International Law Reporter

Glenn: The Cosmopolitan State

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Sun, 26 May 2013 08:20:00 +0000

H. Patrick Glenn (McGill Univ. - Law) has published The Cosmopolitan State (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

For more than two centuries the idea of the nation-state has been widespread. The expression is now widely used and is even to be unavoidable. The 'nation-state' implies that the population of a state should be homogenous in terms of language, religion, and ethnicity; the nation and the state should coincide. However history demonstrates that there never has been, and there never will be, a nation-state. Human diversity is manifest in states of all sizes, locations, and origins. This wide-ranging book argues that there should be no regret in the recognition of this empirical reality, since the notion of a nation-state has been the justification for some of the worst atrocities in human history. Since the nation-state is impossible, all states are cosmopolitan in character. They are cosmopolitan regardless of the language of their constitutions or official teaching and regardless of the extent to which they officially recognize their own diversity. The most successful states are those which are most successful in their own forms of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan ways are infinitely varied, however, and must be sought in the intricate workings of individual states.
The cosmopolitan character of states is necessarily reflected in their law. The main instruments of legal cosmopolitanism have been those of common laws, constitutionalism, and what is best described as institutional cosmopolitanism. The relative importance of these legal instruments has changed over time but all three have been constantly operative, even in times of attempted national and territorial closure. All three remain present in the contemporary cosmopolitan state, understood in terms of cosmopolitan citizens, cosmopolitan sources and cosmopolitan thought. The cosmopolitan state is, moreover, the only appropriate conceptualization of the state in a time of globalization.
This book outlines the subtlety of the law of cosmopolitan states, law which has survived through periods of nationalism and which provides the working methods for the reconciliation of diverse populations. Combining law, history, political science, political philosophy, international relations, and the new logics, it demonstrates that the idea of the nation-state has failed and should yield to an understanding of the state as necessarily cosmopolitan in character.

Linos: The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion: How Health, Family, and Employment Laws Spread Across Countries

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Sat, 25 May 2013 12:40:00 +0000

Katerina Linos (Univ. of California, Berkeley - Law) has published The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion: How Health, Family, and Employment Laws Spread Across Countries (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

Why do law reforms spread around the world in waves? In the dominant account of diffusion through technocracy, international networks of elites develop orthodox policy solutions and transplant these across countries without regard for the wishes of ordinary citizens. But this account overlooks a critical factor: in democracies, reforms must win the support of politicians, voters, and interest groups. This book claims that laws spread across countries in very public and politicized ways, and develops a theory of diffusion through democracy. I argue that politicians choose to follow certain international models to win domestic elections, and to persuade skeptical voters that their ideas are not radical, ill-thought-out experiments, but mainstream, tried-and-true solutions.
This book shows how international models generated domestic support for health, family, and employment law reforms across rich democracies. Information that international organizations have endorsed certain reforms or that foreign countries have adopted them is valuable to voters. Public opinion experiments show that even Americans respond positively to this information. Case studies of election campaigns and legislative debates demonstrate that politicians with diverse ideologies reference international models strategically, and focus on the few international organizations and countries familiar to voters. Data on policy adoption from many rich democracies document that governments follow international organization templates and imitate the policy choices of countries heavily covered in national media and familiar to voters.
Benchmarks from Abroad provides a direct defense to a major criticism international organizations and networks face: that they conflict with domestic democracy. Even presumptively weak international efforts, such as the development of soft law and best practices, can increase voter support for major reforms. Instead, international and European Union negotiations to establish binding legal obligations can be costly and protracted, resulting in <"too little, too late.>" However, the book also explains how electoral calculations do not favor the spread of successful policies that happen to originate in small and remote states.

New Issue: Review of International Studies

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:36:00 +0000

The latest issue of the Review of International Studies (Vol. 39, no. 3, July 2013) is out. Contents include:

L.H.M. Ling, Worlds beyond Westphalia: Daoist dialectics and the ‘China threat’
Justin Rosenberg, The ‘philosophical premises’ of uneven and combined development
Ruth Blakeley, Human rights, state wrongs, and social change: the theory and practice of emancipation
Peter Ives & Nicola Short, On Gramsci and the international: a textual analysis
Erika Cudworth & Stephen Hobden, Complexity, ecologism, and posthuman politics
Katherine Allison, American Occidentalism and the agential Muslim woman
Stefan A. Schirm, Global politics are domestic politics: a societal approach to divergence in the G20
Peter Harris, Decolonising the special relationship: Diego Garcia, the Chagossians, and Anglo-American relations
Mattias Vermeiren, Monetary power and EMU: macroeconomic adjustment and autonomy in the Eurozone
Carl Death, Governmentality at the limits of the international: African politics and Foucauldian theory

Bsumek, Kinkela, & Lawrence: Nation-States and the Global Environment: New Approaches to International Environmental History

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:34:00 +0000

Erika Marie Bsumek (Univ. of Texas, Austin - History), David Kinkela (State Univ. of New York, Fredonia -History), & Mark Atwood Lawrence (Univ. of Texas, Austin - History) have published Nation-States and the Global Environment: New Approaches to International Environmental History (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Hardly a day passes without prominent journalists, policymakers, academics, or scientists calling attention to the worldwide scale of the environmental crisis confronting humankind. While climate change has generated the greatest alarm in recent years, other global problems - desertification, toxic pollution, species extinctions, drought and deforestation, to name just a few - loom close behind. The scope of the most pressing environmental problems far exceeds the capacity of individual nation-states, much less smaller political entities. This disjuncture between the enormous scale of challenges confronting the global community and the inadequacy of existing governmental mechanisms is, of course, a familiar feature of international affairs in the era of accelerated globalization since the end of the Cold War.
As flows of money, goods, labor, and information (not to mention pollutants) have become increasingly global, governments have failed to keep pace by establishing new cooperative regimes or ceding authority to supranational regulatory institutions. Moreover, just as the problems confronting them have become more acute, nation-states have seen their authority diminished by economic globalization, the growth of non-governmental activist groups, and the accelerating flow of information.
If such challenges are becoming more extreme in recent years, however, they are not as new as some commentary might suggest. As this book shows, nation-states have long sought agreements to manage migratory wildlife, just as they have negotiated conventions governing the exploitation of rivers and other bodies of water. Similarly, nation-states have long attempted to control resources beyond their borders, to impose their standards of proper environmental exploitation on others, or to draw on expertise developed elsewhere to cope with environmental problems at home.

Roht-Arriaza: Genocide and War Crimes in National Courts: The Conviction of Rios Montt in Guatemala and its Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Fri, 24 May 2013 10:18:00 +0000

Naomi Roht-Arriaza (Univ. of California - Hastings College of the Law) has posted an ASIL Insight on Genocide and War Crimes in National Courts: The Conviction of Rios Montt in Guatemala and its Aftermath.

New Issue: Global Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:23:00 +0000

The latest issue of Global Policy (Vol. 4, no. 2, May 2013) is out. Contents include:

Research Articles

Jennifer Clapp & Sophia Murphy, The G20 and Food Security: a Mismatch in Global Governance?
Hannah Murphy & Aynsley Kellow, Forum Shopping in Global Governance: Understanding States, Business and NGOs in Multiple Arenas
Rianne Mahon, Social Investment According to the OECD/DELSA: A Discourse in the Making

Special Section - Global Companies and Emerging Market Economies

John Mikler, Global Companies and Emerging Market Economies
Andrea Goldstein, The Political Economy of Global Business: the Case of the BRICs
Shiufai Wong, Varieties of the Regulatory State and Global Companies: the Case of China
Sung-Young Kim, The Rise of East Asia's Global Companies

Special Section - Globalising Justice: A Multidimensional Approach

Sebastiano Maffettone, Debating Global Justice: an Introduction
Marcello Di Paola & Valentina Gentile, Globalising Justice: a Multidimensional Approach. 1. Economics
Branko Milanovic, Global Income Inequality in Numbers: in History and Now
Michele Bocchiola, Milanovic on Global Inequality and Poverty
Pietro Reichlin, On Milanovic's Idea of World Inequality

Practitioner's Commentary

Rahul Bhonsle, Future Warfare: Men and Machines at War
André Schneider & Daniel Wiener, Sustainable Infrastructure Fund: Attracting Institutional Investment to Drive Sustainable Development
Norbert Röttgen, ‘Walking the Walk’: a Snapshot of Germany's Energiewende

Schabas, McDermott, & Hayes: The Ashgate Research Companion to International Criminal Law: Critical Perspectives

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Fri, 24 May 2013 04:31:00 +0000

William A. Schabas (Middlesex Univ.), Yvonne McDermott (Bangor Univ.), & Niamh Hayes (Institute for International Criminal Investigations) have published The Ashgate Research Companion to International Criminal Law: Critical Perspectives (Ashgate 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

International criminal law is at a crucial point in its history and development, and the time is right for practitioners, academics and students to take stock of the lessons learnt from the past fifteen years, as the international community moves towards an increasingly uni-polar international criminal legal order, with the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the helm. This unique research companion takes a critical approach to a wide variety of theoretical, practical, legal and policy issues surrounding and underpinning the operation of international criminal law as applied by international criminal tribunals. The book is divided into four main parts. The first part analyses international crimes and modes of liability, with a view to identifying areas which have been inconsistently or misguidedly interpreted, overlooked to date or are likely to be increasingly significant in future. The second part examines international criminal processes and procedures, and here the authors discuss issues such as victim participation and the rights of the accused. The third part is a discussion of complementarity and sentencing, while the final part of the book looks at international criminal justice in context. The authors raise issues which are likely to provide the most significant challenges and most promising opportunities for the continuing development of this body of law. As international criminal law becomes more established as a distinct discipline, it becomes imperative for international criminal scholarship to provide a degree of critical analysis, both of individual legal issues and of the international criminal project as a whole. This book represents an important collective effort to introduce an element of legal realism or critical legal studies into the academic discourse.

New Issue: Journal of World Intellectual Property

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:30:00 +0000

The latest issue of the Journal of World Intellectual Property (Vol. 16, nos. 1-2, March 2013) is out. Contents include:

The ATRIP Essay Competition

Begoña Gonzalez Otero, Compelling to Disclose Software Interoperable Information: A Risk for Innovation or a Balanced Solution?
Lena Schickl, Protection of Industrial Design in the United States and in the EU: Different Concepts or Different Labels?
Katarzyna Gracz, Bridging the Gaps Between Social and Legal Norms Concerning Protection of Intellectual and Artistic Creations: On the Crisis of Copyright Law in the Digital Era
Nicolas Berthold, L'harmonisation de la Notion D'originalite en Droit D'auteur
Kalle Hynönen, No More Mere Conduit? Abandoning Net Neutrality and Its Possible Consequences on Internet Service Providers' Content Liability
Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva, A Relook at Sui Generis Software Protection Through the Prism of Multi-Licensing

Call for Submissions: Revue Québécoise de Droit International

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:04:00 +0000

The Revue Québécoise de Droit International has issued a call for submissions for its upcoming issues. Here's the call:

Call for Submissions
The Québec Journal of International Law (RQDI : Revue québécoise de droit international) is seeking to receive manuscripts for the preparation of its upcoming issues. Since inception, the journal’s mission is to report on research and practice in the international law field within the public, private and compared area, in French, English and Spanish. With this in mind, the journal publishes studies, notes and comments, and also some chronicles of case law having influenced the practice of international law in Quebec and reviews of books on international law.
The RQDI readership is made of academics, lawyers, legal practitioners and students from around the world. Law and public administration libraries as well as many Canadian, American and European universities, make up an important part of the institutional subscribers to the Journal. The RQDI is also a reference guide for companies, law firms and lawyers working in government agencies. In this perspective and in order to meet the international and diversified nature of the Journal, the RQDI encourages contributions from academics, practitioners, policy makers, researchers and students to submit manuscripts in line with its mission.
The manuscripts submitted to the RQDI are subject to an anonymous and rigorous scientific evaluation through a peer review. The Reading Committee with the assistance of the Editorial management team ensures the scientific quality of all manuscripts published by the Journal.
The articles submitted to the reading committee should count a maximum of 12 000 words, excluding footnotes. The manuscripts should be submitted under a ". Doc or. Docx" format using Microsoft Word. The Journal has taken up the writing protocol of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 7th Edition, and complies with the rules of the legislative drafting style of the RQDI, published by LexisNexis. In addition, the submissions must include a 300 word abstract (max.)
Should you wish to submit a manuscript or contact our editorial board for further information, please send an email to redactionenchef@rqdi.org.

New Issue: African Journal of International and Comparative Law

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:37:00 +0000

The latest issue of the African Journal of International and Comparative Law (Vol. 21, no. 2, June 2013) is out. Contents include:

Sabrina Germain, Taking ‘Health’ as a Socio-Economic Right Seriously: Is the South African Constitutional Dialogue a Remedy for the American Healthcare System?
Ibironke T. Odumosu-Ayanu, South-South Investment Treaties, Transnational Capital and African Peoples
Bruce Baker, Where Formal and Informal Justice Meet: Ethiopia's Justice Pluralism
Serges Alain Djoyou Kamga, A Call for a Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa
Poku Adusei, The Right to Health and Constitutional Imperatives for Regulating the Exercise of Pharmaceutical Patent Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa
Marumo Nkomo, Rwanda's New Intellectual Property Law and Compulsory Licensing for Export Under the WTO: Not Quite a Panacea
Jacob Turner, Do the English and South African Criminal Justice Systems Share a ‘Common Purpose’?

Call for Papers: Natural resources grabbing: erosion or legitimate exercise of State sovereignty?

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:22:00 +0000

The Università degli Studi di Cagliari Dipartimento di diritto pubblico e di studi sociali and the Università degli Studi di Milano Facoltà di Giurisprudenza have issued a call for papers for a conference on "Natural resources grabbing: erosion or legitimate exercise of State sovereignty?," to be held October 4-5, 2013, in Cagliari. Here's the call (English/Français):

Call for papers for workshop and publication on
“Natural resources grabbing:
erosion or legitimate exercise of State sovereignty?”
4th and 5th October 2013
University of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy)
Aula Magna del Rettorato
Deadline for submissions of abstracts: 15 June 2013
The Theme addressed
The growing demand for natural resources has triggered a “race” to their exploitation and possession, especially in developing countries. This research project aims at addressing, from an international law perspective, this very complex challenge for the international community.
The more requested resources are water (freshwater and groundwater), land, forests, raw materials (oil, gas, mineral resources and precious stones), fisheries and genetic resources.
Among the “buyers” there are emerging economies and Western States, as well as multinational corporations and international financial institutions.
While this demand creates investment opportunities in countries with a low attractive investment profile, on the other side, these initiatives often threaten local communities’ interests and environmental protection. In particular, they aggravate the risks of food, water and energy security and, in the long term, they may generate dangerous imbalances, if they strike at the roots the territorial sovereignty of host countries. Governments, intergovernmental organizations and non-state actors have a key role to play in promoting responsible investments and in developing procedural and substantive principles and rules that contribute to the establishment of a transparent and accountable natural resources governance.
The Call
We welcome submissions that describe new (previously unpublished), cutting-edge research in the following focus areas:
The international legal framework: relevant customary and treaty law for the exploitation of natural resources
Investment and Trade Law
Environmental Law
Human Rights Law
Law of the Sea
Energy Law
The role of International Organisations
Financial institutions, Development Banks and UN Agencies (such as, the International Fund for Agricultural Development – IFAD, United Nations Development Program – UNDP and others)
The responses at the regional and domestic level (constitutional rights, customary law, reforms) on behalf of investor and recipient countries, and their interaction with the international legal order
European Union partnerships and investment programs
African, Asian and South American experiences
The role of non-state actors
Multinational corporations
Non-governmental organisations
Standard-setting associations
The contractual dimension: the negotiation of private agreements and the protection of public interests
Oil & gas contracts
Bioprospecting contracts
Investment contracts
Agri-investment, land deals
Please submit to francesca.romanin@unimi.it. a 500-word abstract in English, French or Spanish, with indication of the author(s), their affiliation and full contact information. The Workshop
Selected papers will be presented at an international Workshop, which will be held in Cagliari (Sardinia) on the 4 th and 5 th October 2013. Each session of the workshop will be moderated by an invited keynote speaker and will include 3 additional contributors, selected through this call.
There will be no registration fee for participants in the workshop.
Researchers and practitioners from developing countries are welcome and we will be able to contribute in part to their travelling and accommodation expenses in Cagliari.
The Publication
By January 2014, the Editorial Board (Professor Francesco Seatzu, Dr. Angelica Bonfanti and Dr. Francesca Romanin Jacur) will submit the selected papers for peer-review for inclusion in a collective publication by an international legal publisher.
Timeline
Closing date for abstracts’ submission: 15 June 2013
Acceptance of abstracts: 30 June 2013
Deadline for draft papers’ submission: 15 September 2013
Deadline for selected final drafts’ submission: December 2013
Organizing Committee
Francesco Seatzu, University of Cagliari; Angelica Bonfanti, University of Milan; Francesca Romanin Jacur, University of Cagliari
Should you have any questions about the call or the workshop, please contact Dr. Romanin Jacur at francesca.romanin@unimi.it.

Conference: Les aspects juridiques de la standardisation internationale privée

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:21:00 +0000

Tomorrow, May 24, 2013, the Centre d’Études sur la Coopération juridique Internationale at the Université de Poitiers will host a conference on "Les aspects juridiques de la standardisation internationale privée." The program is here. Here's the idea:

La libéralisation des échanges économiques a eu pour effet de générer un espace de circulation des biens et services, mais toutefois sans harmonisation des réglementations applicables à ces derniers, lesquelles sont, dans une large mesure, du ressort des États. Il en résulte dès lors un différentiel entre l’intégration des économies et l’intégration des politiques censées les réguler. En l’absence d’autorité supranationale ou d’instruments de droit international en la matière, des initiatives publiques, mais aussi privées, se sont développées afin d’élaborer des règles internationales de référence permettant de faciliter la circulation des biens et des services. C’est ainsi que la « standardisation privée internationale » constitue une activité internationale compte tenu de l’espace de production des standards ainsi que de leur champ d’application, et privée compte tenu de son origine. A titre d’illustration de « standardisation privée internationale », on peut citer les normes produites par l’ISO (International Organization for Standardization) qui spécifient les caractéristiques techniques de certains produits et services, ainsi que les normes comptables produites par l’IASB (International Accounting Standards Board) qui ambitionnent de fournir un référentiel international permettant d’harmoniser la présentation des comptes des entreprises faisant appel à l’épargne. Ces règles présentent la caractéristique de ne pas être per se juridiquement obligatoire. Leur mise en œuvre dépend donc de la bonne volonté de leurs destinataires à s’y conformer et/ou de leur reprise – plus ou moins explicite – au sein du droit positif.

Call for Proposals: 2014 Joint ASIL Annual Meeting and ILA Biennial Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:18:00 +0000

The American Society of International Law and the American Branch of the International Law Association have issued a call for proposals for a joint conference, which will comprise the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law and the 76th Biennial Conference of the International Law Association. The conference theme is "The Effectiveness of International Law." Here's the call:

The Effectiveness of International Law
International law today touches on nearly every aspect of our lives, from the price of practically everything we purchase, to the health of the environment that surrounds us, to our ability to communicate seamlessly worldwide. These encounters serve as daily reminders that, as Louis Henkin famously put it, “almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all of the time.”
Yet at the same time, there are regular reminders that not all nations, groups, or individuals observe all principles of international law or all of their obligations all of the time. International law violations such as human rights abuses, trade law breaches, and law of armed conflict violations remain all too common.
When, how, and why is international law most effective? Are there greater challenges to effectiveness in some areas of international law practice than in others? If so, what are they, and how can they be addressed? What role do domestic and international courts play in enforcing international law and thus enhancing its effectiveness? Does the increasingly intertwined transnational economy offer tools that may be used to enforce international law against states and individuals, or does it instead make international law more vulnerable by making evasion of national authority simpler? Do the challenges facing international law vary in different parts of the world, and, if so, how might those challenges be met? What role do non-state actors—non-governmental organizations and corporations chief among them—play in making international law more or less effective? And what role should they play?
The 2014 joint ASIL Annual Meeting and ILA Biennial Conference will address these questions.
Program Suggestions Sought
In April 2014, the American Society of International Law and the American Branch of the International Law Association, host of the 76th Biennial ILA Conference, will join forces to convene a joint ILA Biennial and ASIL Annual Meeting. A joint Program Committee, made up of members of the ABILA, ILA, and ASIL and chaired by Oona Hathaway, Larry Johnson, and Fionnuala Ní Aolain, will organize the joint program (what is generally called at ASIL Annual Meetings the "program," and at ILA Biennial Conferences the "parallel program" that runs alongside the ILA Committee and Study Group sessions).
The Program Committee welcomes suggestions from practitioners and academics on a range of topics encompassed within the joint conference theme, "The Effectiveness of International Law." To view the theme statement, please click here. The Committee welcomes suggestions of both complete sessions and individual papers to be incorporated into sessions, including two sessions that will be dedicated to "New Voices."
The aim of the joint conference is to promote discussion of important topics by including a range of voices and perspectives. To this end, the Program Committee will draw on the submissions process as it identifies important topics and knowledgeable speakers. Drawing on members' suggestions, the Program Committee will create a program with the following goals in mind:
Ensuring coverage of a wide range of important topics of current interest.
Ensuring wide participation by individuals from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives (for example, to the extent possible, including in each session both academics and practitioners, both women and men, and those of different nationalities and perspectives).
Ensuring a place in the program for some sessions organized by ASIL Interest Groups and ILA Committees or Study Groups.
Ensuring a vibrant exchange of ideas through the use of innovative program formats.
Please be aware that out of a desire to achieve these four goals, even if your suggested session is included in some form in the final program, it may differ significantly from the original suggestion, as to the framing of the topic, format, or speakers. The Program Committee will inform proposers by email about the status of their suggestion(s) by early September.
In order to suggest a topic or paper to the Program Committee, please complete the form by no later than Friday, June 21, 2013.

New Issue: Journal of World Energy Law & Business

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:13:00 +0000

The latest issue of Journal of World Energy Law & Business (Vol. 6, no. 2, June 2013) is out. Contents include:

Ali Yassine, Bacel Maddah, & Najat Younes, On structuring offshore hydrocarbon production sharing contracts: Lebanon’s case
Stephen Dow, Ishrak Ahmed Siddiky, & Yadgar Kamal Ahmmad, Cross-border oil and gas pipelines and cross-border waterways: a comparison between the two legal regimes
Carmen Otero García-Castrillón, Reflections on the law applicable to international oil contracts

Koenig-Archibugi & Macdonald: Accountability-by-Proxy in Transnational Non-State Governance

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:41:00 +0000

Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (London School of Economics - Government and International Relations) & Kate Macdonald (Univ. of Melbourne - School of Social and Political Sciences) have published Accountability-by-Proxy in Transnational Non-State Governance (Governance, Vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 499–522, July 2013). Here's the abstract:

Transnational non-state governance arrangements (NGAs) are increasingly common in areas such as labor standards and environmental sustainability, often presenting themselves as innovative means through which the lives of marginalized communities in developing countries can be improved. Yet in some cases, the policy interventions adopted by the managers of these NGAs appear not to be welcomed by their supposed beneficiaries. This article accounts for this predicament by examining the effects of different configurations of accountability within NGAs promoting labor rights. Most labor-rights NGAs incorporate “proxy accountability” arrangements, in which consumers and activists hold decision makers accountable “on behalf” of the putative beneficiaries of the NGAs: workers and affected communities in poorer countries. The article shows how and why different combinations of proxy versus beneficiary accountability influence the choice of policy instruments used by NGAs, and applies the argument to three prominent non-state initiatives in the domain of labor standards.

Follesdal, Peters, & Ulfstein: Constituting Europe: The European Court of Human Rights in a National, European and Global Context

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:54:00 +0000

Andreas Follesdal (Universitetet i Oslo), Birgit Peters (Universität Bremen), & Geir Ulfstein (Universitetet i Oslo) have published Constituting Europe: The European Court of Human Rights in a National, European and Global Context (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Contents include:

Andreas Follesdal, Birgit Peters & Geir Ulfstein, Introduction
Ian Cameron, The Court and the member states: procedural aspects
Yutaka Arai-Takahashi, The margin of appreciation doctrine: a theoretical analysis of Strasbourg's variable geometry
George Letsas, The ECHR as a living instrument: its meaning and legitimacy
Philip Leach, No longer offering fine mantras to a parched child? The European Court's developing approach to remedies
Mads Andenas & Eirik Bjorg, National implementation of ECHR rights e
Elisabeth Lambert-Abdelgawad, The Court as a part of the Council of Europe: the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers
Leonard F. M. Besselink, Should the European Union ratify the European Convention for Human Rights? Some remarks on the relations between the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice
Christian Tomuschat, The European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations
Andreas Follesdal, Birgit Peters & Geir Ulfstein, Conclusions

Tassin: Les défis de l’extension du plateau continental

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:22:00 +0000

Virginie J.M. Tassin has published Les défis de l’extension du plateau continental - La consécration d’un nouveau rapport de l’Etat à son territoir (Pedone 2013). Here's the abstract:

L’extension du plateau continental est au cœur de l’actualité. Avec près de 105 revendications déposées auprès de la Commission des limites du plateau continental en juin 2012, l’extension intéresse les Etats, parties ou non à la Convention de Montégo Bay. L’intérêt assez soudain que ces derniers ont porté depuis 2001 à la partie du plateau continental au-delà de 200 milles marins offre une opportunité unique de se pencher sur l’impact de cette extension au sein du nouveau droit de la mer, sous l’angle plus particulier de l’obsession territoriale qui anime les Etats.
L’apparition et l’évolution du plateau continental et de son extension au sein du droit de la mer représentent une avancée importante dans la perception de l’espace marin et de son encadrement afférent. Motivés par des considérations économiques et politiques, les Etats côtiers mènent une course à l’extension du plateau continental. Mais cette dernière, leurrée par les promesses incertaines de la richesse des fonds marins convoités, n’est pas guidée par les seuls intérêts égoïstes nationaux. Elle mêle habilement l’articulation de l’intérêt commun et de l’intérêt spécial des Etats, corrigeant le régime du plateau continental qui apparaît originellement comme profondément discriminatoire, géographiquement et financièrement.
La création de la zone du plateau continental étendu par le nouveau droit de la mer opère un bouleversement important dans l’équilibre du régime juridique du plateau continental. D’un plateau continental unique aux limites incertaines, le plateau continental est désormais divisé en deux, s’étendant en deçà et au-delà de 200 milles marins. Cette distinction crée une césure qui met en question le rapport entre la procédure d’extension du plateau continental et les droits de l’Etat côtier, consacrés comme ipso facto et ab initio. La nouvelle définition du plateau continental et l’insertion du principe de prolongement naturel du territoire terrestre permettent ainsi de révéler le lien juridique existant entre l’Etat et cette zone sous-marine ipso jure. Ce lien n’est pas celui des ressources, mais bien celui du territoire, révélant au grand jour le plateau continental comme un territoire accessoire de l’Etat côtier.
Au cœur de la mise en œuvre de la procédure d’extension, la Commission des limites du plateau continental s’est vue confier un rôle inédit et essentiel à la bonne conduite de la procédure d’extension est cependant difficile. Sa mission se heurte cependant à la fois au pouvoir très sauvegardé de l’Etat côtier dans la définition des limites de son territoire, mais aussi aux limites de son propre mandat. La participation volontaire des Etats au sein de cette procédure d’extension démontre la symbolique et le rôle de cette procédure de définition au sein du droit de la mer. La limite extérieure du plateau continental n’est pas seulement une définition d’une simple limite unilatérale, elle se révèle être une opération multilatérale et le laboratoire préparant l’établissement d’une frontière émergente. Cette frontière est d’autant plus importante qu’elle est d’une nature inédite. Elle oppose pour la première fois l’intérêt de l’Etat côtier à celui de l’humanité représenté par l’Autorité internationale des fonds marins, garante du patrimoine commun de l’humanité.

Guiora: Legitimate Target: A Criteria-Based Approach to Targeted Killing

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:17:00 +0000

Amos N. Guiora (Univ. of Utah - Law) has published Legitimate Target: A Criteria-Based Approach to Targeted Killing (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

Targeted killings represent both the contemporary weapon of choice and, clearly, the weapon of the future. From the perspective of the nation-state, the benefits of targeted killing are clear: aggressive measures against identified targets can be carried out with minimal, if any, risk to soldiers. But while the threat to soldiers is minimal, there are other risks that must be considered. Particularly, there is a high possibility of collateral damage as well as legitimate concerns regarding how a target is defined. Clearly broad legal, moral, and operational issues are at stake when considering targeted killing.
In Legitimate Target, A Criteria Based Approach to Targeted Killing, Amos Guiora proposes that targeted killing decisions must reflect consideration of four distinct elements: law, policy, morality, and operational details, thus ensuring that it complies with principles of domestic and international laws. The author, writing from both personal experience and an academic perspective, offers important criticism and insight into the policy as presently implemented, highlighting the need for a criteria based decision making process in defining and identifying a legitimate target. Legitimate Target, A Criteria-Based Approach to Targeted Killing blends concrete examples with a nuanced study of the current targeted killing paradigm with an emphasis on the dilemmas of morality and the law.

Conference: 'Whaling in the Antarctic' before the International Court of Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:22:00 +0000

On June 7, 2013, the Australian National University College of Law will host a conference on "'Whaling in the Antarctic' before the International Court of Justice." Here's the idea:

In 2010 Australian commenced proceedings against Japan in the International Court of Justice with respect to Japan’s conduct of its JARPAII whaling program in the Southern Ocean. The case will commence its oral phase on 26 June 2013 with three weeks of hearings before the Court.
This conference seeks to review the background to the Whaling in the Antarctic case, the Australian application before the International Court of Justice, the proceedings to date, and the possible implications of the case for the International Whaling Commission. Consideration will also be given to the anticipated legal argument that will be made before the court, and New Zealand’s 2012 Declaration of Intervention and the February 2013 Order deciding that the New Zealand intervention was permissible.
These proceedings come at a pivotal time in the debate over the conduct of ‘scientific whaling’ under Article 8 of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and the decision of the International Court of Justice will have profound implications for how these issues are considered in the future.

Call for Papers: The Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:08:00 +0000

A call for papers has been issued for a conference on "The Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda," to be held October 31-November 1, 2013. Note the deadline is May 24, 2013. Here's the call:

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
THE LEGACY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR RWANDA
31 October – 1 November 2013
CALL FOR PAPERS
On 22 December 2010, the UN Security Council, established by resolution 1966 the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. In that resolution, the Council acknowledged the “considerable contribution the Tribunals have made to international criminal justice and accountability for serious international crimes and the re-establishment of the rule of law in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda”.
Over the years the Rwanda tribunal has achieved a number of milestones in the development of international criminal law jurisprudence, which include:
* decisions in relation to genocide and the criminal responsibility of former heads of government;
* decisions on rape and sexual assault as elements of the crime of genocide;
* decisions examining the link between the media, hate speech and mass slaughter.
The significance of the Rwanda Tribunal has also surfaced in debates about the Tribunal’s role in contributing to the process of national reconciliation and the restoration and maintenance of peace, an objective clearly envisaged in Security Council resolution 955 (1994) which brought the Tribunal into existence. Moreover, in 1995, only a year after 800,000 people were massacred in Rwanda, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), told the new Rwandan government that ‘unless you move beyond justice in the form of a tribunal, there is no hope for Rwanda’. South Africa’s TRC, the ICTR and the Rwandan gacaca courts each represent different approaches to transitional justice. The co-existence of diverse mechanisms in Rwanda raises important questions about whether they are indeed complementary or incompatible.
With these developments in mind and with the Tribunal’s mandate nearing its end, the time is opportune to interrogate critically the role of the Tribunal - both internationally and in Rwanda - and to analyse its successes, failures and challenges. The Conference therefore aims at providing a forum for evaluating the legacy of the Tribunal. The conference organisers welcome papers on this important theme and any of the following sub-themes:
* The ICTR’s Contribution to International Humanitarian Law/International Criminal Law
* The Relationship between the Rwanda Tribunal and Domestic Courts
* Transitional Justice and Reconciliation
* The South African TRC, and the Rwandan Gacaca Courts
* The Challenges of International Criminal Prosecutions in Africa
* The Rwanda Tribunal and the Future of International Criminal Justice in Africa
The Conference organisers are inviting abstracts for papers to be sent to Mia Swart (mswart@uj.ac.za) not later than 24 May 2013. Abstracts should not be longer that 500 words. Candidates will be contacted within three weeks of submission if they are successful. It is envisaged that a selection of conference papers will be published.
The Conference is co-organised by:
The University of Johannesburg
The International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (Mr Roland Kouassi Amoussouga)
The Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law (Prof Mia Swart, Dr Mispa Roux)
The South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (Prof David Bilchitz, Mr Redson Kapindu and Mr Michael Dafel)
The National Research Foundation Research Chair in International Law (Prof Hennie Strydom)
The Conference is funded by:
The University of Johannesburg
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation

New Volume: Austrian Review of International and European Law

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:46:00 +0000

The latest volume of the Austrian Review of International and European Law (Vol. 14, 2009) is out. Contents include:

Symposium: International Law, Values and the Use of Force

Lilly Sucharipa, Six Decades in an Eminent International Lawyer’s Life - Laudatio in Honour of Professor Karl Zemanek
Hisashi Owada, Conﬂict of Values in International Law: Universality of International Law in a Globalizing World
Christian Tomuschat, Human Rights: Tensions Between Negative and Positive Duties of States
Gerhard Hafner, Some Thoughts on the State-Oriented and Individual-Oriented Approaches in International Law
August Reinisch, Value Conﬂicts Within the United Nations Security Council
Hanspeter Neuhold, Anticipatory Self-Defence: Legal Analysis versus Strategic Realities
Stephan Wittich, The Use of Force, Self-defence and the Unrealism in International Law

Articles

August Reinisch, The Rediscovery of Holocaust-Related Property Issues after 1989 – An Inside View of the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution of Publicly-Owned Property
Emmanuel Voyiakis, Do General Principles Fill ‘Gaps’ in International Law?

Current Developments

Peter Hilpold, The International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Kosovo: Perspectives of a Delicate Question

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:16:00 +0000

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 47, no. 3, June 2013) is out. Contents include:

Vinod Rege, Marwa Kisiri, Elijah Manyara, Nyame Baafi, & Edward Bizimuremyi, Could Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Other Developing Countries Which Have Not Been Able to Establish Legal Framework for the Application of Trade Remedy Measures Make a Beginning by Establishing Mechanism for the Application of Safeguard Measures Only?
Gabrielle Marceau, Arnau Izaguerri, & Vladyslav Lanovoy, The WTO’s Influence on Other Dispute Settlement Mechanisms: A Lighthouse in the Storm of Fragmentation
Johannes Norpoth, Mysteries of the TBT Agreement Resolved? Lessons to Learn for Climate Policies and Developing Country Exporters from Recent TBT Disputes
Robert M. MacLean, Duty as a Cost in EU Anti-Dumping Refunds: The Triple Jump and Other Obstacles to Success
Ruwantissa Abeyratne, Trade in Air Transport: Have We Lost Our Way?
Toan Le, Vietnam’s Experience in Developing International Trade Lawyers Following Five Years of World Trade Organization Accession
Joseph Michael Finger, First, Do the Patient No Harm
Bernard Hoekman, The World Bank Group Trade Strategy: Fit for Purpose?

New Issue: Global Trade and Customs Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Tue, 21 May 2013 08:14:00 +0000

The latest issue of Global Trade and Customs Journal (Vol. 8, no. 5, 2013) is out. Contents include:

Gustav Brink, ‘Appropriate’ Price Comparisons in Anti-dumping Investigations: Apples-to-Apples or Starking-to-Starking?
Fernando Coppe Alcaraz, Addressing Increased Imports: Policy Options in Brazil
Stephen Creskoff & Petrit Gashi, Tariffs as an Instrument of Trade Policy: The Unique Case of Kosovo

Alston on Martinez's "The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law"

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:27:00 +0000

Philip Alston (New York Univ. - Law) has published Does the Past Matter? On the Origins of Human Rights (Harvard Law Review, Vol. 126, no. 7, p. 2043, May 2013). Jenny S. Martinez's response to Alston's review, posted in the Law Review's online Forum, is here. Samuel Moyn previously reviewed Martinez's book here. Here's the abstract:

How far back can we trace the genealogy of today’s international human rights system? And does it matter where we come out on such an arcane academic question? Historians, international lawyers, and human rights activists have recently suggested that there is, in fact, much at stake here. But there the consensus ends, and the accounts reflected in the vibrant literature of recent years diverge radically in the answers they propose. They also disagree in fundamental respects as to why the lineage of human rights really matters in the twenty-first century.
Until fairly recently, little attention was paid to the historiography of human rights, and the main-stream histories mostly reflected an uncritical narrative of relatively steady progress in the evolution of ideas, perhaps dating even from biblical times, and the gradual uptake of these ideas in the form of legal norms. But these somewhat amorphous and largely undifferentiated genealogies have come under strong challenge from a variety of critics, almost all of whom have sought to identify more precise and recent points of origin for today’s human rights family tree. The present analysis takes as its point of departure the claim by Professor Jenny Martinez in The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law that contemporary international human rights law has its origins in the early nineteenth-century movement in Great Britain to abolish the transatlantic slave trade (pp. 149–50). In the final years of the eighteenth century, the British abolitionist movement began to make significant inroads, and by 1807 the reformers had succeeded, apparently against all the odds, in passing the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Parliament prohibited British subjects from participating in the trade, and slaves were no longer allowed to be imported into Britain’s extensive colonial empire. The British navy began to apply the law, and offenders were initially tried in British courts. Starting in 1817, Britain also entered into a series of bilateral treaties that led to the creation of so-called “courts of mixed commission” sitting in Freetown (Sierra Leone), Havana (Cuba), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and Paramaribo (Suriname) with the power to determine whether seized ships had been engaged in slaving and, if so, to order their forfeiture (pp. 78–79). In the course of the next five decades, the mixed commissions heard over six hundred cases and freed some eighty thousand slaves (p. 99).
Martinez portrays the mixed commissions as “the first international human rights courts” (p. 6) and sees them as an integral part of “the most successful episode ever in the history of international human rights law” (p. 13). Not content with staking out a large historical claim, she also implies that genealogy matters by claiming that the nineteenth-century history that she recounts has major implications for many of the key contemporary debates over human rights, so much so that this history should change the way we think about the entire field, including its “origins, limits, and potential” (p. 15).
It is, in many respects, an appealing thesis, but it has to contend with the fact that it flies directly in the face of a highly influential new school of revisionist history. This new understanding largely dismisses the very quest for genealogy, separates the antislavery movement out from what should properly be thought of as matters of human rights, systematically downplays the international significance of all but the most recent discourse around human rights, accords minimal importance to treaties in this area and even less significance to courts, and locates the origins of the international human rights movement firmly in the year 1977.
In this Review, I first consider the extent to which Martinez’s claims about the roles played by rights, treaties, and courts in the first half of the nineteenth century are supported by the evidence. I then situate her account along the spectrum of recent historiographical studies in the field. In particular, I contrast her approach with that of Professor Samuel Moyn, who is the most influential of the revisionists. I argue that much of the heated controversy that has been generated in the recent literature over whether and how the origins of human rights may be discerned is due primarily to a failure to acknowledge the polycentric nature of the human rights enterprise. Attempts to capture the alleged essence of that enterprise by viewing it through a single lens are intrinsically flawed and potentially deeply misleading. I nevertheless conclude by arguing that genealogy matters a great deal in these debates, although not in the ways that Martinez suggests.

New Issue: International Human Rights Law Review

noreply@blogger.com (Jacob Katz Cogan) — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:31:00 +0000

The latest issue of the International Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 2, no. 1, 2013) is out. Contents include:

Ilias Bantekas, Christos Kypraios, & Kebreab Isaac, Outsourcing Law Reform in Developing Countries to Private Contractors: A Human Rights Perspective
Manisuli Ssenyonjo, Direct Access to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights by Individuals and Non Governmental Organisations: An Overview of the Emerging Jurisprudence of the African Court 2008-2012
Alexander Murray, Enforced Disappearance and Relatives’ Rights before the Inter-American and European Human Rights Courts
Parisa Zangeneh, ‘The Gloves Came Off’: Torture and the United States after September 11, 2001
Hussein Ahmed Tura, Indigent’s Right to State Funded Legal Aid in Ethiopia