New Issue: Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international

The latest issue of the Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international (Vol. 19, no. 4, 2017) is out. Contents include:

• Claire Vergerio, Alberico Gentili’s De iure belli: An Absolutist’s Attempt to Reconcile the jus gentium and the Reason of State Tradition
• Jeffrey T. Tirshfield, The Socio-Historical Case for the Existence of a Nexus Requirement in the Application of Universal Jurisdiction to Maritime Piracy
• Robert Schütze, From the “Closed” to the “Open” Commercial State: A Very Brief History of International Economic Law

Ragone: The Catalan Referendum on Independence: A Constitutional Conundrum

Sabrina Ragone (Univ. of Bologna - Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on The Catalan Referendum on Independence: A Constitutional Conundrum.

Meguro: Customary International Law and Non-State Actors: Between Anthropomorphism and Artificial Unity

Maiko Meguro (Univ. of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Center for International Law) has posted Customary International Law and Non-State Actors: Between Anthropomorphism and Artificial Unity (in Non-State Actors and the Formation of Customary International Law, Iain Scobbie & Sufyan Droubi eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter seeks to shed light on the role of non-state actors in custom-making processes. It does so by repudiating the dominant understanding of opinio juris and practice within the two-element variant of the doctrine of customary law that has informed practice and scholarship since the 1920s. It shows that dominant approaches to opinio juris and practice are indifferent to the role of non-state actors by virtue of constructions that are highly questionable. Section 1 sketches the dominant understanding of two elements of customary international law. Section 2 discusses the limitations of the dominant understanding of opinio juris by showing the extent to which the anthropomorphic concept of opinio juris fails to perform the functions assigned to it. In section 3, the attention turns to practice which contains a greater variety of approaches. This section particularly emphasizes the role of domestic non-state actors in the creation of international norms that shapes State practice, and increasing role of international organizations to strengthen the grips of the domestic actors in creating international customary norms through the member states. This chapter ends with a few concluding remarks about the general implications of the approach promoted here for the doctrine of customary law as a whole.

Eslava, Fakhri, & Nesiah: Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures

Luis Eslava (Univ. of Kent - Law), Michael Fakhri (Univ. of Oregon - Law) & Vasuki Nesiah (New York Univ.) have published Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures (Cambridge Univ. Press 2017). Contents include:

• Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri, & Vasuki Nesiah, The Spirit of Bandung
• B.S. Chimni, Anti-Imperialism: Then and Now
• Rose Sydney Parfitt, Newer Is Truer: Time, Space, and Subjectivity at the Bandung Conference
• Fredrik Petersson, From Versailles to Bandung: The Interwar Origins of Anticolonialism
• Samera Esmeir, Bandung: Reflections on the Sea, the World, and Colonialism
• Mohammad Shahabuddin, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Bandung: Nineteenth-Century Japan as a Prelude
• Adil Hasan Khan, Ghostly Visitations: “Questioning Heirs” and the Tragic Tasks of Narrating Bandung Futures
• Ibrahim J. Gassama, Bandung 1955: The Deceit and the Conceit
• Vik Kanwar, Not a Place, but a Project: Bandung, TWAIL, and the Aesthetics of Thirdness
• Katharine McGregor & Vannessa Hearman, Challenging the Lifeline of Imperialism: Reassessing Afro-Asian Solidarity and Related Activism in the Decade 1955–1965
• Chen Yifeng, Bandung, China, and the Making of World Order in East Asia
• Boris N. Mamlyuk, Decolonization as a Cold War Imperative: Bandung and the Soviets
• Akbar Rasulov, Central Asia as an Object of Orientalist Narratives in the Age of Bandung
• Liliana Obregón, Latin America during the Bandung Era: Anti-Imperialist Movements vs. Anti-Communist States
• John Reynolds, Peripheral Parallels? Europe’s Edges and the World of Bandung
• Germán Medardo Sandoval Trigo, The Bandung Conference and Latin America: A Decolonial Dialogue with Oscar Correas
• Zoran Oklopcic, A Triple Struggle: Nonalignment, Yugoslavia, and National, Social, and Geopolitical Emancipation
• Umut Özsu, “Let Us First of All Have Unity among Us”: Bandung, International Law, and the Empty Politics of Solidarity
• Ratna Kapur, The Colonial Debris of Bandung: Equality and Facilitating the Rise of the Hindu Right in India
• Cyra Akila Choudhury, From Bandung 1955 to Bangladesh 1971: Postcolonial SelfDetermination and Third World Failures in South Asia
• Mai Taha, Reimagining Bandung for Women at Work in Egypt: Law and the Woman between the Factory and the “Social Factory”
• Luwam Dirar, Rethinking the Concept of Colonialism in Bandung and Its African Union Aftermath
• Sylvia Wairimu Kang’ara, China and Africa: Development, Land, and the Colonial Legacy
• Noha Aboueldahab, Bandung’s Legacy for the Arab Spring
• Rebecca LaForgia, Applying the Memory of Bandung: Lessons from Australia’s Negative Case Study
• Fabia Fernandes Carvalho Veçoso, Bandung in the Shadow: The Brazilian Experience
• Hani Sayed, The Humanization of the Third World
• Aziza Ahmed, Bandung’s Legacy: Solidarity and Contestation in Global Women’s Rights
• Karin Mickelson & Usha Natarajan, Reflections on Rhetoric and Rage: Bandung and Environmental Injustice
• Priya S. Gupta, From Statesmen to Technocrats to Financiers: Development Agents in the Third World
• Julio Faundez, Between Bandung and Doha: International Economic Law and Developing Countries
• Obiora Chinedu Okafor, The Bandung Ethic and International Human Rights Praxis: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
• Antony Anghie, Bandung and the Origins of Third World Sovereignty
• Sundhya Pahuja, Letters from Bandung: Encounters with Another International Law
• Charlotte Peevers, Altering International Law: Nasser, Bandung, and the Suez Crisis
• Nahed Samour, Palestine at Bandung: The Longwinded Start of a Reimagined International Law
• Anthony Paul Farley, “Must Have Been Love”: The Nonaligned Future of A Warm December
• Arif Havas Oegroseno, The Bandung Declaration in the Twenty-First Century: Are We There Yet?
• Hengameh Saberi, Virtue Pedagogy and International Law Teaching
• Partha Chatterjee, The Legacy of Bandung

Call for Papers: Comparative International Law (Reminder)

A reminder that the Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law has issued a call for papers for its Seventh Annual Conference, to be held April 20-21, 2018, at Case Western Reserve University. The theme is: "Comparative International Law." The call is here. The deadline is December 31, 2017.

Seibert-Fohr: The Human Rights Committee - Legacy and Promise

Anja Seibert-Fohr (Universität Heidelberg - Law; Member, Human Rights Committee) has posted The Human Rights Committee - Legacy and Promise (in International Human Rights: Human Rights Institutions, Tribunals and Courts - Legacy and Promise, Gerd Oberleitner ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The UN Human Rights Committee, which is recognized for its legal expertise in human rights law, belongs to the most prominent institutions for the oversight of international human rights. The Committee was the first universal body with a mandate to examine individual communications. Among the international treaty bodies it continues to receive the highest number of individual petitions. Through the course of its four decades of existence, the Committee has developed a considerable body of jurisprudence affecting the interpretation of human rights by domestic and international institutions, including the International Court of Justice.

The present book chapter introduces readers to the work of this quasi-judicial expert body from the perspective of a Committee member. It locates the Committee’s institutional place in the overall structure of the human rights system and describes current challenges and developments. The author offers an in-depth assessment of the Committee’s legacy and makes proposals on how the Committee can refine its procedures and methodology. In times of increasing challenges for international human rights, the Committee’s principal task is to defend the integrity of the Covenant, maintain a norm-based dialogue with the States parties and render the Covenant’s interpretation truly universal. In absence of an international human rights court, the Committee needs to preserve its legacy as a central legal player in universal human rights protection, reinforce the legitimacy of its decisions and exercise its functions in accordance with its mandate as a body composed of legally experienced and independent experts. This process also requires the involvement of other stakeholders and States parties who carry the responsibility for the Committee’s composition, independence and structural capacity. The author reminds States parties of their role as trustees of the universal protection of human rights and calls for an active complementarity approach in line with their erga omnes partes obligations. States parties are required to increase their commitments towards treaty implementation and enforcement both domestically and internationally. The author makes proposals on how to procedurally link the international and the domestic level and how States can play a more active role in the international enforcement of human rights.

New Issue: International Organization

The latest issue of International Organization (Vol. 71, no. 4, Fall 2017) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Michael G. Findley, Adam S. Harris, Helen V. Milner, & Daniel L. Nielson, Who Controls Foreign Aid? Elite versus Public Perceptions of Donor Influence in Aid-Dependent Uganda
• Erica Owen & Noel P. Johnston, Occupation and the Political Economy of Trade: Job Routineness, Offshorability, and Protectionist Sentiment
• Roseanne W. McManus & Keren Yarhi-Milo, The Logic of “Offstage” Signaling: Domestic Politics, Regime Type, and Major Power-Protégé Relations
• Sarah Blodgett Bermeo, Aid Allocation and Targeted Development in an Increasingly Connected World
• Bernhard Reinsberg, Katharina Michaelowa, & Stephen Knack, Which Donors, Which Funds? Bilateral Donors' Choice of Multilateral Funds at the World Bank
• Research Notes
• Jeffrey A. Friedman, Jennifer S. Lerner, Richard Zeckhauser, Behavioral Consequences of Probabilistic Precision: Experimental Evidence from National Security Professionals
• Diana C. Mutz, Eunji Kim, The Impact of In-group Favoritism on Trade Preferences
• Review Essay
• Christian Reus-Smit, Cultural Diversity and International Order

New Issue: Netherlands International Law Review

The latest issue of the Netherlands International Law Review (Vol. 64, no. 3, October 2017) is out. Contents include:

• J.F.R. Boddens Hosang, The Effects of Paradigm Shifts on the Rules on the Use of Force in Military Operations
• Martha M. Bradley, Expanding the Borders of Common Article 3 in Non-International Armed Conflicts: Amending Its Geographical Application Through Subsequent Practice?
• Nicole J. Siller, Human Trafficking in International Law Before the Palermo Protocol

Conference: 112th ASIL Annual Meeting

On April 4-7, 2018, the American Society of International Law will hold its 112th Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC. The theme is: "International Law in Practice." The draft program is here. As one of the meeting's co-chairs, I encourage all of ILR's readers to attend. Early bird registration is open. Here's the idea:

Practice reifies and animates international law, shaping what it means, how it is applied, and how effectively it achieves the diverse goals of those who invoke it. Practice is constitutive and contentious. It looks both backward and forward.

The 2018 Annual Meeting will focus on international law in action: how and by whom international law is made, shaped, and carried out, both formally and informally; how it is taught; how the practices of international institutions, law firms, companies, not-for-profit organizations, government offices, and militaries generate international rules; how and in what ways states and other actors interact; and how participants deploy international legal arguments. The meeting will consider how international legal practice has changed and is continuing to change in response to geopolitical shifts and contemporary challenges, including demands for greater transparency, accountability, legitimacy, and inclusion.

At its 112th Annual Meeting, the American Society of International Law invites policymakers, practitioners, academics across the disciplinary spectrum, and students to reflect on the broad manifestations, sources, and implications of international legal practice.

New Volume: German Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the German Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 59, 2016) is out. Contents include:

• Forum: Paris Climate Agreement
• Jorge E. Viñuales, The Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Less is More
• Focus: Frozen Conflicts: How Does PIL Deal with Them?
• Thomas D. Grant, Three Years After Annexation: Of ›Frozen Conflicts‹ and How to Characterise Crimea
• Milena Sterio, Self-Determination and Secession Under International Law: Nagorno-Karabakh
• Christopher J. Borgen, Moldova: Law and Complex Crises in a Systemic Borderland
• Enrico Milano, Unfreezing and Settling the Conflict over Kosovo
• Juan Soroeta, The Conflict in Western Sahara After Forty Years of Occupation: International Law versus Realpolitik
• Nikos Skoutaris, The Paradox of the Europeanisation of Intrastate Conflicts
• General Articles
• Andreas Kulick, From Problem to Opportunity?: An Analytical Framework for Vagueness and Ambiguity in International Law
• Lando Kirchmair, What Came First: The Obligation or the Belief? A Renaissance of Consensus Theory to Make the Normative Foundations of Customary International Law More Tangible
• Paul Behrens, The Crime of Genocide and the Problem of Subjective Substantiality
• Philipp Janig & Sarah Mansour Fallah, Certain Iranian Assets: The Limits of Anti-Terrorism Measures in Light of State Immunity and Standards of Treatment
• Christoph Schewe, Clearing Up? Transparency in the Dispute Settlement of International Trade Agreements
• Lilian Richieri Hanania, The Social Dimension of Sustainable Development in EU Trade Agreements: Strengthening International Labour Standards
• German Practice
• Thomas Giegerich, In Germany International Law may be Honoured in the Breach: The Federal Constitutional Court Gives the Legislature Carte Blanche to Override Treaties
• Felix Telschow, »Gliding O'er All«: Human Dignity and Constitutional Identity in the Federal Constitutional Court's Recent
• Mareike Nürnberg & David Schenk, Deployment of Soldiers for the Protection of Nationals Abroad and Inner-State Justification: The German Federal Constitutional Court's Decision on the Operation of German Military in Libya
• Berenike Schriewer, The German Federal Constitutional Court's First Reference for a Preliminary Ruling to the European Court of Justice: A 2016 Follow-Up
• Isabell Böhm, Genocide in Rwanda: The Judgment of Frankfurt's Higher Regional Court Against a Former Rwandan Mayor of 29 December 2015
• Jens Kaiser, German Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2016
• Avril Rushe & Joschka Peters-Wunnenberg, Are the Maghreb States ›Safe‹?
• Sebastian Tho Pesch, Finding a Solution Without Addressing the Problem: The 2014 Ems-Dollard Treaty
• Marcus Schladebach, The Germanwings Disaster: Legal Debates and Consequences
• Thomas Hoppe, The German Federal Court of Justice Marks a Possible Way for the CJEU's Preliminary Ruling: The Compatibility of Investment Arbitration Clauses in Intra-EU Bilateral Investment Treaties with European Union Law

Tams: A Dangerous Last Line of Defence – Or: A Roman Court Goes Lutheran

Christian J. Tams (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) has posted A Dangerous Last Line of Defence – Or: A Roman Court Goes Lutheran. Here's the abstract:

The paper comments on Decision 238/2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court, in which the Italian Constitutional Court addressed the tension between human rights and State immunity. Its focus is on the reasoning adopted by the Italian Constitutional Court, which relied on Italian 'foreign relations law' to avoid giving effect to the international legal rules on State immunity.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 35, no. 4, 2017) is out. Contents include:

• International Election Observation
• Bård A. Andreassen & Jo Martin Stigen, International Election Observation: Promoting Human Rights-based Governance
• Avery Davis-Roberts & David J Carroll, International Election Observer Recommendations and UN Human Rights Mechanisms: Toward a More Robust System of Global Accountability on Democracy and Human Rights
• Therese Pearce Laanela, Beyond the Checklist: Addressing New Challenges in Election Observation Methodology
• Kåre Vollan, International Election Observation and Standards for Systems of Representation: A Critical View
• Michael Lidauer, Armin Rabitsch & Iris O’Rourke, Mapping Legislation for Citizen and International Election Observation in Europe: A Comparative Analysis on the Basis of OSCE/ODIHR Reports
• Virginia Atkinson, Rebecca Aaberg & Staffan Darnolf, Disability Rights and Election Observation: Increasing Access to the Political Process
• Svetlana Chetaikina & Vasil Vashchanka, Gap for Improvement: Election Observation and Political Representation of Women in the OSCE Region
• Max Grömping, Domestic Election Monitoring and Advocacy: An Emerging Research Agenda

Call for Papers: The Authoritarian Pushback and the Resilience of International Institutions

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law has issued a call for papers for a panel on “The Authoritarian Pushback and the Resilience of International Institutions” at the ICON Society Annual Conference in Hong Kong. Here's the call:

Call for Papers

The Authoritarian Pushback and the Resilience
of International Institutions

Panel at ICON Society Annual Conference
25-27 June 2018, Hong Kong

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law invites the submission of proposals for a panel entitled “The Authoritarian Pushback and the Resilience of International Institutions” at the upcoming ICON Society annual conference in Hong Kong. More than a decade after the emergence of public law approaches to international institutions, such as Global Administrative Law (GAL), Global Constitutionalism, or International Public Authority (IPA), the international system has changed dramatically. The Trump presidency and the British Brexit vote are among the most visible examples of a growing trend against global governance and international decision-making as it currently stands. What had once been taken for granted in scholarship as well as in practice – the expansion of international law, the proliferation of institutional institutions, and universal standards of democracy and human rights – is now being challenged on several fronts. All around the globe we observe governments stressing their respective national interest and deciding to opt out of, or terminate, international cooperation mechanisms. The backlash against global governance is in full swing: From withdrawals from the Rome Statute, the Paris Agreement or the TPP, to the non-execution of judgments of international courts. At the same time, most international institutions continue to carry on, sometimes under increasing financial and political constraints. Lastly, new arrangements like the Belt and Road Initiative have emerged, raising questions of whether they contribute to, or rather sideline international regimes already in place.

The panel will address several research questions that emerge from this situation:

• How does the authoritarian, nationalist pushback change international institutions, including international courts, and how do these changes affect their problem-solving capacity?
• How does the authoritarian, nationalist pushback affect the legitimacy of international institutions, including international courts?
• How resilient are international institutions, including international courts, against the authoritarian, nationalist pushback, and which strategies do they adopt?

Scholars of all levels are invited to submit proposals of up to 500 words until 20 January 2018 to ipa2018@mpil.de. Successful applicants will receive financial support for their travel expenses of up to 1000,- euros.

Contact: Matthias Goldmann (goldmann@mpil.de), Silvia Steini

Call for Papers: Key Biographies in the Legal History of European Union 1950-1993

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Key Biographies in the Legal History of European Union 1950-1993," to take place June 21-22, 2018, at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, in Frankfurt. Here's the call:

Call for Papers

Key Biographies in the Legal History of European Union 1950-1993

Frankfurt/Main, 21-22 June 2018

“Legal History of the European Union” is a recently established research field at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History at Frankfurt. The MPIeR attempts to situate the history of European law in a longue durée perspective, with a strong comparative dimension and taking into account the broader political and socio-economic context.

The activities of the research group include the organization of an annual conference. Last year’s conference explored the legal history and the travaux préparatoires of the 1957 Rome Treaties. The conference proceedings are currently being prepared for publication.

The 2018 conference will scrutinize the history of European law with a distinct focus on professional biographies, both of key personalities in the history of European integration and of less prominent actors – national, transnational and European.

Panels may include, but are not necessarily restricted to the following topics:

• Negotiators of European treaties from 1950 until the present-day
• Actors involved in the constitutional practice of the European Court of Justice
• Member-state representatives dealing with the national reception of European law or counteracting the ECJ’s constitutional practice
• Scholars from the emerging academic field of “European law” or “European Studies” in the wider sense and their interpretations of European law
• Members of European movements, lobbies, media or other professional organizations involved in the process of European Union

We welcome proposals of not more than 150 words by 15th January 2018. Please email your proposal and a short CV to bajon@rg.mpg.de.

Professor Stefan Vogenauer
Dr. Philip Bajon

Workshop: International Law and Accountable, Transparent Institutions

On January 19, 2018, the Department of International Law of the University of Groningen will hold a workshop on "International Law and Accountable, Transparent Institutions." The program is here. The workshop is part of the 2017-2018 Workshop Series on "International Law for the Sustainable Development Goals."

Van Regemorter: The International Criminal Court and the Right to Interim Release

Maïté Van Regemorter has published The International Criminal Court and the Right to Interim Release (Bruylant 2018). Here's the abstract:

Does a person accused of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes before the International Criminal Court (ICC) enjoy the same human rights as a person accused of the same crimes before a national jurisdiction? In other words, to what extent does the ICC have an obligation to respect human rights of a suspect or accused person and, if so, can it do so? The purpose of this book is precisely to answer this question by focusing on the right to interim release of an accused. It seeks to draw attention to this issue and improve the practice of the ICC by presenting a clear legal argument from which key actors, such as defense lawyers, can draw from to enforce their clients’ right to freedom. To this end, it identifies the basis of the ICC’s legal obligation and defines the right to provisional release pending trial. On the basis of this definition, the compliance by the ICC with this obligation is analyzed. Like other authors who examined the question of the applicability of human rights to the ICC, the author of this book considers that the particular context in which the ICC acts must be taken into account when assessing its ability to respect human rights. However, unlike such authors, this book demonstrates that, regarding the right to interim release, this particular context is not necessarily an obstacle that defense lawyers must uncritically accept. The practice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) offers multiple examples of successful provisional releases in cases where a State agrees to offer guarantees for the reception of an accused in its territory. This book therefore argues for the obligation of the ICC to obtain such guarantees and outlines the remedies available to an accused in case of inaction by the ICC and lack of good will of its State parties, including recourse to the European Court of Human Rights.

Kireyev & Osakwe: Trade Multilateralism in the Twenty-First Century

Alexei Kireyev (International Monetary Fund) & Chiedu Osakwe (World Trade Organization) have published Trade Multilateralism in the Twenty-First Century: Building the Upper Floors of the Trading System through WTO Accessions (Cambridge Univ. Press 2017). Contents include:

• Alexei Kireyev & Chiedu Osakwe, Making trade multilateralism work for all: the role of WTO accessions
• Alexei Kireyev, The WTO and the changing state of the global economy
• Micheline Calmy-Rey & Svenja Rauch, The art and science of negotiation: de-politicizing and technicizing negotiations
• Alexei Kireyev, Chiedu Osakwe & Anna Varyanik, The accession of Kazakhstan: dealing with complexity
• Arancha González, Helping businesses navigate WTO accession
• Maša Lekić & Chiedu Osakwe, WTO rules, accession protocols and mega-regionals – complementarity and governance in the rules-based global economy
• Juneyoung Lee, Nora Neufeld & Anna Varyanik, Promoting good governance: from encouraging a principle to taking concrete action – examples from WTO accession protocols and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement
• Hubert Escaith, Chiedu Osakwe, Vicky Chemutai & Ying Yan, Transforming accessions data into knowledge
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf & Axel Addy, Accession of Liberia: an agenda for transformation
• Humayoon Rasaw, Afghanistan's accession: challenged by conflict
• Pierre Laporte, Charles Morin & Cillia Mangroo, The WTO accession of Seychelles: lessons from a small island economy
• Atsuyuki Oike, WTO accession negotiations from a negotiator's perspective
• Antony Taubman, How post-TRIPS negotiations reframe the 'trade-related aspects' of intellectual property after TRIPS: the lessons of WTO accessions
• Robert D. Anderson, Anna Caroline Müller & Nivedita Sen, Competition policy in WTO accessions: filling in the blanks in the international trading system
• Tatiana Yanguas Acosta, Geographical indications in the accessions landscape
• Diwakar Dixit, WTO accession commitments on agriculture: lessons for WTO rule-making
• Nannan Gao & Fangying Zheng, The WTO-plus obligations: dual class or a strengthened system?
• Josefita Pardo de León & Mariam Soumaré, Accession protocols and the private sector
• Maika Oshikawa, Post-accession support platform
• Alexei Kireyev & Chiedu Osakwe, Conclusion – trade multilateralism: enhancing flexibility, preserving the momentum

New Volume: Recueil des Cours

Volume 386 of the Recueil des Cours, Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law is out. Contents include:

• Volume 386
• Sean D. Murphy, International Law relating to Islands
• Giuseppe Cataldi, La mise en oeuvre des décisions des tribunaux internationaux dans l’ordre interne

Nauta: The International Responsibility of NATO and its Personnel during Military Operations

David Nauta (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has published The International Responsibility of NATO and its Personnel during Military Operations (Brill | Nijhoff 2018). Here's the abstract:

In 1999, the Alliance mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Around the same period, allegations were made regarding its involvement in human trafficking and forced prostitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A decade later, NATO airplanes hit a fuel truck causing significant civilian casualties in Kunduz, Afghanistan. After more than 60 years of existence and a track-record of more than 30 missions performed worldwide, it is surprising that there is still uncertainty on the scope and content of NATO’s responsibility for wrongful conduct during its military operations. This timely book deals with the international responsibility of NATO during military operations. It examines, the status of the Alliance, the existence of international obligations and conditions of attribution of conduct in NATO.

Palombino: Fair and Equitable Treatment and the Fabric of General Principles

Fulvio Maria Palombino (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II - Law) has published Fair and Equitable Treatment and the Fabric of General Principles (Asser Press 2018). Here's the abstract:

This book moves from the circumstance whereby currently the obligation to provide fair and equitable treatment (FET) to foreign investments is included in the majority of international investment agreements and has proved to be the most invoked standard in investor-State arbitration. Hence, it is no overstatement to describe this standard as the basic norm of international investment law. Yet both its meaning and normative basis continue to be shrouded in ambiguity and, as a consequence, to inspire a considerable number of interpretations by legal writers. The book’s precise aim is to unravel such ambiguity, arguing from the idea that FET has become part of the fabric of general international law, but has done so by means of a source somewhat neglected in legal doctrine. This being the category of general principles peculiar to a certain field of international law, i.e. those principles having their own foundations in the international legal order itself, but which, through the mediation of the judge, end up being shaped according to the features typical of a specific normative field. The book, as well as having a solid theoretical backdrop as its basis, offers a careful and critical analysis of pertinent case law, and will prove useful to both scholars and practitioners.

New Issue: Global Society

The latest issue of Global Society (Vol. 32, no. 1, 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Andrea Schneiker & Jutta Joachim, Revisiting Global Governance in Multistakeholder Initiatives: Club Governance Based on Ideational Prealignments
• Larry Crump & Christian Downie, The G20 Chair and the Case of the Global Economic Steering Committee
• Charalampos Efstathopoulos, Middle Powers and the Behavioural Model
• Evangelos Fanoulis & Vjosa Musliu, Sovereignty a-venir: Towards a Normative Understanding of Sovereignty
• Athanasios Gkoutzioulis, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: On Foucault’s Notions of Power, Subjectivity, Freedom and Their (Mis)Understanding in IR
• N.A.J. Taylor, The Problem of Nuclear Harm for Andrew Linklater, Lorraine Elliott and Other Contemporary Cosmopolitans

Natarajan, Reynolds, Bhatia, & Xavier: Third World Approaches to International Law: On Praxis and the Intellectual

Usha Natarajan (American Univ. in Cairo - Law), John Reynolds (National Univ. of Ireland, Maynooth - Law), Amar Bhatia (York Univ. - Law), & Sujith Xavier (Univ. of Windsor - LaW) have published Third World Approaches to International Law: On Praxis and the Intellectual (Routledge 2018). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This book addresses the themes of praxis and the role of international lawyers as intellectuals and political actors engaging with questions of justice for Third World peoples. The book brings together 12 contributions from a total of 15 scholars working in the TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) network or tradition. It includes chapters from some of the pioneering Third World jurists who have led this field since the time of decolonization, as well as prominent emerging scholars in the field. Broadly, the TWAIL orientation understands praxis as the relationship between what we say as scholars and what we do – as the inextricability of theory from lived experience. Understood in this way, praxis is central to TWAIL, as TWAIL scholars strive to reconcile international law’s promise of justice with the proliferation of injustice in the world it purports to govern. Reconciliation occurs in the realm of praxis and TWAIL scholars engage in a variety of struggles, including those for greater self-awareness, disciplinary upheaval, and institutional resistance and transformation. The rich diversity of contributions in the book engage these themes and questions through the various prisms of international institutional engagement, world trade and investment law, critical comparative law, Palestine solidarity and decolonization, judicial education, revolutionary struggle against imperial sovereignty, Muslim Marxism, Third World intellectual traditions, Global South constitutionalism, and migration.

deGuzman: The Global-Local Dilemma and the ICC's Legitimacy

Margaret M. deGuzman (Temple Univ. - Law) has posted The Global-Local Dilemma and the ICC's Legitimacy (in Legitimacy and International Courts, Harlan Grant Cohen et al eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

A key impediment to the ICC’s legitimacy is the tension between its dual mandates to both serve the global community, especially through world-wide crime prevention, and to assist the local communities most affected by the crimes it adjudicates, including by providing reparations. These mandates can sometimes be pursued simultaneously, but some decisions require the ICC to privilege one or the other set of objectives. For instance, effective global crime prevention may require dispersing prosecutorial resources across large geographic areas, whereas the victims in ICC situation countries may prefer a greater depth of prosecutions within a given situation. This Chapter demonstrates that the literature on the ICC’s legitimacy has largely failed to address this “global-local dilemma.” It argues that greater attention should be devoted to clarifying the ICC’s mission in order to promote the institution’s still fragile legitimacy.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 44, no. 1, January 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Rebecca Sanders, Human rights abuses at the limits of the law: Legal instabilities and vulnerabilities in the ‘Global War on Terror’
• Marieke de Goede, The chain of security
• Rita Floyd, Parallels with the hate speech debate: the pros and cons of criminalising harmful securitising requests
• Klejda Mulaj, Violence of war, ontopology, and the instrumental and performative constitution of the political community
• Kimberly Hutchings, War and moral stupidity
• Kurt Mills & Alan Bloomfield, African resistance to the International Criminal Court: Halting the advance of the anti-impunity norm
• Paul K. MacDonald, Embedded authority: a relational network approach to hierarchy in world politics
• Matthew Castle, Embedding regional actors in social and historical context: Australia-New Zealand integration and Asian-Pacific regionalism
• Mathew Davies, Regional organisations and enduring defective democratic members

Chehtman: A Theory of International Crimes: Conceptual and Normative Issues

Alejandro Chehtman (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella - Law) has posted A Theory of International Crimes: Conceptual and Normative Issues (in The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The quest for a unified theory of international criminalization is an important part of a compelling general theory of international criminal law. Any such account would need to have a conceptual and a normative dimension. This chapter addresses these two issues in turn. At a conceptual level, it argues that international crimes are criminal prohibitions provided under international law which are global in scope. This entails, first, that perpetrators of these crimes can be brought to justice by any national authority as well as by international and regional tribunals with no traditional connection to the crime, the perpetrators or the victims. Second, that they can be brought to justice on the basis of international law alone, irrespective of the specific legislation of any national authority allowing or even mandating such conduct. I thereby reject recent accounts, notably advocated by Roger O’Keefe and Kevin Heller, which seek to define international crimes merely by reference to the relevant legal source of the prohibition. I argue that in order to explain what an international crime is, we need to take centrally into consideration also the function that this concept serves as a matter of legal practice. At a normative level, I argue that international crimes are simply those which cannot be in force on the basis of a domestic prohibition alone, essentially because they are perpetrated, instigated or allowed by the territorial state, or because this state cannot do anything about them. As a result, individuals in different parts of the world have a fundamental interest in those who perpetrate this type of conduct being called to account by at least some domestic or international court, in order for these prohibitions to be considered in force. The chapter concludes by rejecting two recent proposals to radically expand the scope of international criminalization, either over any serious human rights violation, or over acts which do not show a significant level moral gravity or atrocity. By contrast, it offers a reinterpretation of the scope of international criminalization by putting into question the requirement that international crimes be perpetrated by groups with a significant level of organization, as currently provided for by the laws on crimes against humanity and war crimes.