Kolben: Labor Rights as Human Rights?

Kevin Kolben (Rutgers Univ. - Business) has posted Labor Rights as Human Rights? (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

A large and growing number of labor law and industrial relations scholars have argued that labor rights ought to be understood and conceptualized as fundamental human rights. In a parallel movement, a growing number of labor rights organizations have begun to deploy human rights discourse and methods, while some international human rights scholars and organizations have also, although to a lesser degree, begun to direct some of their attention to questions of labor rights – an issue long left to unions and labor law scholars.

Few scholars have challenged this move to human rights discourse, however. In this essay I argue that there are important and salient differences between labor rights and human rights, not only in how these rights operate conceptually, but also and perhaps equally importantly, in how these rights are actualized by their respective movements. I argue that the strategies, politics, culture, and ideologies that inform human rights and much of the U.S. human rights establishment are quite at odds with those of labor rights movements, and a hard human rights turn by labor rights advocates risks eviscerating the fundamental commitments to economic justice and worker democracy in which the labor rights movement is grounded.

Humbert: The Challenge of Child Labour in International Law

Franziska Humbert (WTO Appellate Body) has published The Challenge of Child Labour in International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

Child labour remains a widespread problem around the world. Over 200 million children can be regarded as child labourers, and about 10 million children are involved in producing either agricultural or manufactured products for export. Franziska Humbert explores the status of child labour in international law. Offering a wide-ranging analysis of the problem, she explores the various UN and ILO instruments and reveals the weaknesses of the current frameworks installed by these bodies to protect children from economic exploitation. After assessing to what extent trade measures such as conditionalities, labelling and trade restrictions and promotional activities can reduce child labour, she suggests an alternative legal framework which takes into account the needs of children.

New Issue: Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme

The latest issue of the Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme (No. 78, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Barbara Wilson, Quelques réflexions sur l’adoption du Protocole facultatif se rapportant au Pacte international relatif aux droits économiques, sociaux et culturels des Nations Unies
• Emanuelle Bribosia, Julie Ringelheim, & Isabelle Rorive, Aménager la diversité : le droit de l’égalité face à la pluralité religieuse
• Joseph Yacoub, Les droits de l'homme, une œuvre collective de l’humanité
• Pascal Mbongo, Démocratie des identités et police des discours
• Véronique Huet, Le travail des enfants dans le monde : bilan et perspectives
• Abdoulaye Soma, Modélisation d’un système de justice constitutionnelle pour une meilleure protection des droits de l’homme : trans-constitutionnalisme et droit constitutionnel comparé
• Vanessa Barbé & François-Xavier Millet, Contribution à l’étude de l’effectivité de la constitutionnalisation en droit de l’environnement
• Patrick Wachsmann, Vers un affaiblissement de la protection de la liberté d'expression par la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme
• Jean-Pierre Marguénaud, L'affaire Burden ou l'humiliation de la fratrie
• Nicolas Bernard, Pas d'expulsion de logement sans contrôle juridictionnel - le droit au logement et la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme
• Gérard Gonzalez, Haro sur les "sectes" mais ... pas trop !
• Claire Malwé, La protection du droit de propriété par la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l'homme

New Issue: Internationales Handesrecht

The latest issue of Internationales Handelsrecht (2009, no. 4) is out. Contents include:

• Karl-Heinz Thume, Grenzüberschreitende Vertriebsverträge
• Sven Schilf, Verpasste Abkehr vom Vollmachtsformerfordernis

Boucher: The Limits of Ethics in International Relations: Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Human Rights in Transition

David Boucher (Cardiff Univ. - Political Philosophy and International Relations) has published The Limits of Ethics in International Relations: Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Human Rights in Transition (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

Ethical constraints on relations among individuals within and between societies have always reflected or invoked a higher authority than the caprices of human will. For over two thousand years Natural Law and Natural Rights were the constellations of ideas and presuppositions that fulfilled this role in the west, and exhibited far greater similarities than most commentators want to admit. Such ideas were the lens through which Europeans evaluated the rest of the world. In his major new book David Boucher rejects the view that Natural Rights constituted a secularisation of Natural Law ideas by showing that most of the significant thinkers in the field, in their various ways, believed that reason leads you to the discovery of your obligations, while God provides the ground for discharging them. Furthermore, the book maintains that Natural Rights and Human Rights are far less closely related than is often asserted because Natural Rights never cast adrift the religious foundationalism, whereas Human Rights, for the most part, have jettisoned the Christian metaphysics upon which both Natural Law and Natural Rights depended. Human Rights theories, on the whole, present us with foundationless universal constraints on the actions of individuals, both domestically and internationally. Finally, one of the principal contentions of the book is that these purportedly universal rights and duties almost invariably turn out to be conditional, and upon close scrutiny end up being 'special' rights and privileges as the examples of multicultural encounters, slavery and racism, and women's rights demonstrate.

Boon: The Future of the Law of Occupation

Kristen E. Boon (Seton Hall Univ. - Law) has posted The Future of the Law of Occupation (Canadian Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The law of occupation has become the subject of great contemporary interest because of two prominent, although sui generis situations: The long term Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, and the “transformative” occupation of Iraq. In both situations, the occupying powers resisted the label of belligerent occupier, and selectively applied the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to the territories in question. In Iraq, a further level of complexity arose when the Security Council used its Chapter VII powers to finesse certain aspects of the law of occupation to address circumstances particular to that intervention, prompting a volley of inquiries into the future role of the Security Council in updating, amending, and administering the law of occupation. The unique circumstances of these occupations have sparked vigorous debate over the future of the law of occupation. To wit: Is the widely accepted but largely unenforced law of occupation capable of regulating transitions between armed conflict and peace in the Twenty First Century. Although judicial decisions interpreting the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention are rare, some recent cases have advanced doctrinal issues behind the scenes of this larger debate about the relevance of occupation law. This essay examines recent developments in the notoriously open-textured law of occupation that have arisen as the law of occupation has been variously ignored, invoked, challenged, examined, and ultimately reformed through practice. In particular, I discuss the triggers for beginning and ending an occupation, including recent jurisprudence on the “effective control” test. I examine who can be an occupier, the question of “multiple occupiers” under unified command, and the obligations of occupiers in the areas of legislation and institutional reform. I also consider the challenges of UN involvement in transitional situations, including the applicability of the law of occupation to UN forces, and the role of the Security Council in adapting the law of occupation. I conclude with a discussion of the principle of “conservationism”, and the relationship between the law of occupation and jus post bellum, in order to provide an assessment of possible "futures" of the law of occupation.

McMahan: Killing in War

Jeff McMahan (Rutgers Univ. - Philosophy) has published Killing in War (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

Killing a person is in general among the most seriously wrongful forms of action, yet most of us accept that it can be permissible to kill people on a large scale in war. Does morality become more permissive in a state of war? Jeff McMahan argues that conditions in war make no difference to what morality permits and that the justifications for killing people are the same in war as they are in other contexts, such as individual self-defence. This view is radically at odds with the traditional theory of the just war and has implications that challenge common sense views. McMahan argues, for example, that in most cases it is morally wrong to fight in a war that is unjust.

Workshop: Guzman

Andrew Guzman (Univ. of California, Berkeley - Law) will give a talk today at the New York University School of Law Hauser Globalization Colloquium on Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Law on “Climate Change and U.S. Interests.” Professors Richard Stewart and Ryan Goodman (both New York Univ. - Law) will be the discussants.

Woods & Martinez-Diaz: Networks of Influence?: Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order

Ngaire Woods (Univ. of Oxford - Politics and International Relations) & Leonardo Martinez-Diaz (Brookings Institution) have published Networks of Influence?: Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

Networks are thriving in global politics. Some bring policy-makers from different countries together to share problems and to forge possible solutions, free from rules of representation, decision-making, and transparency which constrain more formal international organizations. This book asks whether developing countries can benefit from such networks? Or are they safer to conduct their international relations in formal institutions? The answer varies. The key lies in how the network is structured and what it sets out to achieve. This book presents a fascinating account of how some networks have strengthened the position of developing country officials, both at home, and in their international negotiations. Equally, it points to conditions which make it perilous for developing countries to rely on networks.

Bosco: Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World

David L. Bosco (American Univ. - School of International Service) has published Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

From the Berlin Airlift to the Iraq War, the UN Security Council has stood at the heart of global politics. Part public theater, part smoke-filled backroom, the Council has enjoyed notable successes and suffered ignominious failures, but it has always provided a space for the five great powers to sit down together. Five to Rule Them All tells the inside story of this remarkable diplomatic creation. Drawing on extensive research, including dozens of interviews with serving and former ambassadors on the Council, the book chronicles political battles and personality clashes as it opens the closed doors of its meeting room. What emerges here is a revealing portrait of the most powerful diplomatic body in the world. When the five permanent members are united, David Bosco points out, the Council can wage war, impose blockades, redraw borders, unseat governments, and levy sanctions. There are almost no limits to its authority. Yet the Council exists in a world of realpolitik . Its members are, above all, powerful states with their own diverging interests. Time and again, the Council's performance has dashed the hope that its members would somehow work together to establish a more peaceful world. But if these lofty hopes have been unfulfilled, the Council has still served an invaluable purpose: to prevent conflict between the Great Powers. In this role, the Council has been an unheralded success. As Bosco reminds us, massacres in the Balkans and chaos in Iraq are human tragedies, but conflicts between the world's great powers in the nuclear age would be catastrophic. In this lively, fast-moving, and often humorous narrative, Bosco illuminates the role of the Security Council in the postwar world, making a compelling case for the enduring importance of the five who rule them all.

Hurwitz: The Collective Responsibility of States to Protect Refugees

Agnès Hurwitz (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) has published The Collective Responsibility of States to Protect Refugees (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

In managing the growing number of refugees arriving in the industrialised world, beginning at the end of the 1970s, States have devised increasingly restrictive policies. The objectives of these measures have been to restrict access to the territory or, at least, to asylum procedures. Thus, while international co-operation in the refugee field traditionally focused on protection and assistance, the last two decades have been characterised by the emergence of transnational policies aimed at containing refugee flows, primarily on the European continent. The convoluted refugee routes - often described as 'secondary' or 'irregular' movements of refugees between countries of origin and their final destination - have been among States' major preoccupations. To combat what they often perceive to be proof of the fraudulent or manifestly unfounded nature of asylum claims, European States have passed legislation or agreed on international instruments designed to allocate and even evade responsibility for the examination of asylum applications. Even bolder solutions have been advocated more recently, such as the outsourcing of asylum procedures through regional or offshore schemes.

This book presents a critical legal analysis of the mechanisms and arrangements devised by States to tackle secondary movements of refugees, and offers innovative solutions to the protection crisis afflicting the global refugee regime. After providing a comprehensive breakdown of the various legal tools used by States to combat secondary refugee movements, the book argues that, while the legality of these various arrangements is seriously in doubt, the most appropriate way to address these protection failures is to strengthen and develop adequate international accountability mechanisms.

Manger: Investing in Protection: The Politics of Preferential Trade Agreements between North and South

Mark S. Manger (London School of Economics and Political Science - International Relations) has published Investing in Protection: The Politics of Preferential Trade Agreements between North and South (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

Since the early 1990s the world has seen an explosion of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) between North and South. Mark Manger argues that current North-South PTAs are not primarily about liberalizing exports as is usually assumed. Rather, they are driven by the needs of foreign direct investment. The interests of multinational firms in investing in developing countries converge with the desires of the host countries to attract foreign capital. Yet to be politically feasible in the developed country, North-South PTAs must discriminate against third countries. PTAs thus create a competitive dynamic between countries, as excluded firms lobby their governments to restore access to important investment locations, leading to yet more preferential agreements. Based on extensive research in Europe, Japan, and the Americas and interviews with decision-makers in governments and the private sector, this book offers a new perspective on the roles of the state and corporations in international trade.

New Issue: Transnational Dispute Management

The latest issue of Transnational Dispute Management (Vol. 6, no. 2, August 2009) is out. This is a special issue on "The Protection of Intellectual Property Rights through International Investment Agreements." (We posted the call for papers here.) Contents include:

• J. Hosking & M. Perkams, Introduction to TDM Special: The Protection of Intellectual Property Rights through International Investment Agreements
• J. Hosking & M. Perkams, The Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Through International Investment Agreements: Only a Romance or True Love?
• R.A. Lavery, Coverage of Intellectual Property Rights in International Investment Agreements: An Empirical Analysis of Definitions in a Sample of Bilateral Investment Treaties and Free Trade Agreements
• J.D. Mortenson, Intellectual Property as Transnational Investment: Some Preliminary Observations
• A.M. Anderson & B. Razavi, International Standards for Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Post-TRIPS: The Search for Consistency
• L. Liberti, Intellectual Property Rights in International Investment Agreements: An Overview
• J. Mendenhall, Fair Treatment of Intellectual Property Rights Under Bilateral Investment Treaties
• M.L. Seelig, Can Patent Revocation or Invalidation Constitute a Form of Expropriation?
• C.S. Gibson, A Look at the Compulsory License in Investment Arbitration: The Case of Indirect Expropriation
• R. Castro Bernieri, Compulsory Licensing and Public Health: TRIPS-Plus Standards in Investment Agreements
• V.S. Vadi, Mapping Uncharted Waters: Intellectual Property Disputes With Public Health Elements in Investor-State Arbitration
• C.M. Correa, Intellectual Property Rights as an Investment: Options for Developing Countries
• R.J. Szczepanik & B.A. White, Remedies Available Under Bilateral Investment Treaties for Breach of Intellectual Property Rights

New Issue: International Criminal Justice Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Justice Review (Vol. 19, no. 3, September 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Sener Uludag, Mark Colvin, David Hussey, & Abbey L. Eng, Democracy, Inequality, Modernization, Routine Activities, and International Variations in Personal Crime Victimization
• Antenor Hallo de Wolf & Donald H. Wallace, The Overseas Exchange of Human Rights Jurisprudence: The U.S. Supreme Court in the European Court of Human Rights
• Harry M. Rhea, An International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq After the First Gulf War: What Should Have Been
• Besiki Kutateladze & Angela M. Crossman, An Exploratory Analysis of Gender Differences in Punitiveness in Two Countries

Romano: The Sword and the Scales: The United States and International Courts and Tribunals

Cesare P.R. Romano (Loyola Law School Los Angeles) has published The Sword and the Scales: The United States and International Courts and Tribunals (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Contents include:

• John B. Bellinger, III, International courts and tribunals and the rule of law
• Steven Kull & Clay Ramsay, American public opinion on international courts and tribunals
• Mary Ellen O'Connell, Arbitration and avoidance of war: the nineteenth century American vision
• Sean D. Murphy, The United States and the International Court of Justice: coping with antinomies
• Melissa A. Waters, The U.S. Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice: what does 'respectful consideration' mean?
• John P. Cerone, U.S. attitudes toward international criminal courts and tribunals
• Elizabeth A.H. Abi-Mershed, The United States and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
• Tara J. Melish, From paradox to subsidiarity: the United States and human rights treaty bodies
• John R. Crook, The U.S. and international claims and compensation bodies
• Jeffrey L. Dunoff, Does the U.S. support international tribunals? The case of the multilateral trade system
• David A. Gantz, The United States and dispute settlement under the North American Free Trade Agreement: ambivalence, frustration and occasional defiance
• Susan L. Karamanian, Dispute settlement under NAFTA Chapter 11: a response to the critics in the United States
• Cesare P.R. Romano, The United States and international courts: getting the cost-benefit analysis right

Jaeger: Henry Dunant: L'homme qui inventa le droit humanitaire

Gérard A. Jaeger has published Henry Dunant: L'homme qui inventa le droit humanitaire (L'Archipel 2009). Here's the abstract:

Au matin du 24 juin 1859, la France et l'Autriche s'affrontent en un combat sanglant aux portes de Solferino. Témoin de la bataille et des souffrances qui lui font cortège, un commerçant genevois, Henry Dunant, est frappé de voir des milliers de soldats mourants, livrés à leur sort, de part et d'autre du front.

Hanté par cette vision d'horreur, Dunant n'a de cesse de faire accepter par les chancelleries son idée d'aide humanitaire, neutre et bénévole en temps de guerre. Et cette oeuvre novatrice, pour laquelle il réclame « un haut degré de dévouement », va progressivement s'immiscer dans les consciences et s'étendre à tous les États du monde, après la signature de la Convention de Genève en 1864. Aussi, en 1901, pour le premier Prix Nobel de la paix, le nom de Henry Dunant (1828-1910) est-il sur toutes les lèvres . . . même si le fondateur de la Croix-Rouge ne fait pas l'unanimité parmi les pacifistes.

De cet homme qui sut convaincre les chefs d'État, mais connut l'échec en tant qu'entrepreneur colonial, Gérard A. Jaeger trace un portrait fouillé. Au-delà de la biographie, ce livre offre une réflexion sur la naissance du pacifisme et les difficultés de l'engagement humanitaire.

Brown Weiss to Deliver the CICL Annual Lecture at Baltimore Law

Edith Brown Weiss (Georgetown Univ. - Law) will deliver the 2009 Center for International and Comparative Law Annual Lecture at the University of Baltimore School of Law, October 20, 2009. Her topic will be "International Law in a Kaleidoscopic World."

Mrozinski: Why Do States Support International Criminal Courts and Tribunals? A Neoclassical Realist Approach

Stefan Mrozinski has posted Why Do States Support International Criminal Courts and Tribunals? A Neoclassical Realist Approach. Here's the abstract:

Taking British policy towards the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia between October 1992 and June 1999 as its case study, this paper provides a neoclassical realist explanation of State behaviour towards international criminal courts and tribunals.

WTO Arbitrator's Decision: United States - Subsidies on Upland Cotton

Today, an Article 22.6 Arbitrator issued its decisions in United States - Subsidies on Upland Cotton (DS267). Brazil brought the original complaint. The decisions can be found here and here (with a corrigendum here). A summary of the case can be found here.

Georgetown Foreign Relations Law Colloquium

Here's the schedule for this fall's Georgetown University Law Center Foreign Relations Law Colloquium:

• September 14 - Ingrid Wuerth (Vanderbilt Univ. - Law), "The Captures Clause"
• September 21 - Duncan Hollis (Temple Univ. - Law), "Unpacking the Compact Clause"
• September 28 - David Cole (Georgetown Univ. - Law), "Out of the Shadows: Preventive Detention, Suspected Terrorists, and War"
• October 5 - Jack Beard (Univ. of California, Los Angeles - Law), "Law and War in the Virtual Era"
• October 13 - David Golove (New York Univ. - Law), "On an Equal Footing: Constitution-Making and the Law of Nations in the Early American Republic"
• October 19 - Eugene Kontorovich (Northwestern Univ. - Law), "The Constitutionality of International Courts: The Forgotten Precedent of Slave Trade Tribunals"
• October 26 - Thomas Lee (Fordham Univ. - Law), "Originalism and the Foreign Affairs Constitution"
• November 2 - John Parry (Lewis & Clark Law School), "International Extradition, the Rule of Non-Inquiry, and the Problem of Sovereignty"
• November 9 - David Glazier (Loyola Law School Los Angeles), "Playing by the Rules: Combating Al Qaeda within the Law of War"
• November 16 - Robert Chesney (Univ. of Texas - Law), "National Security Fact Deference"
• November 23 - Deborah Pearlstein (Princeton Univ. - Woodrow Wilson School), "After Deference: Formal Judicial Power in Foreign Relations Law"
• November 30 - Stephen Vladeck (American Univ. - Law), "The Laws of War as a Constitutional Limit on Military Jurisdiction"

New Issue: Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme

The latest issue of the Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme (No. 77, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Jean-Paul Costa, Les aspects nationaux de la réforme du système de protection des droits de l'homme: les attentes de la Cour européenne des droits de l 'homme
• Philippe Boillat, Vers une mise en oeuvre renforcée de la Convention européenne des droits de l'homme au niveau national
• Jean-François Flauss, L'effectivité des arrêts de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme: du politique au juridique ou vice-versa
• Benoit Frydman & Ludovic Hennebel, Le contentieux transnational des droits de l'homme: une analyse stratégique
• Christel Hoyami, Dix-sept ans après l'arrêt Borgers, chronique d'une jurisprudence et de ses suites procédurales
• Gauthier de Beco, La contribution des institutions nationales des droits de l'homme au renforcement de l'efficacité de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme
• Jean-Manuel Larralde, La France, Etat proxénète?

New Issue: Revue de droit international de sciences diplomatiques et politiques

The latest issue of the Revue de droit international, de sciences diplomatiques et politiques (Vol. 87, no. 1, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• André Oraison, Nouvelles réflexions sur la conception française du droit des peu ples à disposer d'eux-mêmes à la lumière du 'cas mahora is'

New Issue: ASA Bulletin

The latest issue of the ASA Bulletin (Vol. 27, no. 3, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Antonias Dimolitsa, The Equivocal Power of the Arbitrators to Introduce Ex Officio New Issues of Law
• Thomas H. Webster, Functus Officio and Remand in International Arbitration
• Jean A. Mirimanoff, Feasibility of Mediation Systems in Switzerland

New Issue: Revue de l'Arbitrage

The latest issue of the Revue de l'Arbitrage (2009, no. 2) is out. Contents include:

• Fatou Kiné Camara, Arbitrage et médiation dans les cultures juridiques négro-africaines: entre la prédisposition à dénouer et la mission de trancher
• Eric Loquin, A propos de l'ouvrage d'Emmanuel Gaillard: Aspects philosophiques du droit de l'arbitrage international

New Issue: Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé

The latest issue of the Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé (Vol. 86, no. 2, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• O.Z. Toure, La mise en oeuvre des sanctions au sein de l'Organisation mondiale du commerce
• S. Nardelli, Anti-dumping et globalisation: "redéfinir L'intérêt communautaire ?"
• A. Ouattara, De nouvelles perspectives pour le droit ivoirien en matière de rupture du lien conjugal ? Réflexions hypothétiques sur les incidences du jugement français du Tribunal de Lille du 1er avril 2008
• P. Chenivesse, L'évolution des droits des femmes en Tunisie. Un regard extérieur sur le chemin parcouru