Suchergebnisse

Abstract: The 'unwilling or unable' doctrine is amongst the most contested in contemporary international law. However, this paper is not concerned with whether 'unwilling or unable' accurately reflects the international law of self-defense and force. Rather, drawing from critical security studies, especially those strands that study the relationship between the war on terror, and capitalist accumulation, and critical political economy this paper examines the forms of political economy and statehood implicit in the doctrine. The article argues two things: first, the doctrine envisages a gradated form of sovereignty dedicated to the reproduction of racial capitalism. Secondly, the doctrine incorporates the imperatives of financial capitalism insofar that it seeks to guarantee ongoing demand for military services and equipment into the future.

ABSTRACT
Scholars and practitioners of international investment law have repeatedly attempted to legitimise the field by presenting it as an antidote against the arbitrary and excessive powers of the (postcolonial) state. Early cases, such as AAPL v. Sri Lanka, have contributed to this popular, yet ultimately unpersuasive, argument by seemingly constraining the conduct of warfare in the Global South. My contribution questions this received wisdom and in so doing it shows that repressive state violence is not simply permitted but even mandated by international investment law. My analysis focuses on the obligation of host states to provide 'full protection and security' (FPS) to foreign investors. My argument unfolds in three steps. First, I examine in detail the tribunal's approach to FPS in the von Pezold case, an award that stands out amongst the jurisprudent of investment tribunals due to its explicit engagement with questions of race/ism. Secondly, I construct a theory of FPS that draws from US legal realism in order to show that international investment law does not create bilateral legal relations (state-investor) but rather directly determines (and in particular, diminishes) the sphere of lawful action of a potentially indefinite number of actors subject to the host state's jurisdiction. In other words, I read FPS as a legal standard that aims to create an authoritarian form of statehood and mobilise the state against the exploited and racialised sections of its population. Finally, I link the above observation to broader debates about 'racial capitalism'. I show that the FPS demands a particular form of racial sovereignty in defence of global capitalist accumulation, and it does so as a matter of structural allocation of violence, and not simply due to bigoted or insensitive language.

The revelation of a series of child abuse incidents committed by Catholic priests and other members of religious orders has given rise to the question of establishing the responsibility of the Holy See for these acts under international human rights law. This article focuses on the report issued in 2014 by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the monitoring body of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (crc). It is argued that in order to fulfil this task we need to take three steps: first, to establish the relationship between the Vatican City state and the Hole See, a distinct and peculiar international legal subject. To do so, a historical account of the Holy See and its position within the fabric of international law is considered necessary. Secondly, this article argues that the crc was ratified by the Holy See both in its capacity as the government of the Vatican City and as a non-territorial legal subject. Hence, the application of the crc is not confined within the limited territory of the Vatican City, but 'follows' the authority of the Holy See irrespective of state borders. Thirdly, it is argued that the vertical, hierarchical structure of the Holy See is homologous to that of the modern state and, therefore, attribution rules can be applied by analogy in this case. The final conclusion is that it is possible to hold the Holy See responsible under the crc for acts of child abuse that occurred under its authority around the globe.

AbstractWhile Western imperialism played a crucial role in the creation of modern international law, it is ever more important to analyze the engagements of non-Western imperialist powers with the field so as to comprehend the changing global patterns of legalized violence and expansionism. In this Essay, we analyze Russia's international legal arguments in support of its use of force against Ukraine through the lens of inter-imperial rivalry. In so doing, we call for strict scrutiny of the deployments of jus ad bellum equally by all imperial powers.

Abstract
Despite minimal prospects of success, international lawyers spent the first few months of the global pandemic discussing whether the rules of state responsibility could be invoked against states, especially China, for their acts and omissions regarding COVID-19. In this piece, we take these debates seriously, if not necessarily literally. We argue that the unrealistic nature of these debates does not make them irrelevant. Rather, we propose an ideology critique of state responsibility as a legal field. Our approach is two-fold. First, we argue these debates need to be situated within the rise of geopolitical competition between the US and its allies on the one hand and China on the other. In this context, state responsibility is always laid at the feet of one's opponents. Secondly, we posit that my emphasising the role of states, recourse to state responsibility renders invisible the role of transnational processes of capitalist production and exchange that have profound effects on nature and set the stage for the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. Drawing from the work of the geographer Neil Smith, we argue against the 'naturalisation' of disasters performed much of the international legal discourse about COVID-19.