New Issue: Ethics & International Affairs

The latest issue of Ethics & International Affairs (Vol. 32, no. 1, Spring 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Essay
• Ayelet Shachar, The Marketization of Citizenship in an Age of Restrictionism
• Roundtable: Rising Powers and the International Order
• G. John Ikenberry & Shiping Tang, Introduction
• G. John Ikenberry, Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive
• Shiping Tang, China and the Future International Order(s)
• Anne L. Clunan, Russia and the Liberal World Order
• Deepa M. Ollapally, India and the International Order: Accommodation and Adjustment
• Ole Wæver, A Post-Western Europe: Strange Identities in a Less Liberal World Order
• Andrew Hurrell, Beyond the BRICS: Power, Pluralism, and the Future of Global Order
• Review Essay
• Gillian Brock, How Should We Combat Corruption? Lessons from Theory and Practice

Conference: Treaty Shopping and Tools for Investment Treaty Reform

On March 12, 2018, the OECD will host its Fourth Annual Investment Treaty Conference. The theme is: "Treaty Shopping and Tools for Investment Treaty Reform." The program is here. Here's the idea:

The fourth annual OECD Investment Treaty Conference will address treaty shopping -- a controversial investment treaty issue of policy interest for many governments and stakeholders -- and explore tools to help interested governments improve their investment treaty policies.

Treaty shopping is widespread in the current investment treaty system. The Conference will discuss methods used, impact, policy issues raised, relevant government treaty policies and other issues.

pThe Conference will also present the innovative Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI) to the investment policy community. The MLI was developed by an ad hoc group of over 100 countries to address tax treaty shopping and additional issues. It facilitates the swift and consistent implementation of internationally agreed measures into existing bilateral treaties and provides for modification of almost half of the over 3,000 bilateral tax treaties in force today.

A concluding session will consider potential tools for reform based on the discussion and prior work by the Freedom of Investment Roundtable, and future steps.

King & Meernik: The Witness Experience: Testimony at the ICTY and Its Impact

Kimi Lynn King (Univ. of North Texas) & James David Meernik (Univ. of North Texas) have published The Witness Experience: Testimony at the ICTY and Its Impact (Cambridge Univ. Press 2018). Here's the abstract:

This book provides the most comprehensive and scientific assessment to date of what it means to appear before war crimes tribunals. This ground-breaking analysis, conducted with the cooperation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Victims and Witnesses Section, examines the positive and negative impact that testifying has on those who bear witness to the horrors of war by shedding new light on the process. While most witnesses have positive feelings and believe they contributed to international justice, there is a small but critical segment of witnesses whose security, health, and well-being are adversely affected after testifying. The witness experience is examined holistically, including witness' perceptions of their physical and psychological well-being. Because identity (gender and ethnicity) and war trauma were central to the ICTY's mandate and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the research explores in-depth how they have impacted the most critical stakeholders of any transitional justice mechanism: the witnesses.

New Issue: International Criminal Law Review

The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 18, no. 1, 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Anne-Laure Chaumette, International Criminal Responsibility of Individuals in Case of Cyberattacks
• Janine Natalya Clark, The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict: The ‘Human Element’ and the Jurisprudence of the ICTY
• Nadia Tapia Navarro, Collective Reparations and the Limitations of International Criminal Justice to Respond to Mass Atrocity
• Clotilde Pégorier, Speech and Harm: Genocide Denial, Hate Speech and Freedom of Expression
• Mikkel Jarle Christensen & Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen, Competing Perceptions of Hybrid Justice: International v. National in the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia
• Clare Frances Moran, A Perspective on the Rome Statute’s Defence of Duress: The Role of Imminence
• Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops & Ine van Giessen, The Investigative Scope of Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute before the ICC within the Palestine Situation

Call for Papers: New Security Challenges: Organized Crime & Urban Conflict in the Americas

The Universidad del Pacífico Law School has issued a call for papers for a conference on "New Security Challenges: Organized Crime & Urban Conflict in the Americas," to take place October 24-26, 2018, in Lima. The call is here (English/Español/Português.

Kittichaisaree: The Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute

Kriangsak Kittichaisaree (Judge, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea) has published The Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute (Oxford Univ. Press 2018). Here's the abstract:

Prosecution of serious crimes of international concern has been few and far between before and even after the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002. Hope thus rests with the implementation of the international legal obligation for States to either extradite or prosecute such perpetrators among themselves or surrender them to a competent international criminal court. This obligation was considered by the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) which submitted its final report in 2014.

Kittichaisaree, Chairman of the ILC Working Group on that topic, not only provides a guide to the final report, offering an analysis of the subject and a unique summary of its drafting history, he also covers important issues left unanswered by the report, including the customary international legal status of the obligation, the role of the universal jurisdiction, immunities of State officials, and impediments to the surrender of offenders to international criminal courts.

Conference: 112th ASIL Annual Meeting (Reminder)

On April 4-7, 2018, the American Society of International Law will hold its 112th Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC. The theme is: "International Law in Practice." I am one of the meeting's co-chairs, and the program is great. There are many fabulous panels, and keynote speakers and honorees include: Rosalie Silberman Abella (Justice, Supreme Court of Canada), Dapo Akande (Univ. of Oxford - Law), Joan E. Donoghue (Judge, International Court of Justice), Olufemi Elias (U.N. Assistant Secretary-General and Registrar, International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals), Christopher Greenwood (formerly, Judge, International Court of Justice), Meg Kinnear (Secretary-General, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes), and Peter Trooboff (Covington & Burling LLP). The draft program is here. I encourage all of ILR's readers to attend. You can register here. Here's the idea:

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

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

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

Call for Submissions: German Yearbook of International Law

The German Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its forthcoming volume 61 (2018). Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS

The German Yearbook of International Law is Germany’s oldest yearbook in the field of public international law. The GYIL is published annually by the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel and contains contributions on topics addressing all aspects of public international law. We aim to provide a platform for scholars of international law – both inside and outside Germany – to publish new research advancing public international legal discourse as well as analysis of current issues. The Yearbook features a ‘Forum’ section for which prominent scholars are invited to enter into discussion on newly developing topics in international law and a ‘Focus’ section for which a group of experts are invited to write articles examining in-depth various aspects of a topic chosen in advance by the editors. The GYIL also publishes English-language summaries of exceptional German doctoral and post-doctoral theses in the fields of public international law and European law.

The General Articles section of the GYIL is open to submissions from the entire academic community and is independently peer-reviewed by a board of renowned experts. All work submitted will be scrutinised based on its intellectual quality and its advancement of academic discourse. The Editors welcome submissions for volume 61 (2018) of the GYIL, inviting interested parties to submit contributions for consideration for inclusion in the forthcoming edition.

The paper should be 10,000-12,500 words inclusive of footnotes and conform with the GYIL Style Sheet. Submissions, including a brief abstract, statement of affiliation, and confirmation of exclusive submission, should be sent by 1 September 2018 to the Assistant Editors of the GYIL via e-mail: yearbook@wsi.uni-kiel.de.

Conference: Trafficking, Smuggling and Illicit Migration in International History: New Geographic and Scalar Perspectives

On April 12-13, 2018, the Laureate Research Program in International History at the University of Sydney, in collaboration with University College London and Birkbeck College London, will host a conference on "Trafficking, Smuggling and Illicit Migration in International History: New Geographic and Scalar Perspectives." Here's the idea:

This workshop, which brings together scholars working on or based in Oceania and the Asia-Pacific region, will ask how our global and international histories of trafficking and illicit migration change if we bring new geographies into the mix, and in doing so open up the geopolitics of our scholarly discussions about intimate labour and illicit migration. At the same time, it will centre questions of scale in our discussions of trafficking, interrogating the analytic distinctions made between the micro/local and the macro/global levels of analysis in histories of trafficking and illicit migration. This geographic and scalar broadening will have two foci in particular:

1) exploring trafficking and illicit migration – as social practices, contested categories of domestic regulation and loci of international governmentalities – in the Asia-Pacific region, with a particular focus on the links between trafficking and the narrowing of legal migratory routes that accompanied the imposition of racialized exclusion policies in the twentieth century, and

2) exploring the interaction between multiple racialised migration regimes which themselves have specific geographies as well as differentiated international biopolitics. In particular, we aim to study practices of racial othering and colonial exclusion which were at the heart of the Pacific zone of exclusion alongside what migration historian Adam McKeown has called the other great ‘East-West divide’ of modern migration regimes – the one separating Europe from the Ottoman empire, Russia and Eurasia. How do our histories of trafficking, intimate labour and illicit migration change if we compare, contrast and connect these multiple, overlapping and inter-linked systems of migration control?

In both cases the aim of our workshop will be not so much to supplant older geographic foci in the study of trafficking, illicit migration and forced labour, as to ask what we can learn by combining the study of, for example, the racialised dynamics of trafficking and anti-trafficking in Europe and the Middle East with an examination of similar dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region. Combined with our interrogation of scale as a framing device for our histories of trafficking, the workshop will constitute both an opportunity to examine substantive new material on histories of trafficking and illicit migration, and a methodological conversation about the kinds of geographic assumptions that are folded within our attempts to do global and international history.

Whytock: From International Law and International Relations to Law and World Politics

Christopher A. Whytock (Univ. of California, Irvine - Law and Political Science) has posted From International Law and International Relations to Law and World Politics (in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics). Here's the abstract:

Political scientists—primarily in the discipline’s international relations subfield—have long studied international law. After considering how political scientists and legal scholars define international law, this article identifies five stages of political science research on international law, including the current interdisciplinary international law and international relations (IL/IR) stage, and it reviews three trends in political science research that constitute an emerging sixth stage of interdisciplinary scholarship: a law and world politics (L/WP) stage. First, moving beyond the “IL” in IL/IR scholarship, international relations scholars are increasingly studying domestic law and domestic courts—not only their foundational role in supporting international law and international courts but also their direct role in core areas of international relations, including international conflict and foreign policy. Second, moving beyond the “IR” in IL/IR scholarship, political scientists are adapting their research on international law to the broader world politics trend in political science by studying types of law—including extraterritoriality, conflict of laws, private international law, and the law of transnational commercial arbitration—that govern the transnational activity of private actors and can either support or hinder private global governance. Third, moving beyond the domestic-international divide, political scientists are increasingly rejecting “international law exceptionalism,” and beginning to take advantage of theoretical convergence across the domestic, comparative, and international politics subfields to develop a better general understanding law and politics.

Christensen: The Creation of an Ad Hoc Elite: And the Value of International Criminal Law Expertise on a Global Market

Mikkel Jarle Christensen (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) has posted The Creation of an Ad Hoc Elite: And the Value of International Criminal Law Expertise on a Global Market (in The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, Kevin Jon Heller, Frédéric Mégret, Sarah Nouwen, Jens David Ohlin, & Darryl Robinson eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article investigates the creation and evolution of a new professional elite within and around the international criminal courts. By professional elite the article refers here to the agents able to move into senior positions and individually exert material and symbolic influence on the development of international criminal law (ICL). Building on a wider internationalization of criminal law and political investments in international institution building, this group of professionals moved from other career paths into the nascent field of ICL. Here they became the drivers of new institutional and legal developments and one of the primary embodiments of the institutional and symbolic authority generated in this field. The influence of this heterogeneous group that consisted of legal professionals, NGO advocates, diplomats and academics often built on the ability to mobilize several different forms of expertise and invest it towards the promise to end impunity.

Job Opening: Groningen (PhD Positions)

The University of Groningen has issued a call for applications for two PhD positions for the research project “The Rules of Interpretation of Customary International Law.” Here's the announcement:

Open call for 2 PhD Positions for the European Research Council (ERC) Funded Research Project, “The Rules of Interpretation of Customary International Law” (TRICI-Law), University of Groningen

TRICI-Law is a research project funded through an ERC Starting Grant (on ERC StGs see here), which was awarded in 2017 to Prof. Panos Merkouris. Based at the Department of Transboundary Legal Studies of the University of Groningen, TRICI-Law is seeking two PhD Researchers, each of which will be a four-year appointment.

The research focus of the PhD positions will revolve around the theory of interpretation of customary international law, and the manner in which both international and domestic courts have approached it in their own jurisprudence (on the research focus of each position see here). The successful applicants will be appointed starting 1 May 2018 (or soon thereafter).

More information on the positions, the project, submission of applications and selection process can be found here.

Applications must be submitted by 29 March 2018 (23:59 CET).

Informal enquiries may be directed to Prof. Panos Merkouris (p.merkouris@rug.nl).

New Issue: Journal of International Dispute Settlement

The latest issue of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement (Vol. 9, no. 1, March 2018) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Shakespeare and International Dispute Settlement
• Thomas Schultz & François Ost, Shakespearean Legal Thought in International Dispute Settlement
• Andrea Bianchi, International Adjudication, Rhetoric and Storytelling
• Barbara Lauriat, Literary and Dramatic Disputes in Shakespeare’s Time
• Gary Watt, Sovereigns, Sterling and ‘Some Bastards too!’: Brexit Seen from Shakespeare’s King John
• Ian Ward, The ‘Great Matter’ of King Henry VIII
• Maria Aristodemou, To Be or Not to Be a (Dead) Father
• Lorenzo Zucca & Lord Judge, Measure for Measure on Trial—A Shakespearean Mock Trial

Langford: International Courts and Public Opinion

Malcolm Langford (Univ. of Oslo - Law) has posted International Courts and Public Opinion. Here's the abstract:

Can international courts impact public opinion? There are many reasons to think not. The growing prominence of international courts in the domestic public sphere requires though reconsideration of this presumption. This experimental study takes the existing US-centric research on the effects of courts on public opinion a step further by testing whether the level of a court matters, whether domestic, international or even foreign. A panel of respondents in Norway were tested as to their views on prostitution laws and family rights to asylum after the random informational ‘treatments’ based on the decisions and reasoning of different courts. The overall shift in opinion was statistically significant but only when respondents received a double treatment of reasoning and judicial authority. Surprisingly, respondents receiving this information moderated their opinions regardless of the identity of the court. Similar impacts were generated when courts were replaced with non-judicial but authoritative actors such as the United Nations or Amnesty International. Nonetheless, the results, for at least Norway, lend support to a transpositional theory of international courts while casting doubt on ideas of credible commitment. It is the endorsement by a court not the type of a court that it is critical for inflecting public opinion.

Deplano: Building Pragmatic Utopias: The 'Other' Security Council, International Law and the United Nations Dream

Rossana Deplano (Univ. of Leicester - Law) has posted Building Pragmatic Utopias: The 'Other' Security Council, International Law and the United Nations Dream (German Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article revisits certain aspects of the foundational idea of international cooperation within the framework of the United Nations. By providing an empirically-grounded analysis of the use of international law by the Security Council, the article aims at redesigning the breadth, scope and limits of the United Nations utopian mission of creating a world without war. An argument is made that despite significant legal and political limitations, the United Nations is delivering an increasingly humanized type of international cooperation. Hence, after seven decades it is still on track eventually to deliver a pragmatic utopia.

Drahozal: Parties and Affected Others: Signatories and Nonsignatories to International Arbitration Agreements

Christopher R. Drahozal (Univ. of Kansas - Law) has posted Parties and Affected Others: Signatories and Nonsignatories to International Arbitration Agreements (in Cambridge Compendium on International Commercial and Investment Arbitration, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter discusses the parties to international arbitration agreements. Part I addresses the treatment of ‘parties’ in the New York Convention and national arbitration laws governing international commercial arbitration, and the ICSID Convention governing (many) investor-State arbitrations. Part II examines the theories under which affected others — that is, nonsignatories to an international arbitration agreement — might nonetheless be bound, likewise first in international commercial arbitration and then in investor-State arbitration. Finally, Part III discusses the available empirical evidence on the parties to international commercial arbitration and investor-State arbitration proceedings.

Puig: Network Analysis and the Sociology of International Law

Sergio Puig (Univ. of Arizona - Law) has posted Network Analysis and the Sociology of International Law (in Research Handbook on the Sociology of International Law, A. Lang & M. Hirsch eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Social scientists, including economists, sociologists, and anthropologists, have relied for decades on tools derived from network analysis. These tools, and key findings obtained through their application, are only beginning to be applied to the study of law and legal institutions, including international law. In this contribution, I briefly explain the origins, basic premises, and operation of network analysis, as well as its possible application to specific international legal fields. I briefly revisit its application to international arbitration and discuss the main limitations of this methodological approach to understanding the role of social dynamics in international law’s making, interpretation, and enforcement. While optimistic about the growing use of this research strategy for uncovering the sociology of international law, I argue that we should also be cautious of the normative and explanatory conclusions derived from the application of network analysis. In particular, network analysis’s application may be problematic if detached from careful understanding of the specific contexts in which legal institutions operate.

Pearlstein: Armed Conflict at the Threshold?

Deborah N. Pearlstein (Yeshiva Univ. - Cardozo School of Law) has posted Armed Conflict at the Threshold? (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Sixteen years into the United States’ engagement in what it has controversially understood as a global, non-international armed conflict against a shifting set of terrorist groups, a growing array of scholars has called for a reassessment of the significance of the “armed conflict” classification under international humanitarian law (IHL). The existence of an “armed conflict” has long been understood as a proxy on/off switch of inescapable importance. When an “armed conflict” exists, lethal targeting, without regard to particular self-defensive need or immediacy of threat, is permitted as a first resort. When an “armed conflict” does not exist, it is not. Challenging the wisdom of this categorical switch, critics raise a range of concerns: the line dividing which circumstances count as “armed conflict” and which do not is no longer clear or stable enough to provide meaningful guidance; current definitions may compromise humanitarian interests, prospects for criminal justice or both; most important, the “armed conflict” classification no longer reflects current moral, political, or strategic sensibilities about the role of lethal force in an age in which global threats have changed. This Essay contends that while the criticisms are important, they fail on their own terms to justify the abandonment of “armed conflict” as a proxy determinant of first-resort killing. More fundamentally, while classification critics recognize acutely the many changes in the nature of conflict since World War II, they attend far less to systemic changes in the development of international law during that time. Taking the “armed conflict” classification debate as a case study, this Essay highlights how critiques of international law’s substance may continue to embrace increasingly outmoded, World War-II era assumptions about the inadequacy of the international legal system to address problems inherent in all law: interpretive uncertainty, law violation, and social change.

Beard: The Principle of Proportionality in an Era of High Technology

Jack M. Beard (Univ. of Nebraska - Law) has posted The Principle of Proportionality in an Era of High Technology (in Complex Battlespaces: The Law of Armed Conflict and the Dynamics of Modern Warfare, Christopher M. Ford & Winston S. Williams eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter, in the forthcoming book Complex Battlespaces: The Law of Armed Conflict and the Dynamics of Modern Warfare (published by Oxford University Press) explores the application of a key principle of the law of armed conflict – proportionality – in the context of new and emerging weapon systems and methods of warfare. The relentless pursuit of new military technologies by states continues to yield expanding lists of technology-related issues for lawyers to consider in applying the law of armed conflict in complex battlespaces on land, sea, air, space, and in cyberspace. Foremost among these issues is the challenge presented by the principle of proportionality, requiring military forces to refrain from causing excessive damage to civilians and civilian objects when attacking military objectives. New weapon systems in complex battlespaces continue to increasingly force lawyers and decision makers to revisit, reevaluate and struggle in new contexts with the “equitable balance between humanitarian requirements and the sad necessities of war.” Some technological developments may, however, also present opportunities for the principle of proportionality to achieve greater relevance to the conduct of armed conflicts and even contribute to improved compliance by states. To illustrate these challenges and opportunities, this chapter examines the application of the principle of proportionality in modern armed conflicts with respect to several critical yet still evolving military technologies: unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous weapon systems, cyber capabilities, and outer space technologies.

Böse, Bohlander, Klip, & Lagodny: Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Schomburg

Martin Böse (Universität Bonn - Law), Michael Bohlander (Durham Univ. - Law), André Klip (Maastricht Univ. - Law) & Otto Lagodny (Universität Salzburg - Law) have published Justice Without Borders: Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Schomburg (Brill | Nijhoff 2018). Contents include:

• Kai Ambos, European Criminal Law and Brexit
• David Baragwanath, Energising the Law’s Response to Terrorism: The Decision of the Appeals Chamber of the Special Tribunal of Lebanon and the Need for Further Action
• Martin Böse, The Transnational Dimension of the ne bis in idem Principle and the Notion of res iudicata in the European Union
• Michael Bohlander, “The Global Panopticon”: Mass Surveillance and Data Privacy Intrusion as a Crime against Humanity?
• Helen Brady & David Re, Environmental and Cultural Heritage Crimes: The Possibilities under the Rome Statute
• Albin Eser, The Role of Comparative Law in Transnational Criminal Justice
• Sabine Gless, Protecting Human Rights through Exclusionary Rules? Highlights on a Conflict in Criminal Proceedings from a Comparative Perspective
• Florian Jeßberger, Implementing Kampala: The New Crime of Aggression under the German Code of Crimes against International Law
• Michael G. Karnavas, The Serendipitous Nature of the ICC Trial Proceedings Risks the ICC’s Credibility
• Stefan Kirsch, Vom eingeschränkten Nutzen strafrechtlicher Urteile für die Historiographie: Ein Beitrag zum Zustandekommen des ersten deutschen Urteils wegen Völkermordes in Ruanda
• André Klip, Fundamentally Dissenting Judge Schomburg
• Otto Lagodny, Combatting Terrorism without Secret Services?
• Howard Morrison, Judging in International Criminal Cases: Challenges, Aspirations and Duties
• Jan Christoph Nemitz, 25 Years of International Criminal Justice: Ebb and Flow or Rise and Fall?
• Ines Peterson, International Criminal Liability for Incitement and Hate Speech
• Herwig Roggemann, Die Konfliktregion Südosteuropa und das internationale und nationale Strafrecht
• William A. Schabas, International Prosecution of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes Perpetrated during the First World War
• Matthias Schuster, The ICTY’s Šešelj Trial: Taking Stock of a Disaster

Ntovas: Interpreting the Dispute Settlement Limitation on Fisheries after the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration

Alexandros Ntovas (Queen Mary, Univ. of London - Centre for Commercial Law Studies) has posted Interpreting the Dispute Settlement Limitation on Fisheries after the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration. Here's the abstract:

The present chapter places its focus on the jurisdictional aspects of the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (Mauritius v. United Kingdom), Award of 18th March 2015, by examining the interpretation of the fishery limitation under article 297(3)(a) of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, in the context of the fourth submission made by Mauritius, and the manner in which the UK subsequently objected thereto. The chapter views that in relation to the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement article 32, incorporating by reference the fishery limitation, the pronouncements of the Tribunal’s majority on this matter have provided a rather dubious legal authority that may only be seen as an inconsistent obiter dictum for future reference.

Madsen, Cebulak, & Wiebusch: Backlash Against International Courts: Explaining the Forms and Patterns of Resistance to International Courts

Mikael Madsen (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law), Pola Cebulak (Univ. of Copenhagen - iCourts), & Micha Wiebusch (Univ. of Antwerp - Institute of Development Policy and Management) have posted Backlash Against International Courts: Explaining the Forms and Patterns of Resistance to International Courts (International Journal of Law in Context, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The article investigates and theorises different forms and patterns of resistance to international courts and develops an analytical framework for explaining their variability. In order to make intelligible the resistance that many international courts are currently facing, the article first unpacks the concept of resistance. It then introduces a key distinction between mere pushback from individual member states or other actors, seeking to influence the future direction of a court’s case law, and actual backlash – a critique triggering significant institutional reform or even the dismantling of tribunals. On the basis on the proposed theoretical framework, the article provides a roadmap for empirical studies of resistance to ICs, considering the key contextual factors necessary to take into account in such studies.

Call for Papers: Access to International Adjudication

The Interest Group on International Courts and Tribunals of the European Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for a workshop immediately prior to the 2018 ESIL Annual Conference in Manchester. The theme is: "Access to International Adjudication." Here's the call:

The Interest Group on International Courts and Tribunals is organizing a Workshop on Access to International Adjudication, as a side-event to the ESIL 2018 Annual Conference in Manchester. The Workshop will take place at the University of Manchester on 13th September 2018, 9-12.30 am.

The topic: International courts and tribunals operate on the basis of separate constituent instruments, displaying significant differences specifically as regards the rules governing jurisdiction and access to court. Moreover, this aspect of international adjudication and arbitration is possibly the one that least reflects the fair trial model developed with reference to domestic courts, as neither States nor non-State actors enjoy in principle a right of access to international adjudication. The workshop intends to explore if and in which respect this traditional assumption based on the principle of consent still holds true, including as regards the possibility for relevant stakeholders to present their views in proceedings pending between different parties. It also aims at discussing accessibility of international courts and tribunals in different perspectives: notably with reference to the actual possibility for potential parties to exercise their right of access to a court; to be proactively involved in the proceedings and in a position to understand their outcome; as well as the possibility for individuals and entities that are not involved in international proceedings to be aware of their existence and to obtain information about them. A specific focus will be on the use of languages in international adjudication; abstracts may concern also other topics including (but not limited to) transparency, financial support to the parties and the statement of reasons on which decisions are grounded. Proposals addressing such issues with reference to specific judicial or arbitral institutions or engaging in a comparative analysis between different institutions are welcome. All Members of the Interest Group are invited to submit abstracts of up to 500 words.

Deadline for submitting abstracts: April 15, 2018.

Abstracts should be sent to esil.igict@mpi.lu

The following information must be provided with each abstract:

• The author’s name and affiliation
• The author’s CV, including a list of relevant publications
• The author’s contact details, including email address and phone number

Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by April 30, 2018.

Please note: unfortunately the Interest Group can’t provide financial support to selected speakers, who will participate in the workshop at their own cost.

We are looking forward to receiving your abstracts,

Kind regards,
Serena Forlati, Holger Hestermeyer and Hélène Ruiz Fabri

________________________________________

Le Groupe de réflexion sur les cours et tribunaux internationaux organise un atelier sur l'accès au règlement international des différends, en marge de la conférence annuelle de l'ESIL 2018 à Manchester. L'atelier se tiendra à l'Université de Manchester le 13 septembre 2018, de 9 h à 12 h 30.

Le sujet: Les cours et tribunaux internationaux fonctionnent sur la base d'instruments constitutifs distincts, présentant des différences significatives en ce qui concerne spécifiquement les règles régissant la compétence et l'accès aux tribunaux. En outre, cet aspect du règlement international des différends et de l'arbitrage international est peut-être celui qui reflète le moins le modèle de procès équitable développé en référence aux tribunaux nationaux, car ni les États ni les acteurs non étatiques ne jouissent en principe d'un droit d'accès au juge international. L'atelier vise à explorer si et dans quelle mesure cette hypothèse traditionnelle fondée sur le principe du consentement reste vraie, y compris en ce qui concerne la possibilité pour les parties prenantes concernées de présenter leurs points de vue dans des procédures pendantes entre différentes parties. Il vise également à débattre de l'accessibilité aux cours et tribunaux internationaux sous différents angles: notamment en ce qui concerne la possibilité pour les parties potentielles d'exercer leur droit d'accès à un tribunal; d'être impliqué de manière pro-active dans le déroulement de la procédure et en mesure de comprendre leurs résultats; ainsi que la possibilité pour les personnes et les entités qui ne sont pas impliquées dans des procédures internationales d'être au courant de leur existence et d'obtenir des informations à leur sujet. Une attention particulière sera accordée à l'utilisation des langues dans le processus de règlement international des différends; les propositions de contribution peuvent également porter sur d'autres sujets, y compris (mais sans s'y limiter) à la transparence, au soutien financier aux parties et l'exposé des motifs sur lesquels les décisions sont fondées. Les propositions traitant de ces questions en référence à des institutions juridictionnelles ou arbitrales spécifiques ou se livrant à une analyse comparative entre différentes institutions sont les bienvenues.

Tous les membres du groupe de réflexion sont invités à soumettre des résumés de 500 mots maximum.

Date limite de soumission des résumés: le 15 avril 2018.

Les résumés doivent être envoyés à l'adresse esil.igict@mpi.lu Les informations suivantes doivent être fournies avec chaque résumé:

• Le nom et l'affiliation de l'auteur(e)
• Le CV de l'auteur(e), y compris une liste des publications pertinentes
• Les coordonnées de l'auteur(e), y compris l'adresse e-mail et le numéro de téléphone

Les auteurs des résumés sélectionnés seront informés le 30 avril 2018.

Veuillez noter: le groupe de réflexion ne peut malheureusement pas fournir un soutien financier aux conférenciers sélectionnés, qui devront participer à l'atelier à leurs frais.

Nous sommes impatients de recevoir vos propositions,

Cordialement,
Serena Forlati, Holger Hestermeyer et Hélène Ruiz Fabri

Bar-Gill & Blum: Defenses

Oren Bar-Gill (Harvard Univ. - Law) & Gabriella Blum (Harvard Univ. - Law) have posted Defenses (Texas Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Effective defenses that are designed to protect civilians in war have significant implications for policy planning, military strategy, international relations, domestic politics and economics. Defenses can increase or decrease overall humanitarian welfare.

Surprisingly, existing legal scholarship has focused almost exclusively on offensive action, failing to consider the effects of defenses on the strategic interactions between armed rivals or the humanitarian consequences of defenses. The implications of defenses for the interpretation and application of the international legal rules on the use of force have also gone largely unexplored. We set out to fill this significant gap.

We study the operation of defensive systems in both asymmetric rivalries and symmetric rivalries, and consider the interplay between defenses and offensive measures. We analyze how defensive systems are likely to affect parties’ wartime conduct and the potential consequences for the welfare of civilians on both sides of the conflict. A central motivating observation is that defenses have the potential of safeguarding not only the lives of the defending party’s civilians but also those on the opposing side. Our analysis further considers how international law, and especially the principle of proportionality, might affect parties’ choices with regard to investments in defenses. Counter-intuitively, we caution that under some circumstances, an overly-restrictive application of the principle of proportionality might deter investment in defenses, thereby decreasing overall humanitarian welfare.

To make our theoretical models more concrete, we draw on several real-world examples: the Israeli anti-ballistic missile system, Iron Dome; the deployment of anti-missile defenses by Japan and the United States to meet the threat from North Korea; and the race between the two Cold War protagonists to develop superior inter-continental anti-ballistic missiles systems, which eventually lead to the 1972 ABM Treaty.

Job Opening: Manchester (Fellowship)

The University of Manchester is seeking to appoint a Presidential Fellowship in International Law. Here's the announcement:

The University of Manchester wishes to appoint a Presidential Fellowship in International Law. The successful candidate must have the ability to make a significant contribution to, and actively participate in, the work of the Manchester International Law Centre. Applications are sought from early-career academics who can deliver world-leading research and teaching. They should have a high academic standing, a growing reputation in research, and the specialist knowledge needed to develop cutting-edge research programmes. This is currently envisaged as a four-year appointment. The Presidential Fellow will do no or only minimal teaching in the first year and minimal teaching in the second year. In subsequent years, teaching commitments shall increase. Following a four-year probationary period, and subject to satisfactory performance, the Fellow will transfer to an appropriate academic contract.

Successful candidates must have a relevant PhD (or equivalent) awarded prior to commencing the appointment. and this must not have been awarded more than five years before 3 April 2018, which is the closing date for applications. Further details may be found here. Inquiries may be directed to Professors Jean d’Aspremont and Iain Scobbie at (milc[at]manchester.ac.uk) with the title “presidential fellowship”.