LCIL International Law Centre Podcast

Lecture summary: International law still struggles with an understanding of an “international community” that has legally cognizable interests distinguishable from those of individual sovereign States. This international community is imagined variously as the collectivity of sovereign states, an abstract concept of all human beings, an international body or a nongovernmental organization tasked with representing humanity—or even the planet. The further these concepts move from traditional State sovereignty, the more fanciful they may seem, yet the participation of corporations in treaty-making, international litigation, and other fora of international law tells a different story: international law is not a “States only” activity. In this lecture, roles that the international community might assume in a treaty regime for conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity (BBNJ) are examined, which allows us to move from academic speculation to concrete scenario analysis. The starting premise is that BBNJ obligations will be owed to the international community as a whole, “erga omnes” obligations. They will not be bilateral, nor will they solely address narrow national interests. Professor Cymie R. Payne is a member of the Rutgers University faculty, where she teaches international and environmental law. She has appeared as counsel before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in its deep seabed mining and fisheries advisory opinion cases and as expert on environmental reparations in the International Court of Justice case Certain Activities (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua). Currently, she is legal advisor to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) delegation to the intergovernmental conference for a legally binding agreement on conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) and Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law - Ocean, Coasts and Coral Reefs Specialist Group. She participated, as counsel for the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), in reparations for environmental damage due to armed conflict and in the creation of a related environmental award oversight program to ensure that awards were used to restore the environmental harm. She is the editor, with Peter H. Sand, of Gulf War Reparations and the UN Compensation Commission: Environmental Liability (Oxford University Press 2011). She has also been a member of the Berkeley Law faculty and served as attorney with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the law firm of Goodwin, Procter. She holds a MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She was a member of the International Law Association Committee on Sustainable Natural Resource Management For Development.

Lecture summary: Globalization has lifted millions out of poverty. Globalization is a weapon the rich use to exploit the poor. Globalization builds bridges across national boundaries. Globalization fuels the populism and great-power competition that is tearing the world apart. When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are dug in, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims, unlikely alliances, and unexpected foes. But what exactly are we fighting about? And how might we approach these issues more productively?In this talk, Anthea introduces her book, co-authored with Nicolas Lamp, Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why it Matters, exploring the interests, logics, and ideologies driving these intractable debates. Examining six competing narratives about the virtues and vices of globalization, Anthea and Nicolas provide a framework for understanding current debates about economic globalization and showcase a more integrative way of thinking about complex problems. Their approach not only helps enable us to understand where we have come apart but also how we might come back together.Flyer: Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why it MattersSix Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It MattersAnthea Roberts is a Professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) who specializes in public international law, international trade and investment law, and the effect of geopolitical change on global governance. From 2008-2015, she taught at the London School of Economics, Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School. Anthea has chaired the ANU Working Group on Geoeconomics since 2018 and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School teaching Geoeconomics in 2020. She is currently teaching courses on complexity, risk and resilience. In 2019, the League of Scholars named Anthea the world’s leading international law scholar and Australia’s leading law scholar based on the quality of her publications and the quantity of citations they had received in the previous five years. Her last book, Is International Law International? (2017), won numerous prizes, including the American Society of International Law’s Book Prize, and was Oxford University Press’s top-selling law monograph worldwide in 2017-2018. Anthea is currently working on a variety of projects about governing in complex, contested and evolving fields.

Lecture summary: 20 years after the events of 9/11 and as we assess the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban fundamental questions about the scope, success and future of counter-terrorism need to be asked and answered. What have the last 20 years of a global architecture of counter-terrorism delivered, what have been the costs, and how can those costs help us better understand the recent events in Afghanistan. This lecture will trace the evolution of counter-terrorism over the past 20 years, with a particular focus on the rule of law and human rights costs of global counter-terrorism practice and reflect on what may happen next.

Lecture summary: Dame Sally will explore global governance for health using the two pandemics of COVID 19 and Antimicrobial Resistance as exemplars highlighting the importance of data and innovation.Dame Sally Davies is the 40th Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, the UK Government’s Special Envoy on AMR and the chair of The Trinity Challenge, which she set up in May 2020. Before this, from March 2011 to September 2019, she was Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England and Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government. Dame Sally was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board 2014-2016 and led delegations to a range of WHO summits and forums since 2004. Dame Sally advocates globally on AMR: for three years, Dame Sally was the chair of the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on AMR and later co-convener of the UN Inter-Agency Co-ordination Group on AMR, set up in response to the AMR declaration made at UNGA 2016. Dame Sally is a member of the UN Global Leaders Group on AMR, since 2020, serving alongside Heads of State, Ministers and prominent figures from around the world. Dame Sally is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the US Academy of Science. In the 2020 New Year’s Honours, Dame Sally was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) for services to public health and research, having received her DBE in 2009.

Ian Gaunt – Arbitrator, LMAA Past President Clive Aston – Arbitrator, LMAA Past President

Speakers:Can Yeginsu – Barrister, 4 New SquareDr Hayk Kupelyants – Associate, Dechert

Cambridge Arbitration Society, CUArb, was established in 2019 as a registered society at the University of Cambridge. The establishment of the society was a response to Cambridge students’ demands to have exposure to the current arbitration scene.The CUArb aims at promoting the study of international commercial and investment arbitration amongst students, academics, alumni and law practitioners. It seeks to serve as both an educational and networking platform to facilitate discussions on emerging topics in international arbitration and connect students with practitioners.The CUArb runs a few projects including annual conferences, annual lectures series, preparatory seminars for the Vis Moot competition, educational workshops on arbitration and an arbitration lap. Membership of the CUArb is open to all members at the University of Cambridge and individuals interested in the study and practice of international commercial and investment arbitration.Speakers:Samaa Haridi – Partner, Hogan Lovells Prof Anne Marie Whitesell – Professor, Georgetown University

This lecture will be based on my recently edited book, The Performance of Africa's International Courts: Using Litigation for Political, Legal, and Social Change, (OUP, 2020). The central claim made in the book is that Africa’s international courts have important impacts that have so far been underemphasized or are entirely ignored in the scholarship on international courts. This book departs from approaches that measure the performance of Africa's international courts based on compliance with or effectiveness of their judgments. The book does so by putting the users of Africa’s international courts and their broader strategies at the center of the analysis. It adopts an-depth case study approach that focuses on how the litigation process in these courts is used by litigants to advance and promote their commitment to their ideals. It delves into the messy world of legal, social and political mobilization. It examines the choices made by activists, litigants, and opposition parties who bring cases before these international courts against those in control of dominant and authoritarian party regimes. In doing so, the book complements the attention to legal and doctrinal questions as well as the challenges of compliance with decisions of these courts that the first generation of scholarship on Africa’s international courts emphasized.James T. Gathii is the Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law and Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law since July 2012.

Speakers: Dr Giorgio Risso – Associate, Cleary Gottlieb Agnieszka Zarówna – Associate, White & Case

A series of conversations on international legal scholarship, political engagement and the transformative potential of academia. Each conversation is chaired by Francisco José Quintana and Marina Veličković and centres around a theme, concept or a method and their relationship to political movements, struggles and margins from which they have emerged and within (and for) which they have emancipatory potential.