The relevance of interpretation to the academic study and professional practice of international law is inescapable. Yet interpretation in international law has not traditionally been examined as a distinct field. Given that international law is constituted, in practical terms, by acts of interpretation, there is a need for greater methodological awareness of interpretive theory and practice in international law.

The ‘Interpretation in International Law’ conference at the University of Cambridge in August 2013 aims to attract submissions focusing on the divergent processes of interpretation that exist in international law, whether these be differentiated linguistically, culturally, politically or socially.

Submissions will be encouraged that deal with the interpretation process per se, as well as the place of interpretive process within the larger scheme of international law (such as divergent interpretations of concrete provisions, or the impact of interpretation on the sources of international law). The conference welcomes submissions from both philosophical and practical perspectives ensuring exposure of ideas and concepts that may otherwise have been confined to their own sub-fields.

The following speakers will give keynote presentations:

• Sir David Baragwanath (President, Special Tribunal for Lebanon)
• Professor Andrea Bianchi (The Graduate Institute, Geneva)
• Dr Ingo Venzke (University of Amsterdam)

A wide variety of proposals are welcomed. Proposed panels include:

• Interpretation and Legal Doctrine: this panel will highlight the doctrinal exposition of particular contested legal standards – for example, “fair and equitable treatment” and “cruel and unusual punishment” – as well as the methodologies behind such expositions in a range of international and regional courts and tribunals.
• Interpretation and the Sources of International Law: this panel will focus on how interpretive practice interacts with, and institutes hierarchies amongst, the sources of international law. Where can the line be drawn between “dynamic” and “progressive” interpretive practice and law-making? Submissions dealing with treaty interpretation and the place of interpretation in the formation of custom are encouraged.
• Interpretation and the Interpreters: this panel will examine how disparate interpretations of international law are granted the imprimatur by functionally specialized interpretive communities who use international law as a professional vocabulary (for example, judges, diplomats, legal advisers, arbitrators and regulators). To what extent is the interpretation of international law a competition for “semantic authority” (Ingo Venzke)?
• Interpretation and the International Legal Order: this panel will consider the extent to which one’s interpretive posture depends on the vision of the international legal order that one advocates, such as constitutionalism or global administrative law. How are particular values, such as dignity and comity, foregrounded or neglected in the interpretive process? Do interpretive practices have the potential to bridge conceptual divides between public and private international law?
• Interpretation and Cultural Contingency: James Crawford has recently stated that international lawyers must possess a “technique of plurilingual interpretation”. This panel will provide a forum for the exposition of culturally distinct interpretive practices, as well as a consideration of the benefits and drawbacks of divergent interpretations stemming from cultural differences.
• Interpretation and Indeterminacy: this panel focuses on interpretation in light of the critical challenge to international law. How is interpretive practice affected by the allegation that apolitical rules are impossible and that values used to justify such rules are subjective? Given the fragmentation of international law, is an interpretive lingua franca attainable or is interpretive pluralism inevitable?

Abstract submissions must be between 300-500 words in length and should be accompanied by a short resume. Please submit your documents to cambridgeinterpretation@gmail.com. Any queries may be directed to the conference conveners, Daniel Peat (dcp31@cam.ac.uk) and Matthew Windsor (mrw48@cam.ac.uk).

The closing date for submissions is 1 May 2013. We will notify successful applicants by late May 2013, who must submit their papers by early August 2013. Conference papers should be between 6,000 and 10,000 words. Selected submissions will be considered for publication in an edited volume on the conference theme.

10th Biennial Conference of IAGS, June 19-22, 2013, Siena-Italy

The Aftermath of Genocide: Victims and Perpetrators, Representations and Interpretations

Note: In order to allow late comers to participate, we are extending the final deadline for submission of abstracts to FEBRUARY 20, 2013.

The way societies deal with the violence and massacres of the recent past is one of the aspects of genocide studies that needs to be interpreted, deepened and fully analyzed. Representations and interpretations shape the way societies perceive their past, which impacts on their attitudes and behaviors. In an age where the role of communication is increasing, representations (narratives, images, arts, especially spread by popular culture) often constitute the standard way of becoming aware of the past, especially for new generations. We need to understand the meaning of the atrocities that genocides produce not only during the events but also after the genocide (revenge, hatred, fear, mutual stereotypes, denial, desensitization, generalized mistrust or suspicion, among other effects). We need to deal not only with the intentionality of group destruction, but also with the different consequences of the destruction in its aftermath. Continue reading →

Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law Oñati, 10 – 12 July 2013

Call for papers Deadline 4th March 2013

Papers Deadline 10th June 2013

The congress will be hosted by the International Institute for Sociology of Law, which is located in Oñati, Spain. Sessions will be held in both English and Spanish, with simultaneous translation provided for the final keynote speaker session. This congress is aimed at examining the main conceptual frameworks for thinking about gender violence. We invite participants to consider how useful the concept of gender violence is for tackling violence against women. We also particularly encourage papers that will examine the intersections of gender violence with other determinants of inequalities. Papers are invited from researchers working in the area of gender violence, as well as policy makers, practitioners and activists. We feel that this interdisciplinary may help to produce new conceptualisations of gender violence. The topic of gender violence is especially relevant to Spain and the Basque country. Spain has been a relative latecomer to legislation to address gender violence, although is now attempting to a take a lead in Europe. In Spain, violence against women is seen to be a problem of gender violence. The decision to use the concept of gender rather than domestic violence was based on the recognition that violence against women arises from gender inequalities that extend outside of the domestic sphere, and are connected to patriarchy. However, this definition has also been criticised for only conceptualising violence with intimate partnerships, and excluding other types of violence such as sexual harassment, rape, trafficking of women etc. The definition also does not recognise the intersectionality of violence with race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and other structural determinants of inequality. For instance, Amnesty International has argued that undocumented migrant women in Spain who have been the victims of violence have not been able to access services provided to other victims. In addition, despite the provision of considerable funding to tackle the problem, gender violence appears to be a growing problem in Spain, and it is becoming clear that legislation reform alone is not sufficient to address the problem. Clearly these problems are not limited to Spain, and we invite different international examples and comparative perspectives. Congress themes This congress is aimed at examining existing and producing new conceptual frameworks for thinking about gender violence. It is proposed to have sessions on: New theoretical models of gender violence: questioning the primacy of gender inequality The persistence of gender violence as a gendered phenomenon The intersection of gender, race and ethnicity Giving voice of marginalised women: disabled women’s experiences of violence Debunking stereotypes of battered women: intersections of gender and class Sexuality and violence

ORGANISATION COMMITTEE: Angela Melville (International Institute for the Sociology of Law) Ana Isabel Pérez Machio (Instituto Vasco de Criminología. Universidad del País Vasco) Arantza Campos (UPV/EHU) David Gadd (Manchester University School of Law)

For further information: IISL (Meetings) Antigua Universidad Apartado 28 20560 Oñati (Gipuzkoa) – Spain Tel.: +34 943 71 88 89 Fax: +34 943 78 31 47 E-Mail: malen@iisj.es

See also the Congress website.

Feminist Critical Analysis

Inter-University Center (IUC), Dubrovnik May 27th to May31st, 2013

Call for Applications Center for Gender and Politics of the Belgrade University (Political Science Department), Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers of the State University of New Jersey, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Washington University in St Louis are pleased to announce the next annual postgraduate course in Feminist Critical Analysis: Contemporary Contentions -Rethinking Gender Identity and Identity Politics. Continue reading →

The 3rd Dr Jan Randa Conference in Holocaust and Genocide Studies

AFTERMATH 2013: SITES AND SOURCES OF HISTORY AND MEMORY

Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

6-7 August 2013

Hosted by the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation in partnership with the History Program at Monash University and the University of Warwick

Keynote Speakers Include: Professor Hasia Diner, New York University; Professor Ben F. Kiernan, Yale University

Call for Papers:

The field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies is at a critical juncture.  Archives, testimony projects, documentation centres, and new tools in the fields of salvaging and mapping sites of conflict have proliferated and thus present new and urgent possibilities for documenting and transmitting histories and memories of traumatic events.  Consequently, the expansion of new sources (ranging from recently opened Holocaust archives to the creation of Rwandan testimony projects) and the unearthing of sites of destruction (in locations like Cambodia and Darfur) compel explorations of how evidence will be accessed and interpreted with an attention to their cultural, historical, topographical, and media specificity, and how they will be engaged not only in scholarly and pedagogical terms but also in larger areas of social and political practice. Continue reading →

A brand new issue of the Goettingen Journal of International Law is available on the journal’s homepage: www.gojil.eu. They have compiled eleven great articles about the precursors to international constitutionalism, especially the development of the German constitutional approach.

The Journal is already preparing the next issue. Vol. 5, Issue No. 1 of the Goettingen Journal of International Law will include a focus on the law and politics of indigenous peoples in international law.

Indigenous peoples received increasing public and scholarly attention over the last decades. It has been a unique journey from the colonial history to the beginning of their political presence in the United Nations since the 1970s to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. The UN’s International Year for the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993 as well as the following decades of the world’s indigenous peoples from 1995 to 2004 and 2006 to 2015 prove the ongoing need to attend to indigenous peoples’ interests.

Today, discourses of indigenous peoples rights and their claim for self-determination are found beyond International Human Rights law: topics such as intellectual property rights, control over the exploitation of natural resources, the protection of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions are on the agenda.
Underlying all is the constant debate about a definition and the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights beyond the Americas, particularly in Asia and Africa.
In order to shine a light on the legal and political problems indigenous peoples are facing, the Journal presently calls for authors to submit papers on the topic.
The submission deadline is 1 March 2013. For more information contact the journal at info@gojil.eu.

For more info, we kindly refer you to the website of the Amsterdam Center for International Law.

The ACIL, ECRP project ‘International Law through the National Prism’ and the ERC project ‘MultiRights’ now invite paper proposals related to the theme ‘Transnational Judicial Dialogue: Concept, Method, Extent and Effects’.

Synopsis

The Conference will explore the practice of transnational judicial dialogue on issues of international law by and between domestic and international courts (and tribunals). It seeks to examine whether, how, when and why courts engage in such dialogues; and what the effects are of this practice. In particular, the Conference aims to clarify the concept and extent of court-to-court dialogue, the process itself, its limits and possibilities, as well as any influence it may have on the international legal order further down the line. The Conference seeks to address how transnational judicial dialogues occur in different regions of the world and in various fields of law, including, but not limited to, human rights.
The organizers of the Conference now invite paper proposals from scholars, adjudicators and practitioners in law and related disciplines.

Background

Domestic and international courts and tribunals across the world play an important and increasing role in giving effect to international law. One method that can be used by judges when interpreting and applying international norms is to look at how their colleagues in other states and/or in (quasi-) judicial bodies at the international level have construed a particular norm or issue of international law. There is evidence that such a transnational judicial dialogue takes place in and between various jurisdictions.

This practice raises questions of both a practical and theoretical nature which form the background for the project ‘International Law through the National Prism: the Impact of Judicial Dialogue.’ This project is funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF) as a European Collaborative Research project in the Social Sciences (ECRP). The main cooperating partners are the universities of Amsterdam, Berlin (Humboldt), Lodz, Oslo and Vienna. The universities of Salamanca, Siena and Tel Aviv are associated partners.

The Oslo Conference follows a conference hosted by the University of Vienna in April 2012 on ‘Transnational Judicial Dialogue of Domestic Courts on International Organizations’. A workshop in Berlin is planned for the autumn of 2013, and a final conference will be organized in Amsterdam in the summer of 2014. The Oslo Conference will be part of the third annual ‘MultiRights’ conference, which starts on 20 June 2013 with sessions concerning the effects of the international and regional human rights judiciary on human rights situations ‘on the ground’. The ‘MultiRights’ project, which is financed by the European Research Council (ERC), is based at the Law Faculty of the University of Oslo, and analyses claims of legitimacy deficits with respect to supervisory human rights organs (e.g. regional courts).

It is noted that the ECRP project builds on earlier work analysing the application of international law by domestic and international courts, including the volume ‘The Practice of International and National Courts and the (De-) Fragmentation of International Law’ edited by Ole Kristian Fauchald and André Nollkaemper. Hence, the focus of the Oslo Conference lies on effects of judicial dialogue different from and beyond (de-) fragmentation.

Themes and queries

The themes and queries that conference papers could address include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. The Concept and Extent of Judicial Dialogue

When may we speak of transnational judicial dialogue? In addition to dialogues between domestic courts inter se (horizontal dialogue), does the concept cover dialogues between domestic courts and international judicial bodies (vertical dialogue)? Can we speak about ‘dialogue’ when courts oppose each other or only when domestic courts unconditionally take on interpretations by other courts? Next to dialogues between courts (through their judgments), does the concept cover dialogues between judges in other formal as well as informal ways (e.g. judges’ meetings)? Is it limited to the borrowing of substantive law issues or does it have broader application?
Are the decisions of certain courts more prone to be considered/used in judicial dialogue; and if so, why? Do courts show a preference for court decisions belonging to the same region or legal system? Does the prevalence of judicial dialogue differ with respect to subject matter; and if so, what are the reasons? Are there any regional differences with respect to judicial dialogue; and if so, how can these be explained?

2. The Method and Process of Judicial Dialogue

How do courts go about when engaging in a transnational judicial dialogue, for instance in terms of the selection of the courts with whom they engage in a dialogue? Is it possible to discern any criteria that domestic and international courts employ when deciding whether and when to engage in judicial dialogue; what makes one decision or reasoning more influential than others?
To what extent does transnational judicial dialogue depend on the arguments presented by the disputing parties/legal counsel (jura (non) novit curia)?

Next to possible legal barriers or requirements concerning judicial dialogue, what are the practical barriers to dialogue, such as access to judgments, translations and commentaries, which may prevent judges (and arbitrators) from learning how courts elsewhere treat comparable questions?

Which methods may be used to explore how often and in what situations courts engage in dialogues with judicial bodies of a different legal system? How can changes in the practice of such dialogues be detected? How can dialogues and their influence be traced where there are no explicit references to foreign or international decisions in the respective judgments? How can one best make the practice of domestic courts available to courts elsewhere?

3. The Aims and Effects of Judicial Dialogue

What aims does transnational judicial dialogue seek to fulfil, for instance as a catalyst in developing international law, or justifying the avoidance of the application of international law? How may (selective or the lack of) transnational judicial dialogue affect the interpretation and determination of particular rules of international law?

In the context of the effects judicial dialogue may have on the development of international law, what role do and can domestic court cases play in decisions by international courts and tribunals?
Papers are invited to explore these and other pertinent queries from normative and empirical standpoints in a variety of international law sub-disciplines, including but not limited to human rights. We also encourage submissions from neighbouring disciplines with an interest in international law (such as international relations, philosophy and sociology). The themes are interrelated, and multiple angles can be addressed within one paper.

It is hoped that answers to the queries will help establish best practices, allowing domestic and international courts to arrive at sound responses to shared problems, as well as helping us articulate normative perspectives for assessing judicial dialogues.

Submission of paper proposals

Paper proposals should be no longer than 500 words and include the applicant’s curriculum vitae.

Papers to be presented at the Conference should not have been published elsewhere previously.

At the time of the Conference, the invited authors should present a paper of 7,000-8,000 words, excluding references.

It is the intention of the organisers to publish the papers in an edited volume.

Paper proposals should be sent by e-mail to: Dr. Amrei Müller (a.s.mueller@jus.uio.no).

Time line

The deadline is 15 February 2013.

Selected participants will be informed by 22 March 2013.

Each participant must submit a paper by 31 May 2013 for distribution to the other participants.

The Conference takes place on 21-22 June 2013 in Oslo, Norway.

The sponsoring organizations will cover the speakers’ travelling and accommodation expenses.

Questions

For substantive questions, please contact Dr. Amrei Müller at: a.s.mueller@jus.uio.no

For questions about the MultiRights project, please contact Leiry Cornejo Chavez at: l.c.chavez@nchr.uio.no

The Research Project on Shared Responsibility in International Law (SHARES) will organize a seminar on Principles of Shared Responsibility in International Law, on 7 and 8 February 2013 (7 February: 12:00-18:30; 8 February: 9:30-17:30) in Amsterdam.

This SHARES Seminar will provide a critical review of the principles of international responsibility, as these have been formulated by the International Law Commission, from the perspective of shared responsibility.

This seminar is closed, but there is limited room for expert academics and practitioners. If you are interested to participate, please send an email to: contact@sharesproject.nl.

For more information and the preliminary programme see here.

In April 1963, the United Nations held a Seminar on the Role of Police in the Protection of Human Rights, in Canberra, Australia. The Seminar was attended by delegates and observers from 19 countries and territories, including government ministers, police commissioners, academics, NGO representatives, judges and lawyers. The agenda covered topical issues such as compulsory finger-printing; freedom of police from political influence; the right of suspected persons to legal advice; and the unacceptability of the use of force to obtain a confession.

In April 2013, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS) will be holding a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the original Seminar. The 2013 conference will examine issues at the 1963 seminar, address the evolution of human rights since 1963, and also consider new topics of concern that did not confront law enforcement in 1963. These issues include:
* The changing environment of accountability and human rights: police unions; integrity; corruption and police ethics.
* Criminal investigation and human rights: interrogation/interviewing; torture; violence.
* Internationalisation of policing: engagement in regional and multi-national peacekeeping missions; transnational crime.
* Balancing human rights and security/anti-terrorism.
* Indigenous people and policing.
* Gender; women in policing.
* Discrimination (e.g. gender, race, disability).
* The role of technology and forensic science.
* The role and differing structures of modern policing.

The 2013 conference will be an opportunity to re-engage professionals and academics in the fields of human rights and policing, and to create a discourse about issues that face police in the 21st Century. Continue reading →

Armed Forces Law Association of New Zealand
in association with  
The New Zealand & Australian Armed Forces Law Review
 
Presents  
The International Colloquium
 
‘Military Discipline in the 21st Century: the challenges of a new era’
 
31 August – 1 September 2012
To be held at the Royal New Zealand Naval Base Marae, Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand – Te Taua Moana Marae
 
Call For Papers
 
The position, role and operation of the military changed markedly from 1900 to 2000. With the first decade of the 21st century behind us, change has continued at a remarkable pace. The paradigm of the 21st century is not defined by the traditional notion of conflict between geographically defined states. With the ability of non-state entities to wage campaigns that mirror our traditional notions of war, significant pressure has been placed upon the way in which many states order their military. Military discipline is one area in which the tension between combative training, civil deployment, and peacekeeping operations have come together in ways not experienced by military forces before. The modern day soldier is therefore a highly nuanced individual, capable of deployment in any number of situations. The system of military discipline has itself been the subject of significant scrutiny. One pressure faced by the system of discipline is the way in which human rights are applied to soldiers. Notions such as the right to fair trial, access to independent counsel and the right to an independent decision maker have facilitated change in many military forces around the world. Continue reading →