Events and Announcements: September 7, 2019

Announcements

I am delighted to announce that CUP has recently published Freya Baetens’ new book, Legitimacy of Unseen Actors in International Adjudication. Here’s the publisher’s description:

International courts and tribunals differ in their institutional composition and functions, but a shared characteristic is their reliance on the contribution of individuals other than the judicial decision-makers themselves. Such ‘unseen actors’ may take the form of registrars and legal officers, but also non-lawyers such as translators and scientific experts. Unseen actors are vital to the functioning of international adjudication, exerting varying levels of influence on judicial processes and outcomes. The opaqueness of their roles, combined with the significance of judicial decisions for the parties involved as well as a wider range of stakeholders, raises questions about unseen actors’ impact on the legitimacy of international dispute settlement. This book aims to answer such legitimacy questions and identify ‘best practices’ through a multifaceted enquiry into common connections and patterns in the institutional composition and daily practice of international courts and tribunals.

Professor Baetens has been doing exciting work at PluriCourts for quite some time. In her new book, Freya pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of international courts and tribunals, exposes the important role of those actors who may not appear in the courtroom but who nevertheless contribute greatly to the litigation process, and raises thought-provoking questions about the legitimacy of those unseen actors with respect to the outcomes of international adjudication. Freya Baetens’ new book is a must read for international practitioners and academics alike.

Call for Papers

• The Transnational Law Institute at King’s College London in partnership with the International Law Department of the Graduate Institute Geneva is hosting a workshop in preparation of a special issue publication in Transnational Legal Theory on Bringing the “human problem” back into transnational law: The example of corporate (ir)responsibility. The workshop will take place on 19-20 March 2020 at King‘s College London. Using the example of corporate (ir)responsibility, the workshop and subsequent publication aim to refocus transnational law as an analytical framework on the concrete, border-transcending human problems that it had once set out to address. Our objective is to critically discuss some of the ‘theory-focused’ developments in transnational law scholarship and explore the analytical benefits of a ‘problem-focused’ transnational law based on several case studies of corporate (ir)responsibility in thematic areas such as environmental protection, climate change and food security, resource extraction and global supply chains, migration, economic competition and crimes, data protection, cyber security and artificial intelligence. The workshop is free to attend, and a limited number of travel and accommodation stipends are available upon request. In case of interest, please submit an abstract of your paper proposaland a short biography by 1 October 2019. Draft papers will need to be provided by 15 February 2020 for circulation (final papers circa 8000 words). For more information and proposal submissions, please contact: bringingthehumanproblemback [at] gmail [dot] com. For the complete call for papers, please see here or here.  
• The Cyprus Society of Historical Studies in collaboration with the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Cyprus; the School of Law, University of Nicosia; and the Department of History, Political and International Studies, Neapolis University of Pafos, invite submissions for a two-day international conference on Colonial Cyprus (1878-1960) to be held in Nicosia on 7 – 8 February 2020. The conference will be held in memoriam of Aristides Koudounaris (1936-2018), late President and founder of the Cypriot Society of Historical Studies. The conference will address the historical aspects of the British era of Cyprus, including political, social and cultural history through original submissions. Original contributions with a focus on personalities and specific events of the British Era are particularly welcome. Interested scholars should email an abstract no longer than 500 words by 15 November 15 2019 to: ofakoglou [dot] d [at] unic [dot] ac [dot] cy. Papers can be presented in either English or Greek. Scholars should identify their submission with the following subject line: “Conference on Colonial Cyprus – Abstract Submission”. Scholars whose abstract has been accepted will be notified no later than 5 December 2019. There are no fees to participate in this Conference. Participants are, however, responsible for securing their own funding for travel and lodging. Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of The Cyprus Review, The Yearbook of the Cyprus Society of Historical Studies and/or a Conference proceedings volume. More information on the Conference and CfP can be found in English (here) and in Greek (here). Please direct inquiries in connection with this Conference to Dr Emilios A. Solomou: solomou [dot] e [at] unic [dot] ac [dot] cy.
• The Junior International Law Scholars Association (JILSA) is holding its annual meeting on Friday, 10 January 2020, at Cornell Law School. JILSA is an informal network of junior scholars at mostly American law schools who gather annually for a self-funded workshop. Junior faculty and fellows interested in workshopping a project at the meeting should email proposals to Pamela Bookman (pbookman [at] fordham [dot] edu) and Maggie Gardner (mgardner [at] cornell [dot] edu) by Friday, 25 October 2019. If you are interested in presenting a working draft, please send us the title, an abstract, and an indication of how far along the paper is. If the paper is accepted for the workshop, please be prepared to circulate a draft by late December 2019. We aim to accommodate as many proposals as possible, but preference will be given to scholars who did not present last year and to works that have not yet been accepted for publication. We also workshop early stage projects.  If you are interested in presenting on an early stage project, please let us know the working title and a few lines about the idea you are pursuing. Finally, if you are willing to be a commentator, please let us know.

UN Audiovisual Library

• The Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs recently added the following lecture to the Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law website: Ms Elvira Méndez Chang on “International Dispute Resolution” (in Spanish). The Audiovisual Library is also available as a podcast, which can be accessed through the preinstalled applications in Apple or Google devices, through Soundcloudor through the podcast application of your preference by searching “Audiovisual Library of International Law”.

If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact John Heieck at eventsandannouncements [at] gmail [dot] com with a one-paragraph description of your announcement along with hyperlinks to more information.