Friday, September 29, 2017

Call for Papers: Hegemony in the International Order

The Transnational Theory Network, the Italian Society of Political Philosophy, and the European Society of International Law have issued a call for papers for a workshop on "Hegemony in the International Order," to be held June 11-12, 2018, in Rome. Here's the call:

Call for Papers

Workshop

“Hegemony in the International Order”

June 11-12, 2018

University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome

Co-Sponsored by the Transnational Theory Network (TLPT-Network), the Italian Society of Political Philosophy (SIFP) and the European Society of International Law (ESIL)

Post WWII international law and politics has promised a more just and free world. Liberal values of equality, human rights and freedom have shaped international relations, infusing also the ‘ethical turn’ of international law with the human rights revolution and the formalization of jus cogens peremptory norms. Regional orders like the EU have grown both in terms of centralized competences and in the possibility of allowing higher circulation of goods and people. The international political system as a whole has seen one of its greatest times of rights consolidation and economic fluxes which have certainly favored wide cultural contaminations.

Yet, more recent developments of international politics show some of the drawbacks of such epochal shift, raising demands of democratic governance, individual interests representation etc. Lack of political participation at the transnational level, the North-South and the East-West divides, migratory flows altogether signal a disconnection and a persistent friction between economic, legal and political sectors. What takes the appearance of a wide share of goods and benefits brought about by globalization turns into unequal forms of redistributory patterns, unmasking the reality of power-control and dominance of single actors, either in the form of a super-state or a multinational corporation.

Hegemonic entities seems therefore to have taken advantage of those spaces of economic and legal freedom that progressive liberalism has opened up and used them to the advantage of limited beneficiaries, exploiting the opportunities created therewith.

The workshop wants to investigate the contemporary significance of hegemony in the international realm. More specifically its aim is to assess whether and to what extent neo-Gramscian, neo-hegemonic or, alternatively, post-hegemonic forms of power help understanding law and politics in regional and global contexts.

Since hegemony requires support and complicity also by subordinated groups, how does this concept differ from the notion of imperialism and that of unilateralism? What forms of ideological solidarities as well as material and military alliances are necessary for hegemonic effectiveness?

Furthermore, are there hegemonic phases that have accompanied the so-called “human rights revolution” since the aftermath of WWII? In what ways, eventually, it is possible to trace a counter-history to the mantra of a global constitutional progression and peace?

Papers in philosophy, law or politics addressing any of the issues above or suggesting relevant insights into the topic. In order to allow time for adequate presentation and discussion only a limited number of people will be selected (approx.10).

Abstract Submission

Abstracts between 700-1000 or more should be submitted by 31 March 2018 to Claudio.Corradetti@uniroma2.it

Shore, Schaner, Senn, Cheng, & La Chiusa: International Arbitration in the United States

Laurence Shore, Lawrence Schaner, Mara V.J. Senn, Tai-Heng Cheng, & Jenella La Chiusa have published International Arbitration in the United States (Wolters Kluwer 2017). Here's the abstract:
International Arbitration in the United States is a comprehensive analysis of international arbitration law and practice in the United States (U.S.). Choosing an arbitration seat in the U.S. is a common choice among parties to international commercial agreements or treaties. However, the complexities of arbitrating in a federal system, and the continuing development of U.S. arbitration law and practice, can be daunting to even experienced arbitrators. This book, the first of its kind, provides parties opting for “private justice” with vital judicial reassurance on U.S. courts’ highly supportive posture in enforcing awards and its pronounced reluctance to intervene in the arbitral process.

Call for Papers: Boundaries, Conflicts and Alliances: Interactions between International, Transnational and Comparative Law

A call for papers has been issued for the 11th Annual Toronto Group Conference, to take place March 1-2, 2018, at Osgood Hall Law School, in Toronto. The theme is: "Boundaries, Conflicts and Alliances: Interactions between International, Transnational and Comparative Law." Here's the call:

Call for Submissions for the 11th Annual Toronto Group Conference

Boundaries, Conflicts and Alliances: Interactions between International, Transnational and Comparative Law

March 1-2, 2018 Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Canada

A public keynote lecture will be delivered by Prof. Adelle Blackett (Chair in Transnational Labour Law and Development, McGill University) on March 1.

Prof. Umut Özsu (Carleton University) and Prof. Honor Brabazon (University of Toronto) will deliver a lunchtime lecture on Friday, March 2

The 11th annual Toronto Group Conference will ask how international, transnational and comparative law interact: Can or should their distinction be maintained? And, if so, are they conflictual or aligned? In posing these questions, we aim to understand how the relations between legal categories can assist in understanding the distribution of rights and responsibilities among actors in global society, including their evolving self-perception, narratives and strategies.

With the continuing turn in legal scholarship toward examining pluralism, informality and hybrid forms of governance and lawmaking, the conference will provide an opportunity for scholars to consider a range of topics on broad themes such as transnational actors operating in international law, comparative approaches to international and transnational law, and the impacts of such legal categories on state and non-state actors, among others. We encourage all proposals relevant to these broad themes from theoretical and practical perspectives, including proposals taking an interdisciplinary approach.

Submission of Paper Proposals:

The Toronto Group Conference brings together graduate students and emerging scholars from across the globe. The Organizing Committee welcomes papers on subject matter in international, transnational and comparative law that address the theme above. Interested individuals should send an abstract of about 300 words and a short bio of about 100 words by November 5, 2017. Proposals will be evaluated based on their relevance to the theme, the interest they present in relation to other proposals, and their overall quality (both substantive and formal). Applicants will be notified of results toward the end of November, 2017. Selected applicants are expected to submit completed papers in early February, 2018.

This conference aims to create a space where early career scholars can receive feedback on their research, so each applicant selected to present will be assigned a faculty member discussant.

More information is available online.

Questions and abstracts should be sent to: torontogroupconference@gmail.com

New Issue: Nordic Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 86, no. 3, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Stefan Kadelbach & David Roth-Isigkeit, The Right to Invoke Rights as a Limit to Sovereignty – Security Interests, State of Emergency and Review of UN Sanctions by Domestic Courts under the European Convention of Human Rights
  • Kamrul Hossain & Anna Petrétei, Resource Development and Sámi Rights in the Sápmi Region: Integrating Human Rights Impact Assessment in Licensing Processes
  • Erika Nakamura, Monitoring Accountability for UN Peacekeeping under ICCPR
  • Gillian Moon, Race to End Poverty? The Roles of Ethnicity and International Economic Law in the Eradication of Extreme Poverty by 2030
  • Ulf Linderfalk, Philip Morris Asia Ltd. v. Australia – Abuse of Rights in Investor-State Arbitration

Müller: WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: A Commentary

Wolfgang Müller (European Commission) has published WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: A Commentary (Cambridge Univ. Press 2017). Here's the abstract:
Panels and the WTO Appellate Body have rendered a large number of complex and lengthy rulings on the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The reasoning behind these rulings is often intimately linked to the underlying facts of a particular case and the methods of litigation adopted by the parties. Without guidance, it is difficult to find and research a specific subsidy issue quickly. This book provides an essential article-by-article commentary on the Agreement and sets out the law as it emerges from this body of rulings, providing the legal basis for further analysis of subsidy disciplines within the realms of economics and political science. It also includes a useful summary of the negotiating history and the links to other WTO Agreements such as GATT 1994. T

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 51, no. 5, 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Nils Wahl & Luca Prete, Blowin’ Against the Wind: On ACTA, AA, CETA, TTIP and the Forgetfulness of David Ricardo
  • Batshur Gootiiz & Aaditya Mattoo, Services in the Trans-Pacific Partnership: What Would Be Lost?
  • Kent Jones, Revolutionary Cuba and the GATT/WTO System
  • Hao Wu, Customs Cooperation in the WTO: From Uruguay to Doha
  • Susan Elizabeth Martins Cesar de Oliveira, Is the Death of the TPP Good News for Brazil? Mega-Regional Agreements and the Quest for Development ‘Policy Space’
  • May T. Yeung, William A. Kerr, Blair Coomber, Matthew Lantz, & Alyse McConnell, Retreat from Harmonization: Trade Uncertainties Arising from Divergent Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides
  • Yong-Shik Lee, Future of Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Just a Dead Trade Initiative or a Meaningful Model for the North-South Economic and Trade Integration?

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Johns: Shadowboxing: The Data Shadows of Cold War International Law

Fleur E. Johns (Univ. of New South Wales - Law) has posted Shadowboxing: The Data Shadows of Cold War International Law (in Cold War International Law, Matthew Craven, Sundhya Pahuja, Gerry Simpson & Anna Saunders eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
That states have come to be represented in “data shadows” for international legal purposes – that is, that state populations’ condition may be gleaned from remotely sensed data to overcome deficiencies in official government statistics – is today identified with digital innovation. “Data shadows” were, however, crucial features of Cold War international law. Cold War decision-makers were captivated by the prognostications and intimations of “sigint” (signals intelligence). International legal order came to be marked, during the Cold War, by the latent or virtual agency of states’ sigint data shadows in ways that leave an enduring legacy today.

Horn & Tangerås: Economics and Politics of International Investment Agreements

Henrik Horn (Research Institute of Industrial Economics) & Thomas Tangerås (Research Institute of Industrial Economics) have posted Economics and Politics of International Investment Agreements. Here's the abstract:
We analyze the optimal design and implications of international investment agreements. These are ubiquitous, potent and heavily criticized state-to-state treaties that compensate foreign investors against host country policies. Optimal agreements cause national but not global underregulation ("regulatory chill"). The incentives to form agreements and their distributional consequences depend on countries' unilateral commitment possibilities and the direction of investment flows. Foreign investors benefit from agreements between developed countries at the expense of the rest of society, but not in the case of agreements between developed and developing countries.

Giladi: The Phoenix of Colonial War: Race, the Laws of War, and the ‘Horror on the Rhine’

Rotem Giladi (Univ. of Helsinki - Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights) has posted The Phoenix of Colonial War: Race, the Laws of War, and the ‘Horror on the Rhine’ (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The article explores the demise of the ‘colonial war’ category through the employment of French colonial troops, under the 1918 armistice, to occupy the German Rhineland.

It traces the prevalence of – and the anxieties underpinning – antebellum doctrine on using ‘Barbarous Forces’ in ‘European’ war. It then records the silence of postbellum scholars on the ‘horror on the Rhine’ – orchestrated allegations of rape framed in racialized terms of humanity and the requirements of the law of civilized warfare. Among possible explanations for this silence, the article follows recent literature that considers this scandal as the embodiment of crises in masculinity, white domination, and European civilization.

These crises, like the scandal itself, expressed antebellum jurisprudential anxieties about the capacity – and implications – of black soldiers being ‘drilled white’. They also deprived postbellum lawyers of the vocabulary necessary to address what they signified: breakdown of the laws of war; evident, self-inflicted European barbarity; and the collapse of international law itself, embodied by the Versailles Diktat treating Germany – as Smuts warned, ‘as we would not treat a kaffir nation’ – as a colonial ‘object’, as Schmitt lamented.

Last, the article traces the resurgence of ‘colonial war’. It reveals how, at the moment of collapse, in the very instrument embodying it, the category found a new life. Article 22(5) of the League of Nations Covenant (the Covenant) reasserted control over the colonial object, furnishing international lawyers with a new vocabulary to address the employment of colonial troops – yet, now, as part of the ‘law of peace’. Reclassified, both rule and category re-emerged, were codified, and institutionalized imperial governance.

Call for Papers: The Paris Peace Conference and the Challenge of a New World Order

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "The Paris Peace Conference and the Challenge of a New World Order." Here's the call:

The Paris Peace Conference and the Challenge of a New World Order, Paris, June 2019

The Peace Conference held in Paris in the aftermath of the Great War remains among the most important yet also most controversial events in modern history. Although it is often considered to have made a second global war all but inevitable, it has also been praised for providing the basis for an enduring peace that was squandered recklessly by poor international leadership during the 1930s.

A major international conference will take place in Paris in June 2019 to commemorate the centenary of the 1919 Conference from a global perspective. The purpose of this event is to re-examine the history of the Peace Conference through a thematic focus on the different approaches to order in world politics in the aftermath of the First World War. A remarkably wide range of actors in Paris - from political leaders, soldiers and diplomats to colonial nationalist envoys and trade unionists, economists, women's associations and ordinary citizens - produced a wide array of proposals for a future international and, indeed, global order. These proposals were often based on vastly different understandings of world politics. They went beyond the articulation of specific national security interests to make claims about the construction and maintenance of peace and the need for new norms and new institutions to achieve this aim. To what extent the treaties and their subsequent implementation represented a coherent world order remains a question of debate.

By 'order', we mean in the first instance, the articulation and development of systematic ideas, institutions and practices aimed at promoting a durable peace that would deliver security, economic recovery and social justice. This distinguishes thinking about 'order' from discussions of 'national interests' - though there was of course overlap between these two modes of thinking about future international relations. Second, we are interested in 'order' as an analytical concept in its own right. This encourages historians to identify, as Paul Schroeder has argued, the shared rules, assumptions and understandings about a particular set of political relations and to show how specific decisions reflect the norms of the order.

Emphasising the preoccupation of peace-makers with the problem of world order broadens the scope of the familiar questions and debates that have dominated the literature on the Peace Conference. It also opens the way for posing new questions and for thinking about more familiar questions in new ways. We therefore invite papers addressing the following questions:

  1. What were different conceptions of political, economic and social order advocated at the Paris Conference? What was the relationship between different ideas about the international order, such as a system based on national self-determination and one based on the rule of law? Were there broad over-arching conceptions of an international order, such as liberal and socialist internationalism, that could accommodate more narrowly focused ideas such as free trade or labour rights? How did people conceive of the relationships between self-interest and order? What role did power politics play in conceptions of international order? Were the absentees from Paris - notably the Germans and the Bolsheviks - able to shape the debate about the emerging international order?
  2. What were the origins of these different ideas about order? Why was there such an interest in the systematic development of particular orders both during and after the war? Who produced ideas about order, and why? What was in particular the role of NGOs and ordinary citizens? Can an approache based on different 'generations' of international actors illuminate this problem in new ways? Was the idea of 'order' a reaction to international politics before and during the war? Or did it represent a continuity with certain strands of thinking about international politics that pre-dated the outbreak of war in 1914? What was the relationship between the articulation of war aims and ideas about post-war order?
  3. To what extent did contending visions of an international order shape the peace treaties? Did the organization and proceedings of the Conference reflect tensions between the national, the regional and the global? What was the role of regional orders in shaping broader conceptions of a new world order? To what extent did discourses concerning new regional orders reflect fundamental changes in the conceptualization of world politics? To what extent were they a repackaging of the more familiar themes of empire or spheres of influence?
  4. How were the peace treaties legitimated to domestic and international audiences? Were subsequent negotiations on the implementation and revision of the peace treaties shaped by the profound debates about international politics that took place before and during the Peace Conference? Were conceptions of international order systematically subordinated to concerns about national security? Conversely, to what extent can it be argued that the Paris Peace Conference produced or contributed to a disorder in European politics that led ultimately to the Second World War?
  5. What was the impact of the Paris Peace Conference on views of world order based on gender, class and race? How did women, workers and colonial subjects respond to the peace conference and what was its impact on the emergence of alternative voices in international affairs? Whose voices were heard at Paris in 1919 and whose remained silent or were silenced?
  6. What political and diplomatic practices were implied in these various conceptions of international order? To what extent did these practices shape the course of international relations in 1919? Did the intellectual debate and political experience of the Paris Peace Conference play a role in shaping a future generation of leaders (such as Jean Monnet and John Foster Dulles)?

Paper proposals

The conference organisers aim to ensure the conference provides a global perspective on the Paris Peace Conference. We are therefore particularly keen to receive proposals from scholars working on topics pertaining to the non-western world.

The conference languages will be English and French

Regardless of language, all proposals will receive serious consideration.

The deadline for proposals is: 1 June 2018

Please send your proposal (abstract in English or French of no more than 500 words) and short CV to Axel Dröber: ADroeber@dhi-paris.fr.

Conference Steering Committee

Laurence Badel (Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Eckart Conze (Philipps-Universität Margurg)

Norman Ingram (Concordia University)

Peter Jackson (University of Glasgow)

Stefan Martens (Deutsches Historisches Institut, Paris)

Matthias Schulz (Université de Genève)

William Mulligan (University College Dublin)

Comité scientifique

Andrew Barros (Université de Québec à Montréal)

Carl Bouchard (Université de Montréal)

Eric Bussière (LABEX EHNE)

Michael Clinton (Gwynedd Mercy University)

Olivier Compagnon (Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Beatrice de Graaf (Utrecht)

Vincent Dujardin (Université catholique de Louvain)

Olivier Forcade (Université de Paris - Sorbonne)

Erik Goldstein (Boston University)

Jean-Michel Guieu (Université de Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Talbot Imlay (Université Laval)

Stanislas Jeannesson (Université de Nantes)

John Keiger (Cambridge University)

William Keylor (Boston University)

Antoine Marès (Université de Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Holger Nehring (University of Stirling)

Jennifer Siegel (The Ohio State University)

Glenda Sluga (University of Sydney)

Georges-Henri Soutou (Collège de France)

Christian Tams (University of Glasgow)

Hugues Tertrais (Commission of History of International Relations - ICHS)

Martin Thomas (University of Exeter)

Antonio Varsori (University of Padua)

Hirotake Watanabe (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

Xu Guoqi (University of Hong Kong)

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Bilsky: The Holocaust, Corporations, and the Law: Unfinished Business

Leora Bilsky (Tel Aviv Univ. - Law) has published The Holocaust, Corporations, and the Law: Unfinished Business (Univ. of Michigan Press 2017). Here's the abstract:

The Holocaust, Corporations, and the Law explores the challenge posed by the Holocaust to legal and political thought by examining issues raised by the restitution class action suits brought against Swiss banks and German corporations before American federal courts in the 1990s. Although the suits were settled for unprecedented amounts of money, the defendants did not formally assume any legal responsibility. Thus, the lawsuits were bitterly criticized by lawyers for betraying justice and by historians for distorting history.

Leora Bilsky argues class action litigation and settlement offer a mode of accountability well suited to addressing the bureaucratic nature of business involvement in atrocities. Prior to these lawsuits, legal treatment of the Holocaust was dominated by criminal law and its individualistic assumptions, consistently failing to relate to the structural aspects of Nazi crimes. Engaging critically with contemporary debates about corporate responsibility for human rights violations and assumptions about “law,” she argues for the need to design processes that make multinational corporations accountable, and examines the implications for transitional justice, the relationship between law and history, and for community and representation in a post-national world. Her novel interpretation of the restitution lawsuits not only adds an important dimension to the study of Holocaust trials, but also makes an innovative contribution to broader and pressing contemporary legal and political debates. In an era when corporations are ever more powerful and international, Bilsky’s arguments will attract attention beyond those interested in the Holocaust and its long shadow.

Perrone: The Emerging Global Right to Investment: Understanding the Reasoning Behind Foreign Investor Rights

Nicolás M. Perrone (Durham Univ. - Law) has posted The Emerging Global Right to Investment: Understanding the Reasoning Behind Foreign Investor Rights (Journal of International Dispute Settlement, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
The international investment regime is probably the most controversial area of international law today. This article argues that looking at the interpretation of foreign investor rights can help us to better understand this regime and the challenges it poses to states and local actors. Relying on property and contract law theory, this article shows that the arbitral interpretation of foreign investor rights privileges wealth maximization over propriety. This leads arbitrators to draw on particular theories of property and contractual reliance. The analysis of these interpretative moves brings to the front crucial normative and distributive implications of the international investment regime.

Call for Submissions: The Law Behind Rule of Law Transfers

The Goettingen Journal of International Law has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "The Law Behind Rule of Law Transfers." Here's the call:

“The law behind rule of law transfers”

GoJIL Call for papers

In 2018, with Till Patrik Holterhus as special issue editor, the Goettingen Journal of International Law (GoJIL) will publish a special issue on “The law behind rule of law transfers”.

Description

Globalization and internationalization have led to drastically increased interaction between state and non-state actors, both on the international and supranational level. Such interactions provide a fertile soil for the “transfer” of legal concepts – transfer here to be understood as the inter-regime process of promoting, implementing and safeguarding a legal concept.

One fundamental legal concept that has been and still is a main subject of these transfer processes is the “rule of law”. With roots reaching back into ancient Athens and Rome, the late Middle Ages, the Enlightenment-fostered great Revolutions of the 18th century, and its final conceptual formation in the 19th and 20th century, the rule of law can best be described as a set of principles organizing the relationship between a community and its governing institutions, with the aim of subjecting power to law by institutional and procedural means – namely the existence of general, predictive and enforceable laws; a public monopoly of power; the governing institutions being bound by the law and legitimized by the governed community, and the separation of powers.

The process of transferring the rule of law in regime interactions has extensively been studied in academia. This GoJIL special issue intends to contribute to these efforts by adopting a specific legal perspective that has not yet received much attention – the law that applies to these transfer processes. For this purpose, the issue will feature several case studies that identify and explore the legal sources, norms and procedures that drive and govern the various transfer processes, with a particular focus on transfers occurring in complex, interdependent supranational and international contexts.

Topics

Against this background a plethora of relevant and interesting legal regime interactions come to mind. To name only a few, topics could include

  • the European Union’s mandate and mechanisms of promoting the rule of law in accession and association processes, as well as the European Union’s enforcement and safeguarding instruments regarding rule of law standards in its member states
  • the United Nations’ mandate and methods to promote the rule of law in its member states, e.g. by means of Security Council resolutions
  • the normative basis of rule of law implementation in situations and by means of post-conflict administration (by the United Nations or other international actors)
  • belligerents’ obligation under international humanitarian law to restore, maintain, and ensure law and order in occupied territories
  • rule of law clauses in bi- or plurilateral trade agreements, and the design of interlinked sanction and suspension mechanisms
  • the World Bank’s mandate and current rule of law assistance/reform programs and the legal design of their implementation mechanisms
  • rule of law-dialogues and their intergovernmental legal arrangements
  • integrated and institutionalized rule of law-dialogues between national/European courts and their legal foundations and implications
Procedure

The submissions deadline for full papers is December 31st, 2017.

For this call for papers, GoJIL will accept abstracts of paper projects submitted before October 15th, 2017. If an abstract is submitted, the author will be informed before October 31st, 2017 whether or not GoJIL considers the topic particularly relevant and would appreciate to receive the full paper. The submission of abstracts is not mandatory, but offers an opportunity for early communication with the editors. All full papers received will be submitted to a double-blind peer review. They must be written in English and should not exceed 15,000 words, including footnotes.

The GoJIL article guidelines can be found here. In case of any questions feel free to contact the special issue editor (tholter@uni-goettingen.de) or the GoJIL Editors-in-Chief (info@gojil.eu).

Deadlines

  • October 15th, 2017 – Submission of paper abstracts
  • October 31st, 2017 – Selection of abstract authors to submit a full paper
  • December 31st, 2017 – Submission of full papers (with or without previous abstract)
  • January 15th, 2018 – Final selection of published papers

Altwicker: Transnationalizing Rights: International Human Rights Law in Cross-Border Contexts

Tilmann Altwicker (Univ. of Zurich - Law) has posted Transnationalizing Rights: International Human Rights Law in Cross-Border Contexts (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

International human rights law (IHRL) is still largely state-centred. This is an obstacle when it comes to making cross-border problems such as transboundary environmental harm and transnational surveillance amenable to human rights claims. The state-centeredness of IHRL is challenged by three phenomena associated with transnationalization processes: by extraterritorial harmful effects, through complex (multi-stage, multi-level, and public-private) cross-border cooperation impacting the enjoyment of rights, and, finally, by cross-border conduct of non-state actors with an adverse impact on rights abroad.

The central argument defended here is that existing IHRL can accommodate these challenges if some of its core concepts are given a ‘transnational interpretation’, thus by complementing the traditional state-centred conception of IHRL. The article discusses transnational interpretations of three core doctrinal concepts, namely jurisdiction, interference, and human rights obligations. It is shown that examples for transnational interpretations of international human rights can be found, e.g., in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and some recent EU-US cooperation treaties.

Conference: Sir Nigel Rodley Human Rights Conference

On October 28-29, 2017, the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, directed by my colleague Bert Lockwood, will host the Sir Nigel Rodley Human Rights Conference. The program is here. This is one of two conferences of which I am aware that celebrate Professor Rodley. I posted on the other conference here.

Conference: Memorial Conference: Professor Sir Nigel Rodley KBE

Tomorrow, September 28, 2017, the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex will hold a memorial conference to celebrate Nigel Rodley's contributions to human rights. The program is here. This is one of two conferences of which I am aware in honor of Professor Rodley. I will post on the second shortly.

Special Issue: Educación y derecho internacional: reflexiones a propósito de la publicación de Imperialismo y Derecho Internacional

The latest issue of Revista Derecho del Estado (Núm. 39, Julio-Diciembre 2017) focuses on "Educación y derecho internacional: reflexiones a propósito de la publicación de Imperialismo y Derecho Internacional." Contents include:
  • Educación y derecho internacional: reflexiones a propósito de la publicación de Imperialismo y Derecho Internacional
    • Paola Andrea Acosta Alvarado, REDIAL e Imperialismo y derecho internacional. Oportunidad para la reflexión
    • Daniel Rivas Ramírez, Del colonialismo a la emancipación epistémica. Un aporte doble al debate sobre la relación entre imperialismo y derecho internacional
    • Amaya Álvez Marín & Arnulf Becker Lorca, Los pueblos originarios y la práctica del derecho internacional en Chile: nuevos horizontes ante el debilitamiento de los legados del autoritarismo
    • Laura Betancur Restrepo & Enrique Prieto-Ríos, Educación del derecho internacional en Bogotá: un primer diagnóstico a partir de los programas de clase y su relación con las epistemologías de no conocimiento
    • Fabia Fernandes Carvalho Veçoso, História e crítica em direito internacional na América Latina: revisitando discussões pretéritas sobre ensino jurídico na região
    • Adriane Sanctis de Brito & Salem Hikmat Nasser, Ensinar direito internacional no Brasil: panorama de uma prática e seus desafios
    • Jimena Sierra-Camargo, La importancia de decolonizar la enseñanza del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos: el caso de la consulta previa en Colombia

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Nouwen: The Story of His Life: Philippe Sands' 'East West Street'

Sarah Nouwen (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) has posted The Story of His Life: Philippe Sands' 'East West Street' (British Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This essay reviews Philippe Sands’ book ‘East West Street’, and the documentary and theatre performance that preceded the book’s release. These works tell unforgettable stories of Lviv and Nuremberg, of Hersch Lauterpacht, Rafael Lemkin and Hans Frank, of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The book straddles several genres: according to its cover it is ‘part historical detective story, part family history, part legal thriller’. But it is more than that: it is also part psychological drama, part ‘third-generation Holocaust representation’, part Yizkor. This essay argues that it is best read as a life story - the story of Sands’s life. It is ‘the story of his *life*’ in that Sands has again, and better than ever, popularised international law. But it is also ‘the story of *his* life’: Sands himself is the character who binds the stories together. Read as a life story, the book stands out as a unique, unputdownable and unpindownable personal exploration of family silences and histories, that cannot be generalised.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Greenman: The Secret History of Successful Rebellions in the Law of State Responsibility

Kathryn Greenman (Univ. of Amsterdam - Law) has posted an ESIL Reflection on The Secret History of Successful Rebellions in the Law of State Responsibility.

Costelloe: Legal Consequences of Peremptory Norms in International Law

Daniel Costelloe (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP) has published Legal Consequences of Peremptory Norms in International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2017). Here's the abstract:
When is a norm peremptory? This is a question that has troubled legal scholars throughout the development of modern international law. In this work, Daniel Costelloe suggests - through an examination of State practice and international materials - that it is the legal consequences of a norm which distinguish it as peremptory. This book sheds new light on the legal consequences that peremptory norms have, for instance, in the law of treaties, international responsibility and state immunity. Unlike their substance or identification, the consequences of peremptory norms have remained under-studied. This book is the first specifically on this topic and is essential reading for all scholars and practitioners of public international law.

Harrison: Saving the Oceans Through Law: The International Legal Framework for the Protection of the Marine Environment

James Harrison (Univ. of Edinburgh - Law) has published Saving the Oceans Through Law: The International Legal Framework for the Protection of the Marine Environment (Oxford Univ. Press 2017). Here's the abstract:

The oceans cover more than seventy per cent of the surface of the planet and they provide many vital ecosystem services. However, the health of the world's oceans has been deteriorating over the past decades and the protection of the marine environment has emerged as one of the most pressing legal and political challenges for the international community. An effective solution depends upon the cooperation of all states towards achieving agreed objectives. This book provides a critical assessment of the role that international law plays in this process, by explaining and evaluating the various legal instruments that have been negotiated in this area, as well as key trends in global ocean governance.

Starting with a detailed analysis of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the book considers the main treaties and other legal texts that seeks to prevent, reduce, and control damage to the marine environment caused by navigation, seabed exploitation, fishing, dumping, and land-based activities, as well as emerging pressures such as ocean noise and climate change. The book demonstrates how international institutions have expanded their mandates to address a broader range of marine environmental issues, beyond basic problems of pollution control to include the conservation of marine biological diversity and an ecosystems approach to regulation. It also discusses the development of diverse regulatory tools to address anthropogenic impacts on the marine environment and the extent to which states have adopted a precautionary approach in different maritime sectors. Whilst many advances have been made in these matters, this book highlights the need for greater coordination between international institutions, as well as the desirability of developing stronger enforcement mechanisms for international environmental rules.

New Volume: The Global Community: Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence

The latest volume of The Global Community: Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence (Vol. 2016) is out. Contents include:
  • Editorial
    • Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo, Novelty in ECtHR Case Law on Torture, But It Is Not Enough-Reopening Domestic Proceedings to End Impunity
  • Articles
    • Steven W. Becker, Post-Conviction DNA Testing, Actual Innocence, and Cold Cases: A Practitioner's Guide to Freeing the Innocent, Exhuming the Past, and Resurrecting the Truth-Making a Case for Seeking Justice over Finality
    • Valsamis Mitsilegas, Transnational Criminal Law and the Global Rule of Law
  • Notes and Comments
    • Francesca Ippolito, Mainstreaming Human Rights in Euro Med Bilateral Relations: "The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions"
    • Robert Kolb, Réflexions sur le Monisme et le Dualisme dans les Rapports entre Systèmes
    • Anna Oriolo, The Zuchtvieh-Export GmbH v. Stadt Kempten Case -The Triggering of a Substantial Link to 'Export' EU Animal Welfare Law?
    • Karen C. Sokol, Rethinking Rights in the Age of the "Anthropocene": The Potential of a Gandhian-Informed Jurisprudence for Forging Robust Environmental and Public Health Protections
  • In Focus: Global Policies and Law
    • Leonardo Borlini, Subsidies Regulation Beyond the WTO: Substance, Procedure and Policy Space in the 'New Generation' EU Trade Agreements
    • Hans Köchler, Normative Inconsistencies in the State System with Special Emphasis on International Law
    • Shavana Musa, Globalising Security Law for a Globalised Arms Trade
  • Forum - Jurisprudential Cross-Fertilization: An Annual Overview
    • Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, Contemporary International Tribunals: Jurisprudential Cross-Fertilization in Their Common Mission of Realization of Justice
    • Daniel Gervais, The WTO Appellate Body and the TRIPS Agreement
    • Oreste Pollicino & Marco Bassini, Bridge Is Down, Data Truck Can't Get Through . . . A Critical View of the Schrems Judgment in the Context of European Constitutionalism

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Borlini & Dordi: Deepening International Systems of Subsidy Control: The (Different) Legal Regimes of Subsidies in the EU Bilateral Preferential Trade Agreements

Leonardo Borlini (Bocconi Univ.) & Claudio Dordi (Bocconi Univ.) have published Deepening International Systems of Subsidy Control: The (Different) Legal Regimes of Subsidies in the EU Bilateral Preferential Trade Agreements (Columbia Journal of European Law, Vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 551-606, 2017). Here’s the abstract:
An increasingly important aspect of EU external action and trade policy since the lifting of its self-imposed moratorium on preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has been the inclusion of WTO+ provisions on non-agricultural subsidies in bilateral agreements negotiated with a number ofcountries. These provisions are generally designed to achieve a range of objectives, related to developing trade between the contracting parties and to economic and legal/regulatory development within the partner State. However the resulting legal framework is rather fragmented, especially after the conclusion of recent PTAs like the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and the EUSingapore PTA. This Article aims at producing a comprehensive discussion of the different subsidies disciplines embodied in the EU bilateral agreements. Part I identifies four main groups of EU bilateral agreements-agreements with candidates and potential candidates; agreements with former Soviet Union States and Euro- Mediterranean agreements; early agreements with selected trade partners; 'second generation' trade agreements-and examines how such agreements have increasingly been used as an avenue to strengthen subsidies disciplines as substitutes for trade remedy measures, while investigating the determinants that conducted the EU and its several partners to intensify in a selective manner (i.e. not in all the relevant PTAs), the scope of the WTO SCM agreement. Part II of the Article first investigates the normative rationales of the discipline in question and its influence on the operation of the relevant rules. It then turns to assess the main problems concerning the possibility of designing a rigorous system of subsidy control in the context of EU bilateral trade relations and the interpretation of the key notions ofsuch regimes. Finally, it analyses the enforcement mechanisms and the trade remedial measures established by the different classes of PTAs. Against such analytical backdrop, the article formulates a number of conclusions on the substance and procedure of the EU PTAs' regimes on public aid. Most notably, it argues that only the discipline established by some of such agreements substantially improves the multilateral framework and reflects the constitutional settlement that should feature in any wellbalanced system ofsubsidy control-that is to say the prohibition of measures impairing market access and the functioning of competition, combined with the recognition of the legitimacy of those subsidies pursuing social and other (economic and noneconomic) public goals. In practice, this means that such agreements recover afundamental 'policy space, 'which is currently absent in the WTO SCM. On the procedural side, the article maintains that the enforcement mechanisms and the remedial measures vary considerably with the different PTAs; this, of course, influences also the actual enforceability of the same rules.

Colloquium: International Investment Law & the Law of Armed Conflict

The Athens Public International Law Center of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Faculty of Law, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Research Center on Procurement law and International Investments (CREDIMI) of the University of Burgundy, and the Faculty of Law of the University of Zaragoza, and with the support of the ESIL Interest Group on International Economic Law, will hold a colloquium on "International Investment Law & the Law of Armed Conflict," October 5-6, 2017, in Athens. The program is here. Here's the idea:
Recent events in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Crimea have (unsurprisingly) brought to the surface various systemic concerns regarding international investment protection and arbitration. Investment claims and scholarly literature increasingly illustrate the wide-ranging linkages between international investment law and the law of armed conflict. Hence, the Colloquium on ‘International Investment Law & the Law of Armed Conflict’, aiming to chart the terrain of this multifaceted and complex relationship, could not be more timely.

Call for Papers: Law and Society Association/Canadian Law and Society Association

The Law and Society Association and the Canadian Law and Society Association have issued a call for papers for a joint annual meeting, which will be held in Toronto. The theme is: "Law at the Crossroads/Le droit à la croisée des chemins." The call is here.

Symposium: Repensando y renovando el estudio del Derecho Internacional: el Derecho Internacional dentro, desde y sobre América Latina

On September 26-28, 2017, the Universidad de los Andes, the Universidad del Rosario, and the Universidad Externado de Colombia will hold a symposium on "Repensando y renovando el estudio del Derecho Internacional: el Derecho Internacional dentro, desde y sobre América Latina." The program is here.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 43, no. 4, October 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Forum: Linklater’s Violence and Civilization in the Western States-Systems
    • John M. Hobson, A critical-sympathetic introduction to Linklater’s odyssey: Bridge over troubled (Eurocentric?) water
    • Zeynep Gülşah Çapan, Writing International Relations from the invisible side of the abyssal line
    • Julian Go, ‘Civilization’ and its subalterns
    • L.H.M. Ling, The missing Other: a review of Linklater’s Violence and Civilization in the Western States-System
    • Alan Chong, Civilisations and harm: the politics of civilising processes between the West and the non-West
    • Stephen Mennell, Norbert Elias’s contribution to Andrew Linklater’s contribution to International Relations
    • George Lawson, The untimely historical sociologist
    • Tim Dunne & Richard Devetak, Civilising statecraft: Andrew Linklater and comparative sociologies of states-systems
    • Andrew Linklater, Process sociology, the English School, and postcolonialism – understanding ‘civilization’ and world politics: a reply to the critics
  • Articles
    • Roberto Frega, Pragmatism and democracy in a global world
    • Samuel Brazys & Alexander Dukalskis, Canary in the coal mine? China, the UNGA, and the changing world order
    • Randall Germain & Herman Mark Schwartz, The political economy of currency internationalisation: the case of the RMB

Carrai: Learning Western Techniques of Empire: Republican China and the New Legal Framework for Managing Tibet

Maria Adele Carrai (Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program) has posted Learning Western Techniques of Empire: Republican China and the New Legal Framework for Managing Tibet (Leiden Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here is the abstract:
At the end of the nineteenth century, China found itself torn between its imperial past and its nation-state future. By the time it became a Republic in 1911, China had to redefine its territory in new national sovereign terms. Until then its territory had been inscribed in more malleable frontiers and boundaries within the normative framework of the so-called ‘tribute system’. The article shows how, applying the new legal techniques of empire learned from the West, the Chinese central government, wherever possible, attempted to expand its new sovereign domain in territories like Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, where, according to international law, all the prerequisites existed for national self-determination and independence. In the context of opposing British and Tibetan claims, the Chinese appropriation of international law in the Republican period (1911–1949) helped China not only to assert itself in the international domain as a sovereign state, defending itself against Western imperialism, but also to pursue its own fictional imperial claims over Tibet, without which the Communists’ ‘liberation’ of Tibet would have not been possible. The paper highlights the interplay of imperial techniques based on international law, the relativity of this legal language, and how the strategies of empire are not only a prerogative of the West, but can be quickly adopted by those who have been subjected to them, resulting in a vicious circle.

New Issue: International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics

The latest issue of International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics (Vol. 17, no. 5, October 2017) is out. Contents include:
  • Gurdial Singh Nijar, Sélim Louafi, & Eric W. Welch, The implementation of the Nagoya ABS Protocol for the research sector: experience and challenges
  • Till Pistorius, Sabine Reinecke, & Astrid Carrapatoso, A historical institutionalist view on merging LULUCF and REDD+ in a post-2020 climate agreement
  • Caleb Gallemore, Transaction costs in the evolution of transnational polycentric governance
  • Piero Morseletto, Frank Biermann, & Philipp Pattberg, Governing by targets: reductio ad unum and evolution of the two-degree climate target
  • Lei Xie & Shaofeng Jia, Diplomatic water cooperation: the case of Sino-India dispute over Brahmaputra
  • Adelaide Glover & Heike Schroeder, Legitimacy in REDD+ governance in Indonesia
  • S. Yu, E. C. van Ierland, H.-P. Weikard, & X. Zhu, Nash bargaining solutions for international climate agreements under different sets of bargaining weights
  • Irene Alvarado-Quesada & Hans-Peter Weikard, International Environmental Agreements for biodiversity conservation: a game-theoretic analysis