SSenyonjo: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law

Manisuli Ssenyonjo (Brunel Univ. - Law) has published Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law (Hart Publishing 2009). Here's the abstract:

The effective promotion, protection and fulfilment of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights is an important but under-explored component of international human rights law, of which ESC rights form an essential part. They are fundamental to the dignity of every person. At the international level ESC rights are protected in several international instruments, the most comprehensive being the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant) ratified by a majority of States. However, claims of violations of ESC rights are treated less seriously. This book subjects ESC rights protected in the Covenant to a deeper analysis in light of the practice of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights while taking into account other relevant sources of ESC rights at national, regional and international levels. It also analyses key issues relevant to ESC rights, with particular emphasis on various themes including State obligations; non-State actor's obligations; women's ESC rights; domestic protection of ESC rights; and State reservations to ESC rights. The book further makes a thorough examination of the rights to work, health, and education. By so doing, it demonstrates that ESC rights are justiciable and must not be marginalised. The book also brings together a collection of essential materials on ESC rights needed to understand and analyse the subject. Written by an international human rights scholar, this timely work will be of value to all those interested in human rights and international law.

Freestone & Streck: Legal Aspects of Carbon Trading

David Freestone (George Washington Univ. - Law) & Charlotte Streck (Climate Focus) have published Legal Aspects of Carbon Trading: Kyoto, Copenhagen, and beyond (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

Since 2005 the carbon market has grown to a value of nearly $100 billion per annum. This new book examines all the main legal and policy issues which are raised by emissions trading and carbon finance. It covers not only the Kyoto Flexibility Mechanisms but also the regional emission trading scheme in the EU and emerging schemes in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. The Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention are in the process of negotiating a successor regime to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol whose first commitment period ends in 2012. As scientists predict that the threat of dangerous climate change requires much more radical mitigation actions, the negotiations aim for a more comprehensive and wide ranging agreement which includes new players - such as the US - as well as taking account of new sources (such as aircraft emissions) and new mechanisms such as the creation of incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Lecture: Gowlland-Debbas on "The Interplay Between International Legal Regimes"

Vera Gowlland-Debbas (Graduate Institute of International Studies - Law) will deliver a lecture today as part of the UCL Laws Current Legal Problems Lecture Series on "The Interplay Between International Legal Regimes: Some Current Critical Issues."

Workshops: Dunworth, Rifkind

Treasa Dunworth (Univ. of Auckland - Law) will give a talk today at the Oxford Public International Law Discussion Group on "The Accountability of International Organisations: The Role of Civil Society."

Malcolm Rifkind MP will give a talk today at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict Seminar Series "Getting to Zero" on "Eliminating Nuclear Weapons."

New Issue: Virginia Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Virginia Journal of International Law (Vol. 50, no. 1, Fall 2009) is out. Contents include:

• A.E. Dick Howard, A Traveler from an Antique Land: The Modern Renaissance of Comparative Constitutionalism
• Alvaro Santos, Labor Flexibility, Legal Reform, and Economic Development
• Alexander K.A. Greenawalt, Complementarity in Crisis: Uganda, Alternative Justice, and the International Criminal Court
• John H. Knox, Climate Change and Human Rights Law

Patel: Who Can Be Detained in the "War on Terror"? The Emerging Answer

Faiza Patel (New York Univ. - Brennan Center for Justice) has posted an ASIL Insight on Who Can Be Detained in the "War on Terror"? The Emerging Answer.

Nolte: Peace through International Law

Georg Nolte (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Law) has published Peace through International Law: The Role of the International Law Commission (Springer 2009). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

While peace is the overarching goal of the United Nations, questions of war and peace are not always directly considered in the day-to-day work of the International Law Commission (ILC). The sixtieth anniversary of the ILC provides an occasion to reflect on the role and the responsibility, but also on the limits, of the ILC in the area of peace and security.

Three areas of the Commission’s work will be assessed: the law of State responsibility and the law of treaties as "classics" among the topics treated by the ILC. In addition, the topic of shared natural resources is likely to have an increasing importance for peace and security in the future.

New Issue: International Organization

The latest issue of International Organization (Vol. 63, no. 4, Fall 2009) is out. Contents include:

• James A. Caporaso & Sidney Tarrow, Polanyi in Brussels: Supranational Institutions and the Transnational Embedding of Markets
• Michael Barnett, Evolution Without Progress? Humanitarianism in a World of Hurt
• Elliot Posner, Making Rules for Global Finance: Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation at the Turn of the Millennium
• Jörg Friedrichs & Friedrich Kratochwil, On Acting and Knowing: How Pragmatism Can Advance International Relations Research and Methodology
• Terrence L. Chapman, Audience Beliefs and International Organization Legitimacy
• Judith Kelley, D-Minus Elections: The Politics and Norms of International Election Observation
• Han Dorussen, Emil J. Kirchner, & James Sperling, Sharing the Burden of Collective Security in the European Union
  

Symposium: Complementing International Humanitarian Law

The latest issue of the Israel Law Review (Vol. 42, no. 1, 2009) contains a symposium on "Complementing International Humanitarian Law: Exploring the Need for Additional Norms to Govern Contemporary Conflict Situations." Contents include:

• David Kretzmer, Rethinking Application of IHL in Non-International Armed Conflicts
• Geoffrey Corn & Eric Talbot Jensen, Transnational Armed Conflict: A “Principled” Approach to the Regulation of Counter-Terror Combat Operations
• Ralph Wilde, Complementing Occupation Law? Selective Judicial Treatment of the Suitability of Human Rights Norms
• Yuval Shany, The Law Applicable to Non-Occupied Gaza: A Comment on Bassiouni v. The Prime Minister of Israel
• Amichai Cohen, Economic Sanctions in IHL: Suggested Principles
• Michael M. Lieberman, Pragmatism and Principle in International Humanitarian Law
• Valentina Falco, The Internal Legal Order of the European Union as a Complementary Framework for its Obligations under IHL

Lecture: David on "Conditions d'application du droit international humanitaire aux conflits armés internes"

Eric David (l'Université libre de Bruxelles - Law) will deliver a lecture today at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies on "Conditions d'application du droit international humanitaire aux conflits armés internes."

Workshops: Ortino, Sikkink, Wheatley

Federico Ortino (King’s College London) will give a talk today at the UCL Faculty of Laws and International Law Association (British Branch) International Law Seminar on "Legal Reasoning in International Investment Awards: Transparency and Legitimacy Concerns."

Kathryn Sikkink (Univ. of Minnesota - Political Science) will give a talk today at the New York University School of Law Hauser Globalization Colloquium on Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Law on "Explaining the Deterrence Effect of Human Rights Prosecutions for Transitional Countries." Philip Alston (New York Univ. - Law) and Ryan Goodman (New York Univ. - Law) will be the discussants.

Steven M. Wheatley (Univ. of Leeds - Law) will give a talk today at the University of Nottingham School of Law-International Law Association (British Branch) Regional Seminar on "Why International Lawyers are a Threat to Democracy, and How Constitutional Lawyers Ought to Respond."

Reich: Bilateralism Versus Multilateralism in International Economic Law: Applying the Principle of Subsidiarity

Arie Reich (Bar-Ilan Univ. - Law) has posted Bilateralism Versus Multilateralism in International Economic Law: Applying the Principle of Subsidiarity. Here's the abstract:

This paper proposes a different perspective on the problem of bilateralism versus multilateralism than what has been offered in the literature to date. It proposes to look at the problem through the prism of the Subsidiarity principle. While this principle has mainly been used in the context of allocation of authority between various levels of government in federal or quasi-federal systems of government, I propose to use it in the analysis of the various layers of international economic law and in relation to the choice of bilateral, regional or plurilateral regimes over multilateral ones. Such an analysis can provide both a normative criterion as well as an explanatory tool in relation to the reality of booming bilateralism. The objective of the paper is to develop parameters analogous to those used in the federalist discourse but adapted to the subject matter of international economic law. These parameters incorporate both the efficiency and the political/ethical rationales of the Subsidiarity principle. In particular, it dictates that actions should be taken on less centralistic levels, closer to the point of action, where measures more precisely targeted and more closely attuned to the needs of the parties involved may be taken. Through this perspective, just as well-functioning provincial and local governments may serve as building blocks for a leaner, better functioning and more democratic central government, bilateral and regional regimes may serve as important building blocks for a leaner, better functioning and more democratic multilateral organization.

New Issue: Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

The latest issue of the Review of European Community & International Environmental Law (Vol. 18, no. 2, July 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Articles on Climate Change Litigation
• Josephine A.W. van Zeben, The European Emissions Trading Scheme Case Law
• Julia Schatz, Climate Change Litigation in Canada and the USA
• Marilyn Averill, Linking Climate Litigation and Human Rights
• William C.G. Burns, Belt and Suspenders? The World Heritage Convention's Role in Confronting Climate Change
• Graham Erion, The Stock Market to the Rescue? Carbon Disclosure and the Future of Securities-Related Climate Change Litigation
• General Articles
• Anne-Marie Klijn, Joyeeta Gupta, & Anita Nijboer, Privatizing Environmental Resources: The Need for Supervision of Clean Development Mechanism Contracts?
• Alistair Rieu-Clarke & Flavia Rocha Loures, Still not in Force: Should States Support the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention?
• Sophie Riley, Preventing Transboundary Harm From Invasive Alien Species

Hadfield: The Role of International Law Firms and Multijural Human Capital in the Harmonization of Legal Regimes

Gillian Hadfield (Univ. of Southern California - Law and Economics) has posted The Role of International Law Firms and Multijural Human Capital in the Harmonization of Legal Regimes (in Multijuralism: Manifestations, Causes and Consequences, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Multijuralism is a fundamental attribute of the globalizing world, not merely as a result of the public creation of multijural states or trading zones, but also as a result of privately generated multi-jurisdictional transactions and relationships. Both public and private rule-making are important to the development of law in multijural settings. As important, however, is the dynamic development of rules through the process of interpretation and adjudication. Indeed, harmonization of law through the adoption of literally similar legal rules or contract provisions may have little impact on the harmonization of the ultimate legal treatment of particular conduct if legal rules are interpreted and adjudicated differently in different legal regimes. Courts need access to grounded problem-specific knowledge in order for harmonization to be effective across multiple jurisdictions. The principal source of this judicial legal human capital (Hadfield 2006) is the legal human capital generated by lawyers for clients and shared with courts in the process of dispute resolution. Consequently the global markets in which lawyers' investments in multijural legal human capital take place are important not merely for how well they serve the interests of particular clients but, more fundamentally, for how well they work to generate the legal human capital that ultimately feeds into the quality of the harmonization work of courts. These global legal markets, however, are characterized by both market failure and monopoly restrictions. Market failures arise because of the difficulties that attend the production and distribution of information, difficulties that in other settings are mitigated through the use of intellectual property protection, public subsidy and so on. Law firms are an important organizational form for overcoming legal human capital market failures. In the multijural setting, however, extensive jurisdiction-specific monopolies over the provision of legal services inhibit the development of truly multi-jurisdictional law firms. Reducing the barriers to multi-jurisdictional legal practice is an important policy step in the direction of promoting the harmonization of law in a multijural world.

Qin: Managing Conflicts between Rulings of WTO and RTA Tribunals: Reflections on the Brazil-Tyres Case

Julia Ya Qin (Wayne State Univ. - Law) has posted Managing Conflicts between Rulings of WTO and RTA Tribunals: Reflections on the Brazil-Tyres Case. Here's the abstract:

The proliferation of international tribunals has given rise to much concern about potential conflicts between judicial decisions and possible ‘fragmentation’ of international law. Most of the discussions have focused on conflicts of jurisdictions and conflicts of norms that may result from competing or overlapping jurisdictions. The worst type of conflicts however is the conflict of obligations where a State cannot comply with the decisions of two tribunals at once because their separate decisions require the State to act in opposite directions.

Unfortunately, such a direct conflict of obligations has occurred as a result of the decision of the WTO Appellate Body in the case of Brazil - Tyres (DS332). The Appellate Body held that, by following the ruling of an arbitral tribunal of Mercosur - the regional trade agreement (RTA) between several South American countries - Brazil acted inconsistently with WTO rules. Furthermore, in the subsequent compliance proceedings a WTO arbitrator refused to allow Brazil time to negotiate a solution with other Mercosur countries. Consequently, Brazil found itself in a legal bind: it could not comply with WTO obligations without breaching its Mercosur obligations. Significantly, this conflict of obligations did not stem from competing or overlapping jurisdictions or conflicting treaty norms. Instead, it occurred entirely as a result of the Appellate Body’s interpretation of a WTO provision.

This paper submits that the conflict in this case could have been avoided because alternative interpretations, arguably legally sounder ones, do exist, and should have been avoided because there are international rules requiring a presumption against conflicts in treaty interpretation. The paper suggests that in rendering its decision the Appellate Body showed little concern regarding conflicts with the RTA, and that such lack of concern reflected an outdated mindset of WTO centrality or superiority. In light of international legal principles and the realities of the multi-polar global trading environment, the WTO judiciary is urged to adopt a clear policy on the avoidance of conflicts with RTA decisions.

Call for Applications: Grotius Centre (2 Ph.D. positions)

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden University is seeking applications for two Ph.D. positions. Here's the advertisement:

Two PhD positions, Post-Conflict Justice and Local Ownership

Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden/The Hague

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies (Leiden Law School & Campus Den Haag) has two PhD vacancies for the project ‘Post-Conflict Justice and Local Ownership’ funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

Background

The project will involve research and testing of the design and management of international criminal justice. It examines rationales and methodologies of external intervention in justice responses, the societal impact of international criminal proceedings, based on analysis of the first practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the contribution of the ICC to capacity-building and legal harmonisation in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Positions

1. PHD POSITION: Societal impact of international criminal justice (full-time)

Vacancy number: 9-202

The PhD will examine the empirical and methodological problems associated with impact-measurement of international criminal justice. It will study the effects of international investigations and prosecutions on the basis of the first investigations and prosecutions of the ICC (Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan and Central African Republic).

2. PHD POSITION: Contribution of international criminal justice to domestic capacity-building and harmonisation

Vacancy number: 9-202a

The second PhD will examine to what extent ICC membership and international investigation and prosecution has served as a catalyst for domestic justice and implementation of international legal standards in ICC situation-countries. It will analyse the scope and forms of local justice responses to ICC activities, domestic law reform activities, reception of ICC jurisprudence and interaction with the rights and interests of victims.

Appointment

Successful applicants will be appointed for a fixed-term period of 4 years, with continuation dependent upon an evaluation after 12 months. The gross monthly salary will be in accordance with the Collective Agreement of Dutch Universities for academic personnel, and will range from € 2.042,- per month in the first year, gradually rising to € 2.612,- in the final year.

Further information

More information on the project and these positions can be found on the website of the Grotius Centre. More information about these vacancies can be obtained from Dr. Carsten Stahn, E-Mail: cstahn@campusdenhaag.nl or Dr. Larissa van den Herik, E-Mail: L.van.den.Herik@LAW.leidenuniv.nl. Deadline for applications: 6 November 2009.

New Issue: Archiv des Völkerrechts

The latest issue of Archiv des Völkerrechts (Vol. 47, no. 3, September 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Abhandlungen
• Robert Uerpmann-Wittzack, Internetvölkerrecht
• Stefanie Schmahl, Zwischenstaatliche Kompetenzabgrenzung im Cyberspace
• Christian Tietje & Karsten Nowrot, Das Internet im Fokus des transnationalen Wirtschaftsrechts: Normative Ordnungsstrukturen für den E-Commerce
• Hans-Georg Dederer, ICANN und die Dominanz der USA: Internet Governance auf dem Weg in die Internationalisierung
• Beiträge und Berichte
• Julia Lehmann, Die Überwindung des digitalen Grabens
• Besprechungen
• Robert Uerpmann-Wittzack, Europäisches und Internationales Medienrecht
• Stefanie Schmahl, Jurisdiction and the Internet. Regulatory Competence over Online Activity
• Franz C. Mayer, Self-Regulation in Cyberspace
• Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, Customary Law of the Internet. In the Search for a Supranational Cyberspace Law
• Christian Pitschas, WTO und Telekommunikation
• Nadine Haschke, International Domain Name Law, ICANN and the UDRP

Burns & Osofsky: Adjudicating Climate Change: State, National, and International Approaches

William C. G. Burns (Santa Clara Univ. - Law) & Hari M. Osofsky (Washington and Lee Univ. - Law) have published Adjudicating Climate Change: State, National, and International Approaches (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Contents include:

• Peter E. Roderick, Preface
• William C. G. Burns & Hari M. Osofsky, Introduction: the exigencies that drive potential causes of action for climate change
• Stephanie Stern, State action as political voice in climate change policy: the Minnesota environmental cost valuation regulation
• Lesley K. McAllister, Limiting climate change at the coal mine
• Katherine Trisolini & Jonathan Zasloff, Cities, land use, and the global commons: genesis and the urban politics of climate change
• Mary Christina Wood, Atmospheric trust litigation
• Hari M. Osofsky, The intersection of scale, science, and law in Massachusetts v. EPA
• Brendan R. Cummings & Kassie R. Siegel, Biodiversity, global warming, and the United States Endangered Species Act: the role of domestic wildlife law in addressing greenhouse gas emissions
• Amy Sinden, An emerging human right to security from climate change: the case against gas flaring in Nigeria
• David A. Grossman, Tort-based climate litigation
• Jeffrey W. Stempel, Insurance and climate change litigation
• Erica J. Thorson, The world heritage convention and climate change: the case for a climate-change mitigation strategy beyond the Kyoto protocol
• Hari M. Osofsky, The Inuit petition as a bridge? Beyond dialectics of climate change and indigenous peoples' rights
• Jennifer Gleason & David B. Hunter, Bringing climate change claims to the accountability mechanisms of international financial institutions
• William C. G. Burns, Potential causes of action for climate change impacts under the United Nations Fish Stock Agreement
• Andrew Strauss, Climate change litigation: opening the door to the international court of justice
• David B. Hunter, The implications of climate change litigation: litigation for international environmental law-making
• Hari M. Osofsky, Conclusion: adjudicating climate change across scales

New Issue: Stockholm International Arbitration Review

The latest issue of the Stockholm International Arbitration Review (Vol. 2008, no. 3) is out. Contents include:

• John Savage & Elodie Dulac, Chinese Investment Treaties and the Dispute Resolution Opportunities Offered by Most-Favoured Nation Provisions
• Thomas Eilmansberger, Bilateral Investment Treaties and EU Law
• Laurent Lévy & Tetiana Bersheda, Recent Swiss Developments on Exclusion Agreements
• Tireur Bondaryev & Markian Malskyy, Recent Developments concerning Dispute Resolution of Shareholder Agreements in Ukraine: For Better or for Worse?

Spiro: Dual Citizenship as Human Right

Peter J. Spiro (Temple Univ. - Law) has posted Dual Citizenship as Human Right (International Journal of Constitutional Law (I-CON), forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

For most of modern history, dual citizenship was considered an anomaly at best and an abomination at worst. It has since become a commonplace of globalization. The sequence has been from strong disfavor to toleration; some states have moved to embrace the status. Could plural citizenship now achieve the status of a right?

This essay makes a bounded case for recognizing a right to acquire and/or maintain plural citizenship where an individual is otherwise eligible for the status. It does so through the optics of freedom of association and liberal autonomy values. Citizenship comprises both a form of association and a vehicle for individual identity. The liberal state has no business obstructing alternate national ties in the absence of a compelling interest. That interest once existed, to the extent that dual nationality destabilized interstate relations, and explains the historical opprobrium attached to the status. Laws directed at reducing the incidence of dual citizenship may also unjustifiably burden the exercise of political rights.

Today, the material downside risks (if any) posed by plural citizens have dissipated to the point that the state is no longer justified in suppressing the status. To the extent that dual citizenship undermines social solidarities necessary to liberal governance, that is too diffuse an interest to overcome individual autonomy values. The essay concludes with some indirect evidence from practice that dual citizenship is gaining traction as a right.

New Issue: International Journal of Transitional Justice

The latest issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice (Vol. 3, no. 3, November 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Anna Eriksson, A Bottom-Up Approach to Transformative Justice in Northern Ireland
• Patricia Lundy, Exploring Home-Grown Transitional Justice and Its Dilemmas: A Case Study of the Historical Enquiries Team, Northern Ireland
• Laura A. Young & Rosalyn Park, Engaging Diasporas in Truth Commissions: Lessons from the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project
• Jelena Subotic, The Paradox of International Justice Compliance
• Jo-Marie Burt, Guilty as Charged: The Trial of Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for Human Rights Violations
• Hunjoon Kim, Seeking Truth after 50 Years: The National Committee for Investigation of the Truth about the Jeju 4.3 Events
• Tazreena Sajjad, These Spaces in Between: The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and Its Role in Transitional Justice
• Godfrey M. Musila Options for Transitional Justice in Kenya: Autonomy and the Challenge of External Prescriptions

Workshop: Bilan des approches critiques en droit international

The Centre pour l'étude et la recherche en droit international de l'Université Panthéon Sorbonne Paris 1 (CERDIN) and the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at Melbourne Law School will hold a workshop on "Bilan des approches critiques en droit international/Evaluating Critical Approaches to International Law," December 11th and 12th, at the University of Paris 1. The program is here.

Call for Papers: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The Melbourne Journal of International Law has issued a call for papers for the first issue of its eleventh volume, due to be published in June 2010. The submission deadline is January 29, 2010. Here's the call:

The Editors of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (‘MJIL’) invite submissions on areas of interest in international law for the first issue of their 11th volume, to be published in June 2010.

MJIL, Australia’s premier generalist international law journal, is a peer-reviewed academic journal run through the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne. MJIL’s objective is to facilitate scholarly research and critical discussion of private and public international law issues.

Submissions

MJIL is a bi-annual publication, published in June and October each year.

MJIL publishes articles, commentaries, case notes and book reviews. Articles should be in the vicinity of 10 000 to 20 000 words in length and be an original and detailed contribution to international law scholarship. Commentaries explore recent developments in a specific field of international law and their practical applications, and should be between 5000 and 8000 words in length.

Submission Process

All articles, case notes, commentaries and review essays published in MJIL are subjected to a double-blind refereeing process, involving at least two specialists in the field. Once accepted for publication, submissions will then be edited for compliance with the Melbourne Manual for International Law Citation and the Australian Guide to Legal Citation. Authors have an opportunity to review the final version of the piece prior to publication. Our publication policy can be accessed at http://mjil.law.unimelb.edu.au/submit/policy.pdf.

All submissions should be sent to law-mjil@unimelb.edu.au in Word format, together with a signed publication policy.

The submission deadline for 11(1) is 29 January 2010.

Workshops: Kontorovich, Potter

Eugene Kontorovich (Northwestern Univ. - Law) will give a talk today at the Georgetown University Law Center Foreign Relations Law Colloquium on "The Constitutionality of International Courts: The Forgotten Precedent of Slave Trade Tribunals."

Pitman Potter (Univ. of British Columbia) will give a talk today at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law International Law Forum on "China and the Reception of International Law Under Conditions of Globalization."

Gaeta: The UN Genocide Convention: A Commentary

Paola Gaeta (Univ. of Geneva and Univ. of Florence - Law) has published The UN Genocide Convention: A Commentary (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, is one of the most important instruments of contemporary international law. It was drafted in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trial to give flesh and blood to the well-known dictum of the International Military Tribunal, according to which 'Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced'. At Nuremberg, senior state officials who had committed heinous crimes on behalf or with the protection of their state were brought to trial for the first time in history and were held personally accountable regardless of whether they acted in their official capacity.

The drafters of the Convention on Genocide crystallized the results of the Nuremberg trial and thus ensured its legacy. The Convention established a mechanism to hold those who committed or participated in the commission of genocide, the crime of crimes, criminally responsible. Almost fifty years before the adoption of the Rome Statute, the Convention laid the foundations for the establishment of the International Criminal Court. It also obliged its Contracting Parties to criminalise and punish genocide.

This book is a much-needed Commentary on the Genocide Convention. It analyses and interprets the Convention thematically, thoroughly covering every article, drawing on the Convention's travaux préparatoires and subsequent developments in international law. The most complex and important provisions of the Convention, including the definitions of genocide and genocidal acts, have more than one contribution dedicated to them, allowing the Commentary to explore all aspects of these concepts. The Commentary also goes beyond the explicit provisions of the Convention to discuss topics such as the retroactive application of the Convention, its status in customary international law and its future.