Conference: Recharacterising International Disputes: Exploring the Phenomenon of Multi-Fora Litigation

On June 12-13, 2024, Maastricht University's Faculty of Law will host a conference, in the hybrid format, on "Recharacterising International Disputes: Exploring the Phenomenon of Multi-Fora Litigation." Details, including registration, are here.

deGuzman & López: Is International Criminal Law Feminist?

Margaret M. deGuzman (Temple Univ. - Law) & Rachel López (Drexel Univ. - Law) have posted Is International Criminal Law Feminist? (in The Oxford Handbook on Women and International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The future of international criminal law as a feminist project at its essence turns on one central question: Does international criminal law advance feminist goals? To answer this question, this chapter charts the landscape of feminist critiques of international criminal law, identifying two schools of feminist thought. On one hand, there are those who believe in the enterprise of international criminal law as a method of advancing women’s rights and on the other, those who reject the enterprise believing that it undermines them.

To aid this analysis, the chapter applies a framework conceived by Robert Cover, and elaborated by Katherine Young, of redemptive and rejectionist approaches. Feminists who adopt a redemptive frame recognize the limitations of international criminal law, but ultimately see the enterprise as redeemable—that is, they believe that with the right reforms it can be a tool for advancing women’s rights. In contrast, those who adopt a rejectionist frame, believe the premises that undergird international criminal law are so fundamentally anti-woman, that the best course is to reject it wholesale and find another tool for advancing women’s rights. The goal of this chapter is to put these schools of thought in conversation and suggest ways that feminists can work together to support their core shared goal: the advancement of women’s equality.

New Issue: GlobaLex

The latest issue of GlobaLex (January/February 2024) includes:

• Dunia P. Zongwe, The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): The Law, the Economics, and the Research
• Colin Fong & Alex Burdett, Update: Immigration Law – A Comparative Approach to Researching Immigration Law of Australia, Canada, and the United States
• S M Atia Naznin, Update: Researching the Right to Housing
• Christopher C. Dykes, Update: Researching Indigenous Peoples International Law
• Charlotte Daugherty, Update: Researching Sustainable Development Law (SDL)

New Issue: American Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the American Journal of International Law (Vol. 118, no. 2, April 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Article
• Miles Jackson & Federica I. Paddeu, The Countermeasures of Others: When Can States Collaborate in the Taking of Countermeasures?
• Current Developments
• Kevin Baumert, The Continental Shelf Beyond 200 Nautical Miles: Announcement of the U.S. Outer Limits
• Daniel Bodansky, Four Treaties in One: The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement
• International Decisions
• Christopher Ward, Question of the Delimitation of the Continental Shelf Between Nicaragua and Colombia Beyond 200 Nautical Miles from the Nicaraguan Coast (Nicaragua v. Colombia)
• Philipp Janig, X v. OPEC. Judgment No. SV 1/2021 (SV 1/2021–23) ECLI:AT:VFGH:2022: SV1.2021 and Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court of Austria)
• Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law
• The United States Urges the Seizure of Russian Frozen Assets
• The United States Provides and Then Rescinds Sanctions Relief for Venezuela
• The United States Condemns Enactment of Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Act and Imposes Measures in Response
• Congress Extends Anti-bribery Laws to the Demand Side with Enactment of the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act
• The United States Supports Israel’s Use of Force in Gaza
• The United States and Partners Use Force Against the Houthis to Protect Freedom of Navigation in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden
• Recent Books on International Law
• Basa̧k Çali, Optimism in International Human Rights Law Scholarship
• José E. Alvarez, reviewing Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, edited by Rebecca J. Cook
• Nora Stappert, reviewing Talking International Law: Legal Argumentation Outside the Courtroom, by Ian Johnstone & Steven Ratner
• Astrid Iversen, reviewing Sovereign Debt Restructuring and the Law: The Holdout Creditor Problem in Argentina and Greece, by Sebastian Grund
• Antoine Pécoud, reviewing IOM Unbound? Obligations and Accountability of the International Organization for Migration in an Era of Expansion, edited by Megan Bradley, Cathryn Costello, & Angela Sherwood

Brunk & Hakimi: The Prohibition of Annexations and the Foundations of Modern International Law

Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk (Vanderbilt Univ. - Law) & Monica Hakimi (Columbia Univ. - Law) have posted The Prohibition of Annexations and the Foundations of Modern International Law (American Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The international legal norm that prohibits forcible annexations of territory is foundational to modern international law. It lies at the core of three projects that have been central to the enterprise. The first focuses on settling title to territory as the basis for establishing state authority. The second regulates the use of force across (settled) territorial borders. The third provides for the people within each state’s (settled) borders collectively to determine their own fates. The norm that prohibits forcible annexations is integral to each of these projects independently, and by tying them together, has had a transformative effect on the legal system as a whole.

However, this prohibition is also misunderstood, both as a matter of history and in its relationship to other contemporary international legal norms. Because it is intertwined with all three of the above projects, its origins cannot be traced to only one or the other. The common narrative that describes it as the inevitable outgrowth of regulating war is, therefore, misleading and incomplete. That narrative overlooks the role that formerly colonized states played in securing this norm while seeking to establish themselves as states, through decolonization and claims of self-determination. In modern doctrine, too, the prohibition of annexations is often subsumed into the general prohibition on the use of force, when in fact, its normative influence extends much more broadly.

As a result, the norm’s significance and position in modern international law are consistently overlooked. Analysts have also, by and large, failed to appreciate that it is now caught up in a broader contest over the future world order and at risk of erosion. As deeply flawed as the previous world order was, jettisoning this norm is a dangerous path forward. From Ukraine to Palestine, Israel, the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Golan Heights, Western Sahara, and the Chagos Archipelago, states and nonstate actors alike care deeply about exercising power over territory, which has historically been a primary impetus of interstate war.

Call for Papers: Imagining New and Alternative Legal Internationalisms

A call for papers has been issued for a stream on "Imagining New and Alternative Legal Internationalisms," part of a conference on "Legal Imaginaries," organized by the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia. The conference will take place on December 16-18, 2024, and hosted by the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law. Here's the call:

The international legal order, as we knew it, has changed. Since the early 2000s, we have witnessed significant international changes, including an escalating environmental emergency, the emergence of new ways to wage armed conflicts, the proliferation of new technologies to convey international influence and power, the decline of ‘old’ international powers and the rise of ‘new’ or ‘emerging’ ones, as well as increasingly overt ‘backlash’ against the international institutions and legal norms of the post-WWII international legal order. While it is common for international lawyers to read these events in a register of anxiety and pessimism, this stream seeks to strike a more curious and perhaps even hopeful tone by opening up a conversation about the new and alternative internationalisms that are emerging. In a world where the old is dying and a new hegemonic order has not yet been born, we ask, how can we understand, challenge and re-imagine international law anew? Convenors: Claerwen O'Hara (La Trobe University) and Valeria Vázquez Guevara (University of Hong Kong). For call and submission instructions, please visit the website.

Call for Papers: General principles in EU external relations law

The T.M.C. Asser Institute has issued a call for papers for a conference on "General Principles in EU External Relations Law," to be held December 6, 2024, at the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague. The call is here.

Workshop: Transnational Legal and Political Theory

On May 17-18, 2024, the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the School of Law, University at Buffalo, will host a workshop on "Transnational Legal and Political Theory," in person and online. Details are here.

Yip: Reconceptualizing Norm Conflict in International Law

Ka Lok Yip (Hamad Bin Khalifa Univ.) has posted Reconceptualizing Norm Conflict in International Law (Asian Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article re-conceptualizes norm conflict in international law by uncovering the experiential dimension of its definition and the intentional dimension of its resolution, which have been missing from the traditional accounts. The article locates the basis of recognizing norm conflict in the experienced sense of incompatibility between norms in view of their contexts rather than in the pre-designated constellation of norms with contrary or contradictory functions according to their texts. Concomitantly, it argues that the justification for using certain legal techniques to resolve norm conflicts lies in the intended relationship deducible only between those norms that share the same regulatory purpose, rather than between norms merely applying to the same factual situation. This re-conceptualization generates a new typology of norm conflicts in light of the norms’ end goals and the means they provide to achieve them: “Ends Conflict”, “Means Conflict” and “Unexperienced Conflict”, and suggests apposite ways to tackle them.

New Issue: La Comunità Internazionale

The latest issue of La Comunità Internazionale (Vol. 79, no. 1, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Articoli e Saggi
• Giuseppe Puma, Le sanzioni economiche unilaterali contro la Bielorussia nella recente prassi internazionale
• Fiammetta Borgia, Intelligenza artificiale, arte digitale e diritto d’autore: profili di diritto internazionale
• Laura Di Gianfrancesco, La funzione di accountability dell’Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite alla luce della risoluzione 76/262 sulla veto initiative
• Francesco Gaudiosi, One Health: A New Intersectoral Approach and its Legal Implications for Global Health Governance
• Osservatorio Diritti Umani
• Giorgia Bevilacqua, Innovazione tecnologica e interpretazione del diritto al gioco nella Convenzione ONU sui diritti del fanciullo
• Federica Falconi, Contrasto allo hate speech e responsabilità nella comunicazione politica online: note alla sentenza della Corte europea dei diritti umani Sanchez c. Francia
• Osservatorio Europeo
• Francesco Viggiani, La posizione asimmetrica della Corte di giustizia dell’Unione europea nel contesto “emergenziale” del fenomeno migratorio

Peat: Positivism and the Cognitive Turn

Daniel Peat (Leiden Univ. - Law) has posted Positivism and the Cognitive Turn (in International Legal Theory and the Cognitive Turn, A. van Aaken & M. Hirsch eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Of all the strands of international legal theory that exist in contemporary international law scholarship, one might have thought that the cognitive turn would impact positivism the most. In this chapter, however, I want to paint a different picture. The caricature of positivism that many of us hold in our heads – as a theory that is formalist, voluntarist, state-centric, and detached from morals – no longer accords with the prevalent conception of the theory in much of the literature. Instead, I argue that the principal challenge to positivism comes from experimental jurisprudence, a nascent body of literature which shows that the general public fails to recognise a source-based concept of law. This challenges positivists to explain why their view is to be preferred to the so-called ‘folk’ concept of law.

Monebhurrun, Olarte-Bácares, & Velásquez-Ruiz: International Investment Law and Arbitration from a Latin American Perspective

Nitish Monebhurrun (Univ. Center of Brasilia), Carolina Olarte-Bácares (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana), & Marco A. Velásquez-Ruiz (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) have published International Investment Law and Arbitration from a Latin American Perspective (Springer 2024). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The book brings to light how Latin American States have traditionally stood before the field of International Investment Law and Arbitration. It delves into their posture of resistance to critically examine how their perspective has gradually changed and how they have adapted their investment agreements so as not to leave their position as players in the field of International Investment Law.

Rudall: Responsibility for Environmental Damage

Jason Rudall (Leiden Univ. - Law) has published Responsibility for Environmental Damage (Edward Elgar Publishing 2024). Here's the abstract:

Engaging with one of the most consequential issues of our time, this book provides a thoughtful analysis of responsibility for environmental damage under international law. It conceives of responsibility in a comprehensive way, tackling the legal responsibility, liability and accountability of state and non-state actors for harm they cause to the environment.

Responsibility for Environmental Damage traverses the primary and secondary rules of international law, the responsibility, liability and accountability of states, international organizations, corporations and individuals, as well as existing, new and emerging regulatory frameworks. It engages with the consequences of environmental harm, appraising both orthodox legal doctrines and cutting-edge questions like shared responsibility, equitable considerations, full reparation, response measures under liability regimes, corporate responsibility, ecocide and responsibility for climate change, amongst many others. In doing so, the book evaluates whether the law is equipped to deal with the novel challenges that environmental damage presents and argues that new legal tools are needed to effectively tackle some of the most significant threats to our planet.

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 23, no. 2, May 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Jonas Kasteng, Ari Kokko, Nils Norell, & Patrik Tingvall, Learning to Use Trade Preferences: A Firm and Transaction Level Analysis of the EU–South Korea FTA
• Usama Salamat & Salamat Ali, The Long Shadows of Brexit: Implications for African Countries
• Anatole Boute, Accounting for Carbon Pricing in Third Countries Under the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
• Mira Burri, María Vásquez Callo-Müller, & Kholofelo Kugler, The Evolution of Digital Trade Law: Insights from TAPED
• Emily Jones, Beatriz Kira, & Rutendo Tavengerwei, Norm Entrepreneurship in Digital Trade: The Singapore-led Wave of Digital Trade Agreements
• Bryan Mercurio, The Demise of Globalization and Rise of Industrial Policy: Caveat Emptor
• Thibault Denamiel, Response to Bryan Mercurio's Caveat Emptor
• Tim Groser, Small State Diplomacy in Action: The Real Origins of TPP

New Issue: Swiss Review of International and European Law

The latest issue of the Swiss Review of International and European Law (Vol. 34, no. 1, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Heike Krieger, Constructing Narratives of Change – The War against Ukraine as a Transformational Moment for International Law?
• Robert Baumann, Die innerstaatliche Legitimation von bindenden Beschlüssen und einseitigen Erklärungen: Recht und Praxis
• Yannick Zerbe, Caught in the Web: The Right to Self-Defense of Third States as Victims of Spill-Over Effects from Cyberattacks

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 28, no. 4, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Samantha Besson, The ‘Human Right to Science’ qua right to participate in science: The participatory good of science and its human rights dimensions
• Heloisa Pinheiro de Castro Simão, The Cartagena ‘Spirit’ as a third world human rights alternative to refugee protection: lessons to learn from Brazil’s approach to Venezuelan socio-economic refugee
• Lieselotte Viaene & María Ximena González-Serrano, The right to be, to feel and to exist: Indigenous lawyers and strategic litigation over Indigenous territories in Guatemala
• Neve Gordon, On antisemitism and human rights
• Md. Intekhab Hossain, Resurgent totalitarianism, charismatic dictatorship, and the rise of socio-political extremism in the age of globalisation and multiculturalism: an escalating human rights crisis
• Genís Galceran & Juan Carlos Palacios, What makes transitional justice possible? An analysis of the Spanish case
• Mohammad Pizuar Hossain, Assessing the International Criminal Court’s response to genocide: a reference to the case of Al-Bashir
• Agne Limante, Protecting vulnerable groups in Europe: highlights from recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights

Bianchi & Zarbiyev: Demystifying Treaty Interpretation

Andrea Bianchi (Geneva Graduate Institute) & Fuad Zarbiyev (Geneva Graduate Institute) have published Demystifying Treaty Interpretation (Cambridge Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

Demystifying Treaty Interpretation doesn't just tell you how treaties are commonly interpreted. It helps you understand also the process of treaty interpretation and its outcomes. The idea that rules of treaty interpretation can guide us to the meaning of treaty provisions, in a simple and straightforward manner, is a myth to be dispelled. This book aims to capture some of the complex and nuanced processes involved in treaty interpretation. It spurs further reflection about how interpretation takes place against the background of concepts, categories, and insights from other disciplines. A useful tool for scholars, practitioners and researchers engaging with treaty interpretation at all levels, the book aims to enhance the reader's knowledge and mastery of the interpretive process in all its elements, with a view to making them more skilled and effective players in the game of interpretation.

Call for Papers: Biennial Conference on International Law and the Social Sciences

A call for papers has been issued for the Biennial Conference on International Law and the Social Sciences of the American Society of International Law's International Law and Social Sciences Interest Group. The conference will take place, September 27-28, 2024, at Northwestern University School of Law. Details, including the call, are here.

New Volume: Yearbook of International Disaster Law

The latest volume of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law (Vol. 5, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Thematic Section: Human Rights and Disasters
• YIDL Dialogues with Practitioners #2: Dr Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - A Dialogue with Marie Aronsson-Storrier and Emanuele Sommario
• Siobhán Mullally & Keelin Barry, Trafficking in Persons in the Context of Climate-Related Disasters and Displacement: a Failure of Protection and Prevention 
• Susan Breau, Lessons from COVID-19 with Respect to the Positive Obligations of States to Protect Older Persons in the Event of Disasters 
• Christina Binder, Emergencies in the Inter-American Human Rights System: the Example of Ecuador in Times of COVID-19 
• Miriam Cullen, Benedicte Sofie Holm, & Céline Brassart-Olsen, A Human Rights-Based Approach to Disaster Risk Management in Greenland: Displacement, Relocation, and the Legacies of Colonialism 
• Federica Passarini, The Prevention of Disasters Related to Natural Hazards in the Practice of Human Rights Courts and Treaty Bodies: towards a DRR Approach 
• Holly A. Seglah & Kevin Blanchard, Sexual and Gender Minorities and the Right to Non-discrimination: a Shortfall of Disaster Risk Reduction? 
• Stellina Jolly & Chhaya Bhardwaj, Exploring the Role of the National Human Rights Commission in Climate-Induced Disaster Displacement in India: Lessons from Sri Lanka and the Philippines 
• Kumush Suyunova, Human Rights Restrictions Prompted by the COVID-19 Pandemic: Uncertainties and Differences in the Practice of ECHR Parties 
• General Section
• Tuomas Palosaari, Legal Form and Competing Framings of Cross-Border Disaster Displacement in the Context of Climate Change 
• Natalia Cwicinskaja, The Impact of the COVID-19 on Contested Territorial Entities of Eastern Europe: between Isolation and Cooperation 
• Rebeca Isabel Muñoz Arosemena, International Disaster Law in Honduras: the Role of the Red Cross and IFRC in Integrating International Guidelines into the Domestic Legal System 

Conversation: Exiting the Energy Charter Treaty under the Law of Treaties

On April 19, 2024, Bocconi University will host a conversation, in the hybrid format, on "Exiting the Energy Charter Treaty under the Law of Treaties." Lorand Bartels (Univ. of Cambridge), Tibisay Morgandi (Queen Mary Univ. of London), and Roger O'Keefe (Bocconi Univ.) will discuss whether there is a way under the law of treaties for states parties withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty to circumvent the treaty’s twenty-year sunset clause. This is the latest in the series Bocconi Conversations in International Law. The event will take place at Bocconi University, via Röntgen 1, 20136 Milan, room 1.c3.01, from 4:30pm to 6:00pm. Registration is required for attendance in person (email dip.ius@unibocconi.it). The event will be on Zoom here (meeting ID 993 0983 0316, passcode 539190).

Call for Papers: Third Annual Conference of the Western Sahara Research Group

A call for papers has been issued for the Third Annual Conference of the Western Sahara Research Group, to be held September 11, 2024, at Queen Mary University of London. The call is here.

Call for Submissions: German Yearbook of International Law

The German Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its forthcoming volume 67 (2024). The deadline is August 31, 2024. The call is here.

Conference: International Humanitarian Law Legal Clinics Networking Conference

On May 30, 2024, the IHL RED Consortium, with the support of the ICRC, will host, in the hybrid format, the "Internaitonal Humanitarian Law Legal Clinics Networking Conference" at Roma Tre University. The conference will focus on the opportunities and challenges of clinical legal education in international humanitarian law. Free participation is possible online and in-person. Details are here.

Pereira & Morosini: Textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law: A Brazilian Case Study

Luíza Leão Soares Pereira (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Law) & Fabio Costa Morosini (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Law) have posted Textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law: A Brazilian Case Study (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article challenges conventional views of international law textbooks as mere instructional tools and explores them as powerful sites for shaping knowledge and the discipline. Drawing on empirical methods and critical theory, we analyse the 10 main international law textbooks used in Brazil and conduct interviews with their authors to illuminate the textbooks’ complexities and their potential for shaping the discipline and the profession. The article delves into the tension between the structure of international law as depicted in the textbooks and the agency of their authors, investigating the authors’ identities and backgrounds. Brazil serves as a compelling case study due to its numerous international law textbooks and their widespread use. Our results indicate a predominant universalist approach in Brazilian textbooks and their connection to the French international law tradition. Moreover, the study sheds light on the Brazilian ‘invisible college’ of international lawyers, revealing gender and racial disparities and institutional centralities. It also uncovers crucial omissions in the textbooks, such as the relationship of international law to colonialism, slavery, race, gender and economic inequality. Overall, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of international law as a field in Brazil and provides a valuable methodological framework for future research on textbooks’ role in shaping the discipline.

Nakajima, Okada, & Nisugi: The sovereign function test out of thin air? The status of the central bank determined behind the scenes in Certain Iranian Assets

Kei Nakajima (Univ. of Tokyo - Law), Yohei Okada (Kobe Univ. - Law), & Kento Nisugi (Osaka Univ. - Law) have posted The sovereign function test out of thin air? The status of the central bank determined behind the scenes in Certain Iranian Assets (Journal of International Dispute Settlement, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

On 30 March 2023, the International Court of Justice rendered its judgment on the merits of the case concerning Certain Iranian Assets, in which the Iranian central bank was not characterized as a company within the meaning of the Treaty of Amity. In so concluding, the Court relied upon the test focusing on the central bank’s sovereign functions and the purposes of the transaction at stake. Debate surrounds the origin and sources of inspiration of the sovereign function test, insofar as the majority’s minimum reasoning leaves an impression that it arose from thin air. This article explores the origin and the sources of inspiration of the test, concluding that the Court’s judgment affords the reading that the test was inspired, albeit clandestinely, by rules and practice specifically dedicated to the characterization of central bank activities, located in areas such as the laws of State immunity or responsibility, by judicial cross-referencing.