Events and Announcements: May 10, 2015

Events

• On May 14, 2014, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law is hosting: Interpretation in International Law: The Object, the Players, the Rules, and the Strategies. Interpretation in international law is usually referred to as an art or a science. These perspectives imply that interpretation is a static exercise, tied to the rules in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). However, in today’s international legal reality, characterised by the proliferation of international judicial bodies and a variety of participants before them, such understandings have become too narrow. Although the VCLT remains the primary legal source, there is no doubt that interpretation in international law has become a complex and purposeful process, which involves numerous players (litigators, judges, academics, NGO counsels, legal advisers) who devise various strategies to bring a case to a persuasive conclusion. This event will explore the dynamic understanding of interpretation of international law before international and English courts. A drinks reception will follow. Please register here.
• On May 17-18, 2015, the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law is hosting Constitutional Conflicts and the Judicial Role in Comparative Perspective. This conference, which marks the launch of the Israeli Supreme Court Project at Cardozo Law, will explore the Court’s jurisprudence on complex and challenging questions facing open and multi-cultural societies everywhere. Because these issues are salient in, but by no means peculiar to, Israel, a comparative perspective will enrich our understanding of how such issues are, and might be, dealt with in other democratic societies. Panels will address the general question of the value and challenges of comparative legal study, differing conceptions of the role of the judiciary and doctrines of justiciability, and substantive areas of current controversy, including the role of the courts in overseeing national security and intelligence gathering; immigration, asylum, and treatment and status of refugees; and religion in the modern nation-state. The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please email ISCP@yu.edu with your name, affiliation, and contact information. More information found here.

Announcements

• The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website, which provides high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients around the world free of charge. The latest lectures were given by Professor Guy S. Goodwin-Gill on “Migrants’ Rights”, Professor Bing Bing Jia on “The Regime of International Straits: Current State of the Law” and by Professor Lea Brilmayer on “The Problem of Secession in International Law”.

Our previous events and announcements post can be found here. If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact us with a one-paragraph description of your announcement along with hyperlinks to more information.