LCIL International Law Centre Podcast

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Professor Daniel Bodansky will speak about ‘Law and Politics in the UN Climate Regime: A Preview of the Santiago Climate Conference.’ Followed by a Q&A. Is implementation of the Paris Agreement on track? What are the Agreement's prospects for success? The talk will review developments in the international climate change regime, including the recently concluded UN Climate Change Summit, analyze the state of play in the UNFCCC regime, and preview the upcoming conference of the parties (COP25) in Santiago in December. Professor Daniel Bodansky is Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He served as Climate Change Coordinator at the U.S. State Department from 1999-2001. His book, The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law, received the 2011 Sprout Award from the International Studies Association as the best book that year in the field of international environmental studies. His latest book, International Climate Change Law, co-authored with Jutta Brunnée and Lavanya Rajamani, was published by Oxford University Press in June 2017, and received the 2018 Certificate of Merit from the American Society of International Law as the best book in a specialized area of international law published the previous year. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a graduate of Harvard (A.B.), Cambridge (M.Phil.) and Yale (J.D.).

Lecture summary: Civil war is the greatest military challenge of our time in terms of real time suffering. The mere mention of Afghanistan, Congo, Libya, Somalia, and Syria supports the point. Internal conflicts like these not only result in mass death and destruction of the built and natural environments, they leave populations traumatized for generations. And they impact life far beyond the places of fighting. Mass migration from these wars is helping to trigger demagoguery and destabilization seen around the world. International lawyers are engaged with many of the issues raised by civil war, yet they have done relatively little work on the central questions of whether resort to armed rebellion and intervention in them are lawful. The lecture will investigate the lack of attention to these core questions. It will reveal the long-running, unresolved debate over the morality of resort to civil war. Without a consensus on the moral question, the law remained equivocal. Does that remain true today? Mary Ellen O'Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution—Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. Professor O’Connell holds a BA in history from Northwestern University, an MSc in International Relations from LSE, an LLB and PhD from the University of Cambridge, and a JD from Columbia University. She has served as a vice president of the American Society of International Law and chaired the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association. Before Notre Dame, she was a faculty member at The Ohio State University, the Johns Hopkins University Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Bologna Center, and Indiana University. She was a professional military educator for the U.S. Department of Defense in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and practiced law with the Washington, D.C.-based international law firm, Covington & Burling. She also worked as Sir Elihu Lauterpacht’s research assistant. Useful links: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/art-of-law-in-the-international-community/15625F4C8A1B44E00774E078910F7CEA https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/the-hague-academy-collected-courses/*-ej.9789004297647.053_312 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/human-rights-and-personal-self-defense-in-international-law-9780190655020?cc=us&lang=en

Lecture Summary: If a state withdraws from a treaty in a manner that violates its own domestic law, will this withdrawal take effect in international law? The decisions to join and withdraw from treaties are both aspects of the state’s treaty-making capacity. However, while international law provides a role for domestic legal requirements in the international validity of a state’s consent when joining a treaty, it is silent on this question in relation to treaty withdrawal. This lecture will consider this issue in light of recent controversies concerning treaty withdrawal – including the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, South Africa’s possible withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, and the threatened US denunciation of the Paris Agreement - and will propose that the law of treaties should be interpreted so as to develop international legal recognition for domestic rules on treaty withdrawal equivalent to that when states join treaties, such that a manifest violation of domestic law may invalidate a state’s treaty withdrawal in international law. Dr Hannah Woolaver is an Associate Professor in International Law at the Public Law Department of the University of Cape Town. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Prior to coming to UCT, Hannah was awarded an LLB (First Class) at the University of Durham, BCL (Distinction) at the University of Oxford, and PhD at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge. Her doctoral thesis examined the principles of equality of States and non-intervention in relation to failed, rogue, and undemocratic States in international law. She teaches public international law and international criminal law at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and also supervises postgraduate research in these areas. Hannah is a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for the Michaelmas Term 2019.

Lecture summary: For many years now Research & Scholarship have become the Alpha and Omega of academic life. Think of the Research Excellence Framework and the cascading effect it has had on the life of UK universities. Think of all other forms of rankings, institutional and individual, which try (miserably) to quantify quality of research, institutional and individual and the effect this has on the recruitment of staff and students and on the career paths of young scholars. Think of money -- public funding, research grants and the like and the impact this, mammon, has on academic life. Though we continue to pay lip service to the importance of teaching, nobody can question that it ranks much lower in how we rank academic excellence.The most coveted appointment as a Research Professor (with less or no teaching) sends an undeniable signal and one does not get a grant which enables a buyout from research in order to focus on teaching. Most professors and lecturers fulfill their teaching duties faithfully, but it is a duty and few, especially in the major Research Universities think of their vocation as educators. One does not naturally think of teaching as worth spending the time, thought and creativity in the same manner we do on our "research". Most dream of being Great Scholars, not great teachers and educators. And if they did, the system would not prize them for that. Distinguished Lectures are typically meant to be an occasion to engage with the latest and most profound in scholarship. A good part of my scholarly effort is dedicated to thinking about how knowledge, insight and creativity can be translated and brought into the classroom. By this I do not mean rhetoric or teaching techniques, or teaching how to do research but the most profound and effective way of engaging our students with the actual content of that which it is our responsibility to teach. A well designed and creative class should, but does not in today's academia, count as much as a well designed and creative article. Taking this route will not, I hope, only honor the memory of Eli Lauterpacht in the most meaningful way I can think of, but perhaps also make a more lasting contribution than any 'scholarly' lecture. Professor Weiler is University Professor at NYU Law School and Senior Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard. Until recently he served as President of the European University Institute, Florence. Prof Weiler is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) and the International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON).

Lecture Summary: While sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) provide significant opportunities for countries to finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such investments often raise environmental, social, and governance (ESG) questions in host countries. This lecture analyzes the role of international law in addressing ESG risks in transnational SWF investments. It discusses the guiding principles of socially responsible SWF investments in international law. Dr Damilola OlawuyiDamilola S. Olawuyi is an expert in energy, environment and sustainable development law. He is an Associate Professor of Law at the HBKU Law School, Doha, Qatar, and Director of the Institute for Oil, Gas, Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development (OGEES Institute), Nigeria. He is currently a Herbert Smith Freehills Visiting Professor at Cambridge Law Faculty. His most recent book publications are Extractives Industry Law in Africa (Springer, 2018) and The Human Rights-Based Approach to Carbon Finance (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Dr. Olawuyi has lectured on energy and environmental law in over 40 countries. Dr. Olawuyi serves on the executive committees and boards of several organizations. He is Vice Chair of the International Law Association; co-chair of the Africa Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (2016-2019); and member of the Academic Advisory Group of the International Bar Association’s Section on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law (SEERIL). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy.

Lecture summary: How has imperialism as a system determined the origins, nature and trajectory of international law? Is it possible for international law as a body of rules, as system of norms, as a set of institutions, to help create a more just and progressive world order in a world that continues to be shaped by imperialism? This lecture will provide a brief look at the various and arguably limited attempts by international law as a field to engage with the issue of imperialism, focusing in particular on the critical importance and need of a Marxist approach. Professor Latha Varadarajan is a Professor of Political Science, and the Director of the Center on International Security and Conflict Resolution at San Diego State University. She is the author of The Domestic Abroad: Diasporas in International Relations (OUP, 2010) and Imperialism Past and Present (with Emanuele Saccarelli, OUP, 2015). Her articles on transnationalism, nationalism and imperialism have been published in journals including The European Journal of International Relations, International Relations, New Political Science, and Review of International Studies.

Catherine Barnard, a Professor of European Union Law at the University of Cambridge, delves into the complexities of Brexit and its impact on multilateralism. She discusses the paradox of Brexit, emphasizing the tension with institutions like the European Court of Justice and the WTO. Barnard highlights the duty of sincere cooperation in UK-EU relations post-Brexit, outlining the challenges and potential for collaboration, especially in employment law. Her insights shed light on the shifting landscape of international cooperation and trade.

Tuesday, 30 April 2019 - 9.00am Location: Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Finley Library All-day workshop: 09:00 - 17:00 hrs Conveners: Eyal Benvenisti, Harold Hongju Koh, and Tomohiro Mikanagi In 2019 three major treaty withdrawals will reach important watersheds. Sometime in spring, the United Kingdom is scheduled to withdraw from the European Union under the withdrawal notice it gave under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. On November 4, 2019, the United States (under the administration of Donald Trump) is set to give notice that it will withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Accord one year later. In November 2019 the dispute resolution mechanism of the WTO will terminate effectively unless the US agrees to re-appoint a judge of the Appellate Body. These events may be seen as signaling a decline in leading states’ commitment to multilateralism and a growing preference to bilateralism. The Trump administration has clearly asserted its preference for bilateral deals while dismissing international organisations as taking advantage of US generosity. China also seems to prefer alternative groupings outside existing multilateral organisations. In October 2007, during its ascent to global power, China declared FTAs to be its basic international economic strategy. America’s disengagement from multilateralism did not prompt China to fill the void by reinforcing existing multilateral bodies with global reach. Instead, its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its regional security arrangements are modelled on the “hub and spokes” pattern, an architecture that allows it to tightly control its numerous partners and limit the application of existing standards and mechanisms. Famously, it ignored the UNCLOS arbitral award on the South China Sea in 2016. Perhaps to confront the risk of two superpowers busy dividing and ruling the rest, other countries have sought to preserve the minilateral institutions (eg the CPTPP) and utilise existing multilateral mechanisms (WTO reforms, UNCLOS conciliation and arbitration, OPCW attribution mechanism, etc.). In this workshop we wish to address the uncertain future of multilateralism in light of the prospective withdrawals and resurgence of bilateralism. We wish to discuss motivations, prospects, and implications for domestic and international law. This one day workshop seeks to reflect on the questions. In particular we wish to address the following questions: Panel I: The Domestic and International Legal Issues Surrounding US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and Revising the WTO Since 2017, the Trump Administration has announced its withdrawal from a host of bilateral and multilateral arrangements, including the Paris Climate Agreement; the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or Iran Nuclear Deal); the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; the Global Compact on Migration; the U.N. Human Rights Council; the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Relations with Iran; the 1961 Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention for Diplomatic Relations on Dispute Settlement; the Universal Postal Union Treaty; and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. This panel will address the following questions, among others – Is the Trump Administration aberrational, or are we witnessing the culmination of a long-term trend of U.S. withdrawal from multilateralist institutions? To what extent has the Trump Administration applied tactics first adopted by prior administrations: e.g., blocking reappointment of members of the WTO Appellate Body? What constraints do U.S. and international law place upon blanket unilateral presidential withdrawal from all disfavored organizations? Panel II: The Domestic and International Legal Issues Surrounding China’s “Hub and Spoke” Strategy This panel will address the following questions, among others – Is China accepting the existing multilateral legal rules and mechanisms in economic and non-economic areas? Is China deviating from international standards (including with respect to ISDS) in its various legal arrangements under BRI? Is China deviating from UNCLOS in the South China Sea, including through bilateral COC negotiation? Panel III: The Future of Rule-Based Global Governance through International Institutions: Limits and Potential What are the prospects for international institutions to reclaim multilateralism through concerted action, or through insistence on multilaterally binding norms? To what extent can the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, or other international organisations and tribunals can contribute to maintaining and developing further globally-binding norms? To what extent can international process enhance the rule-based global governance through the clarification of law and facts? The UK and the Changing Legal Landscape: The Way Forward from Here

Tuesday, 30 April 2019 - 9.00am Location: Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Finley Library All-day workshop: 09:00 - 17:00 hrs Conveners: Eyal Benvenisti, Harold Hongju Koh, and Tomohiro Mikanagi In 2019 three major treaty withdrawals will reach important watersheds. Sometime in spring, the United Kingdom is scheduled to withdraw from the European Union under the withdrawal notice it gave under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. On November 4, 2019, the United States (under the administration of Donald Trump) is set to give notice that it will withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Accord one year later. In November 2019 the dispute resolution mechanism of the WTO will terminate effectively unless the US agrees to re-appoint a judge of the Appellate Body. These events may be seen as signaling a decline in leading states’ commitment to multilateralism and a growing preference to bilateralism. The Trump administration has clearly asserted its preference for bilateral deals while dismissing international organisations as taking advantage of US generosity. China also seems to prefer alternative groupings outside existing multilateral organisations. In October 2007, during its ascent to global power, China declared FTAs to be its basic international economic strategy. America’s disengagement from multilateralism did not prompt China to fill the void by reinforcing existing multilateral bodies with global reach. Instead, its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its regional security arrangements are modelled on the “hub and spokes” pattern, an architecture that allows it to tightly control its numerous partners and limit the application of existing standards and mechanisms. Famously, it ignored the UNCLOS arbitral award on the South China Sea in 2016. Perhaps to confront the risk of two superpowers busy dividing and ruling the rest, other countries have sought to preserve the minilateral institutions (eg the CPTPP) and utilise existing multilateral mechanisms (WTO reforms, UNCLOS conciliation and arbitration, OPCW attribution mechanism, etc.). In this workshop we wish to address the uncertain future of multilateralism in light of the prospective withdrawals and resurgence of bilateralism. We wish to discuss motivations, prospects, and implications for domestic and international law. This one day workshop seeks to reflect on the questions. In particular we wish to address the following questions: Panel I: The Domestic and International Legal Issues Surrounding US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and Revising the WTO Since 2017, the Trump Administration has announced its withdrawal from a host of bilateral and multilateral arrangements, including the Paris Climate Agreement; the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or Iran Nuclear Deal); the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; the Global Compact on Migration; the U.N. Human Rights Council; the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations and Consular Relations with Iran; the 1961 Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention for Diplomatic Relations on Dispute Settlement; the Universal Postal Union Treaty; and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. This panel will address the following questions, among others – Is the Trump Administration aberrational, or are we witnessing the culmination of a long-term trend of U.S. withdrawal from multilateralist institutions? To what extent has the Trump Administration applied tactics first adopted by prior administrations: e.g., blocking reappointment of members of the WTO Appellate Body? What constraints do U.S. and international law place upon blanket unilateral presidential withdrawal from all disfavored organizations? Panel II: The Domestic and International Legal Issues Surrounding China’s “Hub and Spoke” Strategy This panel will address the following questions, among others – Is China accepting the existing multilateral legal rules and mechanisms in economic and non-economic areas? Is China deviating from international standards (including with respect to ISDS) in its various legal arrangements under BRI? Is China deviating from UNCLOS in the South China Sea, including through bilateral COC negotiation? Panel III: The Future of Rule-Based Global Governance through International Institutions: Limits and Potential What are the prospects for international institutions to reclaim multilateralism through concerted action, or through insistence on multilaterally binding norms? To what extent can the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, or other international organisations and tribunals can contribute to maintaining and developing further globally-binding norms? To what extent can international process enhance the rule-based global governance through the clarification of law and facts? The UK and the Changing Legal Landscape: The Way Forward from Here