Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

...number of aspects regarding the definition of “aiding and abetting” differ when compared between the UN ad hoc Tribunals, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the ICC (these aspects are highlighted in further detail in the article). In conclusion, international awareness fosters that corporate actors involved in business within zones of ongoing armed conflict often fuel and exacerbate these conflicts. It is now time to adjust the system of international criminal justice to the modern landscape of perpetrators of the worst crimes in armed conflict – including corporate actors....

...an interesting and well thought through contribution by Dr Ambach which provides a very useful route into this important arena of international law for both the scholar and practitioner alike. He, in my view, rightly concludes that it is time to adjust the system on international criminal justice to the ‘modern landscape of perpetrators of the worst crimes in armed conflict’. This is a proposition difficult to argue against at any level. The reticence of some States to move this area of law forward in a decisive common international endeavour...

...the latter, via renvoi (see also A. Gourgourinis, ‘Lex Specialis in WTO and Investment Protection Law’, German Yearbook of International Law 53 (2010): 591). Accordingly, tribunals did not deal (and needed not deal) with the question of existence state practice and opinio juris regarding MST, but rather sought to answer the question regarding the content of FET (and, by implication, MST). Hence, arbitral tribunals called upon to interpret and apply FET clauses reflecting MST have advanced the position that the content of MST is not static. I do not see...

[Robert Howse is the Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at NYU School of Law] When International Law Works is a wide-ranging work with many important and original claims and arguments. Particularly congenial is the approach that the real world effects of international law be examined not through narrow studies of rule “compliance” but in a manner that takes into account the importance of the moral meaning(s) of international law. Professor Cheng’s colleague Ruti Teitel and I have pleaded for such a broader approach-transcending the fact/value distinction...

alike. He also seeks to move the debate beyond formal arguments about what is and what is not allowed under existing law toward consideration of a new legal regime that would provide the government with needed flexibility while protecting individual liberties. I am sure that this is an essay–and a book–that will interest many Opinio Juris readers. So check out the essay (if not the book) and start thinking-up some comments as Ben Wittes and others will be joining us next month for an Opinio Juris symposium on his book....

...to challenge regulatory efforts aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. Since these policies often impose costs on particular investors e.g. by regulating the use of land or by increasing manufacturing costs, they may expose states to investment claims under an IIA. In response, states have sought to create space for green policies in their IIAs. Some agreements include a reference to the objective of combating climate change in the preamble of the agreement. Others include climate change related exceptions into the treaty text. Some treaties also have references to multinational environmental...

[Andrea K. Bjorklund is the L. Yves Fortier Chair in International Arbitration and International Commercial Law at McGill University Faculty of Law, Canada] Mr. Alschner and Ms. Tuerk’s contribution very usefully highlights three areas where international investment law and sustainable development principles may intersect: climate change, industrial policy, and corporate social responsibility. This precision is particularly valuable given the less-than-concrete nature of the idea of “sustainable development”. Two common threads running through each section are the essential participation of the host state in fostering sustainable development and the...

[Moshe Hirsch is Professor of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law.] Sociology of international law involves the study of how social factors influence the development and enforcement of international law. As elaborated below, sociological analysis casts a new light on a significant dimension of the relationships between different branches of international law, and enriches our understanding of social factors involved in in legal decision-makers’ inclination to incorporate or reject legal rules developed in other branches of international law. This chapter aims to analyze...

[Frederik Rogiers is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant at the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute and Ghent Maritime Institute, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University] On 12 April 2026, following the collapse of the Islamabad talks, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States Navy would impose a “naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz”. Within twenty-four hours, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) restated the operation in markedly narrower terms: its press release announced that: “the blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels...

...treaties among SADC Members – thereby imitating the model of the Court of Justice of the European Union. A particular feature is that it allows individuals to bring cases under certain circumstances. What was so special in the mentioned decision is that the tribunal had to address the issue of expropriation without being able to apply the rules on foreign direct investment (FDI) that have been negotiated in the meantime among SADC members. In the absence of such applicable rules the tribunal used the general reference to human rights in...

...faithful adherence to the basic rules of treaty interpretation, when it comes to article 17 of the Statute we seem to want something different? The struggle to find an answer to this riddle underlies Christian De Vos’s review of the Court’s case law and practice. His book offers a kaleidoscopic review of the many implications of the ICC’s jurisprudence and the impact or perceptions it has generated, and the extent to which it has helped or inhibited the catalytic potential of complementarity. De Vos appears to take a more nuanced...

In all the amused press notices about George Washington’s (very) overdue library books, one small detail is worth noting. The library’s ledgers show that Washington took out the books on 5 October 1789, some five months into his presidency at a time when New York was still the capital. They were an essay on international affairs called Law of Nations and the twelfth volume of a 14-volume collection of debates from the English House of Commons. (Emphasis added). Actually, the “Law of Nations” as most of our readers know, is...