Workshop: The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy

Tomorrow, April 18, 2023, Temple Law School will host a workshop exploring Philippe Sands’s The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy.

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 22, no. 2, May 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Weihuan Zhou, Huiqin Jiang, & Zhe Chen, Trade vs. Security: Recent Developments of Global Trade Rules and China's Policy and Regulatory Responses from Defensive to Proactive
• Jian Zheng, Shudong Zhou, Xingzi Li, Antonio Domingos Padula, & Will Martin, Effects of Eliminating the US–China Trade Dispute Tariffs
• Scott Falls, Barriers to Panel Composition in RTA Dispute Settlement: Evaluating Solutions to a Perennial Problem
• Adrien Bussy & Mehtab Ahmed Jagil, Export Fraud in India
• From the Trenches Uri Dadush & Enzo Dominguez Prost, Preferential Trade Agreements, Geopolitics, and the Fragmentation of World Trade
• Pasha L. Hsieh, New Investment Rulemaking in Asia: Between Regionalism and Domestication

New Issue: Journal of Conflict & Security Law

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict & Security Law (Vol. 28, no. 1, Spring 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Hanna Bourgeois & Patryk I Labuda, When May UN Peacekeepers Use Lethal Force to Protect Civilians? Reconciling Threats to Civilians, Imminence, and the Right to Life
• David McKeever, Repatriating Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Their Family Members: What International Law Requires, and What National Courts Will Do
• Jakob M Reynolds, Plague, Pestilence and the Peninsula: International Humanitarian Law Concerns of North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program
• Joshua G Hughes, Learning from Automation in Targeting to Better Regulate Autonomous Weapon Systems: Target Lists, the Electronic Battlefield and Automation in Mines
• Catherine Turner, International Law and the Securitisation of Peacemaking: On Chapter VII, the Security Council and the Mediation Mandate in Yemen

New Volume: Irish Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Irish Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 15, 2020) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Saeed Bagheri, Military Assistance and State Responsibility for 'in Bello' Violations during Non-International Armed Conflicts
• Adedayo Akingbade, Due Diligence in International Law: Cause for Optimism?
• Eliza Walsh, The Fine Line between Non-International Armed Conflicts and Internal Disturbances and a Call for the Revival of the Concept of 'Fundamental Standards of Humanity'

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 57, no. 3, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Gabrielle Marceau, Rebecca Walker, & Andreas Oeschger, The Evolution of Labour Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements
• Christian Delev, Regulating TRQ Schemes Under WTO Law: Time to Throw Away Old Bananas?
• Yuanyuan Zhang, Tensions Between International Economic Law and the EU Energy Security Regulations During the Securitization of EU-Russian Gas Relations: Way Forward?
• Nu Ri Jung, Are There ‘Exceptions’ to the SCM Agreement? Applicability of the GATT Exceptions Vis-à-Vis the International Rules on Subsidies
• Ram Singh, Exploring Dichotomy in India’s Agricultural Export Policy
• Greg Anderson, Did Labour Norms Save the NAFTA?: Sort of, Accidentally, Depends
• Xueji Su, From Effect to Behaviour: Regulating State-Owned Enterprises as Competitors in Trade Agreements

New Issue: American Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the American Journal of International Law (Vol. 117, no. 2, April 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Samuel L. Aber, Worldmaking at the End of History: The Gulf Crisis of 1990–91 and International Law
• Anna Saunders, Constitution-Making as a Technique of International Law: Reconsidering the Post-war Inheritance
• International Decisions
• Eduardo Cavalcanti de Mello Filho, Karla Christina Azeredo Venâncio da Costa and Others v. Federal Republic of Germany
• Daniele Amoroso & Riccardo Pavoni, Stergiopoulos v. Iran. Order No. 39391/2021. 105 Rivista di diritto internazionale 620 (2022)
• Weihuan Zhou, Turkey – Certain Measures Concerning the Production, Importation and Marketing of Pharmaceutical Products, WT/DS583/ARB25
• Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law
• The United States Agrees to Loss and Damage Fund at COP27
• The Treasury Department Implements Security Council Resolution Establishing a Humanitarian Carveout for UN Sanctions
• President Biden Issues Executive Order on Ensuring Robust Consideration of Evolving National Security Risks by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
• The United States and the European Union Begin Implementation of the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework
• The Department of Defense Issues Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan
• The Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act
• Recent Books on International Law
• José E. Alvarez, reviewing Capitalism as Civilisation A History of International Law, by Ntina Tzouvala
• Melissa Stewart, reviewing Statelessness: A Modern History, by Mira L. Siegelberg
• Randall Lesaffer, reviewing To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300–1870, by Martti Koskenniemi
• Werner Scholtz, reviewing Animals in International Law, by Anne Peters
• Vaughan Lowe, reviewing The UN Security Council and International Law, by Michael Wood and Eran Sthoeger

Conference: Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future: International Investment Arbitration Law and Policy

On April 20-21, 2023, Università Bocconi will host a conference on "Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future: International Investment Arbitration Law and Policy." Details are here.

Badinter, Cotte, & Pellet: Vladimir Poutine, l'accusation

Robert Badinter (formerly, President, Conseil constitutionnel of France & Minister of Justice of France), Bruno Cotte (formerly, Judge, International Criminal Court & Judge, Cour de Cassation of France), & Alain Pellet (formerly, President, International Law Commission & Université Paris Nanterre - Law) have published Vladimir Poutine, l'accusation (Fayard 2023). Here’s the abstract:

Cet ouvrage présente les fondements de l'accusation contre Vladimir Poutine, président de la Fédération de Russis, auteur du crime d'agression contre l'Ukraine et des crimes de guerre et contre l'humanité commis par les forces russes dont il est le chef suprême.

Dannenbaum: Accountability for Aggression: Atrocity, Attributability, the Legal Order, and Sanitized Violence

Tom Dannenbaum (Tufts Univ. - Fletcher School) has posted Accountability for Aggression: Atrocity, Attributability, the Legal Order, and Sanitized Violence. Here's the abstract:

Why is it important that there be criminal accountability for Russia's aggression against Ukraine? Three rationales have been prominent in the existing discourse. The first is that Russia’s aggression entails a fundamental attack on the international legal order. Those who frame the issue in these terms motivate the project of criminal accountability by arguing that all legal tools (including the application of criminal accountability) must be deployed to protect that legal order from the existential threat of this attack. A second rationale depicts aggression as a progenitor crime (the crime without which the war crimes and crimes against humanity that have characterized the war would not have been perpetrated) and reasons that accountability for aggression is necessary to comprehensively vindicate the rights of those victimized by those atrocities. Third, in a related but more instrumental vein, it has been suggested that aggression is the crime with which Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders can most straightforwardly be attributed (albeit that some of those leaders may also be attributable with other crimes, as exemplified by the ICC's initial arrest warrants in the Ukraine situation). Within the specific context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, these ways of motivating accountability for aggression are, in a sense, descriptively correct. However, they do not offer the most compelling reasons for pursuing criminal accountability for aggressive war (generally or in the specific context of Ukraine). They fail to recognize the status of aggression as an atrocity in its own right (not because war crimes follow, but regardless of whether they do) and miss the sense in which the ban on aggression is one of the rules most worthy of preservation even in a transformed legal order, rather than a prohibition whose normative weight is contingent on its contribution to the current legal order. The better rationale focuses instead on the way that the criminality of aggression expresses and affirms the wrongfulness of all of the violence entailed in the unlawful resort to force, including particularly that which is otherwise at risk of being sanitized by compliance with international humanitarian law. Clarifying the nature of the wrong (and thus the accountability imperative) ought to draw the normative focus to those who are suffering the atrocity of aggression, thus specifying the powerful imperative to realize their right to accountability. At the same time, the full vindication of that right requires structuring any institution through which accountability might be pursued in a way that protects against the taint of hypocrisy and preserves the moral standing of the tribunal in question.

New Issue: Ocean Development & International Law

The latest issue of Ocean Development & International Law (Vol. 54, no. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Xu Qi, Reviving the Monetary Gold Principle? A Case Note on the Judgment of Preliminary Objections in the Mauritius/Maldives Case
• Huaigao Qi, Maritime Delimitation Between China and South Korea in the South Yellow Sea
• Pierre Thévenin, Back to the USSR: The Consequences of the 1965 Soviet Decree No. 331-112 “On the Procedure for Navigation of Foreign Ships in the Straits Along the Track of the Northern Sea Route” on Today’s Navigation Through the Russian Arctic Straits
• Dawoon Jung, Ship Surveys and Certification During Global Health Pandemics; Challenges and Opportunities Presented by COVID-19

Call for Papers: Grotian law and modernity at the dawn of a new age: 400 years of De jure belli ac pacis 1625-2025

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "Grotian law and modernity at the dawn of a new age: 400 years of De jure belli ac pacis 1625-2025," to be held June 19-20, 2025, at Leiden University's Wijnhaven Campus, The Hague. The call is here.

Conference: Rethinking World Trade 2023

On April 13, 2023, the Georgetown University's Center on Inclusive Trade and Development will host a conference, in the hybrid format, on "Rethinking World Trade 2023." The program is here. Registration is here.

New Issue: Archiv des Völkerrechts

The latest issue of Archiv des Völkerrechts (Vol. 60, no. 4, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Abhandlungen
• Anna Wyrozumska, Conflict between the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the CJEU with regard to the reforms of the judiciary
• Jerzy Kranz, Verfassung über alles oder wohin uns die Gralshüter führen …
• Christian Schaller, Der völkerrechtliche Rahmen für Waffenlieferungen an die Ukraine
• Ulrike Will & Cornelia Manger-Nestler, Die national bestimmten Beiträge (NDCs) des Pariser Abkommens als Instrument multilateraler Kooperation

New Issue: Journal of World Investment & Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade (Vol. 24, no. 2, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Nicolas Bueno, Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, & Isidore Ngueuleu Djeuga, Investor Human Rights and Environmental Obligations: The Need to Redesign Corporate Social Responsibility Clauses
• Anastasios Lafaras, The Assignment of Investment Treaty Claims: Doctrinal and Policy Perspectives
• Mark McLaughlin, Regulating Artificial Intelligence in International Investment Law
• Anna Panarella, Emerging from the Haziness of the Multilateral Trade Legal Regime: The Notion of State-Owned Enterprises Through Lenses of Interpretation of GATT Article XVII on ‘State Trading Enterprises’

New Volume: Palestine Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 23, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Nimer Sultany, The Question of Palestine as a Litmus Test: On Human Rights and Root Causes
• Omar Yousef Shehabi, No Alternative to Despair? Sahrawis, Palestinians, and the International Law of Nationalism
• Luisa Giannini, Non-Protection in the Name of International Law: The Principle of Self-Determination and the Palestine Situation at the International Criminal Court
• Michelle Staggs Kelsall, Between False Messiah and Symbolic Politics: The International Criminal Court and the “Situation in the State of Palestine”
• Sara Razai, The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: The Criminalization of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions in France

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. 1, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Marc de Wilde, Allying with Unbelievers: Hugo Grotius’s Letters to East-Indian Rulers
• Adam Strobeyko, The Person of the State: The Anthropomorphic Subject of the Law of Nations
• Christopher Szabla, Civilising Violence: International Law and Colonial War in the British Empire, 1850–1900
• Robert Schütze, German Idealism after Kant: Nineteenth-Century Foundations of International Law
• Book Reviews – Symposium on Symposium on Martti Koskenniemi, To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)
• Koen Stapelbroek, Theme: ‘Commerce, Capitalism and the Law of Nations’
• Jennifer Pitts, Theme: ‘The Struggle between Statehood and Civil Society’
• Wim Decock, Theme: ‘Theology and the Justification of Sovereignty and Property’

New Volume: Recueil des Cours

Volume 428 of the Recueil des Cours, Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law is out. Contents include:

• Volume 428
• Slim Laghmani, Islam et droit international
• Mario J. A. Oyarzábal, The Influence of Public International Law upon Private International Law: In History and Theory and in the Formation and Application of the Law

Whelan: Reciprocity in Public International Law

Arianna Whelan has published Reciprocity in Public International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2023). Here's the abstract:

There is a common perception of reciprocity as a concept that is opposed to the communitarian interests that characterise contemporary international law, or merely a way of denoting reactions to unfriendly or wrongful conduct. This book disputes this approach, and highlights how reciprocity is instead linked to the structural characteristic of sovereign equality of States in international law. This book carries out an in-depth analysis of the concept of reciprocity and the elements that characterise it, before examining the various roles and articulations of reciprocity in a number of fields of public international law: the law of treaties, the treatment of individuals, the execution of international law, and the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals. In all these areas, it analyses both more traditional and more contemporary examples, to demonstrate how reciprocity is closely linked to the very structure of public international law.

Joyner: Disarmament is Good, but What We Need Now is Arms Control

Daniel Joyner (Univ. of Alabama - Law) has posted Disarmament is Good, but What We Need Now is Arms Control (Indonesian Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 10, no. 1, 2023). Here's the abstract:

This article aims to correct a number of misconceptions held by both scholars and activists about the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and international nuclear weapons law generally. It first reviews the development of international law related to nuclear weapons, and provides a novel taxonomy of legal obligations divided into three substantive categories. It then examines the TPNW within that taxonomy, and considers how it should be understood to fit within this legal context. It concludes that the TPNW is essentially a nuclear disarmament treaty. While it should be welcomed as a contribution to nuclear disarmament law, it should not be confused with nuclear arms control treaties, which are distinct in role and purpose. The article concludes that at the current moment of crisis in nuclear arms control law, a refocusing of attention is needed to conclude a successor treaty to New START, which is due to expire in 2026.

Schmitt & Biggerstaff: Aid and Assistance as a “Use of Force” Under the Jus Ad Bellum

Michael N. Schmitt (Univ. of Reading - Law) & W. Casey Biggerstaff (U.S. Naval War College) have published Aid and Assistance as a “Use of Force” Under the Jus Ad Bellum (International Law Studies, Vol. 100, 2023). Here's the abstract:

Although the prohibition of the use of force is a cornerstone of international law, our understanding of what constitutes a “use of force” under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter nonetheless continues to evolve. While the term was traditionally understood to mean armed force, emerging interpretations are expanding our understanding of the prohibition’s breadth. The Charter’s text, travaux préparatoires, and subsequent interpretations and practice by States, reinforced by the persuasive reasoning of the International Court of Justice, all confirm that the notion of force extends to indirect force, which includes military support provided to parties to a conflict. Yet, to date, States have failed to meaningfully contend with the notion of indirect force, much less clarify its precise threshold. Accordingly, through the lens of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, this article examines whether, and if so, when a State's military aid or assistance that contributes to another State's use of force constitutes a separate and distinct use of force under international law. After concluding that aid or assistance can, under certain conditions, qualify as a use of force, the article proposes several non-exclusive factors that States are likely to consider when assessing whether aid or assistance from a supporting State crosses the prohibition’s threshold.

ASIL: Proceedings of the 116th Annual Meeting

The Proceedings of the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (2022), edited by Rachel Lopez (Drexel Univ. - Law), Kish Parella (Washington & Lee Univ. - Law), & Patrick Pearsall (Allen & Overy), is now available. The table of contents is here.

Sarfaty & Deberdt: Supply Chain Governance at a Distance

Galit Sarfaty (Univ. of British Columbia – Law) & Raphael Deberdt (Univ. of British Columbia) have posted Supply Chain Governance at a Distance (Law and Social Inquiry, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article examines the role of industry in implementing and interpreting the international legal norm of human rights due diligence. Our study focuses on a multi-industry association called the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), which has assumed a leading role in implementing conflict minerals legislation and interpreting the norm of human rights due diligence in mineral supply chains. Drawing on interviews with RMI staff, corporate representatives, and independent members of the RMI’s governance committees, we analyze the RMI’s risk assessment tools that facilitate corporate compliance with global mineral supply chain regulations. We demonstrate that these technocratic tools mask the underlying corporate interests that control how human rights due diligence is being interpreted and implemented on the ground. We then argue that global supply chains are being “governed at a distance” through these technical practices whereby companies divest themselves of responsibility to their suppliers. Supply chain governance at a distance is therefore transforming the norm of human rights due diligence from an instrument of corporate accountability to a tool of corporate legitimacy.

Modirzadeh: ‘[L]et Us All Agree to Die a Little’: TWAIL’s Unfulfilled Promise

Naz K. Modirzadeh (Harvard Univ. - Law) has posted ‘[L]et Us All Agree to Die a Little’: TWAIL’s Unfulfilled Promise (Harvard International Law Journal, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) has aspirations to transform the tools and institutions of international law — which have served for centuries to construct, enact, and extend Western exploitation and domination — into tools and institutions for Global South empowerment, agency, and freedom. Characterizing itself as an intellectual and political movement, TWAIL promises to pave a path forward through a combination of scholarship and politics to achieve radical change. In this Article, I argue that TWAIL’s promise is unfulfilled — and that, if TWAIL’s current trajectory continues, its promise is likely to be unfulfillable. I first sketch TWAIL’s origin and key successes, including bringing awareness to the colonial roots and neo-imperial present of international law. Yet I contend that TWAIL’s diverse critical insights have not led to cohesive conceptual, doctrinal, or political positions, which would serve as tools to empower Global South-based actors. I argue that this is, at least partly, due to TWAIL’s ambivalence towards the Third World state, its absence of a theory of legitimate political violence in international law, its failure to identify a methodology of representing the ‘voices’ of the Global South, and to the growing influence of an academic ethos I call ‘critique-as-wellness.’ For those motivated by TWAIL’s ambitions, I suggest three possible directions to take: the construction of a grassroots-centered campaign in the service of Global South peoples; the formation of a movement focused on empowering Global South states; or a coalition originating from the Global North aimed at reshaping Western attitudes and actions towards the Global South.

Johns: #Help: Digital Humanitarianism and the Remaking of International Order

Fleur Johns (Univ. of New South Wales - Law) has published #Help: Digital Humanitarianism and the Remaking of International Order (Oxford Univ. Press 2023). Here's the abstract:

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Like many other areas of life, humanitarian practice and thinking are being transformed by information and communications technology. Despite this, the growing digitization of humanitarianism has been a relatively unnoticed dimension of global order. Based on more than seven years of data collection and interdisciplinary research, #Help presents a ground-breaking study of digital humanitarianism and its ramifications for international law and politics.

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Global problems and policies are being reconfigured, regulated, and addressed through digital interfaces developed for humanitarian ends. #Help analyses how populations, maps, and emergencies take shape on the global plane when given digital form and explores the reorientation of nation states' priorities and practices of governing around digital data collection imperatives. This book also illuminates how the growing prominence of digital interfaces in international humanitarian work is sustained and shaped by law and policy.

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#Help reveals new vectors of global inequality and new forms of global relation taking effect in the here and now. To understand how major digital platforms are seeking to extend their serviceable lives, and to see how global order might take shape in the future, it is essential to grasp the perils and possibilities of digital humanitarianism. #Help will transform thinking about what is at stake in the use of digital interfaces in the humanitarian field and about how, where, and for whom we are making the global order of tomorrow.

Seta: Compulsory insurance for cruise vessels as a preparation for the next pandemic: Law of the sea perspective

Makoto Seta (Waseda Univ. - Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies) has published Compulsory insurance for cruise vessels as a preparation for the next pandemic: Law of the sea perspective (Marine Policy, Vol. 152, June 2023). Here's the abstract:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many port states faced difficulty when cruise vessels with COVID-19 patients tried to dock at their ports. Although they are basically not obliged to accept such vessels under international law, they cannot easily deny access because the refusal would be viewed as a lack of humanitarian consideration. On the other hand, accepting such vessels leads to the risk of exposing their own nationals to COVID-19 and incurring the financial cost of medical treatment for cruise passengers. In fact, in the cases of Diamond Princess, Costa Atlantica, and Zaandam and Rotterdam, the question of who should take on the financial burden for medical costs of crews and passengers on board these vessels was debated. The current international legal framework does not provide any answer to this question, and therefore, a new framework is needed. If the new framework allocates the economic burden to ensure the provision of tests and medical care so that an intolerably heavy burden is not imposed on port states, they will be more welcoming to cruise vessels with infected people. Such allocation could be realized by requesting that carriers provide a compulsory insurance system for medical care in a pandemic.