New Issue: Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht

The latest issue of the Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (Vol. 81, no. 3, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Comment
• Elif Askin, Environmental Injustice: The (Unaddressed) Case of Toxic Waste Disposal in the Global South
• Special Issue: International Law and the Internet
• Angelo Jr Golia, Matthias C. Kettemann, & Raffaela Kunz, International Law and the Internet
• Rolf H. Weber, Integrity in the ‘Infinite Space’ – New Frontiers for International Law
• Nula Frei, Equality as a Principle of the Networked World? An Exploratory Search for ‘Cyber-Equality’ in the Field of Internet Governance
• Chien-Huei Wu, Sovereignty Fever: The Territorial Turn of Global Cyber Order
• Annalisa Ciampi, The Role of the Internet in International Law-Making, Implementation and Global Governance
• Antonio Segura-Serrano, Cybersecurity and Cybercrime: Dynamic Application versus Norm-Development
• Stefano Dominelli, Internet and eDiplomacy: ‘Traditional’ Diplomatic Law in the Digital Era
• Patricia A. Vargas-León, Microsoft Corp. v. United States and the ‘Hot Pursuit’: A Case Study Against the Application of the Law of the Sea into the Cyberspace
• Christine Kaufmann, Responsible Business in a Digital World – What’s International Law Got to Do With It?
• Cäcilia Maria Hermes, Cyberspace as an Example of Self-Organisation from a Network Perspective
• Ralph Janik, Interpretive Community 2.0: How Blogs and Twitter Change International Law Scholarship

Conference: Looking from the Outside In: Evaluating IHL from Other Normative Perspectives

On November 8-10, 2021, the Minerva Center for Human Rights will hold online its 16th Annual Minerva Conference on International Humanitarian Law. The topic is: "Looking from the Outside In: Evaluating IHL from Other Normative Perspectives." The program is here. Registration is here.

Call for Papers: Human Rights and Sports

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on "Human Rights and Sports," to take place on June 30, 2022, at the University of Lausanne. The call is here.

d'Aspremont & Haskell: Tipping Points in International Law: Commitment and Critique

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Manchester - Law) & John Haskell (Univ. of Manchester - Law) have published Tipping Points in International Law: Commitment and Critique (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Addressing some of the most perilous, controversial issues in international law and governance, this volume brings together legal scholars from diverse geographic, personal and scholarly perspectives. They reflect on the pervasive feeling of crisis in the world today and share their views on the possibilities and limits of the international legal architecture and its expert communities in shaping the world of tomorrow. What exactly is this feeling that the contemporary international legal architecture is at a tipping point? What do these possible risks expose about the fragility and limits of our current conceptual and institutional order? What commitments drive our hopes and anxieties? Authors explore these questions across a wide range of possible tipping points and offer readers a unique snapshot of the lived experience of what it means to be an expert engaged right now in international law and governance. Each chapter covers both theory and practice in analysing a current problem.

Marrella & Soldati: Arbitrato, Contratti e Diritto del Commercio Internazionale - Arbitration, Contracts and International Trade Law: studi in onore di Giorgio Bernini - essays in honour of Giorgio Bernini

Fabrizio Marrella (Università 'Cà Foscari' Venezia - Law) & Nicola Soldati (Università di Bologna - Law) have published Arbitrato, Contratti e Diritto del Commercio Internazionale - Arbitration, Contracts and International Trade Law: studi in onore di Giorgio Bernini - essays in honour of Giorgio Bernini (Giuffrè 2021). The table of contents is here.

New Issue: International & Comparative Law Quarterly

The latest issue of the International & Comparative Law Quarterly (Vol. 70, no. 4, October 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Mark Eccleston-Turner & Michelle Rourke, Arguments Against the Inequitable Distribution of Vaccines Using the Access and Benefit Sharing Transaction
• Carsten Gerner-Beuerle & Esin Küçük, Consistency and Coherence in Adjudicating the ECB's Unconventional Monetary Policy
• Ioanna Hadjiyianni, The CJEU As the Gatekeeper of International Law: The Cases of WTO Law and The Aarhus Convention
• Katarzyna Kryla-Cudna, Adequate Assurance of Performance Under the UN Convention on Contracts for The International Sale of Goods and The Uniform Commercial Code
• Meagan S. Wong, Aggression and State Responsibility at The International Criminal Court
• Shorter Articles
• Kaisa Huhta, The Scope of State Sovereignty Under Article 194(2) TFEU and the Evolution of EU Competences in the Energy Sector
• Andrew David Mitchell & Theodore Samlidis, The Implications of the WTO Tobacco Plain Packaging Disputes for Public Health Measures

Conference: The Trend of International Commercial & Economic Law

On November 10, 2021, the Tsinghua-UNSW Joint Research Centre for International Commercial and Economic Law will hold a conference on "The Trend of International Commercial & Economic Law." Program and registration are here.

Lecture: Mrema on "Mainstreaming Biodiversity and the Role of Law."

On November 17, 2021, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema (Executive Secretary, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity) will give the annual lecture of the Centre for Environmental Law, Macquarie University. The topic is: "Mainstreaming Biodiversity and the Role of Law." Registration is here for the Zoom link.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 47, no. 5, December 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The Multiple Origins of IR
• Vineet Thakur & Karen Smith, Introduction to the Special Issue: The multiple births of International Relations
• Yih-Jye Hwang, The births of International Studies in China
• Carlos R. S. Milani, The foundation and development of International Relations in Brazil
• Jungmin Seo & Young Chul Cho, The emergence and evolution of International Relations studies in postcolonial South Korea
• Alexander E. Davis, Making a settler colonial IR: Imagining the ‘international’ in early Australian International Relations
• Thomas Kwasi Tieku, The Legon School of International Relations
• Research Articles
• Janis Grzybowski, Re-enacting the international order, or: why the Syrian state did not disappear
• Juliette Tolay, Inadvertent reproduction of Eurocentrism in IR: The politics of critiquing Eurocentrism
• Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata, & Olivier Sterck, Transnational blindness: International institutions and refugees’ cross-border activities

New Issue: International Affairs

The latest issue of International Affairs (Vol. 97, no. 6, November 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Jamal Barnes & Samuel M Makinda, A threat to cosmopolitan duties? How COVID-19 has been used as a tool to undermine refugee rights
• Isaac Olawale Albert, Decapitation strategies and the significance of Abubakar Shekau's death in Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis
• Yao Song, Guangyu Qiao-Franco, & Tianyang Liu, Becoming a normative power? China's Mekong agenda in the era of Xi Jinping
• Joe Burton & George Christou, Bridging the gap between cyberwar and cyberpeace
• Claire Elder, Somaliland's authoritarian turn: oligarchic–corporate power and the political economy of de facto states
• Elizabeth Cobbett & Ra Mason, Djiboutian sovereignty: worlding global security networks
• Emeka Thaddues Njoku & Isaac Dery, Spiritual security: an explanatory framework for conflict-related sexual violence against men
• Bruno Charbonneau, Counter-insurgency governance in the Sahel
• Daniel Neep, ‘What have the Ottomans ever done for us?’ Why history matters for politics in the Arab Middle East
• Lior Lehrs, Conflict and cooperation in the age of COVID-19: the Israeli–Palestinian case
• Leonard August Schuette, Why NATO survived Trump: the neglected role of Secretary-General Stoltenberg
• Louise Curran, Khalid Nadvi, & Sangeeta Khorana, Building on open economy politics to understand the stalled EU–India trade negotiations
• Sebastian Biba, Germany's relations with the United States and China from a strategic triangle perspective
• Daniëlle Flonk, Emerging illiberal norms: Russia and China as promoters of internet content control
• May Farid & Hui Li, International NGOs as intermediaries in China's ‘going out’ strategy
• Gisela Hirschmann, International organizations' responses to member state contestation: from inertia to resilience

Call for Submissions: Polish Yearbook of International Law

The Polish Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its next volume (vol. 41, 2021). The deadline is January 31, 2022. The call is here.

New Issue: International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (Vol. 36, no. 4, 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Robin Churchill, Dispute Settlement in the Law of the Sea: Survey for 2020
• Alexandre Pereira da Silva, Brazil and the Implementation of Article 82 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: Setting the Stage for the Bidding Rounds
• Nicholas A. Ioannides, A Legal Appraisal of the Interplay between the Obligations to Publish/Deposit Charts and Lists of Geographical Coordinates and Unilateral Maritime Claims
• Phillip J Turner, Matthew Gianni, Ellen Kenchington, Sebastian Valanko, & David E Johnson, New Scientific Information Can Help to Inform the Evaluation of EU Deep-sea Fisheries Regulations
• Pascal Kany Prud’ome Gamassa, Legal Framework for Marine Oil Pollution from Ships in Thailand
• Klaas Willaert, Protest at Sea against Deep Sea Mining: Lawfulness, Limits and Remedies
• David Freestone & Clive Schofield, Pacific Islands Countries Declare Permanent Maritime Baselines, Limits and Boundaries

New Issue: Leiden Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law (Vol. 34, no. 4, December 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Giulia Pinzauti & Philippa Webb, Litigation before the International Court of Justice during the pandemic
• International Legal Theory
• Peter Haggenmacher, An archaeological look at ‘international custom as evidence of a general practice accepted as law’ and Article 38 of the World Court’s Statute
• Jens T. Theilen, The inflation of human rights: A deconstruction
• Ardi Imseis, On membership of the United Nations and the State of Palestine: A critical account
• Ginevra Le Moli, ‘Parity with all nations’: The ‘coolie’ trade and the quest for recognition by China and Japan
• Jean d’Aspremont & Binxin Zhang, China and international law: Two tales of an encounter
• Wanshu Cong & Frédéric Mégret, ‘International Shanghai’ (1863–1931): Imperialism and private authority in the Global City
• Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, An analysis of stagnation in multilateral law-making – and why the law of the sea has transcended the stagnation trend
• International Law and Practice
• Rhys Carvosso, The Reactive Model of Disaster Regulation in International Law and its Shortcomings
• International Criminal Courts and Tribunals: International Court of Justice
• Jessica Lynn Corsi, Legal Justifications for Gender Parity on the Bench of the International Court of Justice: An Argument for Evolutive Interpretation of Article 9 of the ICJ Statute

Lecture: Johns on "The Digitization of Humanitarianism and its Discontents"

On November 15, 2021, Fleur Johns (Univ. of New South Wales - Law) will deliver the third lecture of the 2021-2022 Essex Public International Law Lecture Series. The topic is: "The Digitization of Humanitarianism and its Discontents." Details are here.

Brett, Donaldson, & Koskenniemi: History, Politics, Law: Thinking through the International

Annabel Brett (Univ. of Cambridge - History), Megan Donaldson (Univ. College London - Law), & Martti Koskenniemi (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) have posted History, Politics, Law: Thinking through the International (Cambridge Univ. Press 2021). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.

Conference: United Nations War Crimes Commission

On November 19, 2021, the Maynooth University Law Department and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy in SOAS will hold an online conference on the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). Program and registration are here.

New Volume: Polish Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Polish Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 40, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Jubilee Article
• Pavel Šturma, The role of yearbooks of international law in the Central European countries
• Special section: Prof. Symonides and his work
• Władysław Czapliński, Remarks on “Zasada efektywności w prawie międzynarodowym” [Principle of effectiveness in international law] by Janusz Symonides. On the anniversary of the conclusion of the Polish-German Treaties of 1950, 1970 and 1990
• Cezary Mik, Pactum de negotiando and pactum de contrahendo as international obligations in the present international law
• Michał Kowalski, Challenging constant ambiguity: Modern legal approaches to asylum
• Bartłomiej Krzan, The UN Security Council and international terrorism
• Michał Balcerzak, Special character of human rights obligations and the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in the Palestine v. Israel case
• Konrad Marciniak, The development of the international law concerning the protection of underwater cultural heritage: Remarks on the occasion of the accession of Poland to the 2001 UNESCO Convention
• General articles
• Andrii Hachkevych, What do “cross-currents” mean in international law: From Albert Venn Dicey to Ludwik Ehrlich. Some remarks on fragmentation
• Sarah Ganty, Socioeconomic precariousness in times of COVID-19: A human rights quandary under the ECHR
• Dorota Pudzianowska & Piotr Korzec, Human rights and the protection of stateless persons in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights
• Dimitry Vladimirovich Kochenov, De facto power grab in context: Upgrading Rule of Law in Europe in populist times
• Jakub Kociubiński, A negative synergy – A review of direct subsidization mechanisms for scheduled air services following the COVID-19 pandemic in EU law and prospects for improvement
• Justyna Maliszewska-Nienartowicz, Reaffirmation of the direct horizontal effect of the general principle of non-discrimination in EU law: Comment on the Case C-193/17 Cresco Investigation GmbH v. Markus Achatzi
• Aleksander Gubrynowicz, Germany et al. v. Philipp et al.: Human rights exception to state immunity rejected
• Luong Duc Doan & Trinh Thi Hong Nguyen, International tort law in Vietnam – Taking stock and the case for reform
• Polish practice
• Przemysław Saganek, The execution of European Arrest Warrants Issued by Polish courts in the context of the CJEU Rule of Law case law
• Szymon Zaręba, Documents issued by unrecognised entities – the approach of the Polish courts. Comment on the judgment of the Supreme Court of 25 June 2020, Ref. No. I NSNC 48/19
• Reviews
• Michał Balcerzak, Frederic Mégret and Philip Alston (eds.), The United Nations and Human Rights. A Critical Appraisal, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2020
• Patrycja Grzebyk, Aleksander Orakhelashvili, International Law and International Politics. Foundations of Interdisciplinary Analysis, Edvard Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham: 2020
• Hanna Schreiber, Julie Fraser and Brianne McGonnigle Leyh (eds.), Intersections of Law and Culture at the International Criminal Court Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham: 2020
• Agata Helena Winkiel-Skóra, Emilia Justyna Powell, Islamic Law and International Law: Peaceful Resolution of Disputes, Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2020

Roundtable: Narratives of Sustainability in International Economic Law

On November 9, 2021, the Department of Law of Carleton University and Ghent University will host an online roundtable on "Narratives of Sustainability in International Economic Law." Details are here.

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

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

New Issue: Journal of Human Rights and the Environment

The latest issue of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (Vol. 12, no. 2, October 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Anna Grear, Decolonizing rights: strategies and directions
• Research Articles
• Amaya Álvez-Marín, Camila Bañales-Seguel, Rodrigo Castillo, Claudia Acuña-Molina & Pablo Torres, Legal personhood of Latin American rivers: time to shift constitutional paradigms?
• Rosemary J Coombe & David J Jefferson, Posthuman rights struggles and environmentalisms from below in the political ontologies of Ecuador and Colombia
• Yaffa Epstein & Hendrik Schoukens, A positivist approach to rights of nature in the European Union
• Manuela Niehaus & Kirsten Davies, Voices for the voiceless: climate protection from the streets to the courts
• Claire O’Manique, James K Rowe & Karena Shaw, Degrowth, political acceptability and the Green New Deal

Grote, Morales Antoniazzi, & Paris: Research Handbook on Compliance in International Human Rights Law

Rainer Grote (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law), Mariela Morales Antoniazzi (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law), & Davide Paris (Univ. of Foggia) have published Research Handbook on Compliance in International Human Rights Law (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021). Here's the abstract:

This comprehensive Research Handbook offers an in-depth examination of the most significant factors affecting compliance with international human rights law, which has emerged as one of the key problems in the efforts to promote effective protection of human rights. In particular, it examines the relationships between regional human rights courts and domestic actors and judiciaries.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the Research Handbook explores the legal and political considerations that shape compliance, using a combination of both international and comparative law analysis in the assessment of regional human rights regimes. Chapters written by leading scholars and practitioners from around the globe cover a wide range of jurisdictions from Europe, Latin America and Africa and their interactions with regional human rights courts. The Research Handbook also discusses the limits of, and possible alternatives to, compliance as a framework for analysis, offering a fuller understanding of the effectiveness of international human rights law.

Call for Papers: International Law and Technological Progress

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "International Law and Technological Progress," to take place June 23-24, 2022, at the University of Aberdeen. The call is here.

Cohen: Culture Clash: The Sociology of WTO Precedent

Harlan Grant Cohen (Univ. of Georgia - Law) has posted Culture Clash: The Sociology of WTO Precedent (in Precedents as Rules and Practice, Amalie Frese & Julius Schumann eds., 2021). Here's the abstract:

Thanks to the United States, the WTO Appellate Body can no longer hear appeals. Having blocked all appointments to the body, the United States has left its bench empty, with no members to fulfill its role. Among the United States’ justifications: The Appellate Body’s adoption of an apparent doctrine of precedent.

This chapter takes a deeper look at the fight over precedent at the WTO, both as a case study in the emergence and operation of precedent within international law and as a microcosm of the cultural conflicts playing out within the WTO. The chapter develops an account of precedent as a product of three overlapping, inter-dependent, and mutually constructed logics: (1) the jurisprudential, (2) the rational, and (3) the sociological. It then uses these three logics to retell the story of precedent at the WTO – the emerging patterns of argumentative practice, the Appellate Body’s adoption of a doctrinal test, and the escalating U.S. opposition to the “cogent reasons” standard that body applied. Seeing the fight over precedent as a function of all three logics reveals the real cultural fights for control of the WTO community of practice. Seeing that community of practice coalesce around and split over unwritten practices of precedent reveals how international law develops as much as a function of culture, training, and practice as of rules and power.

Dannenbaum: Siege Starvation: A War Crime of Societal Torture

Tom Dannenbaum (Tufts Univ. - The Fletcher School) has posted Siege Starvation: A War Crime of Societal Torture (Chicago Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

A recent amendment to the Statute of the International Criminal Court has drawn unprecedented attention to the war crime of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. It comes at a time when mass starvation in war is resurgent, devastating populations in Yemen, Ethiopia, Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria, and elsewhere. The practice has also drawn the scrutiny of the United Nations Security Council. And yet, despite this heightened profile and sharpened urgency, what precisely is criminally wrongful about starvation methods remains underspecified. A common way of thinking about the criminal wrong is as a form of killing or harming civilians. Although its differentiating particularities matter, the basic wrongfulness of the crime inheres, on this view, in it being an attack on those who ought not be attacked. For some, this supports a broad interpretation of the starvation ban. However, for others, the graduality of starvation preserves the continuous possibility of the avoidance or minimization of civilian death or harm in a way that direct kinetic attacks do not. In combination with the method’s purported military utility, this distinctive incrementalism has underpinned arguments for the permissibility of certain forms of siege and other deprivation and a narrow interpretation of the starvation crime.

Drawing on the moral philosophy of torture, this Article offers a different normative theory of the crime. Starvation, like torture, is peculiarly wrongful in its distortion of victims’ biological imperatives against their capacities to formulate and act on higher-order desires, political commitments, and even love. This process does not merely raise the cost of fulfilling those commitments. Instead, starvation tears gradually at the very capacity of those affected to prioritize their most fundamental commitments, regardless of whether they would choose to do so under the conditions necessary to evaluate matters with a “contemplative attitude.” Rather than palliating, the slowness of starvation methods is at the crux of this torturous wrong. Recognizing this redefines the meaning and place of the crime in the framework of international criminal law.

New Issue: International Journal of Transitional Justice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice (Vol. 15, no. 2, July 2021) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• Solomon Ayele Dersso, Africa’s Transitional Justice Policy Making: Exercising Epistemic Agency and Pushing the Frontiers of Transitional Justice
• Articles
• Sanne Weber, Defying the Victim-Perpetrator Binary: Female Ex-combatants in Colombia and Guatemala as Complex Political Perpetrators∞
• Astrid Jamar, The Exclusivity of Inclusion: Global Construction of Vulnerable and Apolitical Victimhood in Peace Agreements
• Victor Igreja, Negotiating the Legacies of Intragroup Violence in Timor Leste
• Anna Katila, Unearthing Ambiguities: Post-Genocide Justice in Raoul Peck’s Sometimes in April and the ICTR case Nahimana et al.
• Peter J Verovšek, A Burgeoning Community of Justice? The European Union as a Promoter of Transitional Justice
• Kezia Batisai & George T Mudimu, Revisiting the Politics of Land Recovery Among White Commercial Farmers in Zimbabwe: Implications for Transitional Justice
• Maja Davidovic, The Law of ‘Never Again’: Transitional Justice and the Transformation of the Norm of Non-Recurrence
• Mohammad Hossein Mojtahedi & Joris van Wijk, Islamic Law and the Balancing of Justice and Peace in Iraq’s Post-IS Landscape
• Elke Evrard, Gretel Mejía Bonifazi, & Tine Destrooper, The Meaning of Participation in Transitional Justice: A Conceptual Proposal for Empirical Analysis
• Review Essay
• Mariana Cunha, Reckoning with Perpetrators and Collaborators: Accountability and Transitional Justice in Latin American Postdictatorship Cinema