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.

Lythgoe: The Rebirth of Territory

Gail Lythgoe (Univ. of Edinburgh - Law) has published The Rebirth of Territory (Cambridge Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

The concept of territory is central in international law, but a detailed analysis of how the concept is used in both discourse and practice has been lacking until now. Rather than reproducing the established understanding of territoriality within the international legal order, this study suggests that the discipline of international law relies on an outmoded spatial paradigm. Gail Lythgoe argues for a complete update and overhaul of our understanding of territory and space, to engage more effectively with key processes, structures and actors relevant to contemporary global governance. In this new theoretical account of an essential aspect of public international law, she argues that territory is a dynamic social reality created by the exercise of power. Territories are constituted by the practices of a more diverse array of actors than is acknowledged. As a result, functions are re-assembling in territories constituted by state and non-state actors alike.

Call for Papers: African International Economic Law Network 7th Biennial (Bridge) Conference

The African International Economic Law Network has issued a call for papers for its 7th Biennial (Bridge) Conference, to take place July 18-20, 2024, in Dar es Salaam. The theme is: "A Critical Appraisal of the Status and Implementation of the AfCFTA Agreement and Its Protocols." The call is here.

Case & Mégret: The Colour of Jus Cogens

Sarah Riley Case (McGill Univ. - Law) & Frédéric Mégret (McGill Univ. - Law) have posted The Colour of Jus Cogens (in Emancipating International Law: Confronting the Violence of Racialized Boundaries, Mohsen al Attar, Ata Hindi, & Claire Smith, eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The international law doctrine of jus cogens recognizes that some prohibitions – such as those against slavery, genocide, and torture – have peremptory status above other international norms and cannot be negotiated away by treaty. However, in their 1993 article “The Gender of Jus Cogens” Hillary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin claimed, “the concept of jus cogens is not a properly universal one as its development has privileged the experiences of men over those of women, and it has provided a protection to men that is not accorded to women.” The definition of jus cogens in spaces dominated by men, they argued, entrenched gendered experiences with distributive consequences. Jus cogens norms did not address the impacts on women of violence, poverty, food insecurity, and inaccessible health care. Jus cogens norms are biased and have been used to reinscribe benefits that men accrue from oppressing women.

Charlesworth and Chinkin published their article during early engagements with Feminist Approaches to International Law across the Global North, which foregrounded how international law is socially constructed to produce gender disparities. Sources of inspiration for these approaches included literature on colonialism and Third World feminisms. In their discussion of jus cogens, Charlesworth and Chinkin therefore used the term ‘women’ to refer to persons ‘around the world’ whose experiences jus cogens should reflect. Nonetheless, proposals to accommodate women in international law coming from the Global North have since been critiqued for eclipsing alternate feminisms and perspectives concerned with racism, colonialism, gender normativity, and economic inequality, with important consequences.

Acknowledging these nuances, we wish to focus on whether jus cogens reinforces hierarchies associated with multiple forms of imperialism. This has led us to ask if jus cogens might be associated with the dominance of people who have benefitted from and reproduce the white supremacy of colonialism and transatlantic slavery. The question is whether jus cogens might be defined by processes of racialization, simultaneously caught up with gender and class. We recognize, as Charlesworth and Chinkin did, that evoking jus cogens norms is often symbolic in practice. Our intuition is that jus cogens has at times been evoked for its symbolic value to discipline racialized peoples across a gender spectrum, while their appeals to jus cogens have often been excluded from its ambit of protection.

Lecture: Lavrysen on "Climate Law: International and European Perspectives"

On April 8, 2024, Luc Lavrysen (Constitutional Court of Belgium) will deliver a lecture (on Zoom) as part of the Wuhan University School of Law Global Law Distinguished Lecture Series. The topic is: "Climate Law: International and European Perspectives." Qin Tianbao (Wuhan Univ.) and Liu Bingyu (China Univ. of Political Science and Law) will serve as discussants, and Ignacio de la Rasilla (Wuhan Univ.) will be the moderator. Details are here.

Lecture: Hernández on "Adjudicating War? A new front at the ICJ"

On April 11, 2024, Gleider Hernández (Catholic Univ. of Leuven) will give the next lecture of the TuLaw - Tübingen Lecture Series on the Laws of War. The topic is: “Adjudicating War? A new front at the ICJ.” Details are here.

New Issue: Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international

The latest issue of the Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international (Vol. 25, no. 4, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Inge Van Hulle, The Blood Brotherhood and Colonial Treaties and Alliances: Between Myth and Reality
• Bogotá at 75
• Justina Uriburu & Francisco-José Quintana, Bogotá at 75: Palaces, Streets, and Classrooms
• Lucas Lixinski, Indigeneity at the 1948 Bogotá Conference
• Nicolás M. Perrone, Locating the 1948 Economic Agreement of Bogotá: The Rise and Fall of Latin America’s International Economic Law Project
• Francisco-José Quintana, The (Latin) American Dream? Human Rights and the Construction of Inter-American Regional Organisation (1945–1948)
• Justina Uriburu, Organizing Peace in the Americas: Collective Security versus International Adjudication
• Fabia Fernandes Carvalho, Regional Imaginations of Peace: The Work of the Rio Committee and the Antecedents of the Pact of Bogota (1942–1947)
• George Rodrigo Bandeira Galindo, Epilogue: Bogotá, Law, Time, and Politics

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 63, no. 2, April 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Arbitral Award of Oct. 3, 1899 (Guy. v. Venez.) (Preliminary Objections) (I.C.J.), with introductory note by Bertrand Ramcharan
• Documents on the Consequences of the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, Namely the Enlarged Partial Agreement on the Register of Damage Caused, with introductory note by Bill Bowring
• Case C-663/21, Bundesamt für Fremdenwesen und Asyl v. AA (C.J.E.U.), with introductory note by Elspeth Guild
• Case of Digna Ochoa & Family Members v. Mex. (Inter-Am. Ct. H.R.), with introductory note by Connie de la Vega
• Amendments to the Case-Zablocki Act Concerning Reporting and Publication of International Agreements and Related Regulations (U.S.), with introductory note by Curtis Bradley
• Yegiazaryan v. Smagin (U.S. Sup. Ct.), with introductory note by Juan Pablo Gomez-Moreno
• The Foreign State Immunity Law of the People's Republic of China, with introductory note by William S. Dodge

Haslam: The Subjects and Subjectivities of International Criminal Law: A Critical Introduction

Emily Haslam (Univ. of Kent - Law) has published The Subjects and Subjectivities of International Criminal Law: A Critical Introduction (Hart Publishing 2024). Here's the abstract:

This book provides a critical introduction to the core elements of international criminal law. It does so by provoking thought on what international criminal law is, or could be, by contrasting the practice of widely recognised state-based actors and institutions such as the International Criminal Court with practices associated with non-state actors in particular citizens' tribunals.

International criminal law is now established as an essential legal and institutional response to atrocity. However, it faces a series of political and practical challenges. It is vital to consider its limits and potential, as well as the ways and extent to which those limitations might be addressed. Many actors with very different visions of its nature and parameters play a role in shaping the meaning of international criminal law whether that be in official or unofficial spaces.

This book explores the principles and institutions of international criminal law alongside the alternative visions of it put forward by citizens' tribunals. In so doing it encourages reflection on that law's multiple meanings and usages in order to provoke consideration of what it means, and might mean, to deploy international criminal law today.

New Issue: International Community Law Review

The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 26, nos. 1-2, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The War in Ukraine and International Law
• Dai Tamada, Editorial: Special Issue on the War in Ukraine and International Law
• Masahiko Asada, The War in Ukraine under International Law: Its Use of Force and Armed Conflict Aspects
• Dai Tamada, War in Ukraine and the International Court of Justice: Provisional Measures and the Third-Party Right to Intervene in Proceedings
• Mika Hayashi & Akihiro Yamaguchi, Economic Sanctions against Russia: Questions of Legality and Legitimacy
• Kazuhiro Nakatani, Freezing, Confiscation and Management of the Assets of the Russian Central Bank and the Oligarchs: Legality and Possibility under International Law
• Fujio Kawashima, Trade Sanctions against Russia and their WTO Consistency: Focusing on Justification under National Security Exceptions
• Satoru Taira, WTO Dispute Settlement and Trade Sanctions as Permissible Third-Party Countermeasures under Customary International Law
• Dai Tamada, War in Ukraine and Implications for International Investment Law