Chesterman: Silicon Sovereigns: Artificial Intelligence, International Law, and the Tech-Industrial Complex

Simon Chesterman (National Univ. of Singapore - Law) has posted Silicon Sovereigns: Artificial Intelligence, International Law, and the Tech-Industrial Complex (American Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Artificial intelligence is reshaping science, society, and power. Yet many debates over its likely impact remain fixated on extremes: utopian visions of universal benefit and dystopian fears of existential doom, or an arms race between the U.S. and China, or the Global North and Global South. What’s missing is a serious conversation about distribution — who gains, who loses, and who decides. The global AI landscape is increasingly defined not just by geopolitical divides, but by the deepening imbalance between public governance and private control. As governments struggle to keep up, power is consolidating in the hands of a few tech firms whose influence now rivals that of states. If the twentieth century saw the rise of international institutions, the twenty-first may be witnessing their eclipse — replaced not by a new world order, but by a digital oligarchy. This essay explores what that shift means for international law, global equity, and the future of democratic oversight in an age of silicon sovereignty.

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 29, no. 5, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Mari Huttunen, A tale of two sovereigns: the responsibility to protect and the competing notions of responsible sovereignty
• Katie Morris, Reconceptualising socioeconomic rights: a case for care ethics
• Marina Lostal, One-dimensional law: a critique of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
• Felipe Jaramillo Ruiz, Additive entanglement and intersectionality in UN human rights monitoring: examining the inclusion of disability
• Pierre Bosset, Cultural human rights as new foundations for interculturalist policies: a rights-based approach from Québec*
• Elke Evrard & Tine Destrooper, Learning from the past? How the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, civil society initiatives and survivor stories shape young Cambodians’ understanding of non-recurrence
• Steven Malby, Beyond sword and shield: the UN human rights system and criminal law
• Ling Han & Paolo De Stefani, Protecting fundamental values through the global human rights sanction regime: China's challenges to the EU's normative power

New Volume: Canadian Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Canadian Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 61, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Camille Martini, From Fact to Applicable Law: What Role for the International Climate Change Regime in Investor-State Arbitration?
• Rémi Fuhrmann, Légitimités conflictuelles: le droit international humanitaire entre légitimité du statut et légitimité de la cause
• Anna Rahel Fischer & Bernard Duhaime, “The Purloined Letter”: Migrant Disappearances, Systematic Impunity, and States’ Risk Awareness
• Miriam Cohen & Renan Teles, L’appropriation de la transmission des traumatismes par le droit: le préjudice transgénérationnel dans la jurisprudence de la Cour pénale internationale
• Carol Dyck, Arctic Governance in the Face of Climate Change: A Case for “Inclusive Regionalism”
• Obiora Chinedu Okafor, Udoka Owie, Okechukwu Effoduh, & Rahina Zarma, Explaining the Comparatively Less Robust Human Rights Impact of the ECOWAS Court on Legislative and Judicial Decision-making, Process, and Action in Nigeria
• Godwin E.K. Dzah, The Interaction between International and Domestic Law, Aqua Nullius, and Water-mediated Claims in Canada
• Akinwumi Ogunranti, The Relationality of Community Development Agreements towards a Human Rights Due Diligence Good Faith Requirement
• Symposium on the African Financial Architecture and the African Multilateral Financial Institutions in Context
• Olabisi D. Akinkugbe, Preface
• Olabisi D. Akinkugbe, African Financial Architecture: Voice, Representation, Preferred Creditor Status, and the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions
• Gertrude Amorkor Amarh, A New Dawn in Credit Rating for Africa? A Review of the Africa Credit Rating Agency
• Ohiocheoya (Ohio) Omiunu & Ayodele Olabiyi, Knowledge Production and the Global Energy Transition: A Critical Appraisal of the Influence of International Financial Institutions on African Multilateral Financial Institutions
• Otieno Mbori, The African Development Bank’s Role in Financing the Green Energy Transition Harrison
• Florence Shako, Towards Dismantling Colonial Continuities: The Role of the African Export-Import Bank in Climate Financing in Africa

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 110, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Regulating activities in the cyberspace: Open issues of International and European law
• Introduced by Gian Maria Farnelli
• Alessandra Sardu, Non-intervention and cyberspace
• Isabella Brunner, Attributing cyber operations under International law: Political and legal aspects
• Marco Argentini, Navigating Private Obligations in Cybersecurity: Perspectives from Private International Law
• Susanna Villani, Defending the security of the eu constitutional order against malicious cyber activity: reflections on the cyber targeted sanctions regime
• Victor Stoica, AI for good: the maintenance of international peace and security

Schefer, Polanco, & Sauvé: International Economic Law as Symphony: Thomas Cottier and the Harmonies of Trade

Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer (Swiss Institute of Comparative Law), Rodrigo Polanco (World Trade Institute; Swiss Institute of Comparative Law), & Pierre Sauvé (World Bank) have published International Economic Law as Symphony: Thomas Cottier and the Harmonies of Trade (Hart Publishing 2025). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This open access book brings together some of the most eminent scholars of international trade to celebrate the scholarly, diplomatic, and institution-building achievements of Thomas Cottier, Professor Emeritus of International Economic Law at the University of Bern and founder of the World Trade Institute.

Over his half-century career, Thomas Cottier has promoted the development of international trade law by shaping our understanding of how multiple layers of law interact to form a global legal system. While multilateral trade law is the “melody” of the system, it is made fuller by a host of regional and national layers of harmonising – and sometimes discordant – legal rules.

Covering both general trade policy and the economic relations between Switzerland and the EU, the chapters examine Thomas Cottier's fundamental belief in the necessity of studying the interaction of every level of governance – local, national, and international – when considering the policies of economic exchange between countries, as well as his cosmopolitan belief in the need to foster a global community dedicated to bettering the lives of individuals around the world. The special relationship between the EU and Switzerland is addressed, honouring Professor Cottier's dedication to the political debates within Switzerland on the extent to which the country should participate in the European project, exemplifying the themes of multilayered governance and the common concerns of all people.

Call for Papers: Popular International Law Workshop

A call for papers has been issued for a workshop on "Popular International Law," to take place September 26, 2025, at the University of Cambridge. The call is here.

Kulamadayil: The Pathology of Plenty: Natural Resources in International Law

Lys Kulamadayil (Geneva Graduate Institute) has published The Pathology of Plenty: Natural Resources in International Law (Hart Publishing 2025). Here's the abstract:

This open access book critically examines the role international law plays in post-colonial countries, which primarily rely on the exploitation of their natural resources for economic and human development.

Since the 1990s, expressions such as the 'resource curse' and 'paradox of plenty' have been associated with unequal patterns of power and wealth distribution in post-colonial and neo-colonial countries. They have also been applied to the ecological and social costs of natural resources exploitation, and the planetary costs of mineral resources-based production and consumption patterns.

Taking various resource-curse and paradox-of-plenty theories as a starting point, the book illustrates how the law's role in resource-cursed countries is at once constitutive, preventive, remedial and punitive. It does so by engaging with various fields of public international law. The book revisits how rights and principles such as sovereignty over natural resources and economic self-determination were applied in decolonisation processes; studies the proliferation of international treaties protecting foreign property rights; and zooms in on various contract models used in the mineral resources sector to evaluate the distributional choices of cost and revenue.

Ioannides: The Predominant Interest Concept and Maritime Delimitation: Safeguarding Predictability and Enhancing Equitableness

Nicholas A. Ioannides (Univ. of Limassol - Law) has published The Predominant Interest Concept and Maritime Delimitation: Safeguarding Predictability and Enhancing Equitableness (Edward Elgar Publishing 2025). Here's the abstract:

Exploring how international jurisprudence has catalysed the development of maritime delimitation law, this accessible book explores the ‘predominant interest’ concept and analyses global case studies, as well as landmark legal proceedings. Nicholas A. Ioannides provides a comprehensive overview of the delimitation process, identifying the criteria used to determine how maritime areas are delimited.

The book highlights how international courts and tribunals in delimitation cases have mainly relied on geographical factors, disregarding non-geographical elements, although they are at the core of the continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone concepts. Ultimately, Ioannides suggests that non-geographical factors should be taken into account in maritime delimitation in aggregation under the cloak of ''predominant interest'' in order to reach an equitable result. Highlighting how predictability should be safeguarded, and equitability should be enhanced, Ioannides outlines the importance of, among others, fishing, security, defence and navigation interests for individual states arguing for control over maritime zones.

Conference: Towards a Global Ecological-Economic Legal Framework – Looking Ahead to Paris: Global Legal Dialogues for a Sustainable Future

On June 6-7, 2025, a conference will be held on “Towards a Global Ecological-Economic Legal Framework – Looking Ahead to Paris: Global Legal Dialogues for a Sustainable Future” at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Details are here.

Webinar: Transitional Justice for Israel-Palestine in Comparative Perspective

On June 5, 2025, the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions, in collaboration with the Clinical Legal Education Center and the Fried-Gal Transitional Justice Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will host webinar on "Transitional Justice for Israel-Palestine in Comparative Perspective." Details are here.

Conference: Is There Anything Asian about International Law in Asia, and Should There Be?

On June 29, 2025, the Japan Chapter of the Asian Society of International Law will host its 16th Annual Conference, at Chuo University, Myogadani Campus, Tokyo. The theme is: "Is There Anything Asian about International Law in Asia, and Should There Be?" Details are here.

New Issue: International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law

The latest issue of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (Vol. 40, no. 2, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Ecological Civilisation Building and the Law of the Sea
• Keyuan Zou & Lei Zhang, Ecological Civilisation in the Law of the Sea
• Anastasia M Telesetsky, Ocean Disaster Risk Reduction: Designing Anticipatory Actions for Vulnerable Households Engaged in Marine Capture Fisheries
• Christopher Whomersley, Innovations in the Institutional Arrangements in the BBNJ Agreement
• Xiangxin Xu & Li Chen, Navigating a New Course: The Likely Impact of the BBNJ Agreement on the Establishment of Area-Based Management Tools by the ISA
• Volker Röben, Ocean Power: Floating Nuclear Power Plants under the Law of the Sea
• Yen-Chiang Chang, Seokwoo Lee, & Xingyi Duan, Seeking an Advisory Opinion from International Judicial Bodies on Legal Issues concerning the Discharge of Radioactive Wastewater
• Matteo Bedendi & Lorenzo Schiano di Pepe, A New Chapter of Ocean Governance and the European Union: Codification Efforts and Prospects of a Moratorium at the International Seabed Authority
• Sen Wang, Revisiting the Common but Differentiated Responsibility Principle in the Prevention and Control of Marine Plastic Pollution

New Issue: Yale Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Yale Journal of International Law (Vol. 50, no. 1, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• David Landau, Transitional Norms in Constitutions
• Zachary D. Clopton, Foreign Law on the Ground
• 50th Anniversary Conference: Celebrating the Work of W. Michael Reisman
• Lea Brilmayer, Option or Obligation? Third-State Support for the Enforcement of International Law
• Manuel Casas, Non-Judicialization and Dejudicialization in International Law
• Eyal Benvenisti, Looking Into the Future of the Law on International Organizations: Insights from the New Havel School
• Lucie Olejnikova, Evelyn Ma, & Steven A. Mitchell, Walking down Memory Lane on the 50th Anniversary of YJIL: An Exhibit in Honor of Professor W. Michael Reisman, Teacher, Jurist, Enduring Patron, and Inspiration

Jones: No Future for Future Generations: Who is International Environmental Law For?

Emily Jones (Newcastle Univ. - Law) has posted No Future for Future Generations: Who is International Environmental Law For? (Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The idea that the environment must be protected for future generations has been gaining traction in recent years. This article argues that the concept of future generations, as deployed in international environmental law, is, however, deeply exclusionary, with only some humans being envisaged as future generations. It is furthermore argued that the concept is anthropocentric in that it focuses only on human future generations. The article discusses whether the concept can be recast considering these critiques, deploying queer and decolonial approaches to do so. In particular, Indigenous understandings of future generations are highlighted as offering an alternative framing. The article concludes by arguing that legal concepts must be carefully designed to ensure the construction of a future whereby climate change and environmental degradation are addressed in an equitable and just way, providing three pathways that can be used to begin to reframe the concept of future generations accordingly.

Call for Submissions: Tariffs: Emerging challenges in global trade

The Journal of Law, Market & Innovation has issued a call for submissions for its second issue of 2026 on the topic "Tariffs: Emerging challenges in global trade." The call is here.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 36, no. 1, February 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Editorial
• EJIL: News!: Call for Expressions of Interest for a New Co-Editor-in-Chief of EJIL; EJIL: News!: Thank you Wanshu – Welcome Abhimanyu!; In This Issue; In This Issue – Reviews; Vital Statistics
• EJIL Foreword
• Susan Marks, If the World Is a Family, What Kind of Family Is It?
• Articles
• Jarrod Hepburn, The Legal Justification for the Doctrine of Legitimate Expectations in International Investment Law
• Ka Lok Yip, Demystifying the Right to Life during the Conduct of Hostilities: Theories, Methods, Practices
• Jens T Theilen, Civilizational Hierarchies and the Notion of ‘Europe’ in the European Convention on Human Rights
• Roaming Charges
• Places with a Soul: Kibera, Nairobi
• Review Essays
• Fuad Zarbiyev, Of Theory and Reality, and Airplanes and Helicopters
• Jed Odermatt, Reimagining International Law Teaching
• Book Reviews
• Ergün Cakal, reviewing Ezgi Yildiz, Between Forbearance and Audacity: The European Court of Human Rights and the Norm against Torture
• Güneş Ünüvar, reviewing Charalampos Giannakopoulos, Manifestations of Coherence and Investor-State Arbitration
• Anni Pues, reviewing Sophie Rigney, Fairness and Rights in International Criminal Procedure
• Kirsten Sellars, reviewing Gary J. Bass, Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
• Eran Sthoeger, reviewing Carlos Espósito & Kate Parlett, eds., The Cambridge Companion to the International Court of Justice
• Book Review Symposium: The Hague Academy
• Juliana Santos de Carvalho, Three Feminists Walk into the Hague Academy: Ease and Discomfort in an Affective Space
• Sué González Hauck, Order in and through Law at the Hague Academy: Examining a Century of Legal Influence and Controversy
• Valentina Vadi, The Health of Nations at The Hague
• Niccolò Ridi & Thomas Schultz, Distantly Reading the Recueil des Cours: Authority and Authorities in the History of the Hague Academy of International Law
• León Castellanos-Jankiewicz & Momchil Milanov, A Well-known Stranger: André Mandelstam – From Empire to Human Rights
• Vladyslav Lanovoy, The Hague Academy and the World Court: Travelling Together in the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes
• The Last Page
• The Vineyard

New Issue: International Community Law Review

The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 27, no. 3, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Laura Di Gianfrancesco, Questioning the Use of the Veto: The Veto Initiative and the General Assembly’s Role as an Accountability Forum for the Security Council
• Henrique Marcos, Lex Specialis as a Reason-Giving Norm: Balancing Norm Specificity and Individual Rights in Times of Crisis
• Abdullah Abdullatif, Jamal Barafi, Salam Al Kasem, & Suhaib H. Anagreh, Safety Zones in Outer Space: A Means Towards Achieving Sustainability and Preventing Conflicts in Space Activities
• Marco Longobardo, The Monetary Gold Principle and States’ Obligations Triggered by a Serious Risks of Atrocities Being Committed by Another State: The Cases of the Duty to Prevent Genocide and the Duty to Ensure Respect for IHL

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 24, no. 2, May 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Disruptions and the Reorientation of the Trade Regime: Towards a Trade and Sustainability 2.0?
• Weihuan Zhou, Trade and Sustainability in an Era of Re-globalization
• Bernard Hoekman & Douglas Nelson, Industrial Policy and International Cooperation
• Mandy Meng Fang, Multi-Purpose Green Industrial Policy and the WTO: An Unavoidable Clash?
• Pasha L. Hsieh, Green Regionalism in World Trade Law
• Gregory Messenger, Free Trade Agreements as Sites of Economic Diplomacy: Agreeing Common Standards for Sustainable Development
• Sanvid Tuljapurkar & Ruosi Zhang, Developing Countries' Participation in Environmental Services Negotiations: What are the Challenges and What Should be Done?
• Giulia Claudia Leonelli, Critical Raw Materials, the Net-Zero Transition and the ‘Securitization’ of the Trade and Climate Change Mitigation Nexus: Pinpointing Environmental Risks and Charting a New Path for Transnational Decarbonization
• Weihuan Zhou, Victor Crochet, & Haoxue Wang, Demystifying China's Critical Minerals Strategies: Rethinking ‘De-risking’ Supply Chains
• Addressing Competitiveness Concerns of EU exporters with Industrial Policy: The Role of Innovation Support Michael Jakob, Michael Mehling
• Tolulope Anthony Adekola & Bryan Mercurio, mRNA Technology Transfer Hub and Intellectual Property: Towards a more Equitable and Sustainable Model

Conference: 2025 ILA-ASIL Asia-Pacific Research Forum

The 2025 ILA-ASIL Asia-Pacific Research Forum will be held July 7-8 in Taipei and hosted by the Research Center for International Legal Studies of National Chengchi University and the Chinese (Taiwan) Society of International Law. The theme is: "Sustainable International Law." Details are here.

Roht-Arriaza: Fighting Grand Corruption: Transnational and Human Rights Approaches in Latin America and Beyond

Naomi Roht-Arriaza (Univ. of California, San Francisco - Law) has published Fighting Grand Corruption: Transnational and Human Rights Approaches in Latin America and Beyond (Cambridge Univ. Press 2025). Here's the abstract:

Grand corruption-systemic, large-scale, and top-down misappropriation of public resources for private gain-remains a pervasive problem around the world. It affects the ability of governments to educate, feed, and care for their people. It undermines human rights, perpetuates impunity, and erodes trust in government and the judiciary. It strengthens disgruntlement, authoritarianism, and insurgency. Corruption, however, is not a static force. In this work, Naomi Roht-Arriaza explores how corruption has changed, and how new anti-corruption thinking, especially in Latin America, centers human rights, victims' access to justice, and reparations. Roht-Arriaza shows how activists have used outside pressure and support for local actors where state institutions have been captured and foregrounds anti-corruption considerations in dealing with transitional justice and atrocity crimes. Written with engaging stories and examples, this book will appeal to lawyers, scholars of Latin America, and anyone else interested in fighting kleptocrats with the goal of reclaiming the common good.

Panel Discussion: Environmental Goods and Services: Unlocking the Full Potential

On June 24, 2025, the Center for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London will host a panel discussion on "Environmental Goods and Services: Unlocking the Full Potential." Details are here.

Call for Papers: The Law and Political Economy of 21st-Century Authoritarianism

A call for papers has been issued for the 2025 Australian Progressive Legal Studies workshop, to take place December 8–9, 2025, in Brisbane, at the University of Queensland. The theme is: "The Law and Political Economy of 21st-Century Authoritarianism." The call is here.

New Issue: Global Responsibility to Protect

The latest issue of Global Responsibility to Protect (Vol. 17, nos. 2-3, 2025) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Accountability in and after Frozen Conflicts: Lessons from Syria
• Dara Conduit & Yasmine Nahlawi, Legal Accountability in Frozen Conflicts: Lessons from Syria
• Roua Al Taweel, Responsibility to Protect and Syria’s Displacement: Unprotected at Home and Abroad
• Yasmine Nahlawi, Accountability Pursuits in the Syrian Context: an r2p Success?
• Danny Singh & Haian Dukhan, From Libya to Syria: Assessing the Impact of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine on Global Intervention Strategies
• Linda Osman, Reflections on the Dabbagh Case: Challenges and Implications for Justice
• Ruham Hawash, Restoring Faith in Justice – the Imperative of Impartiality in the Pursuit of Justice
• Lubna Alkanawati, A First-Hand Account of Surviving Atrocities in Syria, and Fighting for Justice
• Mohamad Katoub, From Syria to Gaza: the Dangerous Normalisation of Attacks on Healthcare

Engle: Toward an Abolitionist Human Rights Court: Rethinking Responses to Gendered and Racialized Violence

Karen Engle (Univ. of Texas, Austin - Law) has published Toward an Abolitionist Human Rights Court: Rethinking Responses to Gendered and Racialized Violence (Cambridge Univ. Press 2025). This book is free online from May 22, 2025 to June 5, 2025. Here's the abstract:

Contemporary international human rights law increasingly obligates states to heighten their criminalization of certain human rights violations, including gendered, racialized, and homophobic violence. This Element uses prison and police abolitionist thought to challenge this trend. It focuses on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), arguing that the Court's reliance on punishment and policing threatens to undo earlier European approaches to criminal law and human rights that resonate with abolitionist thought. It also contends that the criminalization approach provides the Court with an alibi for not recognizing or attending to the deeply structural racialized, colonial, sexual, gendered, and homophobic violence in Europe, particularly but not only against Roma communities and Black and Muslim migrants. Encouraging human rights advocates and judges to take seriously prison and police abolition in Europe and elsewhere, the Element calls for the ECtHR to pave the way for an abolitionist-oriented turn among human rights courts.

New Issue: Archiv des Völkerrechts

The latest issue of Archiv des Völkerrechts (Vol. 62, no. 4, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Abhandlungen
• Paul Gragl, Sanktionen und Strafe - Rechtskonformität und Verwebungseffekt von restriktiven Maßnahmen der EU gegen Russland
• Darius Hashemolhosseini & Patricia Wiater, International law approaches to state-owned enterprises
• Valentin Schatz & Aziz Epik, Zur völker- und verwaltungsrechtlichen Einordnung der zivilen Seenotrettung
• Julian A. Hettihewa, Potenziale der Youth Studies im Völkerrecht: Ein Plädoyer für einen wissenschaftlichen Austausch