Events and Announcements: 31 March 2021

Call for Papers

Two-day international conference on secondary sanctions: On Thursday 2 and Friday 3 December 2021, the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI) and the Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE) will host a two-day international conference on secondary sanctions. The conference seeks to explore both the international legal framework governing such sanctions and the potential remedies to challenge them, as well as how these measures may shape the international legal order. The conference will feature separate panels devoted to discuss the impact of secondary sanctions; their compatibility with the law of jurisdiction and international economic law, and; to commercial practices and domestic litigation pertaining to secondary sanctions. A final panel will offer an outlook for the future, having regard, for instance, to the preparation of an EU ‘anti-coercion instrument’. In addition, the organizers are inviting promising legal scholars in an earlier stage of their academic career to submit an abstract to participate in a panel dedicated to ‘emerging voices’. Abstracts (of 500 words max) must be submitted by e-mail to a[dot]s[dot]hofer[at]uu[dot]nl before 30 June 2021 and should be accompanied by a brief CV. Further information on the Call for Abstracts (including an indicative list of potential themes), as well as a provisional conference programme can be found here.

Nordic Journal of Human Rights: The Future of Human Rights: The editors of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights are pleased to announce a call for papers to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the journal entitled ‘The Future of Human Rights’. For the 40th anniversary of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights – a leading forum for interdisciplinary exchanges on human rights in the Nordic region and beyond – we invite papers that provide insights on the future development of human rights. We call for papers that are theoretically informed, empirically grounded and methodologically rigorous in their ambitions to advance not only the academic study of human rights, but also its relevance to reflective practice in the real-world (Corley and Gioia, 2011). Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: a new climate, new regimes, new world order(s), new institutions, new actors, new technologies, sustainable development, new (armed) conflicts, and new issues. The deadline for abstracts (350-500 words) and CV/bios (150 words) is 25 June 2021. The selection of abstracts will occur by 30 June 2021. For more information about the CfP, go here.

“Mass Trials for Mass Violence?” – International Bilingual Symposium: 75 years after Nuremberg, what happened to “maxi-trials” that saw dozens of criminals — Nazis, or Japanese nationals before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East — prosecuted and judged together? Despite their shortcomings or even failures, their historical legacy persists. Given the chronic crisis faced by international criminal justice, would collective trials be possible and desirable today? The expressions “mass trial” and “maxi-trial” convey diverse realities. One is the emphasis on class-actions, that bring together several victims allying against a company, a State or, more rarely, one or a few individuals. In the criminal realm, “mass trials” and “maxi-trials” are reminiscent of the ones held against the Italian mafia since the 1980s, and more recently against the Calabrian mafia within the bunker court of Lamezia Terme. What these civil and criminal variants have in common is a desire to aggregate judicial action for the sake of efficiency, but also for symbolic purposes. However, no “mass trial” or “maxi-trial” has been held on the international level for international crimes since Nuremberg and Tokyo. On this anniversary, could one imagine such trials involving dozens of defendants being tried simultaneously occurring again? Given the criticisms levelled at international criminal justice in terms of its administration, costs, and length of its proceedings, the benefits of collective trials may seem attractive: economies of scale, additional resources, shorter deadlines, an increased exemplariness, etc. Mass trials have a symbolic potential that exceeds that of prosecutions based on the idea of individual responsibility, even though the collective dimension of international crimes is increasingly recognised. Why would the international community be reluctant to display its power and repressive arsenal in this way? These questions, among others, will be the object of an international, bilingual, and hybrid symposium — in person, if possible, at each of the host institutions — jointly organised by the Université libre de Bruxelles (Centre de recherches en droit pénal) and McGill University (Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism) for the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg judgment, on 4 October 2021. Proposals (in French or English) of no more than 500 words, accompanied by a short biographical note (in a single document), should be sent no later than 15 June 2021 to the attention of Marie-Laurence Hébert-Dolbec, Frédéric Mégret, and Damien Scalia, to the following address: masstrial[at]ulb[dot]be. For more information, see the attached PDF.

Events

Honest Errors? – Online Conference on Combat Decision Autonomy 75 Years After the Hostage Case: Dr. Nobuo Hayashi and Associate Professor Carola Lingaas are pleased to announce the international conference (on Zoom) on the topic of ‘Honest Errors? – Combat Decision Autonomy 75 Years after the Hostage Case’ on 4 June 2021 from 12:00 – 17:00. The online conference is co-organized by the Swedish Defence University Centre for International and Operational Law; VID Specialized University; the Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare, United States Military Academy at West Point; and the Asser Institute’s Designing International Law and Ethics into Military Artificial Intelligence (DILEMA). For full details about this event, go here.

Workshop on ‘Interpretation in International Law: Rules, Content, and Evolution’: The TRICI-Law project and the Department of Transboundary Legal Studies of the University of Groningen have the pleasure to invite you to a workshop on ‘Interpretation in International Law: Rules, Content, and Evolution’ which will take place online on 11 June 2021. The workshop will examine current trends in the study of interpretation in international law. It will take stock of developments in treaty interpretation and examine issues of interpretation of international law stemming from other sources including customary international law, unilateral acts of states, and acts of international organisations. Confirmed participants include: Professor Hélène Ruiz Fabri (MPI Luxembourg), Professor Gleider Hernández (KU Leuven and Open Universiteit); Professor Photini Pazartzi (Athens); Professor Kirsten Schmalenbach (Salzburg); Professor Ramses Wessel (Groningen); Dr Odile Ammann (Zurich); Dr Irina Buga (De Brauw); Dr Eva Kassoti (Asser Institute); Dr Daniel Peat (Leiden), and Dr Efthymios Papastavridis (Oxford; Athens). Please find more details about the programme and registration here. You are welcome to register for free. This workshop is part of the project ‘The Rules of Interpretation of Customary International Law’ (‘TRICI-Law’). This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement No 759728). 

Jobs

Call for Applications: Funded PhD in International Human Rights Law: The Department of Law and Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London is inviting students to apply for a full-time scholarship for a PhD on International Human Rights Futures. Proposals are sought in two areas, including theoretical rethinking, reimagining, and reconstructing IHRL and/or the use of strategic litigation. More details about the topics, eligibility, supervision, and contact details can be found here. The closing date for applications is Friday 18 June 2021 5pm GMT. Interviews are expected to take place at the end of June-beginning of July.

Legal Officer: Reparation (Human Rights Sanctions): REDRESS is an international human rights organisation based in London and The Hague that represents victims of torture to obtain justice and reparation. We bring legal cases on behalf of individual victims of torture, and advocate for better laws to provide effective reparations. Our cases respond to torture as an individual crime in national and international law, and as a human rights violation with state responsibility. We apply our expertise in torture, reparation, and the rights of victims to national and international courts. Through our victim-centred strategic litigation we are able to have an impact beyond the individual case to address the root causes of torture and to challenge impunity. We conduct research and advocacy to identify the changes in law, policy and practice that are necessary. We work collaboratively with international and national organisations and grassroots victims’ groups. We are hiring a Legal Officer for the Reparation Programme, the application of which is due 1 June 2021 at 10:00 am London time. For full details of the position, go here.

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