Frost: The global “political voice deficit matrix”

Neli Frost (Univ. of Oxford) has posted The global “political voice deficit matrix” (International Journal of Constitutional Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The present article illuminates something important yet undertheorized about the relationship between democracy, technology, and globalization. That is, that digital technologies are crucial for certain types of cross-boundary interactions between individuals or communities, and that these interactions are crucial for democratizing relations of power and authority established in and by regimes of global governance. The article does so by linking together two related conversations that have yet to take sufficient account of each other: those taking place between law and technology scholars on the democratizing potential of digital technologies, and those taking place amongst international lawyers on the relationship between democracy and globalization. The article undertakes this alchemy by putting forward the theoretical construct of the “political voice.” This construct offers a normative theory that outlines the democratic functions of vertical communications between individuals and public decision-makers within and across boundaries, but also, crucially, explains how these are dependent on robust horizontal, transnational exchanges between individuals or communities. This construct thus offers a lens through which to evaluate the extent to which digital technologies live up to their democratizing potential, and allows for a normative conceptualization of the possible consequences of their failure to do so as a problem of global governance.

Call for Papers: Democracy and Information Warfare 2.0 – An International Law Perspective

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Democracy and Information Warfare 2.0 – An International Law Perspective," to be held at the University of Trier on May 19-20, 2022. The call is here.

Ginsburg: Democracies and International Law

Tom Ginsburg (Univ. of Chicago - Law) has published Democracies and International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). Here's the abstract:

Democracies and authoritarian regimes have different approaches to international law, grounded in their different forms of government. As the balance of power between democracies and non-democracies shifts, it will have consequences for international legal order. Human rights may face severe challenges in years ahead, but citizens of democratic countries may still benefit from international legal cooperation in other areas. Ranging across several continents, this volume surveys the state of democracy-enhancing international law, and provides ideas for a way forward in the face of rising authoritarianism.

Call for Papers: Democracy and Information Warfare - An International Law Perspective

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Democracy and Information Warfare - An International Law Perspective," to take place May 14-15, 2020, at the University of Trier. The call is here.

Call for Submissions: Deconsolidation of Democracy, Populism, and the Role of Human Rights Law/Scholars

The journal Diritti umani e diritto internazionale has issued a call for submissions for a forum on "Deconsolidation of Democracy, Populism, and the Role of Human Rights Law/Scholars" that will appear in its summer issue. The call is here.

Call for Submissions: International Law and Democracy Revisited – The EJIL 30th Anniversary Symposium

The European Journal of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its 30th Anniversary Symposium on the subject of "International Law and Democracy Revisited." Here's the call:

EJIL was founded in 1989, coinciding with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attendant excitement encapsulated by that well-known optimistic/hubristic End of History phraseology, with predictions of liberal democracy to become regnant in the world and a New International Legal Order to replace the old First World-Second World-Third World distinctions.

Thirty years later the state of democracy, whether liberal or social or any other variant, seems to be far from sanguine.

Here is but a partial list of the challenges to democracy in the contemporary world:

• The advent of so-called ‘illiberal democracies’
• The crisis and breakdown of trust within established democracies
• The reality or otherwise of states with ‘formal democracy’ often reduced to little more than elections, more or less free
• The accountability and rule of law concerns, famously termed GAL concerns, which transnational governance regimes raise as indispensable features of democracy
• The persistent ‘democracy deficit’ or ‘political deficit’ of the European Union and similar Organizations
• The emergence of the global ‘data economy’ with mega platforms calling into question basic assumptions about territory and jurisdiction and calling into question the ability of democratic regimes to reign in such platforms increasingly questioned
• The impact of both financial markets and international monetary bodies on the internal margin of manoeuvre and democratic choices of economic management
• Democracy and global inequality: The relationship between counter-democratic ideologies, legal reforms and political processes at the domestic and global levels and social and economic processes such as the shrinking middle class and the lasting ramifications of the 2008 economic crisis.

The list of challenges could go on quite a bit. The international legal order itself has come under stress and the interaction, descriptively and prescriptively, of international law with the question of ‘democracy’ has become complex, even messy.

We are issuing here a Call for Papers. International lawyers from practice and academia as well as scholars from related disciplines are invited to send an abstract of 350-500 words setting out the prospective papers they would like to submit for inclusion in the symposium dealing with any theme that comes within the overarching topic of International Law and Democracy. We will accept proposals for research papers of 10-12K words as well as shorter Think Pieces of 5-7K words.

The deadline for the Abstracts is 15 January 2019. Draft papers of those abstracts selected by a committee composed of members of the Editorial Boards of EJIL will be expected by 15 June. We are considering a workshop in Madrid in early July to discuss the drafts. Final version of papers will be expected by 15 September.

Abstracts are to be sent to EJIL’s Managing Editor at anny.bremner {at} eui(.)eu by 15 January 2019.

Runavot: La démocratie appliquée au droit international : de quoi parle-t-on ?

Marie-Clotilde Runavot (Université Cergy-Pontoise - Law) has published La démocratie appliquée au droit international : de quoi parle-t-on ? (Pedone 2018). Contents include:

• Marie-Clotilde Runavot, Rapport introductif
• Pierre-Marie Raynal, Préliminaire conceptuel : à propos de la démocratie (nationale)
• Michèle André, L’Union interparlementaire, instrument de la diplomatie parlementaire
• Marie-Clotilde Runavot, L’Union interparlementaire et la parlementarisation de l’ONU
• Martin Quesnel, Les parlements internationaux et l’exercice du pouvoir normatif international
• Patrick Jacob, Démocratie et participation aux institutions internationales
• Olivier de Frouville, Vers une théorie démocratique du droit international
• Makane Moïse Mbengue, La démocratie comme outil de réforme des organisations internationales ?
• Niki Aloupi, Une rhétorique de la mondialisation ?