AdvertisementEffective defenses that are designed to protect civilians in war have significant implications for policy planning, military strategy, international relations, domestic politics, and economics. Defenses can increase or decrease overall humanitarian welfare.
AdvertisementSurprisingly, existing legal scholarship has focused almost exclusively on offensive action, failing to consider the effects of defenses on the strategic interactions between armed rivals or the humanitarian consequences of defenses. The implications of defenses for the interpretation and application of the international legal rules on the use of force have also gone largely unexplored. We set out to fill this significant gap.
AdvertisementWe study the operation of defensive systems in both asymmetric rivalries and symmetric rivalries, and consider the interplay between defenses and offensive measures. We analyze how defensive systems are likely to affect parties’ wartime conduct and the potential consequences for the welfare of civilians on both sides of the conflict. A central motivating observation is that defenses have the potential of safeguarding not only the lives of the defending party’s civilians but also those on the opposing side. Our analysis further considers how international law, and especially the principle of proportionality, might affect parties’ choices with regard to investments in defenses. Counterintuitively, we caution that under some circumstances an overly restrictive application of the principle of proportionality might deter investment in defenses, thereby decreasing overall humanitarian welfare.
To make our theoretical models more concrete, we draw on several realworld examples: the Israeli antiballistic missile system, Iron Dome; the deployment of antimissile defenses by Japan and the United States to meet the threat from North Korea; and the race between the two Cold War protagonists to develop superior intercontinental antiballistic missile systems, which eventually led to the 1972 U.S.–U.S.S.R. Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Bar-Gill & Blum: Defenses
AJIL Unbound Symposium: Nyarko's “Giving the Treaty a Purpose: Comparing the Durability of Treaties and Executive Agreements"
de Beco, Quinlivan, & Lord: The Right to Inclusive Education in International Human Rights Law
Education is a fundamental human right that is recognised as essential for the attainment of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. It was not until 2006, on the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), that the right to inclusive education was codified. This volume fills a major gap in the literature on the right of disabled people to education. It examines the theoretical foundations and core content of the right to inclusive education in international human rights law, and explores the various ways of implementing this right through an exploration of legal strategies and mechanisms. With contributions by leaders in the field, this volume advances scholarship on the core content of the right to inclusive education by examining the content and practice of the right at the national, regional and international levels.
New Issue: International Studies Quarterly
- Helge Holtermann, Diversionary Rebel Violence in Territorial Civil War
- Margaret J Foster & David A Siegel, Pink Slips from the Underground: Changes in Terror Leadership
- Jack Paine, Economic Grievances and Civil War: An Application to the Resource Curse
- Sharan Grewal, Military Defection During Localized Protests: The Case of Tataouine
- Anette Stimmer, Beyond Internalization: Alternate Endings of the Norm Life Cycle
- Margaret E Peters, Immigration and International Law
- David Ciplet, Means of the Marginalized: Embedded Transnational Advocacy Networks and the Transformation of Neoliberal Global Governance
- Jeff D Colgan & Nicholas L Miller, Rival Hierarchies and the Origins of Nuclear Technology Sharing
- Daniel Krcmaric, Information, Secrecy, and Civilian Targeting
- Mark Shirk, The Universal Eye: Anarchist “Propaganda of the Deed” and Development of the Modern Surveillance State
- Nick Dietrich & Charles Crabtree, Domestic Demand for Human Rights: Free Speech and the Freedom-Security Trade-Off
- Matthew D Fails, Fuel Subsidies Limit Democratization: Evidence from a Global Sample, 1990–2014
- Bernd Beber, Michael J Gilligan, Jenny Guardado, & Sabrina Karim, The Promise and Peril of Peacekeeping Economies
- Timm Betz, Tariff Evasion and Trade Policies
- José Kaire, Compensating Autocratic Elites: How International Demands for Economic Liberalization Can Lead to More Repressive Dictatorships
- Alexander Lee & Jack Paine, What Were the Consequences of Decolonization?
- Subhasish Ray, History and Ethnic Conflict: Does Precolonial Centralization Matter?
- Christopher Whyte, Can We Change the Topic, Please? Assessing the Theoretical Construction of International Relations Scholarship
New Issue: La Comunità Internazionale
- Storia del Diritto Internazionale
- Robert Kolb, La Société des Nations et son droit cent ans après
- Articoli e Saggi
- Ugo Villani, La funzione consultiva della Corte internazionale di giustizia
- Sabrina Vannuccini, Quis interpretabitur nei casi di «doppia pregiudizialità»? La precisazione della Corte costituzionale nella sentenza n. 269/2017 e le reazioni della Corte di cassazione
- Note e Commenti
- Alessandro Rosanò, Listening to the wind of change? I rapporti problematici tra Consiglio d’Europa e Federazione russa quanto alla tutela dei diritti umani e l’eterno ritorno del dominio riservato
- Claudia Candelmo, Il fenomeno della corruzione nelle Organizzazioni internazionali: esperienze europee e strumenti internazionali di contrasto Nucera
New Issue: Diritti umani e diritto internazionale
- Studi
- Massimo Starita, Il dovere di soccorso in mare e il diritto di obbedire al diritto (internazionale) del comandante della nave privata
- ‘Il diritto di essere cittadini del Paese in cui si è nati’: riflessioni interdisciplinari sulla (perdurante) necessità della riforma della legge italiana sulla cittadinanza
- Pietro Gargiulo, Introduzione
- Gianluca Bascherini, Brevi considerazioni storico-comparative su cittadinanza, ius sanguinis e ius soli nella vicenda italiana
- Serena Forlati, Ius soli, ius culturae e diritto internazionale
- Pietro Franzina, Sangue, suolo e cultura: declinazioni dell’idea di appartenenza nel diritto internazionale privato
- Interventi
- Stefan Talmon, The Procedural Obligation Under Article 2 ECHR to Investigate and Cooperate with Investigations of Unlawful Killings in a Cross-border Context
- Simone Carrea, The ECHR in the Cyberspace: Does the Power to Infringe Always Entail the Duty to Protect?
- Deborah Russo, I trattati sui diritti umani nell’ordinamento italiano alla luce delle sentenze n. 120 e 194 del 2018 della Corte costituzionale
- Maria Ferrara, La Corte di giustizia dell’Unione europea e lo ‘strano caso’ dei Principi di Yogyakarta
- Osservatorio
- Elena Corcione, Diritti umani, cambiamento climatico e definizione giudiziale dello standard di condotta
- Ludovica Poli, Il caso Cappato e la questione della dignità nel morire dinanzi alla Corte costituzionale
- Laura Salvadego, Diritto di accedere alla giustizia, esigenze di politica giudiziaria e mancata esecuzione di sentenze ‘pilota’ della Corte europea dei diritti umani: il caso Burmych
- Lucia Della Torre, Comitato ONU contro la tortura e rinvii ‘Dublino’ dalla Svizzera verso l’Italia
New Issue: Revue de Droit International et de Droit Comparé
- J-B. Kossi Galley, Le contentieux territorial entre les philippines et la chine en mer de chine méridionale
- G. Dufour, La compétence de l’OMC en matière de change : le cas des dévaluations monétaires compétitives au regard de l’article XV du GATT
- R. Jafferali, M. Lacroix, A-N. Buciuman, M-H. Dufour, T. De Ravel D'esclapon, N. Kilgus, R. Morbach, G. Terlizzi, & F. Sabrinni, La vulnérabilité en droit économique — Résolution en droit comparé d’un cas pratique relatif à l’ignorance de la réglementation urbanistique lors de l’acquisition d’un immeuble
- A.D. Ntolo Nzeko, Le pouvoir constituant originaire et le pouvoir constituant dérivé dans les états d’Afrique noire francophone
New Issue: Rivista di Diritto Internazionale

- Articoli
- P. Rossi, Controversie di lavoro e immunità degli Stati esteri: tra codificazione e sviluppo del diritto consuetudinario
- M. Ventura, Condizionalità e realizzazione progressiva degli obblighi internazionali nelle relazioni esterne dell’Unione Europea
- Note e Commenti
- K. Gavrysh, Lo stato di emergenza e la dottrina del vacuum nella prassi della Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo
- M. Gervasi, The ILC Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties Put to the Test in the Hossam Ezzat Case before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
- C. Zonile, La regolamentazione internazionale ed europea di contrasto all’uso di valute virtuali da parte della criminalità transnazionale
- Panorama
- C. Favilli, Il Re è morto, lunga vita al Re! Brevi note sull’abrogazione del permesso di soggiorno per motivi umanitari
- E. Branca, Il ruolo dell’Italia nella « guerra dei droni » statunitense: una prima analisi degli accordi bilaterali che regolano l’uso della base militare aeronavale di Sigonella
- D. Amoroso, Alla ricerca dell’elemento umano: rinnovato il mandato del Gruppo di esperti governativi sui sistemi d’arma autonomi letali
Chen & Hough: Researching Third-Party Funding in Investor-State Dispute Settlement
New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

- Jonathan Markowitz, Christopher Fariss, & R. Blake McMahon, Producing Goods and Projecting Power: How What You Make Influences What You Take
- Richard Hanania, Are Liberal Governments More Cooperative? Voting Trends at the UN in Five Anglophone Democracies
- Mark D. Ramirez & Reed M. Wood, Public Attitudes toward Private Military Companies: Insights from Principal–agent Theory
- Daniel Silverman, What Shapes Civilian Beliefs about Violent Events? Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
- James R. Hollyer, B. Peter Rosendorff, & James Raymond Vreeland, Why Do Autocrats Disclose? Economic Transparency and Inter-elite Politics in the Shadow of Mass Unrest
- Friedhelm Hentschel, Unraveling Secessions
- Data Set Features
- Nicholas Sambanis & Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, Sovereignty Rupture as a Central Concept in Quantitative Measures of Civil War
- D. Scott Bennett, Paul Poast, & Allan C. Stam, NewGene: An Introduction for Users
New Issue: Review of International Studies
- Ayelet Banai & Eszter Kollar, Reading bedtime stories to compatriots: Reconciling global equality of opportunity and self-determination
- Jacob Eriksson, Coercion and third-party mediation of identity-based conflict
- Irene Fernández-Molina, Bottom-up change in frozen conflicts: Transnational struggles and mechanisms of recognition in Western Sahara
- Henry Radice, Saving ourselves? On rescue and humanitarian action
- Andreas Møller Mulvad, Xiism as a hegemonic project in the making: Sino-communist ideology and the political economy of China’s rise
- Forum: The Implications of Trump's Presidency
- Jan Selby, The Trump presidency, climate change, and the prospect of a disorderly energy transition
- Sophie Harman & Sara E. Davies, President Donald Trump as global health’s displacement activity
- Frederick W. Mayer & Nicola Phillips, Global inequality and the Trump administration
- James Sperling & Mark Webber, Trump’s foreign policy and NATO: Exit and voice
Monday, May 27, 2019
New Issue: Climate Law
- Special Issue: The Paris Rulebook
- Jolene Lin & Alexander Zahar, Introduction to the Special Issue on the Paris Rulebook
- Meinhard Doelle, The Heart of the Paris Rulebook: Communicating ndcs and Accounting for Their Implementation
- Hao Zhang, Implementing Provisions on Climate Finance Under the Paris Agreement
- Benoit Mayer, Transparency Under the Paris Rulebook: Is the Transparency Framework Truly Enhanced?
- Gu Zihua, Christina Voigt & Jacob Werksman, Facilitating Implementation and Promoting Compliance With the Paris Agreement Under Article 15: Conceptual Challenges and Pragmatic Choices
- Alexander Zahar, Collective Progress in the Light of Equity Under the Global Stocktake
- Steinar Andresen, The Paris Agreement and its Rulebook in a Problem-Solving Perspective
- Marjan Peeters, EU Climate Law: Largely Uncharted Legal Territory
New Issue: International Security
- Whither the Liberal International Order?
- Kai Quek & Alastair Iain Johnston, Can China Back Down? Crisis De-escalation in the Shadow of Popular Opposition
- John J. Mearsheimer, Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order
- Charles L. Glaser, A Flawed Framework: Why the Liberal International Order Concept Is Misguided
- Eliza Gheorghe, Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market
- Marina E. Henke, Buying Allies: Payment Practices in Multilateral Military Coalition-Building
- J.C. Sharman, Power and Profit at Sea: The Rise of the West in the Making of the International System
- Correspondence
- Peter D. Feaver, Hal Brands, Rebecca Friedman Lissner, & Patrick Porter, The Establishment and U.S. Grand Strategy
Wongkaew: Protection of Legitimate Expectations in Investment Treaty Arbitration: A Theory of Detrimental Reliance
This book evaluates the core of the concept of legitimate expectations from first principles in moral philosophy. It adopts an unconventional approach by examining this topic from a deep, philosophical perspective and delves into the debates on the binding nature of promise in moral philosophy. It then develops a doctrinal structure for the standard of protection. The author places the key premise of the book on the possibility of deriving firm conclusions from the debate and on creating a set of precise and prescriptive 'guidelines of the application of legitimate expectations'. The features of this book are threefold: first, a significant body of literature on moral philosophy is assimilated; second, core philosophical principles are extracted and expressed as a normative framework to resolve concrete cases; third, the author analysed a vast number of investment treaty awards against the underlying framework.
Cassan, Mercure, & Abdelwahab Bekhechi: Droit international du développement
Cette monographie analyse l’ensemble des relations juridiques existant entre les pays en développement et la communauté internationale. Elle étudie les mécanismes par lesquels l’impératif de développement s’incarne dans le droit international positif. Elle présente, de façon synthétique et ordonnée, le panorama des institutions du développement (Etats, organisations internationales, techniques juridiques). Elle aborde ensuite les règles qui président à l’action internationale pour le développement. Dans cette perspective, l’ouvrage met l’accent sur les trois grands axes autour desquels s’oriente cette action : les contrôles (souveraineté permanente sur les ressources naturelles, protection des investissements privés, atteintes au droit de propriété) les transferts (assistance technique, transferts de technologie, aides financières), les échanges (l’OMC, l’Accord de Cotonou, le commerce international des produits de base et des articles manufacturés).
Polanco: The Return of the Home State to Investor-State Disputes: Bringing Back Diplomatic Protection?
This book advances the idea that in order to address some of the criticisms against investor-state dispute settlement, a large majority of states have taken a 'normative' strategy, negotiating or amending investment treaties with provisions that potentially give more control and greater involvement to the contracting parties, and notably the home state. This is particularly true of agreements concluded in the past fifteen years. At the same time, there is a potential revival of the 'remnants' of diplomatic protection that are embedded in investment treaties since the beginning of the system. But why is the home state being brought back into a domain from which it was expressly excluded several decades ago? Why would a home state be interested in intervening in these conflicts? Is this 'new' role of the home state in foreign investment disputes a 'return' to diplomatic protection of its nationals, or are we witnessing something different?
Call for Submissions: Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict - Beyond the ILC (Reminder)
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Sterio & Scharf: The Legacy of Ad Hoc Tribunals in International Criminal Law
In the post-Nuremberg era two of the most important developments in international criminal law are the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Created through UN Security Council resolutions, with specific mandates to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law, the ICTY and the ICTR played crucial roles in the development of international criminal law. Through a series of chapters written by leading authorities in the field, The Legacy of Ad Hoc Tribunals in International Criminal Law addresses the history of the ICTY and the ICTR, and the important aspects of the tribunals' accomplishments. From examining the groundwork laid by the ICTY and the ICTR for greater international attention to crimes against humanity to the establishment of the International Criminal Courts, this volume provides a comprehensive overview of the impact and lasting roles of these tribunals.
Hughes: Moving from Management to Termination: A Case Study of Prolonged Occupation
In 2017, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories reached a half-century in duration. This reignited a conversation amongst legal scholars. In articles and books, lawyers questioned the efficacy of occupation law. They asked whether it had become an anachronism. Across Israel and the Palestinian territories, those that directly invoke the law of occupation sought a more effective means of adapting the law to meet the exigencies of a fifty-year-old occupation. The accompanying debates recalled questions concerning the legal treatment of prolonged occupation. This article seeks to fundamentally alter this recurring discourse.
Built around a detailed case study of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, I argue that as commonly interpreted, international law does not regulate – but instead – facilitates prolonged occupation. Referencing various historical moments, I describe when and how international law has been employed to entrench an occupying power’s control. These legal engagements are justified as responses to the exigencies of prolonged occupation. Such uses of international law, the article argues, are based on a common interpretative approach. This understands occupation as a fact or non-normative phenomenon. As a result, international law is unable to alter occupation. Instead, it may only manage it.
Identifying the motive of management as a causal factor, I argue that common responses to prolonged occupation may be necessary but when taken within the occupation framework’s traditional, non-normative confines they risk perpetuating occupation. They entrench a legal framework that is understood to neglect duration and curtail the inherent requirement of temporality. This interpretation of the occupation framework becomes susceptible to manipulation. In response, the article proposes a novel interpretative approach. This shifts the focus of the occupation framework. It emphasizes a conception of occupation as temporary and facilitates efforts to end the occupation. By recognizing that prolonged occupation constitutes an altered form of control, and grounding responses to this means of control in established legal principles, this amended normative approach identifies a legal basis under which an occupying power will be required to enable the conclusion of prolonged occupation. This reasserts the law of occupation’s relevancy and efficacy. It better aligns the purpose and function of occupation law with diplomatic objectives and international norms. And it shifts the discourse that accompanies prolonged occupation from management to termination.
New Issue: Review of International Political Economy

- Kristen Hopewell, US-China conflict in global trade governance: the new politics of agricultural subsidies at the WTO
- Tom Chodor, The rise and fall and rise of the trans-pacific partnership: 21st century trade politics through a new constitutionalist lens
- Timur Ergen & Sebastian Kohl, Varieties of economization in competition policy: institutional change in German and American antitrust, 1960–2000
- Stefano Sgambati, The art of leverage: a study of bank power, money-making and debt finance
- Andrea Binder, All exclusive: the politics of offshore finance in Mexico
- Anita Hammer, Comparative capitalism and emerging economies: formal-informal economy interlockages and implications for institutional analysis
Caiado: Commitments and Flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: An Economically Informed Analysis
The ability of countries to promote and protect their domestic industries in the face of stiff global competition is an important consideration in any trading agreement. Member states of the World Trade Organization are expected to adhere to the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, but to what extent do the WTO Members have policy space to subsidize their industries? Using an economically informed framework, Caiado examines the flexibilities countries may find at the WTO to grant subsidies and impose tariffs to protect designated industries. By testing the Treaty system of entitlements and enforcement mechanisms against the theory of incomplete contract, this work offers a comprehensive analysis of the capacity of the SCM Agreement to achieve its goal: the concomitant regulation of opportunistic behavior and assurance of ex post flexibility.
Klein: Resolving Disputes under UNCLOS when the Coastal and User States are Disputed
This chapter focuses on some distinct consequences for States where there is a land feature generating maritime zones over which sovereignty is disputed. The questions addressed are: What are the international legal consequences where a State is in occupation of an island (‘the occupying State’) but another State contests sovereignty (‘the disputing State’)? Can the State in occupation construct facilities on the island or in the waters surrounding that island? The constructions in the adjacent waters might include ports, or other docking facilities or other structures or installations outside the territorial sea for the purposes of research or resource exploration and exploitation. If the State in occupation proceeds with the exercise of its sovereignty over the disputed land, are there procedural steps or limits that should be taken into account to reduce the likelihood of legal challenge in the event of a dispute emerging under the UNCLOS dispute settlement procedure? A key lesson from the South China Sea arbitration is that the occupying State faces significant legal consequences if it is eventually determined not to be the coastal State with rights over the adjacent maritime area. The occupying State could expect that its actions may be challenged within the framework of the UNCLOS dispute settlement regime, even in the possible absence of a determination as to which State is the ‘coastal State’ or ‘user State’ under UNCLOS.
Jovanović: The Nature of International Law
Jurisprudence has up until recently largely neglected international law as a subject of philosophizing. The Nature of International Law tries to offset against this deficiency by providing a comprehensive explanatory account of international law. It does so within an analytical tradition, albeit within the one which departs from the nowadays dominant method of the metaphysically-driven conceptual analysis. Instead, it adopts the prototype theory of concepts, which is directed towards determining typical features constitutive of the nature of international law. The book's central finding is that those features are: normativity, institutionalization, coercive guaranteeing, and justice-aptness. Since typical features are context sensitive, their specificities at the international level are further elucidated. The book, finally, challenges the often raised claim that fragmentation is international law's unique feature by demonstrating that international institutional actors, particularly adjudicative ones, largely perceive themselves as officials of a unified legal order.
New Issue: European Journal of International Law

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Editorial
- JHHW, EJIL at 30; The EU – A Community of Fate, at Last; Vital Statistics; In this Issue; The Birth of EJIL
- The EJIL Foreword
- Martti Koskenniemi, Imagining the Rule of Law: Rereading the Grotian ‘Tradition’
- Articles
- Valentina Vadi, Perspective and Scale in the Architecture of International Legal History
- Hannah Woolaver, From Joining to Leaving: Domestic Law’s Role in the International Legal Validity of Treaty Withdrawal
- Claire E M Jervis, Jurisdictional Immunities Revisited: An Analysis of the Procedure Substance Distinction in International Law
- The Theatre of International Law: An Occasional Series
- Lorenzo Gradoni & Luca Pasquet, Dialogue Concerning Legal Un-certainty and Other Prodigies
- The European Traditional in International Law
- Tilmann Altwicker, International Law in the Best of All Possible Worlds: An Introduction to G.W. Leibniz’s Theory of International Law
- Roaming Charges: Moments of History: 1989
- Symposium: Regional Organization and Regional Integration
- Damian Chalmers, Regional Organizations and the Reintegrating of International Law
- Damian Chalmers & Julia Slupska, The Regional Remaking of Trade and Investment Law
- Davor Jancic, Regional Parliaments and African Economic Integration
- Päivi Johanna Neuvonen, Transforming Membership? Citizenship, Identity and the Problem of Belonging in Regional Integration Organizations
- Floris de Witte, Integrating the Subject: Narratives of Emancipation in Regionalism
- Critical Review of Jurisprudence
- Petros C Mavroidis, Last Mile for Tuna (to a Safe Harbour): What Is the TBT Agreement All About?
- Review Essays
- Lauri Mälksoo, The Annexation of Crimea and Balance of Power in International Law
- Eliav Lieblich, The Facilitative Function of Jus in Bello
- Book Reviews
- David Schneiderman, reviewing Jonathan Bonnitcha, Lauge N. Skovgaard Poulsen and Michael Waibel, The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime
- Samantha Besson, reviewing José E. Alvarez, The Impact of International Organizations on International Law
- Jacob Katz Cogan, reviewing Juan Pablo Scarfi, The Hidden History of International Law in the Americas: Empire and Legal Networks
- The Last Page
- The Quality of Portia