International Law Reporter

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

New Issue: New York University Journal of International Law and Politics

The latest issue of the New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (Vol. 43, no. 1, Fall 2010) is out. Contents include:

Georges Abi-Saab, The Normalization of International Adjudication: Convergence and Divergencies
Gerald L. Neuman, Anti-Ashwander: Constitutional Litigation as a First Resort in France
Kenneth J. Vandevelde, A Unified Theory of Fair and Equitable Treatment

Bories: Le patrimoine culturel en droit international

Clémentine Bories has published Le patrimoine culturel en droit international: Les compétences des Etats à l'égard des éléments du patrimoine culturel (Pedone 2011). Here's the abstract:

Le patrimoine culturel constitue un ensemble d’éléments immatériels comme matériels qui participe à la construction et à la vie des identités humaines. Réalité longtemps oubliée du droit, elle le met désormais au défi, à l’heure de proposer une définition puis d’élaborer un régime juridique adapté à sa nature comme à ses besoins. Plus particulièrement, le droit international se heurte à une double difficulté à l’occasion de la détermination des compétences des Etats en la matière : il se doit de prendre en considération la nature particulière du patrimoine culturel, c’est-à-dire sa dimension humaine intrinsèque, d’une part, et le rattachement de ses différentes composantes à tel ou tel groupe humain, voire à tel ou tel espace, d’autre part.
Aussi la détermination des compétences étatiques à l’égard du patrimoine culturel constitue-t-elle une opération à la fois cruciale et délicate. Nombreux sont les enjeux qui s’y attachent, tant en matière d’efficacité de la protection que de mise en valeur des identités humaines et de respect des droits de l’homme, ou encore d’attribution d’un élément du patrimoine culturel à un peuple, un territoire ou un Etat particulier.
La recherche des règles de droit positif ou en formation en la matière conduit à mettre en évidence un principe, celui du recours à la compétence classique de l’Etat territorial. Inadapté à bien des égards, le titre territorial présente l’avantage d’une apparente simplicité, et permet d’assurer la protection de la plupart des éléments du patrimoine culturel. Des titres complémentaires, non territoriaux, se multiplient par ailleurs.Ils tendent à réajuster la définition voire l’articulation des compétences étatiques pour les faire davantage concorder avec la nature et les besoins de leur objet. La singularité du patrimoine culturel est alors prise en considération de manière croissante par le droit international, qui propose un ordonnancement modulable des compétences étatiques et subordonne l’ensemble du régime juridique à la nécessité de préserver au mieux l’essence comme l’apparence de ces objets à forte dimension symbolique et humaine.

d'Aspremont: Participants in the International Legal System: Multiple Perspectives on Non-State Actors in International Law

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has published Participants in the International Legal System: Multiple Perspectives on Non-State Actors in International Law (Routledge 2011). Contents include:

Michael Reisman, Foreword
Math Noortmann, Presentation
Jean d’Aspremont, Introduction – Non-State Actors in International Law: Oscillating Between Concepts and Dynamics
Jean d’Aspremont, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of Legal Positivism: the Communitarian Semantics for the Secondary Rules of International Law
Thomas Kleinlein, Non-State Actors from an International Constitutionalist Perspective: Participation matters!
Jörg Kammerhofer, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of a Pure Theory of Law
Anthony d’Amato, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of the Policy Oriented School: Power, Law, Actors and the View from New Haven
Math Noortmann, Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Non-State Participation in the Formation of Global Law and Order
Nicolas Leroux, Non-State Actors in French Legal Scholarship: International Legal Personality’ in Question
Rémi Bachand, Non-State Actors in North American Legal Scholarship: Four Lessons for the Progressive and Critical International Lawyer
Hsien-Li Teresa, Non-state Actors in Southeast Asia: How does Civil Society Contribute Towards Norm-building in a State-centric Environment?
Lauri Mälksoo, Contemporary Russian Perspectives on Non-State Actors: Fear of the Loss of State Sovereignty
Gleider I. Hernández, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of the International Court of Justice
Gentian Zyberi, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of the International Law Commission
François Rigaux, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of the Institut de Droit international
Guido Acquaviva, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of International Criminal Tribunals
Raphaël van Steenberghe, Non-State Actors from the Perspective of the International Committee of the Red Cross
Math Noortmann, The International Law Association and Non-State Actors
Gaëlle Breton-Le Goff, NGO’s Perspectives on Non-State Actors
Eric de Brabandere, Non-State Actors and Human Rights: Corporate Responsibility and the Attempts to Formalize the Role of Corporations as Participants in the International Legal System
Cedric Ryngaert, Non-State Actors in International Humanitarian Law
Cassandra Steer, Non-State Actors in International Criminal Law
Richard Collins, Non-State Actors in International Institutional Law: Non-State, Inter-state or Supra-State? The Peculiar Identity of the Intergovernmental Organization in International Institutional Law
Nicholas Tsagourias, Non-State Actors in International Peace and Security: Non-state actors and the Use of Force
Eric de Brabandere, Non-State Actors in International Dispute Settlement: Pragmatism in International Law
Patrick Dumberry & Érik Labelle-Eastaugh, Non-State Actors in International Investment Law: To Be or Not To Be? The Legal Personality of Non-State Actors in International Investment Law
Makane Mbengue, Non-State Actors in International Environmental Law: A Rousseauist Perspective
Penelope Mathew, Non-State Actors in Refugee Law: L’Etat, c’est Moi. Refugee Law as a Response to Non State Action
Damien Gerard, Non-State Actors in European Law: Enhanced Participation of Non-State Actors in EU Law-Making and Law-Enforcement Processes -- a Quest for Legitimacy
Jean d’Aspremont, Conclusions : Inclusive Law-making and Law-enforcement Processes for an Exclusive International Legal System

Symposium: Socio-Legal Aspects of Adjudication of International Economic Disputes

The latest issue of the Oñati Socio-Legal Series (Vol. 1, no. 4, 2011) contains a symposium on "Socio-Legal Aspects of Adjudication of International Economic Disputes." Contents include:

Jose Augusto Fontoura Costa, Comparing WTO Panelists and ICSID Arbitrators: the Creation of International Legal Fields
Daniel Drache, Reform at the top: What's next for the WTO? A second life? A socio-political analysis
James Flett, From the Green Room to the Court Room (And Back): Judicial Clarification of Ambiguity in WTO Law and the Effects on Subsequent Negotiations
Gus Van Harten, Contributions and Limitations of Empirical Research on Independence and Impartiality in International Investment Arbitration
Peter Muchlinski, Corporations and the Uses of Law: International Investment Arbitration as a “Multilateral Legal Order"
David Schneiderman, Legitimacy and Reflexivity in International Investment Arbitration: A New Self-Restraint?
Valentina Sara Vadi, Socio-Legal Perspectives on the Adjudication of Cultural Diversity Disputes in International Economic Law
Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer, & Osvaldo Saldías, Transplanting the European Court of Justice: The Experience of the Andean Tribunal of Justice
Gregory Shaffer & Joel Trachtman, Interpretation and Institutional Choice at the WTO

Helfer & Voeten: Do European Court of Human Rights Judgments Promote Legal and Policy Change?

Laurence R. Helfer (Duke Univ. - Law) & Erik Voeten (Georgetown Univ. - Walsh School of Foreign Service) have posted Do European Court of Human Rights Judgments Promote Legal and Policy Change? Here's the abstract:

Do the rulings of international courts set precedents that influence actors other than the parties to the dispute? Are international courts agents of change or do their judgments merely reflect ongoing social and political trends? We answer these questions in the context of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. ECtHR judgments often explicitly reflect evolving practices in Council of Europe’s member states. We suggest three mechanisms through which such judgments could push lagging states toward adopting policies and laws in line with those of more progressive countries. First, national courts can rely on ECtHR jurisprudence to invalidate domestic laws. Second, ECtHR rulings can help inform and mobilize domestic constituencies to push for legislative change. Third, ECtHR rulings can have an indirect effect by affecting the conditions the EU and the Council of Europe set for membership. We investigate these hypotheses using a new dataset that matches ECtHR judgments on LGBT issues with national laws and policies in Council of Europe member countries. We address endogeneity concerns by modeling the Court’s decision-making process. We find that ECtHR judgments have a significant and positive effect on the probability that lagging countries will adopt legal reforms that expand LGBT rights and that all three mechanisms contribute to this. Even though the implementation of ECtHR rulings is far from perfect, the precedential effect of these rulings sometimes induces states to adopt policies that they might otherwise not have adopted or would have adopted later.

New Issue: Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies (Vol. 1, no. 2, December 2010) is out. Contents include:

Edwin Odhiambo Abuya & Charles Ikobe, Wasted Lives: Internally Displaced Persons Living in Camps in Kenya
Kirill Koroteev, Legal Remedies for Human Rights Violations in the Armed Conflict in Chechnya: The Approach of the European Court of Human Rights in Context
Jonathan Horowitz, Human Rights, Positive Obligations, and Armed Conflict: Implementing the Right to Education in Occupied Territories
Pablo Antonio Fernández-Sánchez, The Interplay Between International Humanitarian Law and Refugee Law
Kate Mackintosh, Reclaiming Protection as a Humanitarian Goal: Fodder for the Faint-Hearted Aid-Worker

New Volume: Netherlands Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 41, 2010) is out. Contents include:

Necessity Across International Law

Tarcisio Gazzini, Wouter G. Werner & Ige F. Dekker, Necessity Across International Law: An Introduction
Nicholas Tsagourias, Necessity and the Use of Force: A Special Regime
Gabriella Venturini, Necessity in the Law of Armed Conflict and in International Criminal Law
Cedric Ryngaert, State Responsibility, Necessity and Human Rights
Asif H. Qureshi, A Necessity Paradigm of 'Necessity' in International Economic Law
August Reinisch, Necessity in Investment Arbitration
Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Necessity in International Environmental Law
Panos Koutrakos, The Notion of Necessity in the Law of the European Union

Cogan: The Regulatory Turn in International Law

Jacob Katz Cogan (Univ. of Cincinnati - Law) has posted The Regulatory Turn in International Law (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In the post-War era, international law became a talisman for the protection of individuals from governmental abuse. Such was the success of this “humanization of international law” that by the 1990s human rights had become "part of . . . international political and legal culture.” This Article argues that there has been an unnoticed contemporary countertrend - the “regulatory turn in international law.” Within the past two decades, states and international organizations have at an unprecedented rate entered into agreements, passed resolutions, enacted laws, and created institutions and networks, formal and informal, that impose and enforce direct and indirect international duties upon individuals or that buttress and facilitate a state’s authorities respecting those under and even beyond its territorial jurisdiction. Whereas the human rights turn protected the individual against excessive governmental control, these parallel processes do just the opposite - they facilitate and enhance the regulatory authorities of government (both national and international) in relation to the individual.
The regulatory turn represents a fundamental challenge to the assumptions and dynamics of traditional international law. While once the international system shied away from acting directly on individuals, it now asserts such authority with regularity through the articulation of rules and the adoption of decisions. And while once international law deferred to states in the implementation of common rules pertaining to individual duties and their enforcement, it now often eschews state discretion and instead dictates with increasing specificity the provisions to be adopted at the national and sub-national levels. This constitutive realignment in the international system’s position vis-à-vis the individual complicates our inherited vision of international law and the expectations that flow therefrom. The system effects include the restructuring of the distributions of power to and among states and international institutions; the reframing of the ways in which international problems and solutions are imagined; the reallocation of resources to support law enforcement organizations and programs; the recalibration of the substantive and procedural demands made upon international decision-making processes; and even the reconfiguring of the ways in which we, as individuals, imagine each other.
This Article draws connections between diverse subject matters and practices, past and present, so that we can better discern the otherwise hidden trend that is the regulatory turn, situate it within the emerging system of international governance, and appraise its effects.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

New Issue: International Organizations Law Review

The latest issue of the International Organizations Law Review (Vol. 7, no. 2, 2010) is out. Contents include:

Ian Johnstone, Do International Organizations have Reputations?
Paolo Palchetti, Armed Attack against the Military Force of an International Organization and Use of Force in Self-Defence by a Troop-Contributing State: A Tentative Legal Assessment of an Unlikely Scenario
Paolo Vargiu, From Advisory Opinions to Binding Decisions: The new Appeal Mechanism of the UN system of Administration of Justice
Matthew Parish, An essay on the Accountability of International Organizations
Viljam Engström, How to Tame the Elusive: Lessons from the Revision of the EU Flexibility Clause
Cheah Wui Ling, Policing Interpol: The Commission for the Control of Interpol's Files and the Right to a Remedy
Edouard Fromageau, Collaborating with the United nations: Does Flexibility Imply Informality?

Estreicher: Privileging Asymmetric Warfare (Part ll)?: The 'Proportionality' Principle Under International Humanitarian Law

Samuel Estreicher (New York Univ. - Law) has posted Privileging Asymmetric Warfare (Part ll)?: The 'Proportionality' Principle Under International Humanitarian Law (Chicago Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The laws of war are undergoing a fundamental transformation. The first step was the unmooring of the obligations of states and armies from the binds of reciprocity - the prospect that violations should be avoided because they will result in comparable reprisals from the other side - that began with the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and culminated in the 1977 Additional Protocols (AP I and II). The second major step - still an ongoing process - has been to substitute for the threat of reprisals the grounding of these obligations in enforceable, positive law. What started haltingly with the promulgation of several “grave” offenses in Geneva has - with the establishment of the International Criminal Court, international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda authorized by the UN Security Council, conventions against torture and other practices, and the sustained pressure of a proliferating number of nongovernmental organizations seeking to enforce human and IHL rights violations through international criminal and tort law - reshaped the international legal landscape.

These developments call for closer attention to AP I, the principal legal framework for regulating warfare that many writers on international law believe binds not only ratifying countries, but also all nations and their inhabitants as a matter of customary international law. In an earlier article in this journal, I argued that the growth of “guerrilla” or irregular warfare - involving non-state armed groups locating themselves within dense civilian settlements in order to provoke a military response from occupying or NATO armies that would inevitably cause civilian casualties and generate additional recruits for the insurgent cause - requires a greater emphasis on broadly defining and strongly enforcing the duties of defenders to refrain from locating their military forces and assets among civilians. The overarching objective of IHL is to reduce unnecessary harm to civilians in the armed conflicts that warfare causes. This risk of harm is a joint product of both defenders and attackers and has to be regulated as such.

The focus of this article is on the so-called principle of “proportionality,” which regulates the conduct of warfare in an effort to limit harm to civilians during otherwise legitimate armed conflict. I use the qualifying adjective “so-called” because “proportionality” in this context is a misnomer. The actual obligation, as set forth in Articles 51(5)(b) and 57(2)(b) of AP I, speaks in terms of prohibiting (and deferring) attacks expected to cause incidental civilian losses “which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” Neither the text nor the policy of IHL requires some form of “balancing” or use of a “sliding scale” to ensure that the military objective is “proportionate,” in the sense of being commensurate with the extent of civilian losses? What is required is that the military use no more force than necessary to accomplish concrete, direct military objectives.

The proposed “excessive loss” formulation is not only truer to the text of AP I but provides a sounder, more principled basis for judging violations, for insisting on military commander compliance - than the more elastic, manipulable “proportionality” formulation, which invites commentators and tribunals to second-guess military objectives and compare and weigh essentially non-comparable factors.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 80, no. 2, 2011) is out. Contents include:

Trine Baumbach, The Notion of Criminal Penalty and the Lex Mitior Principle in the Scoppola v. Italy Case
Meg Brodie, Progressing Norm Socialisation: Why Membership Matters. The Impact of the Accreditation Process of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Ian Bryan & Peter Langford, The Lawful Detention of Unauthorised Aliens under the European System for the Protection of Human Rights
Yenkong Ngangjoh-Hodu, Relationship of GATT Article XX Exceptions to Other WTO Agreements

Voigt: The Economics of Informal International Law - An Empirical Assessment

Stefan Voigt (Universität Hamburg - Law) has posted The Economics of Informal International Law - An Empirical Assessment. Here's the abstract:

Theory about the relevance of soft law abounds; empirical research on the topic does not. This study begins to even out this imbalance by not only developing a number of conjectures based on institutional economics, but also by testing them empirically. Based on all 2,289 soft laws concluded by the United States between 1981 and 2010, I find the following. (1) the number of international agreements increased dramatically between the mid 1990s until around 2006; since then, however, their use has declined almost as dramatically. (2) Around two-thirds of all international agreements concern only three policy areas: the military, science and technology, and aid. (3) More than 90% of all international agreements are conducted bilaterally. (4) Some 40 percent of these agreements are concluded by a non-traditional actor on the U.S. side, i.e., an actor other than the President or the secretary of state.

Delabie: Approches américaines du droit international

Lucie Delabie has published Approches américaines du droit international: Entre unité et diversité (Pedone 2011). Here's the abstract:

Les débats contemporains sur le droit international révèlent de fortes divergences de vues entre juristes européens et américains. À quoi tiennent de telles oppositions ? En quoi la lecture du droit international aux États-Unis est-elle différente de celle proposée en Europe ? C’est à ces questions qu’entend répondre la présente étude. L’objet est de montrer qu’il existe une approche proprement américaine de la discipline, dont les origines remontent à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. L’analyse des méthodes et des points de vue développés par les membres de la doctrine américaine depuis cette époque montre leur intérêt profond pour l’étude des aspects concrets du droit international et de ses rapports avec la prise de décision politique. Fondée sur le réalisme, cette approche conduit la plupart d’entre eux à faire une lecture instrumentale du droit international. En insistant sur la flexibilité des normes juridiques, en utilisant des méthodes d’analyse issues de la science politique ou de l’économie et en privilégiant le rapprochement entre les ordres juridiques interne et international, les juristes américains relativisent alors l’image du droit international comme une science autonome.

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 22, no. 1, February 2011) is out. Contents include:

Editorial

JHHW, Demystifying the EJIL Selection and Editorial Process: How Does One Get Published in EJIL?; Who Gets Published in EJIL?; In the Dock, in Paris – The Judgment; In this Issue

Symposium: The Human Dimension of International Cultural Heritage Law

Francesco Francioni, The Human Dimension of International Cultural Heritage Law: An Introduction
Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, Genocide and Restitution: Ensuring Each Group's Contribution to Humanity
Thérèse O'Donnell, The Restitution of Holocaust Looted Art and Transitional Justice: The Perfect Storm or the Raft of the Medusa?
Lucas Lixinski, Selecting Heritage: The Interplay of Art, Politics and Identity
Federico Lenzerini, Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Living Culture of Peoples
Siegfried Wiessner, The Cultural Rights of Indigenous Peoples:Achievements and Continuing Challenges
Karen Engle, On Fragile Architecture: The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Context of Human Rights
Gaetano Pentassuglia, Towards a Jurisprudential Articulation of Indigenous Land Rights
Micaela Frulli, The Criminalization of Offences against Cultural Heritage in Times of Armed Conflict: The Quest for Consistency

EJIL: Debate!

Sandesh Sivakumaran, Re-envisaging the International Law of Internal Armed Conflict
Gabriella Blum, Re-envisaging the International Law of Internal Armed Conflict: A Reply to Sandesh Sivakumaran
Sandesh Sivakumaran, Re-envisaging the International Law of Internal Armed Conflict: A Rejoinder to Gabriella Blum

Franck: The ICSID Effect? Considering Potential Variations in Arbitration Awards

Susan D. Franck (Washington and Lee Univ. - Law) has posted The ICSID Effect? Considering Potential Variations in Arbitration Awards (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The legitimacy of the World Bank's dispute resolution body - The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) - is a matter of heated debate. Some states have alleged that ICSID is biased, withdrawn from the ICSID Convention, and advocated creating alternative arbitration systems. Using pre-2007 archival data of the population of then- known arbitration awards, this Article quantitatively assesses whether ICSID arbitration awards were substantially different from arbitration awards rendered in other forums. The Article examines variation in the amounts claimed and outcomes reached to evaluate indicators of bias. The results indicated that there was no reliable statistical relationship between ICSID arbitrations and either amounts claimed or ultimate outcomes. The results generally did not show a statistical difference when controlling for (1) the presence of an Energy dispute, (2) the presence of a Latin American respondent, or (3) the respondent's Development Status. Nevertheless, although outcomes were not statistically different for Latin American and non-Latin American respondents, amounts claimed against Latin American states were higher - but only for non-ICSID arbitration. While the arguably higher initial arbitration risk may contribute to concerns related to perception of bias, the results provide initial evidence that those criticisms may have been misattributed to ICSID. Results suggested, on the whole, that ICSID arbitration awards were not statistically different from other arbitral processes, which is preliminary evidence that ICSID arbitration was not necessarily biased or that investment arbitration operated in reasonably equivalent ways across forums. Caution about this finding is appropriate given the size of the pre-2007 population and as one analysis suggested that for the subset comprised only of ICSID Convention awards as compared to all other awards (including ICSID Additional Facility awards), awards against Low Income respondents were statistically higher than awards against High Income respondents. Qualitative commonalities in that small subset of awards revealed the presence of certain types of law firms (or the lack thereof) or recent civil war in African states. In light of the initial quantitative findings for a pre-2007 population of arbitration awards, but recognizing the need for replication and methods to facilitate qualitative and normative assessments of ICSID, this Article concludes by suggesting that there may be value in implementing tailored reforms and structural safeguards to address arguable concerns of bias, improve the management of international economic conflict, and minimize a potential backlash to the international investment system.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Pfeil: Globale Verrechtlichung: Global Governance und die Konstitutionalisierung des internationalen Rechts

Florian Pfeil has published Globale Verrechtlichung: Global Governance und die Konstitutionalisierung des internationalen Rechts (Nomos 2011). Here's the abstract:

Völkerrecht und die Praxis internationaler Politik stehen in einem schwierigen Verhältnis zueinander. Doch wie hat sich dieses Verhältnis bisher entwickelt und welchen Stellenwert hat das Völkerrecht heute in den internationalen Beziehungen? Dieser Frage widmet sich der Autor in diesem Band und untersucht das Phänomen der globalen Verrechtlichung.
Grundlage dafür bildet eine an langfristigen Prozessmustern interessierte historisch-soziologische Herangehensweise. Dabei wird dargestellt, welche Rolle das internationale Recht im Rahmen von Global Governance spielt, welche empirischen Entwicklungstendenzen im Laufe der Zeit seine Bedeutung haben wachsen lassen und welche gegenläufigen Tendenzen dem entgegengewirkt haben. Die Befunde zeigen, dass die globale Verrechtlichung in verschiedenen Politikbereichen erstaunlich weit fortgeschritten ist – teilweise so weit, dass die Rede von einer „Konstitutionalisierung“, im Sinne der Herausbildung eines Weltverfassungsrechts, durchaus treffend ist. Dem stehen insbesondere im Politikfeld der Sicherheitspolitik gefährliche entrechtlichende Tendenzen gegenüber.

Cohen: Finding International Law, Part II: Our Fragmenting Legal Community

Harlan Grant Cohen (Univ. of Georgia - Law) has posted Finding International Law, Part II: Our Fragmenting Legal Community (New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Is there an “International Community?” This Article suggests that there is not, that the oft-discussed fragmentation of international law reveals that there are in fact multiple overlapping and competing international law communities, each with differing views on law and legitimacy.
This Article reaches this conclusion by taking a fresh look not only at the sources of fragmentation, but at the sources of international law itself. Building on earlier work rethinking international law’s sources and drawing insights from legal philosophy, compliance theory, and international relations, this Article takes a closer look at three areas that have challenged traditional interpretations of international law, (1) human rights, (2) global administrative law, and (3) the law applied by international tribunals. What it finds is that the challenges posed by each area run much deeper than doctrine, that in fact, in each area a new legal community has formed that no longer shares traditional international law’s understanding of legitimate lawmaking. These legal communities no longer recognize a single, unifying doctrine of sources.
Such a realization puts conflicts over international law in a new light. To the extent that debates between human rights and international humanitarian law or trade law and the environment represent debates over the standards for legitimate lawmaking rather than conflicts over interpretation, doctrinal fixes will never fully resolve them. Instead, they must be viewed as true conflicts of law; resolutions must mediate between the overlapping demands of different legal communities.

Conference: Le colloque annuel de la Société française pour le droit international

The Société française pour le droit international will hold its annual conference June 9-11, 2011, at l’Université de Poitiers. The theme is "Droit international et nationalité." The program is here. Here's the idea:

Lien juridique de rattachement entre un Etat et un individu, la nationalité est une notion qui doit également être envisagée, sur le plan interne, comme un état (status) de l’individu. Historiquement liée à une notion plus ou moins forte d’allégeance, la nationalité, par cette double dimension, occupe en tant que notion juridique, le champ du droit international public et privé mais également du droit de l’Union européenne et du droit international des droits de l’homme. Oscillant entre sources internes, internationales et régionales qu’il convient d’articuler de manière systématique, la nationalité reste néanmoins inhérente aux compétences personnelles étatiques et ne peut être détachée de la notion d’Etat et d’une forme certaine d’ « Etatialité ». Toutefois, l’évolution des sources du droit international de la nationalité préfigure des postulats novateurs focalisés sur une dimension plus objective en allant, dans certaines hypothèses, jusqu’à définir dans le cadre conventionnel un droit objectif à la nationalité. La définition traditionnelle s’en trouve alors potentiellement révisée. Cette remise en question d’une uniformité juridique théorique et pratique ouvre ainsi des champs d’analyse pluriels permettant de s’interroger de manière générale sur la redéfinition, la place et la portée de la notion de nationalité dans le cadre du droit international contemporain.

Waldron: A Religious View of the Foundations of International Law

Jeremy Waldron (New York Univ. - Law) has posted A Religious View of the Foundations of International Law. Here's the abstract:

Over the last ten years there has been something of a crisis in American confidence in, and support for, international law. As the idea of order and justice in the international realm is considered and rationalized from various perspectives, it seems appropriate to consider also how it might be regarded from the viewpoint of the world’s leading religions. These lectures were delivered in late March 2011 as the Charles E. Test Lectures in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Lecture 1 begins the task of considering law beyond the state from a specifically Christian point of view, though it also addresses the difficulties of sustaining a viewpoint of this kind in a multi-faith and indeed increasingly secular world. Lecture 2 considers nationhood, sovereignty, and the basis for the division of the world into separate political communities. Clearly a religious approach to order in the international realm will endorse the position of most modern international jurists that sovereign independence is not to be made into an idol or a fetish, and that the tasks of order and peace in the world are not to be conceived as optional, which sovereigns may or may not support at their pleasure. At the same time, sovereigns have their own mission, ordering particular communities of men and women; and this task, too, should not be slighted. Finally Lecture 3 will consider the rival claims of natural law and positivism in regard to the sources of international law Natural law is no doubt important in any Christian jurisprudence. But the most telling part of natural law jurisprudence from Aquinas to Finnis has always been its insistence on the specific human need for positive law. This holds true in the international realm as much as in any realm of human order - perhaps more so, because in the international realm law has to do its work unsupported by the overwhelming power of a particular state. So this final lecture will address, from a religious point of view, the sources of law in the international realm: treaty, convention, custom, precedent, and jurisprudence. It will focus particularly on the sanctification of treaties.

Jouannet: Le droit international libéral-providence: Une histoire du droit international

Emmanuelle Jouannet (l'Université Paris I - Law) has published Le droit international libéral-providence: Une histoire du droit international (Bruylant 2011). Here's the abstract:

L'objet de cet ouvrage est de s'interroger sur les finalités du droit international présent et passé. Le droit international, classiquement présenté comme un droit libéral de coexistence et de coopération entre États, a été en fait depuis son origine un droit également providence. Depuis son émergence au XVIIIe siècle en Europe, il s'est imposé à l'ensemble de la société internationale (européenne puis mondiale) en ne répondant pas seulement aux intérêts des États et à leur souci de stabilité; il a aussi été considéré comme une «providence», un droit interventionniste qui allait faire accéder les peuples au bonheur et au bien-être. D'où le fait que le droit international traduit originairement un modèle eschatologique sécularisé. Comme tel, il a pris sa place dans les réponses qu'à partir du XVIIIe siècle les Européens ont cherché à donner, en lieu et place du religieux, pour organiser une humanité considérée à la fois comme une et comme divisée. Or ce projet originaire tend encore à animer l'ensemble de notre monde globalisé post-guerre froide. Le droit international contemporain n'est ni un droit strictement providence, ni un droit strictement libéral, mais bel et bien un droit libéral-providence; et dans l'association de ces deux finalités se trouve l'une des clefs de sa signification et ce qui explique également en partie ses ambivalences constantes.

Nollkaemper: The Bifurcation of International Law: Two Futures for the International Rule of Law

Andre Nollkaemper (Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has posted The Bifurcation of International Law: Two Futures for the International Rule of Law (in The Law of the Future and the Future of the Law, Sam Muller, Stavros Zouridis, Morly Frishman & Laura Kistemaker eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This short paper argues that in the next decades we are likely to see a fundamental separation in the form and contents of the international rule of law. In a sizeable, but relatively small group of states, international law transforms itself from its international roots and interconnects and mingles with national law. In these states, we see an integration of the international and the national rule of law. In many other (and indeed most) states, the international rule of law will essentially remain limited to the international level. This paper explores some of the consequences of this bifurcation for the system of international law and its impact on domestic law.

Bederman: Law of the Land, Law of the Sea: The Lost Link Between Customary International Law and The General Maritime Law

David J. Bederman (Emory Univ. - Law) has posted Law of the Land, Law of the Sea: The Lost Link Between Customary International Law and the General Maritime Law (Virginia Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Article proposes a different way of thinking about the question of whether customary international law is the "law of the land." It looks back to the nineteenth century and to the once-parallel treatment of customary international law and general maritime law, finding that the two were linked closely by the end of the century. But, in the twentieth century, their treatment diverged dramatically as Supreme Court decisions "constitutionalized" the general maritime law and did not do the same for customary international law. General maritime law is supreme under Article VI of the Constitution and preempts contrary state law, but it does not automatically allow matters arising under it to be characterized as federal questions. This Article proposes that customary international law be re-linked to general maritime law and share both its status as "law of the land" and its implied preemption of state law.

Lester: The Role of the International Trade Regime in Global Governance

Simon Lester has posted The Role of the International Trade Regime in Global Governance. Here's the abstract:

Trade agreements originated as narrow bargains for mutual tariff reductions between countries. Over the years, however, their scope has expanded considerably. First, rules to address domestic laws that discriminated, both overtly and covertly, against foreign products were added, in order to ensure that tariff concessions were not circumvented. More recently, governments have negotiated trade agreement rules in a wide range of new areas, such as intellectual property protection, many of which have only a tenuous connection to "trade." On the basis of this expansion, combined with the development of strong and effective enforcement mechanisms, the modern international trade regime now functions as a limited form of "global governance." Partly as a result, the trade regime is in a precarious state today, with multilateral trade negotiations stalled and mass protests greeting many bilateral and multilateral negotiations. In this paper, I propose a framework for strengthening the regime, involving a more open and honest debate about the appropriate scope of the regime and re-focusing the trade regime on the core purpose of non-discrimination. As a corollary to this proposal, I argue that many of the issues that have been incorporated into trade agreements over the years should be addressed as part of a distributed and cooperative approach to global governance that involves other international organizations and softens the binding nature of the current trade rules in these areas.

Peters: The Subjective International Right

Anne Peters (Univ. of Basel - Law) has posted The Subjective International Right (Jahrbuch des öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart, Vol. 59, pp. 411-456, 2011). Here's the abstract:

Subjective rights of natural persons (as opposed to objective law) manifest the dignity of the human being. Human dignity is a cornerstone of international law since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. So the guarantee of (subjective) rights is an important element of the current international legal order. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that international law as it stands acknowledges the idea of international subjective rights, to explain this idea in doctrinal terms, to conceptualise the subjective international right theoretically, and finally justify this legal construct normatively. In the past decades, individuals have been awarded more and more international rights and obligations, notably outside the field of human rights. Additionally, the international human right to legal personality (Art. 6 UDHR, Art. 16 CCPR) is being progressively interpreted as embodying a human right to international legal personality. It is submitted that both legal trends, taken together, do not merely constitute a quantitative evolution, but have brought about a qualitative shift. The legal status of human beings is no longer merely derived from states, but is a foundational status in itself. Human beings have become “original” international legal subjects in a doctrinal sense. This novel construction has concrete legal consequences, notably with a view to access to justice, both on the domestic and on the international plane. Overall, the conceptualisation of a subjective international right symbolises the new international legal status of the human being, and is a doctrinal building-block of the so-called “humanisation” of international law.

Monday, February 21, 2011