Call for Submissions: Refugee Law and International Criminal Justice

The Journal of International Criminal Justice has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "Refugee Law and International Criminal Justice." Here's the call:

Special Issue: Refugee Law and International Criminal Justice

Deadline for abstract submission: 28 February, 2014

The Journal of International Criminal Justice (JICJ) invites submissions for a Special Issue provisionally titled ‘The Interaction between Refugee/Migration Law and International Criminal/Humanitarian Law' to be co-edited by Fannie Lafontaine, Associate Professor, Law Faculty, Laval University, Member, Board of Editors, JICJ; Laurel Baig, Appeals Counsel, ICTY, Co-Chair, Editorial Committee, JICJ; and Joseph Rikhof, Part-Time Professor, Law Faculty, University of Ottawa.

While on the surface it may appear that refugee/migration law and international humanitarian/criminal law are distinct legal disciplines, a more in-depth examination shows that there have been a number of areas of cross-fertilization between these areas of law with varying results. The Special Issue will provide an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to explore the evolution of the various intersections between refugee and migration law on one hand and international humanitarian and criminal law on the other.

We will focus, for example, on examining the questions raised at the intersections of these areas of law. The wording of four regional refugee instruments — the 1966 Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees, the 1969 Convention on the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees — extend the definition of ‘refugee’ beyond what is contained in the 1951 Refugee Convention, and explicitly invite the consideration of international humanitarian/criminal law. The reference to armed conflict in the context of subsidiary protection in the European Qualification Directive indicates a similar approach. In a similar vein, the UNHCR has commissioned a number of papers as part of its Legal and Protection Policy Research Series with mandate to include notions of armed conflict, foreign aggression and other terms used in these four regional instruments as well as related concepts such as forced displacement or persecution.

International humanitarian/criminal law has played a major role in the development of the definition of who should be excluded from the protections of the Refugee Convention. Naturally, international criminal law has been influential in determining if a refugee claimant meets the requirements of Article 1F(a), which permits exclusion if the claimant ‘has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, as defined in the international instruments drawn up to make provision in respect of such crimes’. National courts and tribunals have tended to adhere to the parameters of the international crimes mentioned in Article 1F(a), especially regarding crimes against humanity, while also referring to international instruments and jurisprudence to circumscribe the defences of superior orders and duress. Recent domestic jurisprudence, notably at the highest levels in the UK and Canada, has also turned to international sources to determine the legal definition of complicity for exclusionary purposes. Courts have also looked to international humanitarian/criminal law to determine whether a claimant should be excluded pursuant to Article 1F(c) on the basis that he has ‘been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations’.

National courts have considered that most such ‘acts’ have been in the nature of human rights violations or terrorist activities. In some jurisdictions, such as the UK and Ireland, however, activities against international peacekeepers acting pursuant to a mandate of the UN Nations Security Council were brought within the parameters of this provision. Furthermore, international humanitarian/criminal law has also proven to be influential in relation to the issue of conscientious objectors.

International criminal law and international refugee law interact in a number of other ways, all of which raise issues related to the possible fragmentation of international law and the need for coherence while taking into account the different purposes of each legal regime: the post exclusion phase and its relationship with extradition and prosecution, including with the obligation aut dedere aut judicare; the consequences on exclusion of an acquittal or of the end of a served sentence following a criminal trial in a domestic or international court; the possible asylum claims of defendants or witnesses in international courts’ host states; and so on.

Some of the key questions to explore in this regard include:

• Is recourse to international humanitarian or criminal law an appropriate approach in defining a refugee or providing subsidiary protection?
• Are all aspects of international criminal and humanitarian law desirable for transposition into refugee law?
• What are the parameters of exclusion and how far can reliance on international humanitarian or criminal law help or hinder the proper development of the concepts contained in these provisions?
• Could international criminal or humanitarian law provide answers to the dilemma of the inability of states to remove a person because of non-refoulement obligations or human rights concerns?
• Are there jurisprudential or policy trends in refugee or migration law which could assist international humanitarian or criminal law?
• To what extent is it appropriate for international humanitarian/criminal law concerning forcible displacement to rely on refugee/migration law?
• Do recent international criminal law decisions raise concerns for refugee agencies working in the field?

The editors welcome submission of abstracts not exceeding 400 words on any of the themes described above, or related areas of interest, on or before 28 February 2014, by email, at jicj@geneva-academy.ch. The abstract should contain the author’s name, home institution, and the title of the proposed paper. Please also send a current CV.

After the abstracts have been reviewed, in March we will invite a number contributors to submit full papers of no more than 9,000 words (including an abstract and all footnotes) by 1 June 2014. All papers will be subject to the JICJ's double blind peer-review policy.

It is expected the Special Issue will be published as the fifth issue of the Journal in December 2014.

For questions, further information, including on the Journal's stylesheet please contact the Executive Editor at jicj@geneva-academy.ch.

Call for Submissions: Journal of Arbitration and Intellectual Property Law

A call for submissions has been issued for the inaugural issue of the Journal of Arbitration and Intellectual Property Law. Here's the call:

The Journal of Arbitration and Intellectual Property Law is a tri-annual academic journal, published online, that seeks to provide an international forum for the publication of articles in the field of Arbitration and Intellectual property Rights.

The Journal is currently soliciting submissions for Volume I, Issue 1, which will be published in February 2014.

The submission deadline for Volume I, Issue 1 is December 25 2013.

We welcome submissions from academicians, practitioners, students, researchers and experts from within the legal community. We have a strong preference for articles that assert and defend a well-reasoned position.

We welcome students to contribute their write-ups in the form of Long Articles, Short Articles, Case Comments, Legislative Comments, and Book Reviews.

The submissions should be well-researched and involve critical analyses of domestic or international legal issues/developments that are relevant and contemporary. Authors should also strike a balance between being crisp yet comprehensive.

Call for Submissions: Transitional Justice: Does it have a future?

The International Journal of Transitional Justice has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "Transitional Justice: Does it have a future?." Here's the call:

Transitional Justice: Does it have a future?

The International Journal of Transitional Justice invites submissions for its 2015 special issue entitled ‘Transitional justice: Does it have a future?' to be guest edited by Dean Makau Mutua.*

It has been more than a quarter of a century since transitional justice burst onto the global stage. Over the years it has come to be billed as a panacea for addressing deeply embedded social and political dysfunction after periods of mass repression and violence. Many theorists and policy makers have argued that it is a key bridge to sustainable peace, democracy and human rights. But the historical record is not clear about a direct causal relationship between transitional justice mechanisms and specific outcomes in postconflict societies. In some cases, truth commissions, criminal prosecutions and other transitional justice interventions appear to have given society a chance at a new and hopeful beginning. In others, conflicts have either re-emerged or been exacerbated. Which begs the question, is transitional justice the appropriate vehicle for achieving these goals? If it does not always lead to positive outcomes, why not? Are there conceptual problems and theoretical deficiencies in how we make sense of justice and transitions that account for the failures? Or is it the translation of transitional justice norms into practice that is wanting?

The big question the 2015 special issue seeks to explore is this: Does transitional justice have a future, given its mixed record? This issue brings together scholars and actors engaged in the field of transitional justice to focus on the meaning of the concept, how its application has evolved and whether it is sustainable as theory and praxis.

Some of the key questions to explore include:

• How defined is the concept of transitional justice?
• What exactly does it entail and what does it seek to achieve?
• Are political democracy, the rule of law and human rights – the pivots of liberalism – the desired end results implicit in transitional justice approaches? If so, why should liberalism be the germ of the new postconflict society?
• If transitional justice promotes liberalism, who gains and who loses if it succeeds?
• How would liberalism address deeply rooted cultural, colonial and ethnic rivalries and inequities?
• If transitional justice promotes liberalism, who gains and who loses if it succeeds?
• How would liberalism address deeply rooted cultural, colonial and ethnic rivalries and inequities?
• Would structures of deep inequity be vanquished by these norms? Or does this conception of transitional justice exacerbate conflicts as it seeks to transform societies?
• Who pays for transformation?
• What about market forces and norms – do they fuel or contain conflict?
• If existing transitional justice concepts are inadequate to recover, or reclaim, societies sickened by violence and repression, are there alternatives?
• If so, how do those alternatives compare with present conceptualizations of transitional justice?
• Should the term ‘transitional justice’ itself be discarded?

This special issue will openly tackle these questions through both new and established voices, with a particular emphasis on thinkers and actors from the global South. It seeks contributions that are unbounded by existing thinking. The idea is to advance the debate on transitional justice by re-examining core assumptions and plowing new intellectual ground.

*Professor Mutua is Dean, Distinguished Professor and the Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York. Previously, he was the Associate Director at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program and the Director of the Africa Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. He was appointed by the Government of Kenya as Chairman of the Task Force on the Establishment of a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, which recommended a truth commission for Kenya. He serves as the Chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission.

The deadline for submissions is 1 July 2014.

Papers should be submitted online from the IJTJ webpage.

For questions or further information, please contact the Managing Editor at ijtj@csvr.org.za.