Novogrodsky & Fox: Of Looting, Land and Loss: The New International Law of Takings

Noah Benjamin Novogrodsky (Univ. of Wyoming - Law) & Gregory H. Fox (Wayne State Univ. - Law) have posted Of Looting, Land and Loss: The New International Law of Takings (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

International law has traditionally protected aliens against unlawful expropriations by host states. After World War II, citizens gained protection against property being taken by their own governments. In Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp (2021), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Takings Exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(3)) incorporated international law’s protections against alien property deprivation but not protections for citizens. The Court did so, in part, because international law’s traditional absence in citizen takings, in its view, “survived the advent of modern human rights law.”

The U.S. Supreme Court was simply wrong. Even at the time the U.S. Congress enacted the Takings Exception in 1976, many human rights instruments addressed citizen takings. Later, similar norms would enter a variety of other areas of international law, forming a mutually reinforcing network of property protections. But Philipp not only missed an opportunity to describe property norms accurately—its more significant omission was failing to distinguish the types of property covered by the alien and citizen regimes. Using a typology developed by Margaret Jane Radin, we identify alien property as “fungible,” meaning a dispossessed owner can be made whole by acquiring equivalent property in the market or its monetary equivalent. We identify citizen property as “property constitutive of personhood” or “personal property,” meaning the owner can only be made whole through restitution.

This Article explores how these very different conceptions of property have become manifest in two paradigmatic types of takings. For alien property, we examine the practice of expropriated foreign direct investment. For citizen property, we examine property taken during forced evictions in civil wars and persecution, including ethnic cleansing. In each case, the way in which the right to property conceives of the protected interest and the remedy available to owners reflect the different nature of the property involved. While the remedy of compensation is available for both alien and citizen of property under the law of state responsibility, investors have chosen compensation in almost every reported case. By contrast, citizens with a deep connection to homes, family businesses, art, and land demand restitution. Focusing on that choice is consistent with Radin’s definition of personal property as largely a subjective concept, built on how individual owners understand specific pieces of property to constitute an essential aspect of their character.

Three consequences flow from conceiving alien and citizen property as fungible and personal, respectively. First, the distinction introduces a human-centered conception of property that has been missing from international law debates focused on identifying legally cognizable “takings” and appropriate measures of compensation. Second, the idea of personal property clarifies the ways in which international law views certain takings, such as the seizure of homes attendant to massive human rights abuses and the taking of cultural property. Third, the land of Indigenous peoples, often described as occupying its own legal category, is presented here as an extreme example of personal property. In turn, that conception may help clarify and bolster claims for restitution of other types of personal property.

Wu: Taiwan's Economic Security in the Shadow of Chips Nationalism

Chien-Huei Wu (Acadmia Sinica) has posted Taiwan's Economic Security in the Shadow of Chips Nationalism (Journal of World Trade, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article addresses Taiwan's economic security in an era of chip nationalism and in light of various countries' zeal to establish semiconductor national champions through variations on the CHIPs Act. The article defines economic security and traces how it is perceived in Taiwan through an investigation of the strategic thinking of successive administrations responding to changing international economic relations, China's rise, and U.S.-China strategic competition and technological rivalry. The article explores challenges facing Taiwan in view of chip nationalism in the post-pandemic era and assesses Taiwan's role in global supply chain resilience and the impact of a potential second Trump presidency on Taiwan's economic security, in general, and semiconductor industry in particular. Taiwan plays a key role in the American strategy to outpace China in the current technological competition as elevating America's own semiconductor industry will be costly, contrary to economic logic, and impose costs injurious to American producers and consumers.

Vidigal & Claussen: The Sustainability Revolution in International Trade Agreements

Geraldo Vidigal (Univ. of Ambsterdam - Law) & Kathleen Claussen (Georgetown Univ. - Law) have published The Sustainability Revolution in International Trade Agreements (Oxford Univ. Press 2024). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Once seen as aspirational and relatively innocuous, 'sustainability' or 'sustainable development' provisions are now changing the face of international trade agreements. The Sustainability Revolution in International Trade Agreements gathers fundamental, first-hand analyses of these novel commitments across dozens of agreements, considering their legal, political, and economic aspects.

Drawing on perspectives from different parts of the world and engaging experts in the law and practice of sustainability provisions, this volume offers a comprehensive assessment of the latest developments and innovations in international trade agreements. It also evaluates the development challenges that sustainability requirements pose for countries with limited resources and capacity, for whom lower labour and environmental regulatory costs have been a competitive asset.

The present volume explores the intersectional aspects of sustainability - such as gender equality, biodiversity, animal welfare, and Indigenous rights - in addition to the more traditional dimensions of sustainability, namely economic development, environmental conservation, and improvement of labour standards.

There is little doubt that a sustainability revolution in global production patterns is needed. Considering the details of its operation - how it can come into being, who will bear the increased production costs, and how decisions on difficult trade-offs will be made - reveals the immense challenges involved in developing a new international law for sustainable trade. Read together, the chapters in this volume outline the contours this emerging legal framework, examine its practical operation, and offer important reflections upon the real extent and the foreseeable consequences of this sustainability revolution in international trade agreements.

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 58, no. 5, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Thomas J. Schoenbaum, Bidonomics Versus Maganomics: Pick Your Poison
• Petros C. Mavroidis, Adeet Dobhal, Lucas Jimenez-Moreira, Sunayana Sasmal, Robert Wolfe, Do Private Actors Have Rights under the WTO? The Motivation for and (Inadequate) Implementation of GATT Article X
• Yicheng Ru, The US Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act: the GATT 1994 Perspective
• Der-Chin Horng, The US CHIPS Act and Its Impacts on the WTO and China
• Manjiao Chi, Trade-Gender Alignment of International Trade Agreements: Insufficiencies and Improvements
• Frances Chisomaga Nwadike, Plurilateral Agreements and the Multilateral Trade System: Lessons from the Past and Present for the Future
• David J. Watson, Lost in Transliteration: The Role of Interpretation in Resolving Regional Trade Agreement Conflicts Relating to Geographical Indications

Inaugural Issue: Jus Mundi Arbitration Review

The inaugural issue of the Jus Mundi Arbitration Review (Vol. 1, no. 1, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Alain Pellet, The Seven Cardinal Sins of Investment Dispute Settlement
• Diego P. Fernández Arroyo, Investment Arbitration in the New Era: Engine or Obstacle in the Fight Against Climate Change?
• Alexis Mourre & Arianna Camillacci, The UNIDROIT Principles as a Tool for the Internationalisation of Contracts by Arbitral Tribunals
• Sectoral Focus: Artificial Intelligence & Arbitration
• Marike Paulsson & Supritha Suresh, AI: The Modern Tribunal Assistant – Impact on Enforceability of Arbitral Awards under the New York Convention
• Sara Migliorini, Automation & Augmentation: Artificial Intelligence in International Arbitration
• Global Developments in Arbitration
• Erica Stein, The IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration 2024
• Institutions in Focus: CIETAC
• Fei Lu, CIETAC: Overview of Dispute Resolution in the Digital Environment in China
• Case Comments
• Christopher Boog, Swiss Supreme Court rejects CJEU’s Komstroy ruling
• Cosmin Vasile, Romania’s Supreme Court Decides that Associations and Foundations Based in Romania Can Only Set Up Arbitral Institutions if Authorized by Law

Call for Papers: Increasing Avenues for International Justice and Accountability in Asia

The Asia Justice Coalition and Universitas Andalas Law Faculty have issued a call for papers for a workshop on "Increasing Avenues for International Justice and Accountability in Asia," to be held September 23-24, 2024, in Padang (and with limited participation online). The call is here.

New Issue: Questions of International Law

The latest issue of Questions of International Law / Questioni di Diritto Internazionale (no. 106, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• An International Agency for the Attribution of Malicious Cyber Operations?
• Introduced by Emanuele Cimiotta
• François Delerue, Reflections on the Opportunity of an International Attribution and Accountability Mechanism for Cyber Operations
• Nicholas Tsagourias, Cyber Attribution Agencies: A Sceptical View

New Issue: Chicago Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Chicago Journal of International Law (Vol. 25, no. 1, Summer 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Samuel Biresaw, Mia Rahim, & Michael Adams, Corporate Creditors Protection Rights Worldwide: Towards a Convergence of Strategies
• Rosa Celorio, The New Gender Perspective: The Dawn of Intersectional Autonomy in Women's Rights
• John Gillespie, Theorizing Constitutional Change in East Asia
• Andrew D. Mitchell, Navigating State Interventions: The Pivotal Role of PTAs in Modern Trade Conflicts

New Issue: Chinese Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Chinese Journal of International Law (Vol. 23, no. 2, June 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Xinjun Zhang & Xidi Chen, The 2022 ICJ Judgment in Nicaragua v. Colombia: Towards a Theory of Exclusivity in Allocating Rights and Jurisdiction between the Coastal and Other States?
• Brady Earley, Religious Freedom “with Chinese Characteristics”
• Comment
• Wumei Wei, Jurisdiction of a State Party under Article 2(1) of the ICCPR: A Comment on A.S. and Others v. Italy
• Current Developments
• Xinxiang Shi, Foreign State Immunity Law of China: A Preliminary Appraisal
• Special Section of Letters: ILC Draft Conclusions on General Principles of Law Adopted on First Reading
• Sienho Yee, Beijing Workshop on ILC Draft Conclusions on General Principles of Law Adopted on First Reading: An Editorial Note
• Xiao Mao, Comments on the Text of the Draft Conclusions on General Principles of Law Adopted by the ILC on First Reading
• Kaijun Pan, General Principles of Law as a Basis for Procedural Rules of International Organizations
• Luping Zhang, ILC Draft Conclusions on General Principles of Law Through the Lens of Air and Space Law Practices
• Tiantian He, How Simple Conclusions Carry Complex Issues: Some Thoughts on the Draft Conclusions on General Principles of Law
• Letters to the Journal
• Abhishek Trivedi, Monetary Gold Principle and the Case of Nicaragua v. Germany

New Issue: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (Vol. 24, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Jonathan Kwik, The Conceptual Roots of the Criminal Responsibility Gap in Autonomous Weapons Systems
• Charles Lawson, Fran Humphries & Michelle Rourke, Genetic Resources as Culture and Heritage: Repatriation and Benefit Sharing
• Yuliya Mik, 'More Justice, Less Truth' at the STL? Decoupling Individual Accountability from Collective Truth-Telling in International Criminal Law
• Daniel Rühmann, Conflating Trade with Policy: The Role of International Trade Frameworks in Australia-China Relations
• Laura Schuijers, Australia's Inaction on Climate Change is a Violation of Torres Straight Islanders' Human Rights: Billy v Australia

New Issue: Revista Costarricense de Derecho Internacional

The latest issue of the Revista Costarricense de Derecho Internacional (No. 12, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Fernanda Jiménez Sauter, A New Treaty for the Biodiversity of the High Seas
• Gabriel E. Chaves Corrales, Cláusulas arbitrales asimétricas: una aproximación al (des)balance de los derechos de las partes en el arbitraje comercial internacional
• Yhasmin Monteiro, El paradigma entre la democracia y la interpretación evolutiva de los derechos humanos

Inaugural Volume: Portuguese Yearbook of the Law of the Sea

The inaugural volume of the Portuguese Yearbook of the Law of the Sea (Vol. 1, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Alfred Soons, Some Observations on the ‘Ambulatory’ Nature of the Normal Baseline
• Robin Churchill, Portugal and the Development of the Law of the Sea in Western Europe
• Fernando Loureiro Bastos, Notes on Portuguese Publications Dedicated to International Law of the Sea in the 19th and 20th Centuries
• Yoshifumi Tanaka, Resilience of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: Reflections on Three Approaches
• Joanna Mossop, Dispute Settlement Provisions in the Agreement for Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction
• Marco Benatar & Valentin Schatz, Opting Out of UNCLOS Tribunals: The Impact of Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya)
• Irini Papanicolopulu, Maritime Boundaries after Delimitation
• Tullio Scovazzi, The Regime of Enclosed or Semi-Enclosed Seas with Special Regard for the Mediterranean Sea

New Issue: Human Rights Quarterly

The latest issue of the Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 46, no. 3, August 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Chuanju Cheng, Securing the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Case of Taiwan and Hunting
• Kimberly Theidon, Guerrilla Governance: Troubling Gender in the FARC
• Douglas Pretsell & Timothy Willem Jones, How Human Rights Became Gay Rights: A History of Toonen v Australia
• Jenna Norosky & Charli Carpenter, The Right to Flee the Dangers of War: Rethinking Ukraine’s Gender-Based Restriction on Civilian Men’s Freedom of Movement
• Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky & Juan Cruz Goñi, Limits to Negotiated Accountability of Economic Accomplices: The Case of Volkswagen do Brasil
• Jeremy Julian Sarkin & Tatiana Morais, The Agency of Refugees and Asylum-Seeking Women in the Face of the Inability of States to Provide Protection Against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

SFDI: La participation aux organisations internationales

The Société française pour le droit international has published La participation aux organisations internationales : Etat des lieux et perspectives - Journée de Lyon (Pedone 2024). The table of contents is here.

New Issue: Review of International Organizations

The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 19, no. 3, September 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The Power of the Weak
• Duncan Snidal, Thomas Hale, Emily Jones, Claas Mertens & Karolina Milewicz, The power of the “weak” and international organizations
• Lauren L. Ferry & Alexandra O. Zeitz, The power of having powerful friends: Evidence from a new dataset of IMF negotiating missions, 1985-2020
• Katherine M. Beall, Empowering to constrain: Procedural checks in international organizations
• Susanna P. Campbell & Aila M. Matanock, Weapons of the weak state: How post-conflict states shape international statebuilding
• Julia C. Morse & Bridget Coggins, Your silence speaks volumes: Weak states and strategic absence in the UN General Assembly
• Andrew Lugg, Re-contracting intergovernmental organizations: Membership change and the creation of linked intergovernmental organizations
• Michael W. Manulak, The sources of influence in multilateral diplomacy: Replaceability and intergovernmental networks in international organizations
• Rafael Mesquita, The only living guerrillero in New York: Cuba and the brokerage power of a resilient revisionist state

Arimatsu & Chinkin: Gendered Peace through International Law

Louise Arimatsu (London School of Economics - Centre for Women, Peace and Security) & Christine Chinkin (London School of Economics - Centre for Women, Peace and Security) have published Gendered Peace through International Law (Hart Publishing 2024). Here's the abstract:

Two leading feminist lawyers reflect on gender in international law to set out what a gendered peace might look like and its impact on international law in this open access book.

In order to challenge orthodoxies, the book takes an unconventional approach, merging personal reflections, expert essays, and interviews. It throws the disciplinary net wide, drawing on international law, gender studies, international relations and history. The authors, undisputed global leaders in the field, challenge the reader to unlearn international law, in order to relearn it in a way that makes it more fit for purpose in the contemporary world. This seminal work is a clarion call to think about international law in a new and transformative way.

Oette: The Transformation of the Prohibition of Torture in International Law

Lutz Oette (SOAS Univ. of London - Law) has published The Transformation of the Prohibition of Torture in International Law (Oxford Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

The prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment has a special status. It is the foremost international human rights norm protecting persons from attacks on their dignity and integrity. Consequently, it has been at the forefront of a series of developments in international human rights law and international law more broadly. Having withstood sustained challenges to its absolute nature in the 'war on terror', it has broadened its scope of application, becoming more sophisticated and complex in the process. The prohibition of torture increasingly interacts with other fields of human rights law, such as non-discrimination law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international migration law.

The Transformation of the Prohibition of Torture in International Law analyses the nature and significance of this transformation and looks into the scope of the prohibition's further evolution. Empirical scholarship, innovative human rights body practice, and challenges from activists, particularly from the Global South, have focused on the relational nature of torture and other ill-treatment, its embeddedness in wider structures of power, and the role of international law in legitimizing-if not facilitating-widespread suffering, from mass incarceration to poverty and climate change. This analysis reveals an inherent tension in the prohibition between a conventional, narrow focus on direct State violence and a wide lens encompassing myriad forms of suffering. To retain its validity and effectiveness in the twenty-first century, argues Lutz Oette, the prohibition on torture must navigate this tension and successfully address and transform abusive power asymmetries.

New Issue: Human Rights Review

The latest issue of the Human Rights Review (Vol. 25, no. 2, June 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Vincent Dupont, Diana Pietrzak, & Boris Verbrugge, A step in the right direction, or more of the same? A systematic review of the impact of human rights due diligence legislation
• Christina Gerken, The Power to Exclude: The (Mis)Treatment of Unaccompanied Minors under the Trump and Biden Administration
• Juan Pablo Serrano Frattali, The Venezuelan Migrant Population’s Right to Health in the Bucaramanga Metropolitan Area
• Tamara Horbachevska, Olena Uvarova, & Dmytro Vovk, Freedom of Religion and Non-discrimination Based on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation in Ukraine: Corporate Policy Commitments in Situations of Conflicting Social
• Renée Jeffery, Human Rights and Transitional Justice in the Maldives: Closing the Door, Once and For All?

Call for Papers: ASIL International Economic Law Interest Group Biennial Conference

The American Society of International Law International Economic Law Interest Group has issued a call for papers for its biennial conference, which will take place May 16-17, 2025, at University of Michigan Law School. The theme is: “New Tools Instead of Old Rules? The Changing Instruments of International Economic Law.” The call is here.

New Issue: Asia-Pacific Journal of Ocean Law and Policy

The latest issue of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Ocean Law and Policy (Vol. 9, no. 1, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Clive Schofield, Yucong Wang, & I Made Andi Arsana, Drawing the Dragon’s Claw: China Declares Territorial Sea Baselines in the Gulf of Tonkin
• Long Thang Tran, ASEAN Legal Framework for Cooperation against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUU): Significance, Challenges and Proposed Solutions
• Hao Shen, Towards an Integrated Legal Regime for Data and Sample Regulation under China’s Deep Seabed Mining Law
• Yu Luan, Cabotage Law Coordinately Applied Based on ‘One Country, Two Systems’ in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA
• Clive Schofield & Frances AnggadiThe Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty: Opportunities and Controversies

Call for Papers: Balancing Contradicting Human Rights Obligations in Armed Conflicts and Counter Terrorism

The Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa's Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Sciences, in collaboration with the Institute of Law and Technology at Masaryk University, have issued a call for papers for a workshop on "Balancing Contradicting Human Rights Obligations in Armed Conflicts and Counter Terrorism," to take place December 2-4, 2024, in Prague. The call is here.

New Issue: Transnational Legal Theory

The latest issue of Transnational Legal Theory (Vol. 15, no. 2, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Sebastian Meyer, Toleration in the European Union: a forgotten virtue
• Richard Clements, Professional field-work: constructing global health law as an ‘emerging field’
• Luiza Leite de Queiroz, A link without a right, or ubi nexus, ibi jus (?): international human rights instruments & international tax policy
• Clemens M Rieder, The construction of social Europe through transnational equality
• Franco Peirone, All in good time: temporal forms of public law decisions
• Joseph Parampathu, From securities to currencies: the regulatory consequences of adopting cryptocurrencies as legal tender

Call for Papers: EU Trade and Investment Law Workshop – "Questioning Economic Security"

The Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe has issued a call for papers for the third edition of its informal workshop on EU trade and investment policy, to take place on December 6, 2024. The topic is: "Questioning Economic Security." The call is here.

Call for Papers: 2025 ESIL Research Forum

A call for papers has been issued for the 2025 ESIL Research Forum, which will take place March 20–21, 2025, and hosted by the Department of Law of the University of Catania. The topic is: “International Law in the Age of Permacrisis.” The Forum targets scholars at an early stage of their careers. The call is here. The deadline is September 30, 2024.

Call for Papers: The Gaza War and International Law: Norms and Institutions

A call for papers has been issued for the 19th Annual Minerva Conference on International Humanitarian Law, to take place December 17-18, 2024, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Minerva Center for Human Rights. The theme is: "The Gaza War and International Law: Norms and Institutions." The call is here.