The latest issue of the Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 22, no. 2, June 2022) is out. Contents include:
Due diligence obligations are typically described by scholars and practitioners as 'elusive', 'weak', and difficult to pin down in the abstract. Challenging these assumptions, this book offers a systematic reconstruction of the foundations of due diligence obligations of states and explores their nature, rationale, content and scope of operation in international law. Tackling due diligence from a general perspective, this book seeks to complement scholarly studies on public international law obligations and their theory. This book will be relevant for academics, practitioners, graduate students across international law and anyone seeking to better conceptualise due diligence under international law and understand how due diligence obligations are operationalised in practice.
Call for Papers: Symposium on “International Law and Constitution-Making”
The Rutgers Center for Transnational Law (United States) in partnership with the Diego Portales Public Law Program (Chile) have issued a call for papers for a symposium on International Law and Constitution-Making. The symposium is sponsored by the American Society of International Law—Latin America Interest Group and The Chilean Chapter of the International Society of Public Law.
Date & location: Wednesday, May 18, 2022, Rutgers Law School (Camden campus)
Can international law affect constitution-making processes carried out by sovereign states? Should such processes follow international human rights law and international economic law? If so, how? Is sovereignty at risk when states cede to international organizations too much power and influence?
The Rutgers Center for Transnational Law and The Diego Portales School of Law (Chile) will host a symposium that will analyze these and other questions concerning the role of international law in the drafting of new constitutions, with a focus on the constituent process that is currently taking place in Chile—one that scholars around the world follow with great anticipation, as it is the first process in the world which has full gender parity and an enhanced role for indigenous peoples. By convening comparative constitutional scholars and international lawyers, we plan to discuss and reflect on the risks and possibilities that international law poses to countries that use international law in their constituent processes.
Professor Richard Albert from the University of Texas and Professor Mila Versteeg from the University of Virginia School of Law will give keynote addresses.
*** Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to ctl@law.rutgers.edu or programaderechopublico@mail.udp.cl by April 1st, 2022, with the subject line “Rutgers/UDP Symposium.”
The symposium has secured funding to support a number the travel and accommodation of a number of participants. If you can partially support your travel to Philadelphia, please indicate so in your application.
Selected papers will be published in English in the Rutgers International Law & Human Rights Journal,and in Spanish in the Anuario de Derecho Público, published by the Diego Portales Law School.
Questions? Email jorge.contesse@rutgers.edu or domingo.lovera@udp.cl.
The Audiovisual Library of International Law is also available as a podcast on SoundCloud and can also be accessed through the relevant preinstalled applications on Apple or Google devices, or through the podcast application of your preference by searching “Audiovisual Library of International Law.”
Call for Papers and Panels - EISA 2022 Annual Conference – Section ST21: Global Law & Politics
The European International Studies Association’s (EISA) 15th Annual Conference takes place in Athens from 1-4 September 2022. Submit your proposals to its new Standing Section on Global Law & Politics (ST21). Deadline: 16 March 2022 – submit here.
Section Chairs: Filipe Dos Reis (University of Groningen) and Maj Grasten (Copenhagen Business School)
Law and legal bodies form a key part of the structure of international relations. Yet, legal norms, concepts, jurisdictional boundaries and legal bodies are increasingly contested by various public and private actors globally. This section invites contributions that explore the intersection of law and politics in international relations, including their impact on domestic law and practice. It draws together scholars from different disciplinary fields who share an interest in the role of law in global politics and governance. This includes studies concerned with the history of the relationship between law and politics and particular legal regimes, such as sovereignty and human rights, as well as ways in which transnational, international and global law is practiced and problematized today across diverse institutional fields.
We seek paper and panel proposals on themes including but not limited to:
- Legal actors, norms and processes in transnational governance and the global political economy, including questions of accountability, legitimacy, authority, and expertise.
- The history of key legal concepts and regimes in international relations (e.g. sovereignty, human rights, development, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law)
- The role of global standards, rankings, and indicators in international relations.
- Regulatory ambiguities and absences in the context of new societal challenges, including the climate, digital economy, and global health.
- The relationship between law, geopolitics, and the use of force.
- Interdisciplinary engagements with the relationship between law and politics, bridging International Relations (IR), International Law (IL), International Political Economy (IPE), International Political Sociology (IPS), International Political Theory (IPT), etc.
Please contact the section chairs (f.r.dos.reis@rug.nl and mlg.mpp@cbs.dk) if you have any questions. For more information about the European International Studies Association, please visit its website here.
Conventional wisdom predicts that international law must proceed through a “state pathway” before regulating corporations: it binds national governments who then bind corporations through enactment and enforcement of domestic laws and regulations. But recent corporate practices confound this story by presenting two realities difficult to reconcile under this traditional view: The Trump administration withdrew the United States from several international agreements and organizations. But, surprisingly, American corporations complied with these same international laws even when the state pathway broke down. This unexpected compliance leads to three questions: How did corporations comply? Why did they do so? Who enforced international law? These questions are important for two reasons. First, many international laws depend on corporate cooperation in order to succeed. Second, the state pathway is not robust, then or now. It is therefore vital to identify alternatives to the state pathway in order for international laws – on human rights, climate change, labor rights, corruption, and other issues – to reach corporate boardrooms, C-Suites, offices, and supply chains.
This Article synthesizes two traditionally separate fields – public international law and corporate governance – to offer a descriptive account of how corporations incorporate international law into board governance, management decision-making, and contractual relationships. Through original research, it offers three case studies in climate change, human rights, and sustainable development that reveal important incentives and mechanisms for international law compliance that are neglected under the traditional view. It explains that corporations comply in order to manage risks, appease stakeholders, and advance corporate purpose and strategy. Proxy advisors, investors, civil society actors, and even peer corporations enforce international law when a government actor will not. Normatively, these insights enrich academic debates concerning the operation and effectiveness of international law. On a policy level, this Article offers three recommendations for designing international agreements in order to encourage corporate compliance: facilitate comparability, create indicators, and identify corporate purpose compatibility. It applies these lessons to two international agreements in development: (a) treaty on business and human rights, and (b) treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness.
The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 91, no. 1, 2022) is out. Contents include:
This book offers a distinctive critical discussion of the relationship between sovereign debt and socio-economic human rights in the context of the contemporary global neoliberal economic order, going beyond strictly 'post-crisis' approaches and emphasising the structural character and consistent growth of public and private indebtedness. It reflects on the implications of mounting debt for the actual ability of States to realise human rights in a world of escalating indebtedness, inequality and insecurity. It expands existing definitions of neoliberalism by reflecting in particular on neoliberalism's epistemological underpinnings, and provides a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the 2009 Greek debt crisis and the main elements of post-crisis developments in international and EU law, arguing that the 'neoliberalisation of law' has essentially been advanced in the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis.
After the Second World War demolished the old order, a group of economists and policymakers from across Latin America imagined a new global economy and launched an intellectual movement that would eventually capture the world. They charged that the systems of trade and finance that bound the world’s nations together were frustrating the economic prospects of Latin America and other regions of the world. Through the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, or CEPAL, the Spanish and Portuguese acronym, cepalinos challenged the orthodoxies of development theory and policy. Simultaneously, they demanded more not less trade, more not less aid, and offered a development agenda to transform both the developed and the developing world. Eventually, cepalinos established their own form of hegemony, outpacing the United States and the International Monetary Fund as the agenda setters for a region traditionally held under the orbit of Washington and its institutions. By doing so, cepalinos reshaped both regional and international governance and set an intellectual agenda that still resonates today.
Drawing on unexplored sources from the Americas and Europe, Margarita Fajardo retells the history of dependency theory, revealing the diversity of an often-oversimplified movement and the fraught relationship between cepalinos, their dependentista critics, and the regional and global Left. By examining the political ventures of dependentistas and cepalinos, The World That Latin America Created is a story of ideas that brought about real change.
