Friedrich: International Environmental “soft law”

Jürgen Friedrich has published International Environmental “soft law”: The Functions and Limits of Nonbinding Instruments in International Environmental Governance and Law (Springer 2013). Here's the abstract:

In international negotiations, the question of the design and the legal form of the negotiated instrument is as complex as it is often controversial. Intended as a read for both practitioners and academics, this book provides a comprehensive treatise of the characteristics, the potential and the limits of nonbinding instruments in international environmental law and governance. An extensive overview and typology of nonbinding instruments as well as several case studies from the areas of fisheries (FAO), hazardous substances (UNEP/FAO) and corporate social responsibility (OECD) provide the material for an in-depth analysis of the role of nonbinding instruments on all levels of governance. The book demonstrates the potential but also highlights the limits of nonbinding instruments in the interplay with customary and treaty law (e.g. UNCLOS, WTO) as bases for interinstitutional linkages and as tools to shape the behaviour of states and private actors. Legitimacy challenges arising from this form of exercise of authority are then discussed in the final chapter, alongside with remedies to address possible concerns.

Cremona, Hilpold, Lavranos, Schneider, & Ziegler: Liber Amicorum for Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann

Marise Cremona (European Univ. Institute - Law), Peter Hilpold (Univ. of Innsbruck - Law), Nikos Lavranos (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands), Stefan Staiger Schneider (European Univ. Institute - Law), & Andreas R. Ziegler (Univ. of Lausanne - Law) have published Reflections on the Constitutionalisation of International Economic Law: Liber Amicorum for Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2013). Contents include:

• Federico Ortino, Liberalization of Trade in Goods in the EEC: Origin and Early Evolution
• Peter Hilpold, The ‘Politicization’ of the EU’S Common Commercial Policy – Approaching the “Post-Lockean” Era
• Meinhard Hilf & Tim René Salomon, Margin of Appreciation Revisited: The Balancing Pole of Multilevel Governance
• Nikos Lavranos, The Systemic Responsibility of the ECJ for Judicial Comity towards International Courts and Tribunals
• Giuseppe Martinico, National Judges and European Laws: A Comparative Constitutional Perspective
• Ólafur Ísberg Hannesson, Legal Pluralism in the EEA Legal Order: The EFTA Court’s Role in a Broader Institutional Context
• Pedro Lomba, Constructing a ‘We’: Collective Agency and the European Union
• Christian Joerges, Conflicts-Law Constitutionalism: Ambitions and Problems
• Roland Bieber, Balancing Difference and Equality of Political Rights in the European Union – A Paradigm of Constitutional Pluralism
• Marise Cremona, International Regulatory Policy and Democratic Accountability: The EU and the ACTA
• Marco Bronckers & Sophie Goelen, Financial Liability of the EU for Violations of WTO Law – A Legislative Proposal Benefiting Innocent Bystanders
• John H. Jackson, Constitutional Treaties: Institutional Necessity and Challenge to International Law Fundamentals
• Peter-Tobias Stoll, Constitutional Perspectives on International Economic Law
• Thomas Cottier, Sovereign Equality and Graduation in International Economic Law
• Andreas R. Ziegler, International Economic Law: Still the Ugly Duckling of Public International Law?
• Petros C. Mavroidis, Justice is Coming (. . . From Behind Closed Doors: The WTO Judges)
• Gabrielle Marceau & Jennifer K. Hawkins, Panel Requests: What’s The Problem?
• Chien-Huei Wu, Legal Aspects of the WTO-IMF Relationship Revisited
• Frederick M. Abbott, Prof. Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann and the Work of the ILA Committee on International Trade Law (1993–2012)
• Antonello Tancredi, Still Going “Grey” After All These Years? Export-Restraint Agreements and the WTO
• Edwin Vermulst, Filling in the Blanks: The WTO Appellate Body’s First Two Reports concerning the NME-Related Aspects of TDI against China
• Lothar Ehring, Nature and Status of WTO Accession Commitments: “WTO-Plus” Obligations and Their Relationship to Other Parts of the WTO Agreement
• Lukasz Gruszczynski, Tobacco Products in WTO Law
• Daniel Kraus, Is TRIPS Innovative Enough? How to Reconcile IP, Innovation and Health
• Ilze Dubava, The Future of International Investment Protection Law: The Promotion of Sustainable (Economic) Development as a Public Good
• Giorgio Sacerdoti, Diplomatic Conciliation of Investment Disputes: The Italian-Swiss Controversy on Secondary Residences in Engadine (1990–1992) and Its Lessons
• Boris Rigod, Enforcement of the WTO ‘Regional Exceptions’: A Comparative Institutional Analysis
• Richard Senti, Regional Trade Agreements: ‘Stepping Stones’ or ‘Stumbling Blocks’of the WTO?
• Stefan Staiger Schneider, State’s Access to Justice in a Multilevel Legal World: The Brazil Tyres Cases Revisited
• Francesco Francioni, Revisiting Sustainable Development in Light of General Principles of International Environmental Law
• Arthur E. Appleton, Product Labelling 15 Years On: The Role of the Judiciary
• Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz & Marco Rizzi, International Regulation and Control of the Production and Use of Chemicals “Revisited”
• Mary E. Footer, Righting Socio-Economic Wrongs in Times of Financial and Economic Crisis
• Christian Tietje, The Right to Development within the International Economic Legal Order
• Pierre Thielbörger, The Right to Water: Effective Multi-Level Protection of a Multi-Faceted Human Right? – An Application of the Kadi and Medellin Approaches to the Case of the Right to Water
• Friedl Weiss, Elusive Coherence in International Law and Institutions: The Labour–Trade Debate
• Robert Howse, Consumer Labelling on Trial at the WTO: Misunderstanding the Behavioural Law and Economics of Consumer Information

Mercurio & Ni: Science and Technology in International Economic Law: Balancing Competing Interests

Bryan Mercurio (Chinese Univ of Hong Kong - Law) & Kuei-Jung Ni (National Chiao Tung Univ. - Law) have published Science and Technology in International Economic Law: Balancing Competing Interests (Routledge 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Science and technology plays an increasingly important role in the continued development of international economic law. This book brings together well-known and rising scholars to explore the status and interaction of science, technology and international economic law. The book reviews the place of science and technology in the development of international economic law with a view to ensure a balance between the promotion of trade and investment liberalisation and decision-making based on a sound scientific process without hampering technological development.

Sheeran & Rodley: Routledge Handbook of International Human Rights Law

Scott Sheeran (Univ. of Essex - Law) & Nigel Rodley (Univ. of Essex - Law) have published Routledge Handbook of International Human Rights Law (Routledge 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The Routledge Handbook of International Human Rights Law provides the definitive global survey of the discipline of international human rights law. Each chapter is written by a leading expert and provides a contemporary overview of a significant area within the field.

As well as covering topics integral to the theory and practice of international human rights law the volume offers a broader perspective though examinations of the ways in which human rights law interacts with other legal regimes and other international institutions, and by addressing the current and future challenges facing human rights.

This highly topical collection of specially commissioned papers is split into four sections:

• The nature and evolution of international human rights law discussing the origins, theory and practice of the discipline.
• Interaction of human rights with other key regimes and bodies including the interaction of the discipline with international economic law, international humanitarian law, and development, as well as other legal regimes.
• Evolution and prospects of regional approaches to human rights discussing the systems of Europe, the Americas, Africa and South East Asia, and their relationship to the United Nations treaty bodies.
• Key contemporary challenges including non-State actors, religion and human rights, counter-terrorism, and enforcement and remedies.

Liivoja & Petman: International Law-making: Essays in Honour of Jan Klabbers

Rain Liivoja (Univ. of Melbourne - Asia Pacific Centre for Military Law) & Jarna Petman (Univ. of Helsinki - Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights) have published International Law-making: Essays in Honour of Jan Klabbers (Routledge 2013). Contents include:

• Rain Liivoja & Jarna Petman, Preface
• Eyal Benvenisti, Legislating for Humanity: May states compel others to promote global interests?
• Martti Koskenniemi, Declaratory Legislation: Towards a geneology of neoliberal legalism
• Friedrich Kratochwil, Legalism and the 'Dark' Side of Global Governance
• Gianluigi Palombella, Global Legalisation and its Discontents
• Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses A. Wessel & Jan Wouters, Informal International Law as Presumptive Law: Exploring new modes of law-making
• Wouter Werner, Mankind's Territory and the Limits of International Law-making
• Inger Österdahl, (International) Law!
• Kaarlo Tuori, Perspective in Law
• Rene Uruena, Law-making through Comparative International Law? Rethinking the role of domestic law in the international legal system
• Katja Creutz, International Responsibility and Problematic Law-making
• Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Law-making and International Environmental Law: The legal character of decisions of conferences of the parties
• Panos Kautrakos, In Search of a Voice: EU law constraints on member states in international law-making
• Päivi Leino, 'In Principle the Full Review': What justice for Mr Kadi?
• Geir Ulfstein, Law-making by Human Rights Treaty Bodies
• Enzo Cannizzaro, Peremptory Law-making
• James E. Hickley Jr., Law-making and the Law of the Sea: The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
• Marja Lehto, Slowly but Surely? The challenge of the responsibility to protect
• Rain Liivoja, Treaties, Custom and Universal Justisdiction
• Jarna Petman, Making the Right Choice: Constructing rules for antiterrorist operations

Green: Rethinking Private Authority: Agents and Entrepreneurs in Global Environmental Governance

Jessica F. Green (Case Western Reserve Univ. - Political Science) has published Rethinking Private Authority: Agents and Entrepreneurs in Global Environmental Governance (Princeton Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

Rethinking Private Authority examines the role of non-state actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. Jessica Green identifies two distinct forms of private authority--one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them.

Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, Green shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. Green traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. She persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for her arguments.

Groundbreaking in scope, Rethinking Private Authority demonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems

Recchia & Welsh: Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill

Stefano Recchia (Univ. of Cambridge - Politics and International Studies) & Jennifer M. Welsh (European Univ. Institute - Political and Social Sciences) have published Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Classical arguments about the legitimate use of force have profoundly shaped the norms and institutions of contemporary international society. But what specific lessons can we learn from the classical European philosophers and jurists when thinking about humanitarian intervention, preventive self-defense or international trusteeship today? The contributors to this volume take seriously the admonition of contextualist scholars not to uproot classical thinkers' arguments from their social, political and intellectual environment. Nevertheless, this collection demonstrates that contemporary students, scholars and policymakers can still learn a great deal from the questions raised by classical European thinkers, the problems they highlighted, and even the problematic character of some of the solutions they offered. The aim of this volume is to open up current assumptions about military intervention, and to explore the possibility of reconceptualizing and reappraising contemporary approaches.

Waters: The Milosevic Trial: An Autopsy

Timothy William Waters (Indiana Univ., Bloomington - Law) has published The Milosevic Trial: An Autopsy (Oxford Univ. Press 2014). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The Milosevic Trial - An Autopsy provides a cross-disciplinary examination of the most controversial war crimes trial of the modern era and its contested legacy for the growing fields of international criminal law and post-conflict justice.

The international trial of Slobodan Milosevic, who presided over the violent collapse of Yugoslavia - was already among the longest war crimes trials when Milosevic died in 2006. Yet precisely because it ended without judgment, its significance and legacy are specially contested. The contributors to this volume, including trial participants, area specialists, and international law scholars bring a variety of perspectives as they examine the meaning of the trial's termination and its implications for post-conflict justice. The book's approach is intensively cross-disciplinary, weighing the implications for law, politics, and society that modern war crimes trials create.

The time for such an examination is fitting, with the imminent closing of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and rising debates over its legacy, as well as the 20th anniversary of the outbreak of the Yugoslav conflict. The Milosevic Trial - An Autopsy brings thought-provoking insights into the impact of war crimes trials on post-conflict justice.

Vrdoljak: The Cultural Dimension of Human Rights

Ana Filipa Vrdoljak (Univ. of Technology, Sydney - Law) has published The Cultural Dimension of Human Rights (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

The intersections between culture and human rights have engaged some of the most heated and controversial debates across international law and theory. As understandings of culture have evolved in recent decades to encompass culture as ways of life, there has been a shift in emphasis from national cultures to cultural diversity within and across states. This has entailed a push to more fully articulate cultural rights within human rights law.

This volume analyses a range of responses by international law, and particularly human rights law, to some of the thorniest, perennial, and sometimes violent confrontations fuelled by culture in relations between individuals, groups and the state in international society. Across the different issues tackled, the contributions are tied by one unifying thread - that culture is understood, protected and promoted not only for its physical manifestations. Rather, it is the relationship of culture to people, individually or in groups, and the diversity of these relationships which is being protected and promoted; hence, the fundamental overlap between culture and human rights.

Liber amicorum en l'honneur de Raymond Ranjeva - L'Afrique et le droit international : variations sur l'organisation internationale

Liber amicorum en l'honneur de Raymond Ranjeva - L'Afrique et le droit international : variations sur l'organisation internationale (Pedone 2013) has been published. The table of contents is here.

Sarat, Douglas, & Umphrey: Law and War

Austin Sarat (Amherst College - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), Lawrence Douglas (Amherst College - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought), & Martha Merrill Umphrey (Amherst College - Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought) have published Law and War (Stanford Univ. Press 2014). Contents include:

• Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, & Martha Merrill Umphrey, Law and War: An Introduction
• Sarah Sewall, Limits of Law: Promoting Humanity in Armed Conflict
• Gabriella Blum, The Individualization of War: From War to Policing in the Regulation of Armed Combat
• Laura K. Donohue, Pandemic Disease, Biological Weapons, and War
• Samuel Moyn, From Antiwar Politics to Antitorture Politics
• Larry May, War Crimes Trials during and after War

Lee & Lee: Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges

Seokwoo Lee (Inha Univ. - Law) & Hee Eun Lee (Handong International Law School) have published Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Since the end of the Cold War, Northeast Asia has been one of the most dynamic and dangerous parts of the world. Encompassing Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and North and South Korea, the region has undoubtedly acquired a greater global geopolitical and economic significance in recent years. Now home to two of the three largest economies in the world, with the exception of North Korea, all of the countries in the region experienced rapid economic development which has resulted in Northeast Asia accounting for one-fifth of world production, one-sixth of world trade, and one-half of the world’s foreign currency reserves. This great economic dynamism is complemented by the tremendous political forces that animate the region, such as China’s ascendency to a global power challenging the United States and the European Union, tensions over nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, and Japan’s desire to validate itself as a legitimate international force with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

All of these modern issues faced by the region are matters of international law. Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges contends that international law is not only poised to take a bigger role in bringing about a resolution to these questions, but international lawyers of the region are working to bring about greater regional cooperation and integration as seen in other regions in the world. This edited volume was inspired by the first joint international academic conference of international lawyers from the Chinese Society of International Law, Japanese Society of International Law, and Korean Society of International Law which took place in Seoul, Korea on July 3, 2010. With a range of timely topics including, but not limited to, North Korean human rights, the South China Sea, and Japan’s efforts in UN peacekeeping operations, the esteemed contributors to Northeast Asian Perspectives on International Law: Contemporary Issues and Challenges examine how international law can promote peace and justice in Northeast Asia.

Gantz: Liberalizing International Trade after Doha: Multilateral, Plurilateral, Regional, and Unilateral Initiatives

David A. Gantz (Univ. of Arizona - Law) has published Liberalizing International Trade after Doha: Multilateral, Plurilateral, Regional, and Unilateral Initiatives (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

After ten years the Doha Development Round is effectively dead. Although some have suggested that Doha's demise threatens the continued existence of the GATT/WTO system, even with some risks of increasing protectionism, the United States, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, China and India, among others, have too much to lose to make abandoning the WTO a rational option. There are alternatives to a comprehensive package of new or amended multilateral agreements, including existing and future 'plurilateral' trade agreements, new or revised regional trade agreements covering both goods and services, and liberalized national trade laws and regulations in the WTO member nations. This book discusses these alternatives, which although less than ideal, may provide an impetus for continuing trade liberalization both among willing members and in some instances worldwide.

Bachmann, Sparrow-Botero, & Lambertz: When Justice Meets Politics: Independence and Autonomy of Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals

Klaus Bachmann, Thomas Sparrow-Botero, & Peter Lambertz have published When Justice Meets Politics: Independence and Autonomy of Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals (Peter Lang 2013). Here's the abstract:

Are the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) independent actors, who mete out fair and un-biased justice, or instruments of a new world order, which execute the will of the most powerful states? By applying process tracing and frame analysis, this book reveals the interplay between the power politics of states, the agenda setting power of international criminal tribunals and the scope of the autonomy which the tribunals, the prosecutors and judges enjoy – and how they make use of it. The book details the mechanisms that govern judicial behaviour at the ICTY and the ICTR as well as the influence of the media, non-governmental organisations, governments and international organisations on judges and prosecutors. Last but not least, it shows why and how initially controversial frames like those about the «genocide in Srebrenica» and «the Rwandan genocide» became almost undisputed notions which are hardly challenged by anyone today.

Farrell: The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances

Michelle Farrell (Univ. of Liverpool - Law) has published The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

Can torture be justified in exceptional circumstances? In this timely work, Michelle Farrell asks how and why this question has become such a central debate. She argues that the ticking bomb scenario is a fiction which blinds us to the reality of torture and investigates what it is that that scenario fails to represent. Farrell aims to reframe how we think about torture, and critically reflects on the historical and contemporary approaches to its use in exceptional situations. She demonstrates how torture, from its use in Algeria to the 'War on Terror', has been misrepresented, and appraises the legalist, extra-legalist and absolutist assessments of exception to the torture prohibition. Employing Giorgio Agamben's theory of the state of exception as a foil, Farrell deconstructs these approaches and goes on to propose her own theory of exceptional torture.

de Andrade Levy, Gerdau de Borja & Pucci: Investment Protection in Brazil

Daniel de Andrade Levy, Ana Gerdau de Borja, & Adriana Noemi Pucci have published Investment Protection in Brazil (Wolters Kluwer 2013). Here's the abstract:

Although it has been ranked the fourth largest destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world, Brazil has not enacted specific legislation to promote or protect FDI. Nor are there any investment treaties in force, so Brazilian companies investing abroad act without international legal protection. Considering the country’s widely acclaimed “arrival” into the small family of the world’s major trading nations, the question of Brazil’s entry in the international FDI system – not only as an incentive to the inflow of foreign investment, but also to protect the investments of its national companies abroad – has become a hotly debated issue. This timely book, with its incisive reports on all important aspects of the matter, tackle this subject with prodigious knowledge and insight. With detailed analysis of investment-related legislation, including different legal and regulatory models, as well the examination of peculiarities of highly specialized industries present in Brazil, the authors cover such aspects as the following: investment in infrastructure, social areas such as education and health, commodities, and the oil and gas sector; to what extent expropriation under Brazilian law resembles the international standard of protection; political implications of Brazil’s FDI stance with regard to the balance of interest within the Latin American region; foreign investment in light of the principle of national treatment; enforceability of arbitration agreements vis-à-vis the state, state entities, and state-owned companies; conflicts of jurisdiction between state courts and arbitral tribunals; arbitration involving companies in liquidation and reorganization proceedings; public–partnership contracts; and investment-related aspects of human rights and intellectual property rights.

McBride: The War Crime of Child Soldier Recruitment

Julie McBride has published The War Crime of Child Soldier Recruitment (Asser Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

The practice of using children to participate in conflict has become a defining characteristic of 21st century warfare and is the most recent addition to the canon of international war crimes. This book follows the development of this crime of recruiting, conscripting or using children for participation in armed conflict, from human rights principle to fully fledged war crime, prosecuted at the International Criminal Court.

The background and reasons for the growing use of children in armed conflict are analysed, before discussing the origins of the crime in international humanitarian law and human rights law treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol. Specific focus is paid to the jurisprudence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court in developing and expanding the elements of the crime, the modes of ascribing liability to perpetrators and the defences of mistake and negligence. The question of how the courts addressed issues of cultural sensitivity, notably in terms of the liability of children, is also addressed.

Chetail: Permanence et mutations du droit des conflits armés

Vincent Chetail (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies) has published Permanence et mutations du droit des conflits armés (Bruylant 2013). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

Le présent ouvrage réunit les principaux experts du droit international humanitaire pour réfléchir sur ses principes fondateurs et leur pertinence dans les conflits armés contemporains. Il propose un état des lieux sur les grandes questions du droit international humanitaire à la lumière de l’évolution récente de la pratique en la matière. L’approche retenue par cette étude se veut à la fois didactique et critique, de manière à mieux comprendre les enjeux contemporains du droit international humanitaire, son évolution et sa portée. L’ouvrage collectif s’articule à cette fin autour de cinq axes essentiels :

- la notion de conflit armé ;

- les nouveaux acteurs des conflits armés ;

- les espaces des conflits armés ;

- les méthodes de combat ;

- la juridictionnalisation du droit des conflits armés.

Crawford: Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America's Post-9/11 Wars

Neta Crawford (Boston Univ. - Political Science) has published Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America's Post-9/11 Wars (Oxford Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

In May 2009, American B-1B bombers dropped 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs in the village of Garani, Afghanistan following a Taliban attack. The dead included anywhere from twenty five to over one hundred civilians. The U.S. military went into damage control mode, making numerous apologies to the Afghan government and the townspeople. Afterward, the military announced that it would modify its aerial support tactics. This episode was hardly an anomaly. As anyone who has followed the Afghanistan war knows, these types of incidents occur with depressing regularity. Indeed, as Neta Crawford shows in Accountability for Killing, they are intrinsic to the American way of warfare today. While the military has prioritized reducing civilian casualties, it has not come close to eliminating them despite significant progress in recent years, for a very simple reason: American reliance on airpower and, increasingly, drone technology, which is intended to reduce American casualties. Yet the long distance from targets, the power of the explosives, and the frequency of attacks necessarily produces civilian casualties over the course of a long war.

Working from these basic facts, Crawford offers a sophisticated and intellectually powerful analysis of culpability and moral responsibility in war. The dominant paradigm of legal and moral responsibility in war today stresses both intention and individual accountability. Deliberate killing of civilians is outlawed and international law blames individual soldiers and commanders for such killing. But also under international law, civilian killing may be forgiven if it was unintended and incidental to a militarily necessary operation. Given the nature of contemporary war, though, Crawford contends that this argument is no longer satisfactory. As she demonstrates, 'unintended' deaths of civilians are too often dismissed as unavoidable, inevitable, and accidental. Yet essentially, the very law that protects noncombatants from deliberate killing allows unintended killing. An individual soldier may be sentenced life in prison or death for deliberately killing even a small number of civilians, but the large scale killing of dozens or even hundreds of civilians may be forgiven if it was unintentional-'incidental' to a military operation. She focuses on the causes of these many episodes of foreseeable collateral damage and the moral responsibility for them. Why was there so much unintended killing of civilians in the U.S. wars zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan? Is 'collateral damage' simply an unavoidable consequence of all wars? Why, when the U.S. military tries so hard to limit collateral damage, does so much of it seem to occur? Trenchant, original, and ranging across security studies, international law, ethics, and international relations, Accountability for Killing will reshape our understanding of the ethics of contemporary war.

Ni Aoláin & Gross: Guantánamo and Beyond: Exceptional Courts and Military Commissions in Comparative Perspective

Fionnuala Ni Aoláin (Univ. of Minnesota - Law) & Oren Gross (Univ. of Minnesota - Law) have published Guantánamo and Beyond: Exceptional Courts and Military Commissions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

The Military Commissions scheme established by President George W. Bush in November 2001 has garnered considerable controversy. In parallel with the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the creation of military courts has focused significant global attention on the use of such courts to process and try persons suspected of committing terrorist acts or offenses during armed conflict. This book brings together the viewpoints of leading scholars and policy makers on the topic of exceptional courts and military commissions with a series of unique contributions setting out the current 'state of the field'. The book assesses the relationship between such courts and other intersecting and overlapping legal arenas including constitutional law, international law, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law. By examining the comparative patterns, similarities and disjunctions arising from the use of such courts, this book also analyzes the political and legal challenges that the creation and operation of exceptional courts produces both within democratic states and for the international community.