scholarship

Professor Amann: Honored to contribute to new anthology, “Human Rights and Children”

Honored to be a contributor to Human Rights and Children, an anthology of works in the field edited by Hofstra Law Professor Barbara Stark.

The collection’s just been issued by Edward Elgar Publishing, which writes:

“This volume provides a comprehensive overview of children’s human rights, collecting the works of leading authorities as well as new scholars grappling with emerging ideas of ‘children’ and ‘rights.’ Beginning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, this book explores the theory, doctrine, and implementation of the legal frameworks addressing child labor, child soldiers, and child trafficking, as well as children’s socio-economic rights, including their rights to education.”

My own contribution is listed in this compendium as: “Diane Marie Amann (2013), ‘A Review of Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy in Mark A. Drumbl, Oxford University Press’, American Journal of International Law…” On my SSRN page, I describe this book review as follows:

“This essay reviews ‘Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy’ (2012), in which author Mark Drumbl examines legal doctrine, global activism, and social science research respecting underaged combatants.”

Additional contributors to this collection, besides Professor Stark and me: Philip Alston, Jo Becker, Maria Bouverne-De Bie, Claire Breen, Geert Cappelaere, Cynthia Price Cohen, Katherine Covell, Mac Darrow, Martha F. Davis, Michael J. Dennis, Janelle M. Diller, Sara A. Dillon, Mark A. Drumbl, Nienke Grossman, Martin Guggenheim, Stuart N. Hart, Kamran Hashemi, R. Brian Howe, David A. Levy, Janet McKnight, Tendai Charity Nhenga-Chakarisa, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Roslyn Powell, Alison Dundes Renteln, Marilia Sardenberg, William A. Schabas, David M. Smolin, Murray A. Straus, Laura Thetaz-Bergman, John Tobin, Jonathan Todres, Geraldine Van Bueren, Wouter Vandenhole, Eugeen Verhellen, and Barbara Bennett Woodhouse.

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann blog)

Important essays on myriad international law subfields in OUP book coedited by Professor Amann, “Arcs of Global Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas”

LONDON – Building on yesterday’s post about the magical London conference launching Arcs of Global Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas (Margaret M. deGuzman and Diane Marie Amann eds.), today’s post profiles the book itself, which, thanks to excellent assistance from John Louth, Blake Ratcliff, and their staff, has just been published by Oxford University Press. (The hardback may be ordered via OUP or Amazon, and the book’s also available on Kindle.)

Not least because Professor Schabas delivered two talks here at the University of Georgia School of Law in 2013, I’m very pleased to have coedited this volume with my colleague Meg. The concept, in our words:

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ Testing the optimism of that claim were the many fits and starts in the struggle for human rights that King helped to catalyze. The same is true of other events in the last half-century, from resistance to apartheid and genocide to equal and fair treatment in domestic criminal justice systems, to the formation of entities to prevent atrocities and to bring their perpetrators to justice. Within this display of myriad arcs may be found the many persons who helped shape this half-century of global justice-and prominent among them is William A. Schabas. His panoramic scholarship includes dozens of books and hundreds of articles, and he also has served as an influential policymaker, advocate, and mentor.

This work honours William A. Schabas and his career with essays by luminary scholars and jurists from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The essays examine contemporary, historical, cultural, and theoretical aspects of the many arcs of global justice with which Professor Schabas has engaged, in fields including public international law, human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, and capital punishment.

In all, the book includes 29 contributions by 35 academics, advocates, and jurists, as detailed in the table of contents below. Providing jacket-cover testimonials were Steven Kay QC, Philippe Sands QC, Professor and former Ambassador David Scheffer, and Judge Christine Van den Wyngaert. We hope that you’ll follow their recommendations and give these important, substantive essays a very good read.

Arcs of Global Justice:
Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas

► Foreword by Diane Marie Amann and Margaret M. deGuzman, coeditors
► Introduction: William Schabas: Portrait of a Scholar/Activist Extraordinaire by Roger S. Clark, Board of Governors Professor of Law, Rutgers University School of Law

Human Rights
► Human Rights and International Criminal Justice in the Twenty First Century: The End of the Post-WWII Phase and the Beginning of an Uncertain New Era by M. Cherif Bassiouni (He died at age 79 in September, just weeks after he completed final changes on this essay; as posted, our conference included a memorial to him. At the time of his death, he was Emeritus Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law; Honorary President, Siracusa Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights; and Honorary President, L’Association internationale de droit pénal.)
► William Schabas, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and International Human Rights Law by Justice Thomas A. Cromwell, Supreme Court of Canada, and Bruno Gélinas-Faucher, formerly a law clerk on that court and now a Cambridge PhD candidate
► The International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, as a Victim-Oriented Treaty by Emmanuel Decaux, Professor Emeritus, Université Paris 2 (Panthéon-Assas), and former President, Committee on Enforced Disappearances
► The Politics of Sectarianism and its Reflection in Questions of International Law & State Formation in The Middle East by Kathleen Cavanaugh, Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway, and  Joshua Castellino, Professor of Law & Dean of the School of Law, as well as the Business School, at Middlesex University, London

Capital Punishment
► International Law and the Death Penalty: A Toothless Tiger, or a Meaningful Force for Change? by Sandra L. Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and Faculty Director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
► The UN Optional Protocol on the Abolition of the Death Penalty by Marc Bossuyt, Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Emeritus Professor of the University of Antwerp, Emeritus President of the Constitutional Court of Belgium, and former Chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights
► The Right to Life and the Progressive Abolition of the Death Penalty by Christof Heyns, formerly the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions from 2010 through 2016, and now a member of the UN Human Rights Committee and Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria, Thomas Probert, Research Associate, Centre of Governance & Human Rights, University of Cambridge, and Tess Borden, Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, and former researcher for the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution
► Progress and Trend of the Reform of the Death Penalty in China by Zhao Bingzhi, Dean of the College for Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University, President of the Criminal Law Research Association of China, Vice-President of the International Association of Penal Law, and President of that association’s Chinese National Group

International Criminal Law
► Criminal Law Philosophy in William Schabas’ Scholarship by Margaret M. deGuzman, Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law
► Is the ICC Focusing too Much on Non-State Actors? by Frédéric Mégret, Associate Professor and Dawson Scholar, Faculty of Law, McGill University
► The Principle of Legality at the Crossroads of Human Rights and International Criminal Law by Shane Darcy, Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway
► Revisiting the Sources of Applicable Law Before the ICC by Alain Pellet, Emeritus Professor at the University of Paris Nanterre, former Chairperson of the UN International Law Commission, President of the French Society for International Law, Member of the Institut de droit international, as well as Counsel and Advocate before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and other forums
► The ICC as a Work in Progress, for a World in Process by Mireille Delmas-Marty, Member, Institut de France, and Professor Emerita, Collège de France de Paris
► Legacy in International Criminal Justice by Carsten Stahn, Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice, Leiden University
► Torture by Private Actors and ‘Gold Plating’ the Offence in National Law: An Exchange of Emails in Honour of William Schabas by Andrew Clapham, Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and Paola Gaeta, Professor of International Law and International Criminal Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva

Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
► Secrets and Surprises in the Travaux Préparatoires of the Genocide Convention by Hirad Abtahi, First Legal Adviser, Head of the Legal and Enforcement Unit, at the Presidency of the International Criminal Court, and Philippa Webb, Reader (Associate Professor) in Public International Law at King’s College London and a barrister at 20 Essex Street Chambers
► Perspectives on Cultural Genocide: From Criminal Law to Cultural Diversity by Jérémie Gilbert, Professor of International and Comparative Law, University of East London
► Crimes Against Humanity: Repairing Title 18’s Blind Spots by Beth Van Schaack, Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School and Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Security & Cooperation at Stanford University
► A New Global Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity: Future Prospects by Leila Nadya Sadat, James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law and Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, Special Adviser to the ICC Prosecutor on Crimes Against Humanity, and Director of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative

Transitional Justice and Atrocity Prevention
► Justice Outside of Criminal Courtrooms and Jailhouses by Mark A. Drumbl, Class of 1975 Alumni Professor of Law and Director, Transnational Law Institute, Washington and Lee University School of Law
► Toward Greater Synergy between Courts and Truth Commissions in Post-Conflict Contexts: Lessons from Sierra Leone by Charles Chernor Jalloh, Professor of Law, Florida International University, and a member of the International Law Commission
► International Criminal Tribunals and Cooperation with States: Serbia and the provision of evidence for the Slobodan Milosevic Trial at the ICTY by Geoffrey Nice QC, a barrister since 1971, formerly at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and Nevenka Tromp, Lecturer in East European Studies at the University of Amsterdam and former member of the ICTY Leadership Research Team
► The Arc toward Justice and Peace by Mary Ellen O’Connell, the Robert and Marion Short Chair in Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School
► The Maintenance of International Peace and Security through Prevention of Atrocity Crimes: The Question of Co-operation between the UN and regional Arrangements by Adama Dieng, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, as well as former Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and former Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists

Justice in Culture and Practice
► Law and Film: Curating Rights Cinema by Emma Sandon, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Research Fellow to the Chair for Social Change, University of Johannesburg
► The Role of Advocates in Developing International Law by Wayne Jordash QC, international human rights and humanitarian lawyer and founding partner of Global Rights Compliance
► Bill the Blogger by Diane Marie Amann, Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law

(Cross-posted from Diane Marie Amann)

Optimism about “Arcs of Global Justice” at London launch of Professor Amann’s coedited OUP essay collection honouring William A. Schabas

LONDON – “Optimism” was the byword for Friday’s magical conference launching Arcs of Global Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas, the just-published Oxford University Press collection coedited by Margaret M. deGuzman and myself.

The event took place in a Christmas-tree-lighted conference room at 9 Bedford Row, the London chambers where our honouree, Bill Schabas (above center), is a door tenant.

Professor Schabas is well known at the University of Georgia. During a 2013 visit to the Athens campus, he presented “The Drafting and Significance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the opening chapter of a then-forthcoming treatise, as part of the International Law Colloquium, a University of Georgia School of Law course. Additionally, Bill gave a public lecture entitled “Human Rights and Culture,” cosponsored by the law school and by the university’s Willson Center for Humanities & Arts.

At Friday’s London launch, Bill and his wife, Penelope Soteriou, were joined by several of the 35 women and men whose 29 contributions comprise the volume, many friends, colleagues, PhD students, and relatives.

Gillian Higgins (left), Head of the International Practice Group at 9 Bedford Row, opened with a warm message of welcome and congratulations. Then followed a celebration that combined lighthearted anecdotes with serious presentations of scholarship. Topics ranged as far and wide as Schabas’ multifaceted career, which includes current appointments as Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, London, Professor of International Criminal Law and Human Rights at Leiden University, and Emeritus Professor of Human Rights Law and Honorary Chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway; service as a member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission and as a consultant on capital punishment for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime; and authorship of hundreds of books, chapters, and articles.

A sobering moment came in Birkbeck Lecturer Emma Sandon‘s discussion of Schabas’ role as an organizer of and speaker at human rights film festivals. Sandon (above) concluded with a clip from Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). All fell silent while watching the characters in the video courtroom watch actual footage from the Allied liberations of concentration camps like Buchenwald.

Also moving was the memorial that Northwestern University Law Professor David Scheffer gave on behalf of contributor Cherif Bassiouni, who died at age 79 in September, not long after finishing his chapter, entitled “Human Rights and International Criminal Justice in the Twenty-First Century: The End of the Post-WWII Phase and the Beginning of an Uncertain New Era.” (Bassiouni also penned a dedication for our conference programme, available in PDF here.) Scheffer described the essay in light of his own and Schabas’ writings, and concluded on a optimistic note regarding the future of human rights.

That same note sounded in Schabas’ own interventions throughout the day. On issues ranging from the International Criminal Court to abolition of the death penalty, he assured his audience that even in these times, when the day-to-day “weather” may seem grim, the overall “climate” offers much room for optimism.

Here’s order of the day (full PDF programme here; additional contributors in attendance included Middlesex Law Dean Joshua Castellino and Cambridge PhD candidate Bruno Gélinas-Faucher):

Arcs of Global Justice:
Conference Launching Essay Collection in Honour of William A. Schabas
Friday, 8 December 2017, 9 Bedford Row, London

Opening
“Welcome” by Gillian Higgins, Head of the International Practice Group at 9 Bedford Row
“In Memoriam for Cherif Bassiouni” by David Scheffer, Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Chicago
“Introduction to Arcs of Global Justice” by coeditors Diane Marie Amann and Margaret M. deGuzman

International Law & Criminal Justice
“The Principle of Legality at the Crossroads of Human Rights & International Criminal Law” by Shane Darcy, Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway
“Criminal Law Philosophy in William Schabas’s Scholarship” by Margaret M. deGuzman, Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law
“Perspectives on Cultural Genocide: From Criminal Law to Cultural Diversity” by Jérémie Gilbert, Professor of International and Comparative Law, University of East London
“Toward Greater Synergy between Courts & Truth Commissions in Post-Conflict Context: Lessons from Sierra Leone” by Charles Chernor Jalloh, Professor of Law, Florida International University, and a member of the International Law Commission
Moderator: Kathleen Cavanaugh, Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway

Justice / Scholarship / Culture / Practice
“Bill the Blogger” by Diane Marie Amann, Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law
“Advocates, Scholars & Maintaining the International Criminal Law Momentum” by Wayne Jordash QC, international human rights and humanitarian lawyer and founding partner of Global Rights Compliance
“Law & Film: Curating Rights Cinema” by Emma Sandon, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Research Fellow to the Chair for Social Change, University of Johannesburg
Moderator: Michelle Farrell, Senior Lecturer in Law in the School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool

Abolition of the Death Penalty
“International Law & the Death Penalty: A Toothless Tiger, or a Meaningful Force for Change?” by Sandra L. Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and Faculty Director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide
The Right to Life & the Progressive Abolition of the Death Penalty by Thomas Probert, Research Associate, Centre of Governance & Human Rights, University of Cambridge (on behalf of himself & co-authors Christof Heyns & Tess Borden)
Moderator: Jon Yorke, Professor of Human Rights and Director of the Centre for Human Rights at Birmingham City School of Law

Closing
Introduction by John Louth, Editor-in-Chief of Academic Law at Oxford University Press
Remarks by William A. Schabas OC MRIA

Reception

With thanks to our host, 9 Bedford Row, & cosponsor, Oxford University Press

◊ ◊ ◊

Cross-posted at Diane Marie Amann. Tomorrow’s post: Details on Arcs of Justice: Essays in Honour of William A. Schabas (Margaret M. deGuzman and Diane Marie Amann, eds.) (OUP 2018) (The hardback may be ordered via OUP or Amazon, and the book’s also available on Kindle.)

Professor Amann publishes AJIL essay on ICJ’s nuclear weapons rulings

Professor Diane Marie Amann‘s most recent publication appears in the latest print edition of the American Journal of International Law, in the section that analyzes recent judgments. Entitled “International Decisions: Obligations Concerning Negotiations Relating to Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and to Nuclear Disarmament,” it may be found at 111 AJIL 439 (2017).

The essay sets forth key aspects of 3 judgments (available here) that the International Court of Justice issued in October 2016 – as well as the response to those rulings by one party, the United Kingdom. It offers thoughts on potential future nuclear disarmament efforts. (It went to press before adoption of one such effort, the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which at this writing has 3 states parties and 53 signatories, none of them nuclear weapons states.)

Here at the University of Georgia School of Law, Amann holds the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and serves as Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. Her article, which also forms part of Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center Research Paper Series at SSRN, may be downloaded at this SSRN link.

Here’s the abstract:

“In a trio of decisions, the International Court of Justice rejected the applications in which the Republic of the Marshall Islands claimed that three large states known to possess nuclear weapons, India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom, had breached their international obligations to undertake and conclude negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. This essay discusses those decisions, as well as the United Kingdom’s subsequent limitation of the circumstances under which it will accept the ICJ’s jurisdiction over such complaints. This development, coupled with the Court’s own narrowing of circumstances in which such an application will be accepted, make the likelihood of an eventual ruling on the nuclear disarmament issue quite remote.”

Professor Bruner presents at Law, Finance and Sustainability conference at University of Sheffield, England

Christopher Bruner, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, took part on Monday at a global conference on “Law, Finance & Sustainability” in Sheffield, England.

Hosted by the Institute of Corporate and Commercial Law at the University of Sheffield, and cosponsored by the Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART) initiative at the University of Oslo, Norway, the event brought together an international group of scholars and practitioners to discuss financial dimensions of corporate sustainability.

Professor Bruner’s scholarship scholarship focuses on corporate, securities and financial law, including international and comparative dimensions. At the Sheffield conference, he presented a working paper titled “Corporate Governance Reform in Post-Crisis Financial Firms: Two Fundamental Tensions.”

“The Next Generation of International Trade Agreements”: September 18 Georgia Law conference to feature trade law scholars, practitioners

Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge over the Savannah River, at the Port of Savannah, Georgia, the largest single container terminal in the United States. Photo (1998) by Jonas N. Jordan, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The Next Generation of International Trade Agreements” is the timely title of this year’s annual conference organized by the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law and Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law. Set for Monday, September 18, 2017, the daylong conference will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Center.

Scholars and practitioners from North America and Europe will come together to discuss one of the most pressing topics in today’s international arena. Panels, which will follow introductory remarks by Georgia Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge and Center Director Kathleen A. Doty, are as follows:

Setting the Negotiating Agenda: C. Donald Johnson (Georgia Law JD’73), Emeritus Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and former U.S. Ambassador, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; Professor Kathleen Claussen, Miami Law; Nicolas Lamp, Professor at Queen’s University Law, Canada, and former Dispute Settlement Lawyer, Appellate Body Secretariat, World Trade Organization; and Professor Timothy Meyer, Vanderbilt Law.

Changing Dynamics in Global Trade Negotiations: Professor Gregory Shaffer, California-Irvine Law; Professor Mark Wu, Harvard Law; and Professor Padideh Ala’i, American University Law. Moderating will be Tina Termei (Georgia Law JD’10), Corporate Counsel for Global Trade at Amazon.

Industry Roundtable Luncheon Conversation: Ling-Ling Nie, Chief Compliance Officer & Assistant General Counsel, Panasonic North America; Stewart Moran, Assistant General Counsel, Carter’s | OshKosh B’gosh; and Travis Cresswell, Senior Managing Counsel, The Coca-Cola Co.

Pluralism/Regionalism/Fragmentation: Professor Antonia Eliason, Mississippi Law; Professor Markus Wagner, Warwick Law, England; and Professor Robert Howse, New York University Law. Moderating will be Harlan G. Cohen, Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director, Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law.

Delivering closing remarks will be Victoria A. Barker, Editor-in-Chief of the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law. Additional speakers are invited but not yet confirmed: invited: Terry Smith Labat (Georgia Law JD’77), U.S. Department of Commerce; Audrey Winter (Georgia Law JD’80), Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; and Professor Saxby Chambliss, Sanders Political Leadership Scholar at Georgia Law, partner at DLA Piper, and former U.S. Senator.

Issues these experts will explore include, as described in the concept note:

“International trade law is at inflection point. Until quite recently, international trade agreements appeared to be moving along a relatively predictable trajectory. Reforms and changes were discussed and negotiated, but mostly along the margins of a supposed consensus about the general direction of the field. Political events of the past year, though – Brexit, the United States’ abandonment of TPP, calls to renegotiate NAFTA, accelerating negotiations of RCEP, and China’s roll out of its One Belt One Road initiative, among others – have challenged that trajectory and sent policymakers and trade lawyers in search of a new trade compass. A new period of negotiation and renegotiation, however, is on the horizon. While this is a source for many of anxiety, it is also an opportunity for progress, reform, and creative thinking. This conference will bring together top scholars and practitioners in the field to discuss the directions forward for international agreements. What should be on the table as old agreements are reopened and new ones are negotiated? What changes are needed to adapt trade agreements to new economic and technological realities? And how can the next generation of trade agreements respond to globalization’s discontents?”

Cosponsoring the conference are the law school’s Business Law Society, Corsair Law Society, and International Law Society, along with the University of Georgia School of Public & International Affairs.

Details and registration here for the conference, for which CLE credit is available.

Professor Cohen explores American international law and legal realism

Harlan Grant Cohen, the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of our Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, has posted a chapter entitled “Are We (Americans) All International Legal Realists Now?,” which will appear in the forthcoming Cambridge University Press volume Concepts on International Law in Europe and the United States, edited by Chiara Giorgetti and Guglielmo Verdirame.

The manuscript, which forms part of our Dean Rusk International Law Center Research Paper Series at SSRN, may be downloaded at this SSRN link.

Here’s the abstract:

“Is American international law distinctly legal realist? The claim is often made, but underexplored. What would it mean for American international law scholarship and practice to be legal realist in its orientation? Where would such an orientation come from, and what do those origin stories mean for current international law work? Are there common realist-inspired approaches within the varied schools of American international law scholarship? Does wielding those approaches produce distinctly American views on international law doctrine, its operation, or its function? And if American international law scholarship and practice is, in these ways, somewhat distinct, what does it mean for the broader, global project of international law?

“This chapter takes the claim seriously and explores the ways in which American international law may in fact be tinged with legal realism. It explores how a number of intellectual trends—American jurisprudential legal realism, post-World War II international relations scholarship, utopian strands in American foreign policy thinking, and U.S.-specific foreign relations law—converged to bring a series of specific methods or attitudes to the forefront in American approaches international law. Perhaps provocatively, this chapter argues that all the major schools of American international law—New Haven, International Legal Process, Transnational Legal Process, Law and Economics, International Relations and International Law, and others—have picked up these methods, attitudes, or approaches—enough to warrant labeling all of them as essentially ‘legal realist.’

“And it explores how legal realism translates into four noticeable trends in American approaches to international law:

(1) a focus on norms rather than rules,

(2) a focus on process rather than doctrine,

(3) a focus on institutions and power rather than substantive rules, and

(4) an emphasis on pragmatism and practicality.”

Visiting Scholar Yanying Zhang, law professor at Shandong University

Yanying Zhang, a widely published legal scholar from China, is now in residence as the 2017-18 Visiting Scholar here at the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law. She joins us from China’s Shandong University of Finance and Economics, where she serves as Professor of Law, Graduate Supervisor, Director of the Comparative Law Research Center, and Vice Dean of the Economic and Trade Law Department.

Professor Zhang will continue her research on Land Takings from the Perspective of Remedy: Problems Inspection and Systems Innovation, funded by a grant from the Ministry of Education of China. Professor Christian Turner will serve as her Georgia Law faculty sponsor.

Her visit continues our Center’s long tradition of hosting, for brief or extended stays, scholars and researchers whose work touches on issues of international, comparative, or transnational law. Details and an online application to become a visiting scholar here.

Professor Zhang earned her doctorate in comparative law from China University of Political Science and Law, her master’s degree in law from Renmin University of China, and her bachelor’s degree from Shandong Normal University. She has published numerous books and articles in her areas of research, which include comparative law, land law, contracts, torts, administrative remedies, dispute resolution, and bilingual education, and has received awards for her scholarship and teaching. She is a member of the China Law Society, a Council member of the Shandong Law Society, and a Council member of the Chinese Society of Comparative Law.

She was a Visiting Scholar last year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law, and several years ago at the University of Iowa College of Law.

Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law kicks off 2017–2018

Monday was orientation day for the students who’ll work on the 46th volume of the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Editor-in-Chief Victoria Barker reports that at orientation, the GJICL Editorial Board (pictured above) heard from Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge about the importance of journal membership. Professor Harlan G. Cohen, a Dean Rusk International Law Center Faculty Co-Director and the Faculty Advisor for GJICL, and Kathleen A. Doty, the Center’s Director, spoke about international law opportunities for Georgia Law students. Speakers about careers and research techniques, respectively, included Laura E. Woodson, Associate Director of Career Development, and Anne Burnett, Foreign & International Law Librarian.

Among the year’s highlights will be the annual GJICL conference, set for Monday, September 18. Entitled “The Next Generation of International Trade Agreements,” it will feature more than a dozen specialists in trade, including 4 Georgia Law alums: the 1st woman to serve as GJICL Editor-in-Chief, Terry Labat; former GJICL Articles Editors Audrey Winter and C. Donald Johnson, Director Emeritus of our Center; and Tina Termei. Joining them will be other academic and practitioner experts from around the world.

This daylong event will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center, a cosponsor.

Leading GJICL‘s efforts this academic year will be these Executive Board members: Victoria Aynne Barker, Editor in Chief; Michael D. Aune, Executive Managing Editor; Shreya Praful Desai, Executive Articles Editor; Evan C. Dunn, Senior Articles Editor; Margaret Anne Christie and Caroline Anne Jozefczyk, Executive Editors; Michael Lawrence Baker, Executive Conference Editor; Jamie McDowell, Executive Online Editor; Spencer Newton Davis, Senior Managing Editor; Hannah E. Ponders, Executive Notes Editor; and Wheaton P. Webb, Senior Notes Editor.

Collaborating with them will be these members of the Managing Board: Jeremy Hall Akin and Caroline Frances Savini, Conference Editors; Justin T. Conway, Megan Colleen Dempsey, William Neal Hollington, Robert P. Mangum, Shawn Eric McKenzie, Anne Parks Minor, Ryan Holder Shriver, and Adam J. Sunstrom, Submissions and Online Editors; Kaitlyn Claire Fain, Ian M. Lamb, Ethan Keith Morris, Andrew F. Newport, Nichole Novosel, William Blake Ogden, Claire H. Provano, Katherine Nicole Reynolds, and Devon Gayle Zawko, Articles Editors; Matthew J. Courteau, Taylor Shea Eisenhaur, William Carroll Hart, Dana Lohrberg, Steven Chase Parker, Laney J. Riley, Beverly Elizabeth Tarver, and Max Mathew Wallace II, Notes Editors.

Joining the 3L editors just named will be an Editorial Board composed of these members of the 2L class: Deena A.S. Agamy, Dymond Alexis Anthony, Philicia Crystal Armbrister, Ezekiel Arthur, Samuel Baker, Lauren Elizabeth Brown, Amy Elizabeth Buice, Austin Chad Cohen, Keelin Cronin, Jacob Donald Davis, Erin Elizabeth Doyle, Garret Joseph Drogosch, Sarah Lanier Flanders, Simone Iman Ford, Laura Rose Golden, Allison Jean Gowens, Kathryn Cho Hagerman, Wade W. Herring, Evans Fuller Horsley, Ted Smith Huggins, Tammy Le, Zachariah Weston Lindsey, Karla Lissette Martinez, Jacob Thomas McClendon, Elizabeth Kate Modzeleski, Savannah Harrison Moon, Joseph A. Natt, Hayley Alexandra Nicolich, Lyddy Ellen O’Brien, Kyle James Paladino, Garrett B. Peters, Morgan Renee Podczervinski, Connor Jay Rose, Taylor Ann Samuels, Emily E. Seaton, Timia Andrielle Skelton, Nicholas Alan Steinheimer, Adam C. Taylor, Michael Lee Thompson, John James Van Why, Eric M.A. Wilder, Sydney Rebecca Wilson.

Looking forward to another great year!

Global Governance Summer School enriches our study abroad tradition

Leuven Dean Bart Kerremans provides statistical analyses of the political economy of the 2017 U.S. and 2017 French presidential elections

LEUVEN and BRUSSELS, Belgium – The 2017 Global Governance Summer School may have ended, but memories linger of a brilliant week in these 2 Belgian cities.

Bicycles line sidewalks all over the University of Leuven, also known as KU Leuven

The 2017 GGSS marked the 1st summer school collaboration between our Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law, and our Belgium partner, the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies at the University of Leuven, one of Europe’s premier institutions of higher education since its founding in 1425.

At the same time, it contributed to Georgia Law’s long tradition of summer study in Belgium – a tradition that began in 1973 as the Brussels Seminar led by the late Professor Gabriel N. Wilner and supported by another Georgia Law professor, our Center’s namesake, Dean Rusk. Over the years hundreds of U.S. and European law students took part, sometimes launching careers in global practice. We’re proud to have continued the tradition with this year’s GGSS.

Leuven streetscape

As previously posted, our 2017 GGSS journey began at The Hague, political capital of the Netherlands, where students received professional development briefings at the International Criminal Court, the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, and the International Court of Justice.

The Leuven Institute is housed in the buildings of an Irish College founded in 1607

We then moved to Leuven, a centuries-old Flanders city about 15 miles west of Brussels. The lovely Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe was our home base for the week of June 25. Days were intense, while summery weather, late-evening sunsets, and endless lanes of historic buildings and convivial sidewalk cafes made for relaxing evenings.

The week began with students taking part in classroom seminars:

Leuven Professor Jan Wouters introduces global governance

Day 1 focused on “Global Governance and International Law: Concepts, Norms, Actors, and Processes,” and featured 4 lectures: “Global Governance: An Introduction” by Leuven Law Professor Jan Wouters, GGSS Co-Director and Leuven Centre Director; “A Classic Account of International Law” by Professor Diane Marie Amann, GGSS Co-Director; “International Organizations as Rulemakers” by Dr. Philip De Man, Leuven Centre Senior Researcher; “Why Global Governance?” by Georgia Law Professor Harlan G. Cohen.

Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann examines relationship between armed conflict and extraction of oil and other natural resources

Day 2 covered “Global Economic and Trade Governance,” with these lectures: “Concepts, Principles, and Issues: Global Economic and Trade Law” by Georgia Law Professor Cohen; “A Legal Perspective on Global Economic and Trade Law” by Leuven Law Professor Geert Van Calster; “International Commercial Responsibility” by Georgia Law Professor Amann; and “A Political Economic Perspective on Global Economic and Trade Governance” by Dean Bart Kerremans, head of Leuven’s Faculty of Social Sciences.

Leiden Professor Horst Fischer surveys human rights institutions

Day 3 shifted to “Global Human Rights, Rule of Law, and Security Governance.” Leiden Law Professor Horst Fischer began with a lecture on “Human Rights Governance”; then followed a lecture on “Rule of Law Governance” by as Dr. Nicolas Hachez, Leuven Centre Senior Researcher. The afternoon kicked off with a conversation on the practice of human rights law between Alison A. Smith, Legal Counsel at the Brussels NGO No Peace Without Justice, and Georgia Law Professor Amann.

Rusk Interim Director Kathleen A. Doty summarizes arms control law to prepare students for treaty negotiation exercise

Our Center’s Interim Director, Kathleen A. Doty, then led the GGSS students’ simulated negotiation of a treaty aimed at controlling the use of drones. The day concluded with a dialogue between Leuven Law Professor Dominik Steiger and Georgia Law Professor Cohen on “Withdrawal from International Organizations and Global Governance.”

These classroom sessions prepared students for Day 4, an expert conference on “International Law and Global Governance in Turbulent Times.”

Dr. Tom Pegram, University College London, addresses conference as panelists and other participants look on

Taking part in the 1st conference panel, “Global Governance of Human Rights,” were: Georgia Law Professor Amann; Leuven Centre researcher Anna-Luise Chané; Mercedes García Pérez, Head of Division-Human Rights, European External Action Service; Dr. Tom Pegram, Senior Lecturer, University College London; and Katrien Meuwissen, Development Officer, European Network of National Human Rights Institutions.

Speaking at the conference panel on “Global Governance of Democracy and Rule of Law” were: Bologna Political Science Professor Daniela Piana; Leuven Researcher Dr. Mattieu Burnay; Professor Laurent Pech, Middlesex University London; Leuven researcher Tim Courthaut; and Dr. Petra Bard of the Central European University-Budapest.

Georgia Law Professor Harlan G. Cohen (3d from right) speaks on developments in international trade

Closing the conference was a panel on “Global Economic and Trade Governance in Protectionist Times,” featuring Professor Miles Kahler, American University; Professor John Kirton, University of Toronto; Georgia Law Professor Cohen; Tomas Baert, European Commission, Head of Unit Trade Strategy; Professor Jean-Christophe Defraigne, Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles; and Professor Pieter de Wilde, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

GGSS concluded with a day in Brussels, capital of Belgium and home to many European and international legal institutions.

At NATO HQ in Brussels on final day of Global Governance Summer School: from left, Nils Okeson, Brian Griffin, Jennifer Cotton, Wade Herring, Nicholas Duffey, James Cox, Kathleen A. Doty, Kristopher Kobl, Lyddy O’Brien, Casey Callaghan, Ezra Thompson, Diane Marie Amann, Evans Horsley, and Eduard Snijders

Students took a morning tour of the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. There they learned about the work of NATO’s lawyers from member of the NATO Office of Legal Affairs, headed by Steven Hill. They lunched among NATO staffers and uniformed personnel from NATO’s 29 member states.

Alumnus Stephen Spinks briefs students on global legal practice

In Brussels’ “European quarter,” students stopped at the European Parliamentarium and then took part in a briefing at Sidley Austin LLP, a global law firm whose law practice all manner of global law fields, including trade, environment, life sciences, data privacy, and dispute settlement. Leading the briefing (right) was the managing partner of Sidley’s Brussels office, Stephen O. Spinks, who is a Georgia Law alumnus and member of our Dean Rusk International Law Center Council. As Spinks told student, he himself had studied in GGSS’ forerunner, the Brussels Seminar. He returned after receiving his J.D. degree, earned a master’s degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and began his career as a specialist in trade and competition/antitrust, law. Sprinks’ inspiring story capped a great week for students, many of whom are spending the balance of summer at Global Externships.

Poster outside the Koninklijk Paleis van Brussel, or Royal Palace of Brussels