (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) has published The Authority of International Courts: A Behavioural Framework (Hart Publishing 2026). Here's the abstract:

Why do some international courts wield broad authority while others face pushback or fade into irrelevance? This book provides novel theoretical and empirical insights into this question. It offers a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on the authority of international courts, drawing from law, political science and behavioural research.

It develops, in Part I, a theoretical model and analytical framework for assessing these questions. The model explains how authority relationships between courts and their audiences – such as states, NGOs, individual applicants, and domestic courts – are formed, maintained, or contested. In Part II, the book applies this analytical framework to in-depth case studies of two selected international courts: the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States. These studies not only provide deeper insights into the authority of these courts but also demonstrate how the analytical framework can be applied to other international courts to generate an enhanced understanding of international court authority.

The book sheds new light on why some courts enjoy enduring authority and others face pushback, offering powerful tools for understanding the behaviour of international courts and their audiences.

Torres Pérez: Balancing International Judicial Independence: Legal and Political Constraints in Regional Courts

Aida Torres Pérez (Pompeu Fabra Univ. - Law) has published Balancing International Judicial Independence: Legal and Political Constraints in Regional Courts (Oxford Univ. Press 2026). Here's the abstract:

Regional courts increasingly shape domestic law and policy, raising pressing questions about their democratic legitimacy. Balancing International Judicial Independence offers a groundbreaking framework for reconciling judicial independence with legitimate checks on judicial power. While independence is essential for courts to function, unchecked authority can be equally problematic. This book advances a nuanced approach that incorporates accountability and oversight without compromising independence.

Part One introduces a conceptual framework for international judicial independence, tailored to the unique institutional and political contexts of regional courts and avoiding the uncritical application of domestic models. It draws on comparative analysis of courts in Europe and the Americas, including the European Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the Andean Tribunal of Justice.

Part Two explores the normative foundations for constraining judicial power, examining legal accountability mechanisms and adapting the principle of checks and balances to the international sphere. Political constraints are reconceptualized as forms of institutional interdependence within a refined checks and balances framework.

Part Three tackles the implications of using checks and balances as a normative guiding principle and critically analyses national and regional institutional sources of constraint on selected courts, as well as specific mechanisms like judicial selection, political override, and non-compliance.

Filling a critical gap in the literature, this book provides a principled framework for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to assess existing arrangements and guide institutional design in international adjudication.

New Issue: Global Constitutionalism

The latest issue of Global Constitutionalism (Vol. 15, no. 2, July 2026) is out. Contents include:

• Marleen Maria Kappé & Jerfi Uzman, The drunken dinner guest of democratic politics: Constitutional conventions and populism as a transgressive political style
• Donald Bello Hutt, The deliberative right to constitutional silence
• Nidhi Sharma, The quasi-federal constitution? Taxonomical influences on interpretation of federalism in India
• Steffen Ganghof, Taking democracy seriously: A theory and global typology of democratic forms of government
• Thora Giallouri & Elli Menounou, Judicial globalization from below: Nonjudicial actors and transnational legal communication
• Luiza Tavares da Motta, Out of ‘time out of mind’: The emotional experience of time and the English constitution between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries
• Niels Petersen, Equality and its discontents: On the diversity of equality doctrines in comparative perspective
• Bastian Loges & Anja P. Jakobi, Stabilising contested normative orders: how international city networks contribute to preventing norm decay
• David Owen, Lifeboat governance on Spaceship Earth

New Issue: Polish Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Polish Review of International and European Law (Vol. 15, no. 1, 2026) is out. Contents include:

• Studies
• Lei Di, The Applicability of International Human Rights Law in Climate Change: All or Nothing at All?
• Luciano Pezzano, Legal Consequences of Breaches of Peremptory Norms in the ICJ’s Advisory Opinions: Jus Cogens or Erga Omnes?
• Zénó Suller, Strategic Litigation Before the ICJ: A Case for an Advisory Opinion to Anchor the Ukraine Special Tribunal in the Rule of Law for a Meaningful Prosecution
• Articles
• Radosław Kołatek, Scaling up the Energy Transition in the EU in View of EU Legislation between 2020-2024
• Raúl Zeyi Huang, Applier, Interpreter, and Judicial Codifier: the Three Climate Advisory Opinions, Sustainable Development, and International Judicial Legitimacy
• Case Comments
• Tomasz Srogosz, Comments on the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change on 23 July 2025
• Robert Tabaszewski, Comments on the Judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Tsaava and Others v. Georgia on 11 December 2025. Kinetic Impact Projectiles, Journalistic Protection and Effective Investigations in Crisis Situations
• Kamil Strzępek, Comments on the Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Case Georgia v. Russia (IV) (Just Satisfaction) of 14 October 2025. “Just Satisfaction in Inter-State Cases: a Doctrine in the Making”

Krisch, Yildiz, & Martínez Esponda: Change in International Law: Paths, Processes, Power

Nico Krisch (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Ezgi Yildiz (Bowdoin College), & Pedro Martínez Esponda (Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México) have published Change in International Law: Paths, Processes, Power (Oxford Univ. Press 2026). Here's the abstract:

How does international law change? How does it adapt to new contexts and meet new challenges? The typical answer to these questions makes international law appear rather static, due to high hurdles for change and formal rules that require widespread agreement among states. In reality, however, change is far more common: new legal norms and understandings are generated constantly through the practices of legal actors. This book explores these actual, often gradual processes of international legal change. Combining qualitative analysis and statistical examination of data derived from twenty-five cases across eight subfields, the book offers the most systematic study to date of international legal change in practice beyond treaty-making. It approaches international law as a discursive process characterized by distinctive, socially constructed communities and authorities, and identifies five distinct paths through which legal change occurs. These paths shape who can act, how change is framed, and whether and under what conditions it gains traction, and they—and their relative weight—vary heavily across the different areas of international law. On these paths, change comes about in ways which defy common expectations of a state-centric international law: the analysis presented in the book shows that the success of change attempts depends less on broad state support or even the support of major powers, but to a greater extent on support from authorities and institutions in the respective fields. The result is an international law that may not be dynamic enough to cope with the speed of change in today’s accelerated world, but one that is significantly more dynamic than is usually assumed.

New Issue: Michigan Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Michigan Journal of International Law (Vol. 47, no. 2, 2026) is out. Contents include:

• Ryan Liss, Human Rights, Between Peace and Dignity
• Damian A. Gonzalez-Salzberg & Eoin Campbell, ‘Insistent’ Objectors: The (Ab)use of Procedural Defenses Before the International Court of Justice
• Caroline L. Davidson, The Gender of International Criminal Law

Call for Papers: Refracting Lotus: Jurisdiction as a Kaleidoscope of International Law

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law has issued a call for papers for a conference on "Refracting Lotus: Jurisdiction as a Kaleidoscope of International Law," to take place February 25-26, 2027, in Heidelberg. The call is here.

Call for Session Ideas: 2027 ASIL Annual Meeting

The American Society of International Law has issued a call for session ideas for its 121th Annual Meeting, which will take place April 14-16, 2027, in Washington, DC. The conference theme is: "International Law for the United States and the World." The deadline is August 5, 2026. The call is here.

New Issue: Cambridge International Law Journal

The latest issue of the Cambridge International Law Journal (Vol. 15, no. 1, 2026) is out. Contents include:

• Alison Duxbury, Applying human rights law to the ‘characteristics of military life’: square pegs and round holes?
• David McKeever, The International Court of Justice and international counter-terrorism law: impact to date and the potential for more
• Carmen Bullón Caro, One Health in public international law: integration, soft law and due diligence
• José Rogelio Gutiérrez Álvarez, State recognition as a bargaining chip: limits and objections
• Antoine Comont, From shield to sword: countervailing and anti-dumping duties as protectionist weapons

Conference: Africa and the future of international economic law: Navigating geopolitical realignments, sustainability imperatives and technological disruptions

The 8th Biennial Conference of the African International Economic Law Network (AfIELN) will take place June 24-26, 2026, at University Mohammed VI Polytechnic, Rabat, Morocco. The theme is: "Africa and the future of international economic law: Navigating geopolitical realignments, sustainability imperatives and technological disruptions." Details are here.

Webinar: The Future of the United Nations Organisation, If Any (Reminder)

On June 24, 2026, a fourth webinar will be held in the ESIL Conversations series “Multilateralism in Times of Unilateralism.” The topic is: “The Future of the United Nations Organisation, If Any.” Details are here.