New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 20, no. 6, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Solving the WTO Dispute Settlement System Crisis
• Giorgio Sacerdoti, Solving the WTO Dispute Settlement System Crisis: An Introduction
• Yuka Fukunaga, The Appellate Body’s Power to Interpret the WTO Agreements and WTO Members’ Power to Disagree with the Appellate Body
• Joshua Paine, The WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body as a Voice Mechanism
• Geraldo Vidigal, Living Without the Appellate Body: Multilateral, Bilateral and Plurilateral Solutions to the WTO Dispute Settlement Crisis
• Chen Yu, Currency Manipulation and WTO Laws: Should the Anti-Dumping Mechanism Be Entirely Dumped?
• Karl P. Sauvant & Howard Mann, Making FDI More Sustainable: Towards an Indicative List of FDI Sustainability Characteristics

New Volume: Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs

The latest volume of the Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs (Vol. 36, 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Roda Mushkat, Economics and International Law: Closer Alignment through Greater Analytical Diversity?
• Christopher Chen & Wai Yee Wan, Transnational Corporate Governance Codes: Lessons from Regulating Related Party Transactions in Hong Kong and Singapore
• Margaret K. Lewis, Creative Contacts: Taiwan’s Quest for International Law Enforcement Cooperation
• Julian G. Ku, The Taiwan Travel Act is Legally Binding
• Siao-Wun Chiu, Taiwan’s Antitrust Leniency Policy and the Framework to Build an Effective Antitrust Compliance Program
• Weixia Gu, Belt and Road Dispute Resolution: New Development Trends
• Huiqin Jiang, Demystifying China’s International Commercial Court Regime: International or Intra-National?

New Issue: International Journal of Refugee Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (Vol. 31, nos. 2/3, June/October 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The OAU and Kampala Conventions
• David James Cantor & Farai Chikwanha, Reconsidering African Refugee Law
• Marina Sharpe, The Supervision (or Not) of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention
• Tamara Wood, Who Is a Refugee in Africa? A Principled Framework for Interpreting and Applying Africa’s Expanded Refugee Definition
• Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi, Mauritian Courts and the Protection of the Rights of Asylum Seekers in the Absence of Dedicated Legislation
• Isaac Lenaola, The Role of African Courts in Promoting Refugee Rights
• J O Moses Okello, In Lieu of a Travaux Préparatoires: A Commentary on the Kampala Convention for IDPs
• Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme Statement by Volker Türk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, UNHCR
• Volker Türk & Madeline Garlick, Addressing Displacement in the Context of Disasters and the Adverse Effects of Climate Change: Elements and Opportunities in the Global Compact on Refugees

New Volume: Revue de droit international d'Assas

The latest volume of the Revue de droit international d'Assas (Vol. 2, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Le dossier thematique: Le traitement des données personnelles et le droit international, questions ponctuelles et actuelles
• Basile Darmois & Eloïse Glucksmann, avec la participation de Timothée Andro, Caroline Chaux & Mira Hamad, Introduction
• Mathilde Gérot, Le renforcement des droits des personnes sur leurs données à caractère personnel – Aspects de droit interne
• Martina Mantovani, Le RGPD en tant qu’espace juridique multi-échelle : quelles implications pour le droit international privé ?
• Emilie Brunet, Les mécanismes de coopération des autorités de contrôle au sein de l’Union européenne et le Comité européen de la protection des données
• Jennifer Merchant, Is our personal genetic data really protected? A panorama UnitedStates/Europe/France
• Mathilde Gerot, Le renforcement des droits des personnels sur leurs données à caractère personnel, aspects de droit interne
• Martina Mantovani, Le RGPD en tant qu’espace juridique multi-échelle : quelles implications pour le droit international privé
• Philippe Bou Nader, Surveillance of a combatant and his/her right to privacy under the European Convention for Human Rights
• Emilie Brunet, Les mécanismes de coopération des autorités de contrôle au sein de l’Union européenne et le Comité européen de la protection des données
• Céline Castets-Renard, L’intelligence artificielle, les droits fondamentaux et la protection des données personnelles dans l’Union européenne et les Etats-Unis
• Carlotta Gradin, L’effacement des données en ligne : une parenté entre le droit au déréférencement et les mécanismes de défense contre les cyberviolences
• Basile Darmois, Les impensées de la politique juridique de lutte contre les fausses nouvelles : de la règlementation des publications en ligne à celle de l’édition
• Bruno Deffains, Données judiciaires et intelligence artificielle : le temps des ruptures
• Thomas Perroud, Publicité de la justice : une leçon venue d’outre-Manche
• La recherche a l’ecole doctorale
• Samuel Fulli-Lemaire, Le droit international privé de la famille à l’épreuve de l’impératif de reconnaissance des situations
• Amina Lebdioui, Attribution de contrats pétroliers : Les pays africains à l’épreuve de la transparence
• Karim El Chazli, L’impartialité de l’arbitre
• Michel Tabbal, Les sessions extraordinaires du Conseil des droits de l’homme des Nations Unies
• Rebecca Legendre, Droits fondamentaux et droit international privé - Réflexion en matière personnelle et familiale
• Claudia Cavicchioli, Le forum shopping dans le contentieux international
• Libres propos
• Thibault Douville, Blockchains et droit international privé : état sommaire des questions
• Kévin Bihannic, La mise en œuvre du Protocole n°16 CEDH - Le dialogue des juges tient-il ses promesses ?
• Konstantinos A. Rokas, The Mennesson case: the end of 19 years of legal battles and the remaining questions on foreign surrogacy
• Sophie Duparc, Le maniement de l’interprétation autonome par la CJUE : l’exemple de l’arrêt Feniks
• Konstantinos A. Rokas, Molla Sali : l’apport de la CEDH à la problématique des relations entre religion, droit en droit interne et en droit international privé

New Issue: Journal of Conflict & Security Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict & Security Law (Vol. 24, no. 3, Winter 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Natalino Ronzitti, Rescuing Nationals Abroad Revisited
• Jonathan Black-Branch, International Obligations Concerning Disarmament and the Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race: Justiciability over Justice in the Marshall Islands Cases at the International Court of Justice
• Madelaine Chiam & Anna Hood, Nuclear Humanitarianism
• Luca Ferro, Western Gunrunners, (Middle-)Eastern Casualties: Unlawfully Trading Arms with States Engulfed in Yemeni Civil War?
• Hanne Cuyckens & Christophe Paulussen, The Prosecution of Foreign Fighters in Western Europe: The Difficult Relationship Between Counter-Terrorism and International Humanitarian Law
• Talita de Souza Dias, The Activation of the Crime of Aggression before the International Criminal Court: Some Overlooked Implications Arising for States Parties and Non-States Parties to the Rome Statute
• Barry de Vries, Could International Fact-Finding Missions Possibly Render a Case Inadmissible for the ICC? Remarks on the Ongoing Attempts to Include International Criminal Law in Fact-finding
• Trevor Michael Rajah, Grant Dawson, & Lydia Aylett, The Chemical Weapons Convention and the Contribution of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to Sustainable Development

Craven, Pahuja, & Simpson: International Law and the Cold War

Matthew Craven (School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. of London - Law), Sundhya Pahuja (Univ. of Melbourne - Law), & Gerry Simpson (London School of Economics and Political Science - Law) have published International Law and the Cold War (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

International Law and the Cold War is the first book dedicated to examining the relationship between the Cold War and International Law. The authors adopt a variety of creative approaches - in relation to events and fields such as nuclear war, environmental protection, the Suez crisis and the Lumumba assassination - in order to demonstrate the many ways in which international law acted upon the Cold War and in turn show how contemporary international law is an inheritance of the Cold War. Their innovative research traces the connections between the Cold War and contemporary legal constructions of the nation-state, the environment, the third world, and the refugee; and between law, technology, science, history, literature, art, and politics.

New Issue: Trade, Law and Development

The latest issue of Trade, Law and Development (Vol. 11, no. 2, Winter 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Ipsiata Gupta & Radhika Parthasarathy, Looking To The Future – Development In A Changing World
• Yonov F. Agah, Trade & Development In The WTO
• V. S. Seshadri, Treatment Of Trade Rules In Korea’s FTAs
• Rafael Leal-Arcas, Danai Papadea, & Rosie Richardson, Aiming At Sustainable Trade In The Context Of The Rule Of Law: What Role For Citizens And How International Trade Can Help Reduce Fossil-Fuel Consumption
• Joshua P. Meltzer, The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement: Developing Trade Policy For Digital Trade
• Jesse Liss, China’s Investment Treaties With Latin America And Implications For South-South Cooperation: Evidence From Firm-Level Data
• Alisher Umirdinov & Valijon Turakulov, The Last Bastion Of Protectionism In Central Asia: Uzbekistan’s Auto Industry In Post-WTO Accession
• Alec Dawson, Safeguarding The Planet? Renewable Energy, Solar Panel Tariffs, And The World Trade Organization’s Rules On Safeguards
• Michael Goodyear, Helping David Fight Goliath: Preserving The WTO In The Trump Era

Oman: The Responsibility to Protect in International Law: Philosophical Investigations

Natalie Oman (Univ. of Ontario Institute of Technology) has published The Responsibility to Protect in International Law: Philosophical Investigations (Routledge 2020). Here's the abstract:

This book tracks the development of the emerging international legal principle of a responsibility to protect over the past two decades. It contrasts the influential version of the principle introduced by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001 with subsequent interpretations of the responsibility to protect advocated by the United Nations through its human protection agenda, and reviews the dangers and inconsistencies inherent in both perspectives. The author demonstrates that the evolving responsibility to protect principle can be recruited to support a wide range of irreconcilable projects, from those of cosmopolitan constitutionalism to those of hegemonic international law. However, despite the dangers posed by this susceptibility to conceptual hijacking, Oman argues that the responsibility to protect, like human rights, is an essential a modern emancipatory formation. To remedy this dangerous malleability, the author advocates a third, distinctive interpretation of the responsibility to protect designed to limit its cooptation by liberal anti-pluralist and hegemonic international law agendas. Oman outlines the key features of such a minimalist conception, and explores its fit with the "RtoP" version of the responsibility to protect promoted in recent years by the UN. The author argues that two crucial features missing from the UN reading of the principle should be developed in future: an acknowledgement of the role of non-state actors as bearers of the responsibility to protect, and a recognition of the principle's legal character. Both of these aspects of the principle offer means to democratize the international law-making enterprise.

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 24, no. 1, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Activist Scholarship in Human Rights
• Corinne Lennox, Introduction to the special issue on activist scholarship in human rights
• Corinne Lennox & Yeşim Yaprak Yıldız, Activist scholarship in human rights
• Aziz Choudry, Reflections on academia, activism, and the politics of knowledge and learning
• Ornette D. Clennon, Scholar activism as a nexus between research, community activism and civil rights via the use of participatory arts
• Senthorun Raj, Once more with feeling: queer activist legal scholarship and jurisprudence

Caserta: International Courts in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Study of Foundations and Authority

Salvatore Caserta (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts) has posted International Courts in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Study of Foundations and Authority. Here's the abstract:

This chapter sets out the theoretical and methodological aspects of studying the foundations and processes of gaining authority of the Latin American and Caribbean economic courts. In terms of theory, the chapter relies on the concept of de facto authority, according to which International Courts (ICs) become authoritative and powerful when their rulings are endorsed by relevant audiences in their practices. To complement this approach, the chapter proposes five original analytical markers, which are central for analysing and explaining the social processes through which ICs gain or lose de facto authority. These are: I) the nature of the political environment surrounding ICs; II) the timing of their institutional founding; III) the material and/or abstract interests of the agents interacting with ICs; IV) the fundamental support of different social groups in relation to an IC; and V) the societal embeddedness of an IC in its operational context.

New Issue: World Politics

The latest issue of World Politics (Vol. 72, no. 1, January 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Mario L. Chacón & Jeffrey L. Jensen, Democratization, De Facto Power, and Taxation: Evidence from Military Occupation during Reconstruction
• Shelby Grossman, The Politics of Order in Informal Markets: Evidence from Lagos
• Electoral Discrimination: The Relationship between Skin Color and Vote Buying in Latin America Marcus Johnson
• Kate Cronin-Furman, Human Rights Half Measures: Avoiding Accountability in Postwar Sri Lanka

Benbaji & Statman: War By Agreement: A Contractarian Ethics of War

Yitzhak Benbaji (Tel Aviv Univ. - Philosophy) & Daniel Statman (Univ. of Haifa - Philosophy) have published War By Agreement: A Contractarian Ethics of War (Oxford Univ. Press 2022). Here's the abstract:

War by Agreement presents a new theory on the ethics of war. It shows that wars can be morally justified at both the ad bellum level (the political decision to go to war) and the in bello level (its actual conduct by the military) by accepting a contractarian account of the rules governing war. According to this account, the rules of war are anchored in a mutually beneficial and fair agreement between the relevant players - the purpose of which is to promote peace and to reduce the horrors of war. The book relies on the long social contract tradition and illustrates its fruitfulness in understanding and developing the morality and the law of war.

New Issue: Journal of International Dispute Settlement

The latest issue of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement (Vol. 10, no. 4, December 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Current Developments
• Serena Lee & Myron Phua, Why Allianz v West Tankers Still Applies under the Brussels Regulation (Recast): An Analysis of Nori Holdings v Bank Otkritie [2018] EWHC 1343 (Comm)
• Meng Chen, Reforming Judicial Supervision of Chinese Arbitration
• Myriam Gicquello, The Reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement: Bringing the Findings of Social Psychology into the Debate
• Margaret A Young, Emma Nyhan, & Hilary Charlesworth, Studying Country-Specific Engagements with the International Court of Justice
• Manuel Casas, Functional Justiciability and the Existence of a Dispute: A Means of Jurisdictional Avoidance?
• Caroline E Foster, The Problem with Public Morals

Powell: Islamic Law and International Law: Peaceful Resolution of Disputes

Emilia Justyna Powell (Univ. of Notre Dame - Political Science) has published Islamic Law and International Law: Peaceful Resolution of Disputes (Oxford Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:

There are twenty-nine Islamic law states (ILS) in the world today, and their Muslim population is over 900 million. Muslims in these countries—and, to some extent, all Muslims—are ethically, morally, doctrinally, or politically committed to the Islamic legal tradition, a unique logic and culture of justice based on nonconfrontational dispute resolution. In Islamic Law and International Law, Emilia Justyna Powell examines the differences and similarities between the Islamic legal tradition and international law, focusing in particular on the issue of conflict management and resolution.

In many Islamic Law States, Islamic law displaces secular law in state governance and shapes these countries' international dealings. Powell considers why some of Islamic Law States accept international courts while others avoid them, stressing throughout that we cannot make blanket claims about such states. Each relationship is context-specific, hinging on the nature of the domestic legal system. Moreover, not all of these states are Islamic to the same degree or in the same way. Secular law and religious law fuse in different ways in different domestic legal systems.

Often, the Islamic legal tradition points in one direction, while the Western-based, secularized international law points in another. However, Powell argues that Islamic legal tradition contains elements that are compatible with modern international law. She marshals original data on the legal systems structures in thirty Islamic Law States over the entire course of the post-World War Two era, and she draws from in-depth interviews with Islamic law scholars and leading practitioners of international law, including judges of the International Court of Justice. Rich in empirical evidence, this book will reshape how we think about the relationship between ILS and the international system.

Dubberley, Koenig, & Murray: Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation, and Accountability

Sam Dubberley (Univ. of Essex), Alexa Koenig (Univ. of California, Berkeley), & Daragh Murray (Univ. of Essex) have published Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation, and Accountability (Oxford Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:

From videos of rights violations, to satellite images of environmental degradation, to eyewitness accounts disseminated on social media, human rights practitioners have access to more data today than ever before. To say that mobile technologies, social media, and increased connectivity are having a significant impact on human rights practice would be an understatement. Modern technology - and the enhanced access it provides to information about abuse - has the potential to revolutionise human rights reporting and documentation, as well as the pursuit of legal accountability.

However, these new methods for information gathering and dissemination have also created significant challenges for investigators and researchers. For example, videos and photographs depicting alleged human rights violations or war crimes are often captured on the mobile phones of victims or political sympathisers. The capture and dissemination of content often happens haphazardly, and for a variety of motivations, including raising awareness of the plight of those who have been most affected, or for advocacy purposes with the goal of mobilising international public opinion. For this content to be of use to investigators it must be discovered, verified, and authenticated. Discovery, verification, and authentication have, therefore, become critical skills for human rights organisations and human rights lawyers.

This book is the first to cover the history, ethics, methods, and best-practice associated with open source research. It is intended to equip the next generation of lawyers, journalists, sociologists, data scientists, other human rights activists, and researchers with the cutting-edge skills needed to work in an increasingly digitized, and information-saturated environment.

New Issue: Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The latest issue of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (Vol. 52, no. 4, October 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Paul C. Ney, Jr., Charney Lecture - The Rule of Law in International Security Affairs: A U.S. Defense Department Perspective
• Manal Totry-Jubran, Transitional Justice in Housing Injustice: Housing Rights Violations Within Settler Democracies
• Kevin Kolben, The Consumer Imaginary: Labor Rights, Human Rights, and Citizen-Consumers in the Global Supply Chain
• Ji Ma, International Investment and National Security Review
• Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile, Emerging Market Economies & International Investment Law:Turkey–Africa Bilateral Investment Treaties

Rasulov: The Discipline of International Economic Law at a Crossroads

Akbar Rasulov (Univ. of Glasgow - Law) has posted The Discipline of International Economic Law at a Crossroads (in New Voices and New Perspectives in International Economic Law, J. Haskell & A. Rasulov eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Old certainties are melting away. An era has drawn to a close. The foundations of the global economic system are rapidly changing. The opening of intellectual horizons that has come in the wake of these epochal shifts calls for a fundamental rethinking of the main functions and tasks of international economic law (IEL) as a disciplinary project. It also calls for a new explanation of international law’s systemic potential, power, and effectivity in the context of contemporary global governance. How does international law influence the workings of international economic governance? What are the main ways in which it can impact on the course of global economic affairs? Drawing on the traditions of legal realism, Marxism, and classical law-and-economics, this essay outlines a four-fold theory of IEL’s regulatory effectivity: IEL as a price-setting mechanism, IEL as a mechanism for the structuring of opportunities, IEL as a mechanism of ideological legitimation, and IEL as a mechanism of disciplining and interpellation. The goal of this theoretical project is to promote an intellectual recalibration of IEL’s disciplinary ambit along fundamentally functionalist lines: the discipline of IEL should study everything that pertains to how the effective legal realities of global economic governance are set up, how they operate, and how they are produced.

Megiddo: Knowledge Production, Big Data and Data-Driven Customary International Law

Tamar Megiddo (Univ. of Haifa) has posted Knowledge Production, Big Data and Data-Driven Customary International Law. Here's the abstract:

This chapter investigates the role of “Big Data” analysis and data crowdsourcing in shifting power relations with respect to the identification of customary international law. Evidence of states’ practice and legal positions is required in order to determine that a new norm of customary international law has crystallized. And yet, international courts have often settled for anecdotal evidence and impressionistic analysis. However, recent academic works have crowdsourced data collection, compiled big datasets and applied computerized analysis methods to make comprehensive and systematic evaluation of the development of customary norms. I argue that this new mode of knowledge production may democratize both the data collected (giving greater weight to smaller states from the global periphery) and the potential contributors to the production process (including lawyers from different countries and language capabilities). Nevertheless, such production requires scientific sophistication and resources, which once more give actors from rich, developed countries a greater role in developing the law.

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. 21, no. 4, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, International Law as Insulation – The Case of the World Bank in the Decolonization Era
• Fernando Pérez Godoy, The Co-creation of Imperial Logic in South American Legal History
• Mónica García-Salmones Rovira, The Impasse of Human Rights: a Note on Human Rights, Natural Rights and Continuities in International Law
• Leonard V. Smith, Sovereignty under the League of Nations Mandates: The Jurists’ Debates

New Issue: International Organizations Law Review

The latest issue of the International Organizations Law Review (Vol. 16, no. 2, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Forum: The World Health Organization at 70
• Gian Luca Burci, The World Health Organization at 70: Challenges and Adaptation: Introductory Notes
• Adam Kamradt-Scott, The International Health Regulations (2005): Strengthening Their Effective Implementation and Utilisation
• Jan Klabbers, The Normative Gap in International Organizations Law: The Case of the World Health Organization
• Kristina Daugirdas & Gian Luca Burci, Financing the World Health Organization: What Lessons for Multilateralism?
• Cristina Contartese, Competence-Based Approach, Normative Control, and the International Responsibility of the EU and Its Member States: What Does Recent Practice Add to the Debate?
• Davorin Lapaš, Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities for IGO-Like Entities: A Step Towards a New Diplomatic Law?
• Clemens Treichl, The Denial of Oral Hearings by International Administrative Tribunals as a Factor for Lifting Organizational Immunity before European Courts: A(nother) Critical View

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 58, no. 6, December 2019) is out. Contents include:

• Case Concerning the Detention of Three Ukrainian Naval Vessels (Ukraine v. Russian Federation): Provisional Measures Order (ITLOS), with introductory note by Yurika Ishii
• Convention Concerning the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work (Int'L Lab. Org.), with introductory note by Julinda Beqiraj
• Prosecutor v. Omar Al-Bashir, Judgment in the Jordan Referral Re Al-Bashir Appeal (Int'L Crim. Ct.), with introductory note by Thomas Weatherall
• Protocol No. 16 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Advisory Opinion Concerning the Recognition in Domestic Law of a Legal Parent-child Relationship Between a Child Born Through a Gestational Surrogacy Arrangement Abroad and the Intended Mother (Eur. Ct. H.R.), with introductory note by Scott W. Lyons
• Alekseyev and Others v. Russia (Eur. Ct. H.R.), with introductory note by Pieter Cannoot
• Confédération Paysanne and Others v. Premier Ministre and Ministre De L'Agriculture, De L'Agroalimentaire Et De La Forêt (C.J.E.U.), with introductory note by Hans-Georg Dederer

Benvenisti: The Applicability of the Law of Occupation to UN Administration of Foreign Territory

Eyal Benvenisti (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has posted The Applicability of the Law of Occupation to UN Administration of Foreign Territory. Here's the abstract:

This contribution seeks to critically examine the UN position with respect to the legal status of the administration of territory by UN-authorised actors. The essay first explores whether the law of occupation applies to direct administration of foreign territory by the UN or its authorized organs. It then examines as a case study the practice of the UN administration of Kosovo. The essay argues that unfettered discretion for civil servants, even international civil servants, undermines the functionality of any administration. Embracing the discipline of accountability embedded in the law of occupation to UN-led administration of territories is therefore required. This discussion provides the grounding for the argument that as a matter of both lex lata and lex ferenda any administration of territories without a valid sovereign consent, even when exercised by the UN, qualifies as an occupation, and is hence subject to the requirements of law of occupation.

Klamberg: Interpretation of Security Council Resolutions and the Function of Explanation of Votes – Protecting the Status Quo or Agents of Change?

Mark Klamberg (Stockholm Univ. - Law) has posted Interpretation of Security Council Resolutions and the Function of Explanation of Votes – Protecting the Status Quo or Agents of Change? Here's the abstract:

The UN Security Council has within the UN system the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Council adopts resolutions, which are the decisions with the greatest potential consequences. Security Council resolutions are not always clear and need to be interpreted. Members of the Security Council may make statements in connection with their votes, so called explanation of votes. What is the purpose and role of these explanations of votes, if any?

Explanation of votes may have at least three functions. First, they may contribute to the formation of customary international law. Second, they can be used as a means for interpreting Security Council resolutions in relation to a specific matter. Finally, even if legal arguments are never the sole or even the decisive factor in Security Council deliberations, they may shape the debates and by being available for the public have an impact on positions taken, at least indirectly.

The study examines three debates which show Security Council resolutions and explanation of votes may protect the status quo in some instances and act as agents of change in others. The states need to consider that the Security Council does not operate in a legal vacuum; its decision has legal consequences in specific situations and may also contribute to the formation of customary international law.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 37, no. 3, 2019) is out. Contents include:

• The Domestic Institutionalisation of Human Rights
• Steven LB Jensen, Stéphanie Lagoutte & Sébastien Lorion, The Domestic Institutionalisation of Human Rights: An Introduction
• Stéphanie Lagoutte, The Role of State Actors Within the National Human Rights System
• Kirsten Roberts Lyer, Parliaments as Human Rights Actors: The Potential for International Principles on Parliamentary Human Rights Committees
• Claire Methven O’Brien & Jolyon Ford, Business and Human Rights: From Domestic Institutionalisation to Transnational Governance and Back Again
• Sébastien Lorion, A Model for National Human Rights Systems? New Governance and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Domenico Zipoli, NHRI Engagement with UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: A Goal-based Approach
• Tomer Broude & Natan Milikowsky, Establishing an NHRI in a Contested Political Space: A Deliberative Process in Israel

Dothan: The ICC is NOT a Slice of Cheese

Shai Dothan (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts) has posted The ICC is NOT a Slice of Cheese (Journal of International Criminal Justice, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

My friend Jakob Holtermann compared the International Criminal Court (ICC) to a slice of swiss cheese. The metaphor is meant to indicate that the ICC operates as a filter that would deter some of the criminals left undeterred by national criminal law systems, which is true. But the metaphor also suggests that the ICC would only deter extra criminals and would not damage the deterrence achieved by preceding filters, which is false. This paper explains why.