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1971. A Study of Lawyers Appearing before the International Court of Justice, 1999–2012

Author:
Shashank P. Kumar and Cecily Rose
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article provides empirical support for what might strike some as a truism: oral proceedings before the International Court of Justice (the Court) are dominated by male international law professors from developed states. In order to test this claim, our study examines the composition of legal teams appearing on behalf of states before the Court in contentious proceedings between 1999 and 2012. We have focused, in particular, on counsels' gender, nationality, the development status and geographical region of their country of citizenship, and their professional status (as members of law firms, barristers or sole practitioners, professors, or other). The results of our study raise questions about the evident gender imbalance among counsel who have appeared before the Court during the timeframe of this study, as well as the apparent preference that states have shown for 'repeat players' and professors of public international law. By presenting data on the composition of legal teams, and discussing possible explanations for the patterns that we have observed, this study aims to contribute to the development of a body of scholarship on international law as a profession.
Topic:
International Law

1972. The Judicialization of International Law: Reflections on the Empirical Turn

Author:
Gleider I. Hernández
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The proliferation of international courts and tribunals in the last two decades has been an important new development in international law, and the three books under review are at the vanguard in substantiating the claim that the judicialization of international law reflects its deepened legalization. All three have adopted ambitious empirical frameworks through which to assess the impact of international courts, and present valuable insights with respect to the phenomenon. Whilst all seek to make intelligible the growing relevance of the various international courts, their empirical methodology and mapping exercise reflects a faith that the legalization/judicialization of international law is a positive development, one that might nevertheless be contested. With the Oxford Handbook's mapping exercise, Karen Alter's 'altered politics' model of effectiveness, and Yuval Shany's 'goal-based' method for assessing effectiveness, the three books represent the forefront of scholarly efforts to study the practice of international courts. One should be careful, however: because the empirical exercise attempted in these three books goes beyond mere description into an attempt to model future outcomes, it has the drawback of privileging certain modes of cognizing the phenomenon of the proliferation of international courts. Although an important contribution, a solely empirical approach would create the impression of a purely linear progression in the judicialization of international law, one which might not be borne out in reality.
Topic:
International Law

1973. International Law for a Water-Scarce World. Fresh Water in International Law. The Right(s) to Water. The Multi-Level Governance of a Unique Human Right

Author:
Sara De Vido
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Water has been a challenging issue over the centuries. From questions of national boundaries and navigation, quite common in the past, to the development of a human right to water, this essential element for human life has always spurred debate among international lawyers, economists, political scientists, geographers, and anthropologists. The reason may be found in the scarcity of water, a phenomenon which affects both developed and developing countries. Much has been written on the topic, but the three books under review significantly contribute to a critical analysis of some pertinent legal issues related to water. The title of each monograph reflects the purpose of the respective study. Hence, International Law for a Water-Scarce World by Brown Weiss starts from the acknowledgement that 'the fresh water crisis is the new environmental crisis of the 21st century' (at 1) and provides an integrated analysis of water law, which considers climate implications, river basins, and the availability and quality of fresh water. Boisson De Chazournes' Fresh Water in International Law investigates the status of fresh water in international law. The choice of the titles of the chapters is particularly evocative. Thus, after a chapter on regulation of fresh water use, the book continues with chapters on the 'Economization' of the law applicable to fresh water, its 'Environmentalization', followed by its 'Humanization', and 'Institutionalization Trends in Fresh Water Governance', before focusing on dispute settlement mechanisms. The use of the ending '-zation' gives the immediate impression of the evolution of the law on fresh water resources, which now includes several separate but clearly interrelated aspects. The title of the third book, written by Thielbörger, deserves attention for two elements, the first being the letter 's' inside the parentheses and the second being the adjective 'unique' used for identifying the human right to water. The Right(s) to Water. The Multi-Level Governance of a Unique Human Right pursues a different purpose from the two other books under review which adopt a more comprehensive approach. Thielbörger's book (based on his doctoral dissertation) studies the human right to water from a comparative and international perspective, emphasizing the complexity of a right which is strictly linked to other rights but constitutes at the same time a right of its own.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, and International Law

1974. Kate Miles. The Origins of International Investment Law: Empire, Environment, and the Safeguarding of Capital

Author:
David Schneiderman
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Mainstream investment law scholars have delivered their verdict on the relevance of the past: it is 'anachronistic and obsolete'. Historic controversies over the meaning of customary international law between capital-exporting and capital-importing states have been overtaken, it is said, by nearly 3,000 bilateral investment treaties. This looks mostly like a strategic denial – cabining investment law's past makes the present appear free of the dynamics of domination that characterized prior conflicts. That history, the mainstream maintains, bears no relationship to the meaning and content of contemporary commitments made by states acting in their sovereign capacity and in relative positions of equality.
Topic:
History

1975. Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet. What is a Fair International Society? International Law Between Development and Recognition

Author:
Ruti Teitel
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Does international law have an answer to the question: 'what is a fair international society'? In her insightful book, Emmanuelle Tourne-Jouannet interrogates in a systematic fashion diverse areas of international law that touch upon or address, directly or indirectly, fairness, equity, or redistribution: from the law of development to minority rights to international economic law. By taking positive law as the point of departure for an inquiry about global justice, Tourme- Jouannet departs, in a refreshing way, from attempts to extrapolate from mainstream legal theory an abstract conception of global justice. '[W]hat is to be addressed here are not contemporary theories of justice and the philosophical questions that the topic raises .... [I]t is the aim to address them here from a different angle: from within legal practice, as it were .... I have opted for an approach based on existing legal practice, with a view to conceptualizing and questioning it' (at 3). For Tourme-Jouannet, the question about the fairness of international legal practice leads to a number of other legal-historical questions regarding the contemporary evolution of international law. The project is 'simply to begin by identifying the principles and legal practices relating to development and recognition' ( ibid. ). In her view, adopting a historical perspective, these practices – notwithstanding their differences – reflect a joint concern with achieving global justice over the years.
Topic:
Economics and International Law

1976. Lawrence O. Gostin. Global Health Law

Author:
Stéphanie Dagron
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Lawrence O. Gostin's new book begins with the sentence '[t]his is a unique moment to offer a systematic account of global health law' and he is right. The book under review is published at a time when the most influential international institutions are emphasizing the necessity for multilateral cooperation in the field of public health. For example, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) addresses this point in its current deliberations on the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals Agenda. Contemporary globalization has irrevocably made borders porous to capital, services, goods, and persons. Global social, economic, and political changes, such as increasing industrialization, urbanization, environmental degradation, migration, drug trafficking, and the marketing strategies of transnational corporations (e.g., in the food, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries) have a significant impact on health. This impact is transnational and intersectoral: global health hazards go beyond the control of individual nation states and extend beyond the restricted field of health care.
Topic:
Economics, Health, Migration, United Nations, Food, and Law

1977. Introduction to International Environmental Law

Author:
Birgit Lode
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Already back in 1987 the Brundtland report by the World Commission on Environment and Development stressed that '[n]ational and international law is being rapidly outdistanced by the accelerating pace and expanding scale of impacts on the ecological basis of development'. Since then international environmental law regimes have multiplied and an up-to-date introduction to the constantly evolving field of international environmental law is very welcome, not least due to the lack of equally concise alternatives in the introductory literature. Aimed at filling this gap, Timo Koivurova with his Introduction to International Environmental Law chooses an approach well suited to the student readers he primarily intends to address. The book dispenses with footnotes, tables of treaties, and a comprehensive bibliography. Instead, a manageable number of endnotes accompany each chapter, preceded by a set of questions and research tasks, and followed by suggestions for further reading and websites addressing the respective topics. Thereby, the subject matter is presented in the most general fashion possible without making concessions to the scientific nature of the book, allowing '[i]nternational environmental law and politics [to] speak for themselves' (at xix). Moreover, in order to make the information provided easily accessible and comprehensible by a broad range of readers the book includes several boxes going into more detail on, e.g., specific cases, conventions, institutions, or environmental disasters. It illustrates topics and sometimes presents them from a different angle by adding photographs and figures, clarifying essentials as well as sparking the readers' imagination.
Topic:
Environment, Politics, and Law

1978. Corrigendum

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
There was an error in the title of this article. The correct title is: The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe – Standards and Impact. The title has been corrected in the online version of EJIL. The publishers would like to apologize for this error and for any confusion caused.
Political Geography:
Europe

1979. Vietnam

Author:
Keith Ekiss
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The airport shuttle driver arrives at dawn. When I complain in jest about the hour, he fires back a phrase, then translates: 'Vietnamese for Tough shit, baby.' We pick up a woman bound for France and he unloads, as if between men there was untold conflict. Her long blonde hair curls in tendrils toward her waist, she leans forward, a hand to his shoulder. Thirty years after Da Nang, he brought gifts to an orphanage, wooden toys, no guns, the children too young to have known our war. I put it, I tried to put it behind me. I watch him squeeze a thumb and finger to his temple: I pressed it all in here. When I was a boy, no one said a word about the war. For all I knew, the country didn't exist, a place as distant as Paris, the French model city for Saigon.
Political Geography:
Vietnam

1980. The Power of Ideas and Leadership in China's Transition to a Liberal Society

Author:
Weiying Zhang
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
History and casual observations suggest that ideas and leadership are the two most important forces in all institutional changes. However, they have been absent or downplayed in conventional economic analysis of institutional changes. Conventional economics has exclusively focused on the notion of “interest” in explaining almost everything, from consumers' choices to public choices to institutional changes. IN particular, institutional changes have been modeled as a game of interests between different groups (such as the ruling and the ruled), with the assumption that there is a well-defined mapping from interests into outcomes.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
China