Month: November 2019

Georgia Law Professor Cohen presents on “Nations and Markets” at Amsterdam ACIL-ESIL conference

Harlan G. Cohen, Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, was among more than 40 scholars from around the world who presented their scholarship earlier this month at at the International Economic Law and Security Interests Conference at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Cohen spoke on “Nations and Markets” as part of a plenary panel entitled “The Public and the Private: Security Concerns and the Future of International Economic Governance.”

Co-hosts of the 2-day conference were the university’s Amsterdam Center for International Law and the Interest Group on International Economic Law of the European Society of International Law.

Georgia Law Professor MJ Durkee publishes “Interstitial Space Law” at Washington University Law Review

Professor Melissa J. Durkee, the J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has published her article “Interstitial Space Law” in the latest issue of the Washington University Law Review.

Here’s the abstract:

“Conventionally, customary international law is developed through the actions and beliefs of nations. International treaties are interpreted, in part, by assessing how the parties to the treaty behave. This Article observes that these forms of uncodified international law—custom and subsequent treaty practice—are also developed through a nation’s reactions, or failures to react, to acts and beliefs that can be attributed to it. I call this ‘attributed lawmaking.’

“Consider the new commercial space race. Innovators like SpaceX and Blue Origin seek a permissive legal environment. A Cold-War-era treaty does not seem adequately to address contemporary plans for space. The treaty does, however, attribute private sector activity to nations. The theory of attributed lawmaking suggests that the attribution renders the activity of private actors in space relevant to the development of binding international legal rules. As a doctrinal matter, private activity that is attributed to the state becomes “state practice” for the purpose of treaty interpretation or customary international law formation. Moreover, as a matter of realpolitik, private actors standing in the shoes of the state can force states into a reactive posture, easing the commercially preferred rules into law through the power of inertia and changes to the status quo. Attributed lawmaking is not a new phenomenon but it may have increasing significance at a time when multilateral lawmaking is at an ebb, lines between public and private entities are blurring, and the question of attribution becomes both more complex and more urgent.”

The article’s also available at SSRN.

Georgia Law Professor Amann’s UN Audiovisual Lecture marks 30th anniversary of Child Rights Convention

This week’s global commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child includes a special contribution from a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law:

The United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law has just published “Child Rights, Conflict, and International Criminal Justice,” a lecture by Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, holder of the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law. As described in prior posts, Amann’s expertise in this field extends to her service as Special Adviser to International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict; that said, she produced this lecture in her personal capacity.

Amann’s 41-minute lecture was taped 8 November 2019 at the Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, UN Headquarters, New York. It is available in video (here) and audio formats (SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts).

As Amann posted at her personal blog, the lecture begins by setting forth particular harms that children endure in armed conflict and similar violence. It proceeds to trace the developments in child rights that led to adoption, on 20 November 1989, of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Next, it describes parallel developments in two other key legal fields, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. After looking at relevant provisions of the Child Rights Convention and other instruments – in particular, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – the lecture concludes by evaluating efforts to ensure the rights of the child by preventing and punishing international crimes against and affecting children.

Also provided at Amann’s AVL Faculty Page is a list of related materials on which her lecture relies.

Amann said this about the treaty that is enjoying a celebration, in Wednesday’s “World Children’s Day” and throughout this week:

“As for the 1989 Child Rights Convention itself – today it has 196 parties, including the Holy See, the State of Palestine, and every UN member state except the United States of America. Because of its nearly universal acceptance, as well as its comprehensive contents, the Convention has served for the last thirty years as the pre-eminent global charter on child rights and protection.”

Scholarly achievements, thriving initiatives featured in newsletter of Dean Rusk International Law Center

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For a recap of the year’s global law-and-practice accomplishments here at the University of Georgia School of Law, have a look at the just-published annual newsletter of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. Features include:

► Celebrating the scholarly achievements of our many other globally minded faculty and staff, including Diane Marie Amann, Christopher Bruner, Thomas V. Burch, Anne Burnett, Jason A. Cade, Nathan S. Chapman, Harlan G. Cohen, Kathleen A. Doty, Melissa J. Durkee, Walter Hellerstein, Lori Ringhand, Usha Rodrigues, and Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge.

► Events past and future, including day-long conferences cosponsored with the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law, public lectures and our Consular Series of lunch talks with Atlanta-based diplomats, cosponsorship of panels at regional and national international law meetings, and the upcoming International Law Colloquium Series.

► Initiatives aimed at preparing our J.D. and LL.M. students for global legal practice, including our Global Externships and our Global Governance Summer School, plus support for students’ organizations and international advocacy teams.

The full newsletter is here.