2023 ASIL Annual Meeting

Separate registration with the ITA is required.

Reforming Arbitration Reform: Emerging Voices, New Strategies, Evolving Values

New voices are reshaping international arbitration practice by adopting innovative reform strategies and upholding evolving values. International, supranational and domestic actors are each playing significant roles as rule-makers, with varying degrees of transparency. Driving forces are sustainability, inclusiveness and regionalism. Sustainability and inclusiveness – including the rebalancing of a range of social and environmental interests – will affect international arbitration practice on many levels; one key challenge will be determining how to apply emerging standards in concrete ways and in particular disputes. On regionalism, rulemaking affecting international arbitration practice today, in significant part, is regional rulemaking by international and supranational actors. New voices relying on innovative strategies to uphold evolving values will significantly impact the practice area.

Who are the law makers in the new age of arbitration?

Anika Havaldar is an associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP based in Washington DC. She represents clients in international arbitration and complex litigation matters. She also maintains an active pro bono practice, including advising small and developing countries on multilateral treaty negotiations and litigating human rights matters in U.S. courts. 

 Prior to joining Freshfields, Anika served as a law clerk to then-President Abdulqawi A. Yusuf of the International Court of Justice and Judge Judith W. Rogers of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She has also worked as an international law consultant to the Government of Palau, research assistant at the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and an intern for Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. 

 Anika received her JD from Columbia Law School as a James Kent Scholar and recipient of the David M. Berger Memorial Prize in International Law and her BA, magna cum laude, from Columbia University. 

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Immunization through vaccines is a major element of primary health care and an “indisputable human right,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet, legal barriers around vaccine distribution have been particularly marked in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where their availability has differed vastly across the globe. While several wealthy countries have exceeded 90% of vaccine coverage, approximately three billion people worldwide have not received a single dose, and 11% of all people in low-income countries have received at least one. Organizations such as the GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance), CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and the WHO established the COVAX (Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access) program in April 2020. However, its impact has been muted by vaccine nationalism, queue-jumping by wealthier nations and supply-chain issues. Intellectual property and trade secrets relating to vaccine production have also been a major obstacle to vaccine equity. A World Trade Organization TRIPS waiver of intellectual property rights due to a public health emergency, thwarted for many months, was finally agreed on in June 2022 – but has been criticized by civil society groups for significantly watering down the goals of the original, more ambitious proposal tabled by India and South Africa in October 2020. Such inequity in vaccine access has heightened death tolls in middle and low-income countries, threatened the human right to health, and has also been blamed for prolonging the COVID-19 pandemic. In this round table, panelists will discuss the challenges and limitations of international law in guaranteeing vaccine equity. What tensions are at play between human rights, trade and intellectual property rules? What are the prospects of the TRIPS waiver in providing an effective remedy?  What – if anything – can be done to bridge the gaps between Global North and Global South, civil society and pharmaceutical companies, politics and law? How – if at all – can international law safeguard vaccine inequity in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond?

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent responses (or lack thereof) by the UN Security Council (UNSC) and UN General Assembly (UNGA) to the ongoing war have put into stark relief the limitations of the current UN framework for maintaining international peace and security. When adopting this fundamental purpose for the United Nations under Article 1(1) of the UN Charter, the framers did not anticipate a world in which countries with primary responsibility for peace themselves become a leading cause of global insecurity. In abdication of their primary duty under the UN Charter, some countries have exercised their veto power for blocking UNSC responses that seek to prevent or respond to such acts.

In this context, this session will critically examine the full range of possible responses currently available to the UNSC and UNGA under the UN Charter and existing structure to respond to threats and breaches to international peace and security. While focusing on current situations such as in Ukraine and Taiwan, the discussion will also be informed by the practice of the UNSC and UNGA in response to other crises and reforms to the UN framework since WWII for asking the following: 1) Has the framework largely achieved its fundamental purpose to date? 2) In light of the full range of possible responses available to the UNSC and UNGA for responding to threats or breaches to the peace, is the framework sufficient for today’s world? 3) More broadly, Does the current geopolitical context weigh in favor of reform or the status quo?

Organized by the Government Attorney’s Interest Group

The Government Attorneys Interest Group (GAIG) invites all ASIL Members to a special presentation on the Role of the Government Attorney in International Treaty Negotiations. The speaker will be Ambassador Rena Lee, the Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, Ambassador for Oceans and Law of the Sea Issues, Special Envoy of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and President of the Intergovernmental Conference on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). Ambassador Lee will share her perspectives on how a government attorney chairs multilateral negotiations, how she navigates her way among the diverging views and positions of 193 sovereign states, and what skills a government attorney should develop to be successful in such an environment. Following Ambassador Lee's presentation, GAIG will conduct its annual business meeting.

Speaker:

• Ambassador Rena Lee, Intellectual Property Office of Singapore

In both international law and the American Society of International Law, there is a long and distinguished history of interdisciplinary scholarship connecting social science theories and methods to the practice of law.  This new organized interest section, launched by Karen Alter, Mark Pollack, Katerina Linos and Anne van Aaken, will provide a home for ASIL members who draw upon and contribute to the social sciences, and serve as a platform for expanding interdisciplinary collaborations among those with legal and social science expertise. The section is open to a range of empirical methods, qualitative and quantitative, to understand the dynamics of international law and international institutions. At our very first social-business meeting, we will share and collect ideas for a bi-annual workshop and speaker series. There is much to discuss about future activities. Please join us at 3:30 for introductions and brainstorming. Socializing will continue Thursday over drinks, starting at 8pm (location TBA).

Arezo Yazd is Principal Corporate Counsel at Microsoft, where she is the lead attorney for multiple business units, including Global Market Development and Defense and Intelligence. Ms. Yazd advises on cutting edge technology issues with respect to cloud computing and generative AI with respect to commercial sales for the global public sector. 

Prior to joining Microsoft, Ms. Yazd was a Senior Counsel with the Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Ms. Yazd led the Department’s work on legal reform and commercial development issues with countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Gulf.  Prior, Ms. Yazd was in private practice with a focus on International Real Estate and Structured Finance in New York City at Paul Hastings LLP and Weil Gotshal LLP, respectively.  Ms. Yazd was also a Fellow at Human Rights Watch from 2009-2010.  In 2008, Ms. Yazd clerked in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee for the Constitution. Ms. Yazd has published on several news outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera America, The Huffington Post, and the International Journal for Court Administration on international law and foreign policy issues.   

Ms. Yazd earned her Juris Doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley (Boalt Hall), where she co-founded the Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Law. She was also the Executive Editor for the Berkeley Journal of International Law. She earned her Bachelor degree in Middle East Studies and Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley, graduating with High Honors. Ms. Yazd speaks Persian and is admitted to practice law in the State of New York.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

 From the liberalization of abortion laws in Ireland, Mexico, and Argentina to the end of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, reproductive health are transforming countries around the world. These shifts represent not only a changing landscape of rights and health, but also reflect the wide-range of issues wrapped into debates on abortion including religion, gender, healthcare, and ethics in scientific research. International and transnational law reflects the contestation on questions of abortion but has increasingly moved towards recognizing a right to abortion.  Given this shifting landscape the panel will consider how international and transnational law has enabled and restrained abortion related legal reform and social movement activism. It will also consider how international legal fora provide opportunities for debate and dialogue on the rights to abortion.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the International Legal Research Interest Group

Sponsored by Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

 Religion is as old as mankind and religious rules have guided peoples’ behavior for equally as long. Some rules have never changed and are applied as-is to modern day issues. Others have been amended to bring them in line with new ways of thinking or to deal with novel issues. In some jurisdictions, there is a strict separation between church and state, whereas in others, it is intertwined with the state and national identity. This panel will provide attendees with substantial information and ways to research religious law and its interpretations, including but not limited to Sharia and canon law, but will also point out challenges to conducting research. Panelists will give an overview of religious law in various jurisdictions and explain how the respective jurisdictions and religions deal with modern day challenges. 

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

• Lecturer: Dr. Kim Lane Scheppele, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs: "Restoring Democracy through International Law"
• Distinguished Discussant: Justice Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa, High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom: "Kim Scheppele’s vision for restoring democracy - and why we must accept the challenge"

Abstract:

The “emerging right to democratic governance” (as Tom Franck famously called it in 1992) has preoccupied international law debates for decades. But what is the status of this right in an age of democratic recession when state practice increasingly rejects democratic ideals? In this lecture, Scheppele looks at the challenges to democratic governance posed by a new generation of autocrats who mimic democracy in order to undermine it and who avoid obvious violations of international law while doing so. Because the new autocrats consolidate power in fewer and fewer hands and eliminate checks and balances in their domestic constitutional orders without engaging in massive human rights violations and without eliminating multiparty elections, they operate in a legal domain that international law has been reluctant to enter.

How can international law rise to this new challenge of defending democracy in an era of democratic recession? Scheppele argues that international law standards for assessing domestic constitutional institutions are just starting to emerge now, particularly with regard to judicial independence, executive term limits and the operation of independent “fourth branch” institutions. While this new “international law of constitutional democracy” is not yet generally binding on most states and is still tentative in character, its emerging principles can be used by principled democrats inside the new autocracies to guide transitions back to democracy. 

Sponsored by the American University Washington College of Law.

Weather Alternative: International Terrace West

Presented by Cambridge University Press

Democracies and International Law by Tom Ginsburg (co-recipient of the Robert E. Dalton Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Foreign Relations Law)

The market for legal jobs is difficult right now and specializing in a particular issue, like international law, can make your job search even more frustrating. This session will discuss the steps that students and graduates can take while still in law school or in their early career to help themselves stand out in the search for an international law position. Topics covered will include targeted job searching, managing one’s professional contacts, identifying appropriate international experiences, pursuing valuable volunteer and professional membership opportunities, and other practical issues that students can pursue.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the Latin America Interest Group

Sponsored by The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

Following the publication of the AJIL Unbound Symposium on Latin American International Law, in October 2022, which examined current Latin American international legal thought and discourse, highlighting the plural, autochthonous, and interconnected debates about politics, law, and power in the region, this roundtable will address some of the most pressing themes that Latin American international law is bound to face in the future.  In particular, panelists will analyze states’ commitment to the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes, the role of international adjudication and human rights law in the construction of a Latin American international law, and some of the challenges posed by domestic litigation against climate change.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

On 28 July 2022, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) recognized “the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right” and noted that this right “is related to other rights and existing international law”. Proponents of the recognition of the right have argued that it would, inter alia, help overcome the personal-injury based approach to legal protection that has limited the viability of legal actions concerning environmental harm. Now that the right has been recognized by the UNGA, it remains to be seen whether it will significantly change how environmental sustainability considerations are addressed in transnational dispute resolution. In investment treaty arbitration, recognition of the right to a healthy environment could assist States in defending against claims challenging the impact of environmental measures on foreign investments, such as in the recent Rockhopper v. Italy case which resulted in an award of €190 million in connection with a ban on offshore oil and gas concessions. The recognition of the right could also affect the development of “Environmental, Social and Governance” (ESG) standards, including by increasing pressure on businesses to adopt meaningful environmental standards, which could be enforceable through shareholder claims and enforcement actions by regulators. There is also the possibility that the recognition of the right will expand the space for businesses to be sued on tort principles for extraterritorial conduct harmful to the environment as seen in cases such as Nevsun Resources Ltd v Araya in Canada and Vedanta Resources v. Lungowe in the United Kingdom.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Chaffetz Lindsey LLP

It has been long presumed that States would comply with awards in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Otherwise, they risk reputational damage or enforcement action under the New York and ICSID conventions. However, new research by academics and practitioners shows that compliance is often partial, delayed or non-existent. Moreover, States sometimes offer alternatives to compensation and investors sell awards to third parties at highly discounted rates. This multi-stakeholder panel poses three questions: (1) To what extent do states comply with ISDS decisions? (2) Why do they comply (or not) with such decisions? (3) What steps could be taken to improve compliance, if that is desired?

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Every two seconds, someone under the age of 70 dies of a non-communicable disease (NCD). NCDs including heart disease, cancer, diabetes and lung disease kill more people than infectious disease globally. During the pandemic, NCDs have exacerbated the risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19, while disruptions to health services have delayed preventative care, diagnosis, and treatment for these diseases. Global governance efforts for NCDs have included the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, as well as efforts like WHO Member States’ 2022 commitment to adopting best-practice laws and policies for NCDs under the Global NCD Compact 2020-2030. But are these enough? How well do current governance efforts address the commercial determinants of health? This Roundtable, with experts from academia, international organizations and non-government organizations, will explore the impacts of state and non-state actors in setting the agenda for NCD governance.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Columbia Law School

The International Court of Justice, as the principal judicial organ of the UN, has played a vital role in the peaceful settlement of disputes, delivering more than one hundred judgments since its creation over 75 years ago. After periods in which the Court's jurisdiction was relatively neglected, or dominated by boundary and maritime disputes, the Court is now experiencing a renaissance in state interest, with cases ranging from erga omnes obligations to new requests for advisory opinions. This conversation, with two candidates standing for election to the ICJ, will discuss some of the new challenges faced by the Court, which may impact its authority and define its role in the coming years. These challenges include the use of scientific evidence, non-appearance, compliance with provisional measures, standing on the basis of erga omnes obligations, interventions by third states, advisory jurisdiction, compensation, and demands for multilingualism, among others.

AJ Link (he/him) is openly autistic. He received his JD from The George Washington University Law School and his LL.M in Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is the inaugural director of The Center for Air and Space Law Task Force on Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Aerospace and an adjunct professor of space law at Howard University School of Law. AJ is the Communications Director for AstroAccess and works as a research director for the Jus Ad Astra project. He serves as the Space Law and Policy Chair for Black in Astro and was the founding president of the National Disabled Law Students Association. He also helped found the National Disabled Legal Professionals Association and is a commissioner on the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights.

AJ is a policy analyst for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He has been actively involved with disability advocacy in the Washington, DC area and nationally within the United States. He serves on several advisory boards and steering committees that focus on disability advocacy and broader social justice movements.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

International criminal justice is evolving rapidly in response to victims’ demands for justice in the face of persistent accountability gaps around the world. While not always attracting the same attention as the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), States are increasingly using universal jurisdiction to hold perpetrators to account. The efforts of civil society organizations are becoming more sophisticated as many take up the role of collecting evidence for use in criminal proceedings. At the same time, UN bodies, in particular the UN Human Rights Council, have created more than a dozen investigative mandates with expansive functions that go beyond the traditional focus on state responsibility to also emphasize criminal investigations aimed at helping establish individual criminal responsibility. Calls for the creation of a Standing Independent Investigative Mechanism that would arguably tie many of these developments together, making them more effective and efficient, and better coordinated are also gaining attention. As these developments continue apace, how can we ensure they unfold in a principled and coherent way, including by helping combat the scourge of selectivity in international criminal justice and centering the interests of victims?

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

The Brower Lecture is named in honor of Judge Charles N. Brower for his many contributions to the field of international law. It was established to recognize outstanding achievement in the practice and or scholarship of international dispute resolution.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Climate change may be the biggest public-private issue confronting the world today.  It is a classic beggar thy neighbor / tragedy of the commons problem that requires public-private partnerships for resolution.  One of the largest frontiers in the fight against climate change concerns the use and disposal of non-biodegradable materials such as plastics.  From the oceans to the atmosphere, plastics already are one of the key threats to the environment, and scientists predict further grave and irreversible damage if nothing is done to address current trends. International law has a role in addressing plastic waste pollution, whether through the use of existing multilateral environmental agreements and instruments (e.g., the Plastic Waste Amendments to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions), the conclusion of a new international agreement on plastics, or through inter-State claims for transboundary pollution.  Is international law, however, best placed to address the use and disposal of plastics?  Could international legal mandates ever be sufficient for such an issue?  How do we address short-term, low-cost, individualized advantages that stem from plastics use with the long-term, high-cost, social problems that such use is wreaking?  Could international agreements generate a credible means for commitment such that plastic waste pollution could be more effectively addressed from the ground-up through, for example, domestic taxes on plastics, domestic legislation on use and disposal, or corporate self-regulation?

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the International Law & Technology Interest Group

Co-sponsored by the European Society of International Law Interest Group on International Law and Technology

For the most part, international law has been grounded in the past, with its rules and institutions commonly devised against yesterday’s crises, often to the neglect of future needs. This past-oriented paradigm of international rulemaking, even if workable for a long time, seems unsustainable in our ever-accelerating world. The rapid pace of technological innovation now requires swift and often non-traditional responses that international law might struggle to provide. This may render international law obsolete in the face of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, synthetic biology, or outer-space exploitation. These challenges, all bearing far-reaching implications for the international community, require regulation that is not solely rooted in the past, but rather geared towards the future with a view to preventing risks and unlocking potential benefits. With these premises in mind, this roundtable discussion will untangle the intricate relationship between time, international law, and technological change. It will explore whether, how, and to what extent the temporal horizon of international law can (and should) be extended to future-proof the discipline. The roundtable will address these questions at both the theoretical and practical levels, examining how specific normative and institutional mechanisms may affect the temporal modalities of international law. 

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) implicates a broad range of international law issues and concerns, from treaty law to trade law, consular law, migration, regional governance, self-determination, human rights, democracy, and justice, among others. Twenty-five years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, this panel will consider two important recent developments. Firstly, panelists will discuss the history of the negotiations that produced the Agreement in the context of Britain’s exit from the European Union, which has put major elements of the GFA under new strain and increased scrutiny. Secondly, panelists will discuss how modern, innovative presentations of the public and private archival material related to the negotiation are shedding new light on the underlying peace process, with implications for our broader understanding of the creation of successful agreements of this type.

Organized by the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict

The Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict is a vibrant community of academics and professionals from military, government, and civil society organizations, focused on various issues relating to international humanitarian law or the law of armed conflict, broadly defined. The first part of this session is devoted to showcasing the award-winning papers that won the 2022 Lieber book and article/chapter prizes and the Baxter military writing prize. The second half of this session brings together the Lieber society team and members to plan our activities for 2023 and identify emerging themes of interest for events development, workshops, and collaboration. We will then open the session for general Q&A, career advice, and present our new mentorship program which is open for applicants.

Leah Calabro is the Visiting Associate Professor and Fellow for the International and Comparative Law Program at The George Washington University Law School. Professor Calabro is a graduate with honors of GW Law, with a Concentration in International and Comparative Law. During her time as a student at GW Law, Professor Calabro was a Thurgood Marshall Scholar; an Executive Articles Editor for The George Washington International Law Review; and a member of our Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Team and recipient of the Judge Albert H. Grenadier Award. She worked as a student attorney for the Global Network Initiative as part of the International Human Rights Clinic in addition to working as a Research Assistant for Professors Sean Murphy and Edward Swaine. She is also an alum of the GW–Oxford International Human Rights Law Program. Prior to returning to GW, she served as a Law Clerk on the Special Matters Unit-Fraud Division for CACI International, Inc. Professor Calabro teaches International Criminal Law and Victims’ Rights in International Human Rights and International Criminal Law. Her academic research focuses on International Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law, particularly as they relate to victims’ and women’s rights. Professor Calabro holds a JD from The George Washington University Law School and a BA and BFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Sponsored by Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Tickets for this event must be purchased separately with registration.

The Manley O. Hudson Medal is the Society’s most prestigious award and has been conveyed to a distinguished person of American or other nationality for outstanding contributions to scholarship and achievement in international law since its creation and conferral on Manley O. Hudson in 1956.

• Honoree: Anthony Anghie, National University of Singapore and University of Utah
• Discussant: E. Tendayi Achiume, UCLA School of Law

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

Scholarship in the fields of Third World Approaches to International Law and Critical Race Theory has shown how human rights doctrines (i.e., universal, timeless, non-ideological) can perpetuate racial hierarchies and geopolitical power imbalances in the international system. Moreover, 30 years since the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, minority rights continue to occupy a marginal place compared to related disciplines until they become full-blown “crises” (i.e., international criminal law, refugee law, humanitarian law). Conflicts in Palestine, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Ukraine, the Black Lives Matter protests in the US, COVID-19 vaccine inequity, and a global refugee crisis all showed instances of racist assumptions on the proper objects of rights protection. This session will be held as a debate designed to examine the structural barriers affecting human rights work that, in turn, impact the reach and limits of international legal doctrine to promote racial justice and equality. Speakers will answer whether decolonizing is possible, focusing on diversity and inclusion efforts in institutions of power, hiring practices, funding and immigration structures, unpaid opportunities, and expanding minority voices in practice and academia. The debate explores the idea that equality in human rights practice is key to racial progress.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the International Courts and Tribunals Interest Group

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

After a time of relative dormancy from the 1980s, advisory opinions have gained centre stage in States’ litigation strategies starting with the 2004 Wall opinion. This trend has become more prominent with the request, in 2017, of an ICJ advisory opinion on the decolonization of Chagos and Vanuatu’s campaign to request an ICJ advisory opinion on climate change obligations under international law. The increasingly common fragmentation of jurisdictional clauses in treaties and the effort to bring together multiple aspects of broader disputes have made requests for advisory opinions appealing to States wishing to raise certain questions of international law in judicial fora. This phenomenon could be seen as a reaction to what has been called ‘disaggregation of disputes’, which denotes the separation of broader disputes into smaller ones to bring the latter before different international tribunals. This panel will focus on the uses, actual and potential, of advisory jurisdiction as an instrument to foster the settlement of inter-State disputes. Speakers will focus on the most recent developments concerning advisory opinions on climate change, but will also cover fundamental questions including the effects of advisory opinions, their link with contentious proceedings and whether they can be valuable instruments to promote dispute settlement.

Sponsored by Chaffetz Lindsey LLP

Eighth Annual Detlev F. Vagts Roundtable

The freezing of Russian central bank assets in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, along with calls for the use of those assets as reparations for Ukraine and its people, have generated pressing questions about foreign sovereign immunity. This Roundtable will address those issues, focusing on whether immunity applies only to measures related to an exercise of judicial power, or whether it also applies to measures of constraint imposed through executive branch action. The question is of broad significance for sanctions, reparations, and countermeasures in many contexts beyond Russia and Ukraine.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Scientists have long warned that the health of humans, animals and ecosystems is inextricably linked. The spillover of diseases from animals to humans (i.e., zoonoses) is a prominent consequence of this interdependence. To protect the world from future pandemics, governments must embrace a multi-sectoral and whole-of-society – that is, a ‘One Health’ – approach to the global governance of health emergencies. Recognizing the critical importance of this approach, collaboration between the World Health Organization (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health, Food and Agriculture Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, is stronger today than ever before. Yet One Health is largely absent from international legal instruments that engage with human, animal, or environmental health and protection. The COVID-19 pandemic may inexorably change this picture. As WHO Member States advance in negotiations towards an international agreement on pandemics, early-stage proposals have emerged on mainstreaming ‘One Health’ throughout the instrument. In addition to examining the scope, content and importance of a One Health approach to pandemic prevention, this panel will discuss shortcomings in the existing international legal system as these relate to One Health and current initiatives towards defragmentation and coherence in international law, with special regard to the forthcoming international agreement on pandemics.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by the Japanese Society of International Law

The future of economic governance in the Indo-Pacific Region is increasingly unclear as geoeconomic and geopolitical tensions intensify. The TPP, which was expected to play a pivotal role in the region, didn’t come into force as the United States withdrew from it in 2017. Although the CPTPP, adopted under the leadership of the late former Japanese Prime Minister Abe, retrieved substantial parts of the TPP, its economic and political impact is limited due to the absence of the US. The slight expectation that the US would return to the TPP/CPTPP under the Biden Administration has turned to disappointment. Instead, a new initiative, called IPEF, has emerged although its details remain vague. Can the IPEF become the solid basis of connected, resilient, clean and fair economic governance in the Indo-Pacific region? Can it provide what the TPP was expected to provide and go beyond that? Or, is it simply a less ambitious alternative to the CPTPP? Moreover, challenges in the region are not only economic. Given the mounting geoeconomic and geopolitical tensions in the region, stronger cooperation among Japan, the US, Australia, New Zealand and other allies is needed on political and security issues as well. Moreover, sustainability concerns, such as climate change and labor rights, are so inextricably intertwined with economic development that economic governance cannot be designed without regard to them. Against this background, this panel aims to promote discussion among researchers from the relevant regions on the significance and implications of the IPEF for international law and its future development.

Organized by the Dispute Resolution Interest Group

At the upcoming DRIG Business Meeting, we will host a discussion focusing on the design, implementation, and impact of empirical research in international arbitration, featuring speakers from two leading institutions in the field. We will also present the process that was followed for awarding the inaugural DRIG Prize for Best Article in International Dispute Resolution, which will be announced at the ASIL Annual Meeting.

Organized by the Private International Law Interest Group

This panel of seasoned experts will share their experiences and offer advice concerning career paths in international and particularly private international law fields, in areas such as research, government related work, dispute resolution, international development, and legal information. A short networking session will be offered to participants to further engage with speakers after the panel discussion.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

International criminal justice is evolving rapidly in response to victims’ demands for justice in the face of persistent accountability gaps around the world. While not always attracting the same attention as the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), States are increasingly using universal jurisdiction to hold perpetrators to account. The efforts of civil society organizations are becoming more sophisticated as many take up the role of collecting evidence for use in criminal proceedings. At the same time, UN bodies, in particular the UN Human Rights Council, have created more than a dozen investigative mandates with expansive functions that go beyond the traditional focus on state responsibility to also emphasize criminal investigations aimed at helping establish individual criminal responsibility. Calls for the creation of a Standing Independent Investigative Mechanism that would arguably tie many of these developments together, making them more effective and efficient, and better coordinated are also gaining attention. As these developments continue apace, how can we ensure they unfold in a principled and coherent way, including by helping combat the scourge of selectivity in international criminal justice and centering the interests of victims?

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Chaffetz Lindsey LLP

A slow-moving wave of sovereign debt crises is immiserating millions of vulnerable people and exposing the shaky foundations of the debt restructuring architecture that emerged from the “lost decade” of the 1980s. Debt restructuring institutions are still dominated by trans-Atlantic powers, infused with colonial legacy, and seemingly unmoored from both political and market realities. Today's debt restructuring architecture must be fit to deal with a dizzying variety of public, private, and hybrid creditors, vulnerable debtors across the national income spectrum, climate and public health emergencies, political instability, war, and institutional fragmentation. The task of the panel is to envision such an architecture -- or as much of it as they can see.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

The 2022-2024 ASIL Signature Topic examines the duty of States to cooperate (a bedrock principle of the international legal system) together with the obligation of States to comply with international law and the expectation that, should States fail to do so, mechanisms and institutions exist to bring about compliance.  This session will address the ambition and actuality of cooperation and compliance in the international legal system amid today’s existential threats such as war, climate change, and pandemics.  At a moment when the international community faces multiple crises—some systemic, some new—the desire to envision a brighter future, and the importance of achieving it through the commitment to cooperation and compliance, have never felt more critical. The session will address the substantive underpinnings of the Signature Topic and reflect on key challenges and opportunities for cooperation and compliance in the 21st Century. The session will also introduce the Change Within Our Lifetimes Campaign, which will see the Signature Topic take to social media, inviting participants across the globe—including you!—to describe, in no more than 100 words, ways in which cooperation and compliance through international law and institutions might change within their lifetimes.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

It was expected that negotiations of the BBNJ Treaty, also known as the “Treaty of the High Seas”, would have finished in 2022 with the successful adoption of a new international agreement governing the conservation and sustainable use of marine areas beyond national jurisdiction. Instead, negotiations in New York will resume in 2023, with much hope that this round will actually lead to the adoption of the BBNJ Treaty. While much has been written and said of the substantive law to be incorporated in the BBNJ Treaty, the working methods of the international conference drafting the agreement have remained largely unknown. This session will review the substantive law but also aims to explore the working methods of the Treaty [by bringing together persons who were directly involved in the BBNJ negotiations]. It will explore how States have been able to overcome deadlock and build consensus in pursuing the common aim of adopting an agreement touching on one of the most delicate areas of contemporary international law, and the lessons learned from this experience that can be applied to the future. Our speakers will also draw comparisons with the near-legendary working methods of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, with a view to exploring the peculiarities of negotiating a wide-ranging law of the sea treaty in a world that is different from the one in which UNCLOS was negotiated.

Students and new professionals are invited to participate in a speed mentoring session with international lawyers from a wide variety of practice areas and professional backgrounds. Participants will spend 10-12 minutes at a table, engaging with a mentor, before switching to a new table. This session is open to all Annual Meeting attendees.

From a divided Berlin to The Hague, the Reagan White House, the forests of Costa Rica, and more, Judge Charles N. Brower shares a personal history of a life spent at the forefront of international justice— and a case for the role of law in preserving global peace.

A judge of the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal for four decades, Charles N. Brower is an internationally recognized leader in arbitration and has handled cases on six continents. With quick wit and a keen eye for adventure, he takes readers on a tour of his extraordinary career.

As a young lawyer fresh from Harvard, Brower quickly made partner at a Wall Street firm. After just four months, however, he left the expected path to join the U.S. State Department, embarking on a career that put him in the thick of Cold War Europe and led to a lifelong focus on international law.

Brower’ s drive carried him to the heart of pressing issues, including globalization, governmental ethics, environmentalism, and human rights. At each stop, Brower encountered criminals and victims, advocates and miscreants, especially at the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal, where heated disagreements between judges once erupted into physical violence. His work at The Hague was interrupted only by his time as an advisor to President Ronald Reagan at the height of the Iran– Contra scandal, and Brower eventually became the most-appointed American judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice.

Judging Iran is a frank insider account of the highest echelons of international law. As an active judge to this day, Brower offers a nuanced history of modern arbitration between nations, from our earliest concept of international law to today’ s efforts for justice. And, as a global citizen, he argues that the law is essential in our work for peace.

Organized by the Law of the Sea Interest Group

The Arctic has traditionally been an area of cooperation and low tensions. There is no treaty or special regime that governs the region, and the Arctic coastal states agreed in the 2008 Illulisat Declaration that the law of the sea applies and there is “no need to develop a new comprehensive international legal regime” to govern the region. However, as the Arctic ice cap melts and exposes previously ice-covered regions to navigation, some Arctic coastal states have since taken action to regulate travel and shipping along their coastlines, including in areas considered by much of the international community to be international straits. The regulations often seem to be rooted in a perceived “historic right” to these areas. What does the law of the sea say about these attempts to regulate waters previously under year-round ice cover? Is there validity to claims of historic rights to ice-covered areas? Is the current state of international law sufficient to address these claims?

Organized by the Anti-Corruption Law Interest Group

Proposing a transnational asset recovery mechanism

Asset recovery is a fundamental principle of anti-corruption law, without which the financial damage from corruption cannot be repaired.  Yet recovering assets is notoriously difficult and time-consuming, and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption provides little technical or institutional support. To remedy this, we propose the creation of a transnational asset recovery mechanism that could provide myriad services to states on a voluntary but comprehensive basis, including gathering and publishing information, technical assistance and capacity-building to states seeking the return of assets, providing mediation services to help conclude agreements on asset return, and monitoring returned funds. Theoretically, we argue that such informal mechanisms have advantages over formal ones to address this critical policy issue neglected by the existing anti-corruption regime. Although more modest than efforts to create an international anti-corruption court, our proposal offers substantial benefits, including lower financial and political costs, enhanced flexibility, and a greater likelihood of enhancing interstate cooperation regarding asset returns.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

This panel will focus on the most pressing needs for IA reform. It will also consider the grounds for reform. What challenges exist to productive reform? What goals or values should reform focus on? How can effective reform be achieved? The panelist will develop four areas of potential reform. Panelists will analyze in a short presentation the value of reform in one of assigned areas (including ISDS & ICA, arbitrators & decision-makers, arbitration and court-related litigation, and treaty reform) and consider the prospects for reform. Following a short presentation of 5-7 minutes, the moderator will involve the panelists in a discussion about IA reform. The discussion will compare and contrast the reform areas, including which area is in most urgent need of reform and/or in need of the greatest reform, and address challenges to effective reform.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the International Legal Theory Interest Group

What happens when international law reaches a limit? How does it address that limit? The subjects and objects of international legal regulation are constantly shifting as old problems change, new problems emerge, and different constellations of states and other actors win and lose geopolitical power. There are standard accounts of international legal change: crises provide inflection points and generate lawmaking moments; customary law evolves through state practice and judicial elaboration; laws can crystallize through “bottom-up” processes, and so on. At the same time, recent commentators have suggested that international law is facing an existential crisis, pointing to its failure to solve the most significant problems of our time, such as a global pandemic, illegal use of force, and climate change. This session asks how—in light of these failures—we might find productive new ways to understand the process of international legal change. How might the standard accounts blinker legal actors to new modes of cooperation, new forms of law, and new ways of understanding global governance? How might new understandings of how law changes help various actors facilitate those changes? This session will focus on conceptual tools like paradigm shifts, temporality, tipping points, and metaphors

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Democratic backsliding or the “deterioration of qualities associated with democratic governance within any regime” Is a growing phenomenon. These erosion of democratic values and institutions – from Poland to Hungary, from Mexico to Israel – raise concerns about the future of liberal democracy.  Events in the last few months such as political crises in Peru and Brazil, or Turkey’s must-criticized handling of February’s horrific earthquake, among others, have only highlighted the importance of democratic values for peace and prosperity.  International law plays a critical role in shaping and influencing the responses against democratic backsliding.  In this late-breaking panel, we will examine recent examples of democratic backsliding against the lens of international law responses, both testing the limits and promulgating the reach of international law as a tool of democracy itself.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the International Environmental Law Interest Group

An accelerated coal phase-out is critical to the global energy transition and climate mitigation. According to the Secretary-General of the UN, the phasing out of coal in OECD nations should be carried out by 2030 and by 2040 in the rest of the world. However, coal cannot be viewed only as a source of CO2 emissions, it is also the largest source of electricity generation. The importance of coal, especially for developing countries, makes a transition to low-carbon energy systems particularly challenging. COP 26 in Glasgow reminded us that a global consensus on the importance of reducing greenhouse gasses does not mean that the energy transition is to be an easy process. Indian Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav made it very clear: “Developing countries have a right to their fair share of the global carbon budget and are entitled to the responsible use of fossil fuels." Hence, coal phase-out policies need to be accompanied by ambitious renewable energy phase-in strategies to ensure that political, economic, legal, social risks associated with the coal phase out are well addressed. In other words, without just energy transition, the Paris Agreement remains can hardly be implemented. Negative impact of coal phase out on coal regions (jobs, stable and affordable electricity) is at the core of the just energy transition. This panel aims to critically assess the role of legal tools in accelerating energy transition.

The Assembly program includes presentation of the Society’s annual honors and awards, remembrances of those we have lost during the past year, and the election and introduction of incoming officers and Executive Council members. This will be followed by the Assembly Address.

• Assembly Speaker: S. Mona Sinha, Equality Now
• Assembly Discussant: Michele Bratcher Goodwin, Law & Society Association

Sponsored by the University of California Irvine School of Law

Sponsored by the Georgetown Institute of International Economic Law and by Oxford University Press

The Journal of International Economic Law celebrates 25 years as the preeminent journal in the field with the launch of a special Agora issue.

 By invitation only.

Sponsored by Arnold & Porter, LLP

By invitation only.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Presented by the American Law Institute

The American Law Institute has announced its intention to complete The Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States over the coming years. The Society has invited the Co-chairs of the Project and the Reporters to hold a listening session at the 2023 Annual Meeting to describe plans going forward and hear suggestions.

Organized by the Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group

This panel will discuss transitional justice and accountability issues related to the Ukraine conflict.  Panelists will discuss accountability for Russian leaders who have ordered the commission of atrocities through the lens of transitional justice.  Thus, panelists will compare and contrast other conflicts and post-conflict situations with the current situation in Ukraine, in order to assess what the best approaches might be to transitional justice in Ukraine.  Panelists will discuss, for example, the work of international prosecutorial mechanism, such as the ICC, as well as recent proposals for the development of an aggression tribunal.  Moreover, panelists will discuss the issue of reparations, which is part and parcel of any transitional justice model which might be implemented in Ukraine.  All panelists have been involved in Ukraine-related work, have worked with Ukrainian prosecutors, judges, and civil society members, and have provided expertise on issues of transitional justice, accountability, and reparations.

This panel discussion will feature the editors and authors of this year’s ASIL-WILIG Scholarship Prize awardees, Indira Rosenthal, Valerie Oosterveld and Susana SáCouto (eds), Gender and International Criminal Law (OUP, 2022) and Catherine O’Rourke, Women’s Rights in Armed Conflict under International Law (CUP, 2020). The panel and book discussion will focus on whether and how feminist work, exemplified through the authors’ books, speaks to and permeates the ‘mainstream’ of international legal scholarship and practice. The panel will reflect on how gender has become part of the mainstream of international law, how that mainstream sometimes misunderstands gender, and how gender is excluded from the mainstream in certain ways. Yvonne Dutton, Professor Indiana University McKinney School of Law, will moderate the panel.

Our cover letter workshop and our resume workshop will each offer participants detailed insight drafting these documents in a way that makes them attractive to prospective employers from a variety of legal sectors. Topics under discussion will include cover letter and resumé “must-haves,” dos and don’ts, how to strike the correct tone, and an overview of what should be showcased in a cover letter vs. what should be saved for the resumé. 

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Chaffetz Lindsey LLP

After years of upheaval in international economic relations, new approaches to trade and investment policies are taking shape. Inspired by competing narratives about globalization that bring different values to the fore, these approaches no longer aim simply to facilitate an efficient international division of labor through trade and investment liberalization. Instead, they task trade and investment policy with achieving other substantive policy objectives as well, including strengthening worker rights, addressing inequality, building resilient supply chains, safeguarding national security, and addressing the climate crisis. As the aims of trade and investment policy become more diverse, cross-cutting, and complex, how will or should international economic law adapt and respond? The session brings together leading thinkers from a variety of disciplines to explore post-neoliberal visions of the goals, processes and institutions that may shape the future of international economic law.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Questions surrounding extra-, non-, and a-legal processes, technologies, and practices and their relationship to ‘law’ continue confronting the discipline of international law. While Fleur Johns and Hans Lindahl have undertaken recent inquiries, these could be said to persist at the discipline’s edges. The mainstream tradition remains unsure about the relationship between such processes and international law. These extra-, non-, and a-legal processes contribute to a growing concern that multilateral law-making and the rule of law are in decline. Yet, international law has long recognised complementary a-legal tools such as diplomacy for actors to turn to as pre- and post- legal processes. This roundtable problematizes extra-, non-, and a-legal practices, examines their various forms, and discusses whether they threaten the ideal of a stable international legal order. Panelists explore: should we be concerned about an unraveling global legal order? Is there a singular order or multiple orders? Does extra-legal governance threaten the pre-eminence of law? What role does informal law-making play? How new are extra-legal practices? Should we distinguish between older and newer forms of extra-legality? What is their relationship to traditional law-making? Do these processes complement, supplement, or displace international law? Do we need new concepts to understand this governance paradigm? 

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the International Criminal Law Interest Group

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

Are certain states and individuals practically immune from responsibility for acts of aggression? For the purposes of state responsibility, the United Nations Security Council has never made a determination on aggression. For the most part, it is always, to some extent, limited. In many cases, this is due to the possibility of veto from its Permanent Five members. Further, the extent of collective action from third states has varied in response to aggression, depending on the situation. For the purposes of individual criminal responsibility, the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction is limited. This is largely due to the pushback that led to its watered-down, procedurally hurdled, inclusion into the Rome Statute through the 2010 Kampala Amendments. Understanding the limits of international criminal law, many have explored the possibility of prosecuting the crime of aggression through ad-hoc tribunals for situations like Ukraine. They have also explored revisiting the Kampala Amendments. Are ad-hoc tribunals the fix? Should we revisit the Kampala amendments? Is the current legal framework, under the rules on state responsibility and individual criminal responsibility, enough to prevent and respond to acts of aggression? These questions, and several others, will be explored.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. For some countries, climate change threatens their very existence. The reach and limits of international courts and tribunals in resolving the climate crisis have yet to be fully explored or tested.  In particular, it is still uncertain what role, if any, international courts and tribunals can play in clarifying and enforcing the international legal principles related to climate change, and whether there are particular risks or opportunities associated with seizing different courts and tribunals of different or overlapping questions relating to climate change. This panel will explore these questions through the lens of three recent initiatives to seek advisory opinions on climate change from the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In addition, the panel will consider the potential for using the adversarial and incidental jurisdictions of these and other courts and tribunals, both for clarifying international norms on climate change and enforcing them. A central theme of this panel will be the extent to which international courts and tribunals can play a role in enhancing and promoting climate justice.

By invitation only

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Presented by Geneva Call

Most contemporary armed conflicts include armed groups and de facto authorities (AGDAs), which have a responsibility to ensure that civilians can access essential goods and services, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian engagement with AGDAs is essential for humanitarian organizations and medical service providers to access those in need in a timely manner. Additionally, improved IHL compliance by AGDAs creates an enabling environment that allows communities to access essential services in safety and reduces the need for life-saving medical and humanitarian assistance in the long term through protection of infrastructure, local economies, healthcare facilities, and livelihoods. Better compliance also has a stabilizing effect, paving the way for early recovery, development efforts and, ultimately, sustainable peace.

Addressing access challenges for communities in need is thus urgently required. International actors need to better understand how to engage with AGDAs, including a deeper understanding of the important roles played by local civil society as well as how AGDAs influence conflict dynamics for humanitarian action, development, and peacebuilding. Experienced humanitarian practitioners at this roundtable side event will examine concrete field examples to identify the challenges and opportunities of engaging with AGDAs in order to better protect civilian populations impacted by conflicts and support compliance with IHL.

The New Professionals Interest Group will hold a social event for its members during its business meeting at the 2023 ASIL Annual Meeting. NPIG members can create and submit trivia teams (email for sign-up) before the time. During the business meeting, NPIG members will get to know each other and discuss NPIG plans for 2023 before playing an international law trivia game. 

Social media platforms are playing a key role in armed conflicts around the world, such as the conflicts in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Israel-Palestine, and most recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Social media provide a platform to those living through a conflict to raise awareness, coordinate relief efforts, organize protests, and document war crimes and human rights violations. However, social media can also be used by parties to the conflict to facilitate attacks, spread propaganda, and incite violence.  In the war between Russia and Ukraine, for example, social media platforms adopted different policies to respond to online speech concerning the conflict. Twitter prohibited the sharing of content depicting prisoners of war, while Meta allowed time-bound exceptions to their Violence and Incitement policy.

As social media platforms adjust their content moderation policies to respond to armed conflict, what role should the law of armed conflict play, if at all? International humanitarian law regulates the means and methods of warfare and provides specific protections to particular actors. As warfare and technology evolve, to what extent should social media companies follow IHL standards to respect human rights? Alternatively, what can be said about the concurrent application of human rights law in regulating online speech and other digital rights during wartime.

Professor Jackson Sow teaches and writes in the areas of contracts, constitutional law, international law, human rights, law and philosophy, and rhetoric. Her most recent work, Protect and Serve, was published in the California Law Review. Professor Jackson Sowearned her J.D. from Columbia Law School, her Master of Laws from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her B.A. from Northwestern University. Immediately prior to returning to academia, Professor Jackson served as a Leadership in Government Fellow for the Open Society Foundations and a 2020 Fellow for the Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent hosted by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Marissa clerked for the Honorable Sterling Johnson, Jr., in the Eastern District of New York, and for the Honorable Damon J. Keith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Marissa also served in New York City government, first as the first Black and youngest-ever General Counsel in the Mayor's Office for International Affairs, and then as the Deputy Commissioner for Community Relations in the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Marissa and her husband live in Baltimore, where they raise their 4 children and teenaged cat. 

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the Transitional Justice & Rule of Law Interest Group

Sponsored by Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

From the streets of Tehran, Iran to Minneapolis, Minnesota we are experiencing the largest wave of nonviolent mass demonstrations in world history, including protests in support of racial, gender, and economic justice. In response to this civil resistance, States have imposed curfews, criminalized protests, and violently attacked protesters. This panel will explore the international law of protest. Specifically, it will explore the following questions: What explains this rise in protest? Is there a right to protest under international law? What international protections exist to safeguard those who engage in civil disobedience?  What government responses to protest are unlawful? Can the international community or foreign governments intervene in support of civil resistance to authoritarian rule?

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

On 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin – President of the Russian Federation – and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. The warrant focuses on war crimes relating to children – the unlawful deportation of population and unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

What are the implications of such a warrant, against a sitting head of state, of a non-state party to the Rome Statute? What are the obligations on Rome Statute state parties in relation to this warrant? Given the specific nature and type of crimes that are the focus of the arrest warrant, what does this signal? Is this a new and bold step forward in the fight against state impunity, or is this arrest warrant bound to be consigned to the history books with nary an impact? 

Speakers to be announced.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Organized by the Dispute Resolution Interest Group

Sponsored by Chaffetz Lindsey LLP

In the 1990s, the OECD led an unsuccessful attempt to conclude a Multilateral Agreement on Investment that would unify the international regime of investment protection. Following this experience, the mandate of UNCITRAL Working Group III was limited to the reform of investor-State dispute settlement and excluded substantive norms. The recent conclusion of an Agreement in Principle to modernize the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) suggested that multilateral reform of investment law was conceivable, but several States party to that Agreement subsequently backed out and announced withdrawal from the ECT. Assuming investment law reform is desirable, what can be learned from the approaches followed by UNCITRAL Working Group III and the ECT modernization group? Should other approaches be envisaged, such as those of the International Law Commission (ILC), the World Trade Organization, or the drafters of the ICSID Convention? In this rapid-response session, leading international lawmakers, academics, and practitioners will creatively examine the various potential methods and processes for reforming investment law.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

The content of plastic in our oceans is increasing at a rapid pace, thereby severely endangering the marine ecosystem. At the same time, a similar fate is affecting outer space: the quantity of space debris in outer space, also called “space junk”, is also increasing at a rapid rate and is creating dangers for military and commercial space operations, including the risk of rendering entire orbits unusable if it cannot be controlled. This panel will examine the currently escalating problem of space debris and explore ways to mitigate it by comparing similar efforts directed at the protection of the World’s oceans under the Law of the Sea and recent efforts to sign treaties on the general use of plastics and more specifically on the protection of the High Seas. What can we learn by comparing current legal regimes, past efforts and ongoing negotiations over both outer space and the oceans? Is there a way of avoiding another tragedy of the commons? Could a solution in outer space be applied to the oceans or the other around?

Sponsored by King & Spalding

Tickets for this event must be purchased separately with registration

Prominent Woman in International Law

The Prominent Woman in International Law Award is awarded annually by the Women in International Law Interest Group in recognition of a woman recipient’s contribution to the development of international law.

• Gillian Triggs, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

International Intellectual Property Law is one of the most dynamic fields in international law.  Come and meet your fellow IPLIG members, learn about IPLIG and how to get involved, and bring suggestions for events, and other activities.  All are welcome. Refreshments will be provided.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

Although sovereign immunity and the State’s right to regulate access to its territory are undisputed principles of international law, new global circumstances have led to renewed challenges to the limits of such principles. Examples range from the United States’ push for new exceptions to sovereign immunity related to terrorism and cyberattacks and the recent worldwide seizure on Russian assets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to the restrictions on access to territory imposed by States to address national security concerns or to protect against the spread of COVID-19, and even to restrictions to access to evidence within a State’s jurisdiction, as evinced by the United States’ Supreme Court latest decision on the scope of 28 U.S.C. § 1782. This Panel will explore the contours of these recent examples, and examine whether these well-established principles can and should adapt to current circumstances, and how and where these emerging challenges should be resolved.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Chaffetz Lindsey LLP

Since the ‘birth’ of international economic law as a widely recognized field in the late 1990s, the subject has both changed in multiple respects and also failed, in the eyes of many, to sufficiently adapt to the needs of a more complex, multipolar world. Many participants see the system as having left behind and left out a wide scope of civil society from being to reap economic benefits. Today, we are experiencing unprecedented challenges but also a moment of unparalleled progress, which present novel legal questions. Issues such as global pandemics, climate action, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the internet of things will further highlight the importance of the international regulation of trade, investment and intellectual property in the future. This roundtable is designed to reflect on the transformation – both past and yet to come - of international economic law to help confront some of the main challenges our humanity faces. It will provide expert but high-level analysis of certain relevant aspects of the changes in international economic law, how these challenges could or should be approached and potentially resolved, what the prospects are for new paths to solve disagreements on complex issues, and how the international system can and should continue to change in the future.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

The panel will explore the ongoing pressures on the international legal order and stability presented by self-determination, humanitarian and other geo-political disputes revolving around the territorial integrity principle, drawing lessons from three different very different country situations: Ethiopia, China/Taiwan, and Ukraine.

Organized by the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law

Please join Berkeley Law faculty, students, and alumni for a champagne and sparkling cider toast.

"Enabling Multilateralism in a Multipolar Order"

• Ambassador Martin Kimani, Permanent Mission of Kenya to the UN

Organized by the Women in International Law Interest Group

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group (DEIWG) will host an interactive roundtable to (1) share updates on the remit, work, and priorities of the DEIWG; and (2) solicit members’ and attendees’ perspectives and input on ways to foster a sense of belonging, ensure inclusion of diverse viewpoints and representation at all levels of the Society, and encourage active participation in ASIL programs by a diverse membership. Please join this roundtable discussion to provide your feedback and help us ensure that ASIL grows as a welcoming and intellectually robust forum for all members - new and returning! The DEIWG is comprised of Karen Bravo, Jay Butler, Kathleen Claussen, Christie Edwards, Natalie Morris-Sharma, and Peter Tzeng.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Case Western University School of Law

Three years after the 2011 endorsement by the UN Human Rights Council of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the Human Rights Council established an Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG) to develop an international instrument for business and human rights, in process since 2014. Meanwhile, a different OEIGWG is considering an international legal regulatory framework for private military and security companies. Alongside these international developments, States have been drafting National Actions Plans to address business and human rights to actualize the UNGPs and adopting new laws to clarify and strengthen corporate responsibility. While the United States has bucked the trend, with successive Supreme Court cases narrowing the application of the Alien Tort Statute, recent legislative proposals like the Alien Tort Statute Clarification Act or the revitalized National Action Plan for Responsible Business Conduct suggest a change could be afoot in the U.S. too. This panel will highlight the interplay between the development or codification of international and national practice. How have developments at the international level impacted national practice? Is the process of drafting a treaty on business and human rights simply an exercise in codifying existing norms – or is it creating or prompting new obligations for business enterprises?  What role has an increasingly interconnected – and vocal – global corporate accountability movement – evident in configurations like the Treaty Alliance – had on the uptick in laws, policies and enforcement in the area of business and human rights?

Presented by the Embassy of the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania

While Russian aggression against Ukraine continues, there is an urgent need to tackle the issue of responsibility for the crime of aggression. The International Criminal Court (ICC) cannot prosecute the crime of aggression in the context of Ukraine due to jurisdictional limitations. Therefore, other ways to ensure accountability must be found. This panel will explore the possible creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression, including effective approaches for overcoming the immunities of Russia’s top leadership. The UN Security Council will remain paralyzed due to the Russian veto. However, the Security Council is not the only relevant UN organ. Within the scope of the UN Charter and acting under the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, the General Assembly may also address matters of international peace and security. This forum will focus on the power of the General Assembly to act for the creation of a special tribunal on the crime of aggression. Such a tribunal could be established on the recommendation of the UN General Assembly by way of a treaty concluded between Ukraine and the United Nations.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Rising threats of environmental degradation, global heating, high gas omissions, wildfires, draught, agricultural production, and rising sea levels are among the drivers that lead to internal displacement or movements across international borders. Reports estimate that ‘there could be up to 216 million internal climate migrants globally by 2050.’  It becomes relevant to discuss how to manage or tackle this crisis and protect vulnerable communities. In particular, what is the role of international organizations and what protections (if any) are offered to such vulnerable communities under existing international law. The moderator will pose a series of questions to 2-3 panelists, followed by Q&A from the floor. The panelists will be composed of legal and policy practitioners and a climate change advocate. The questions should provoke a discussion between the panelists to set out how climate migration manifests itself; the parameters of international law (international refugee law, environmental law, human rights law, humanitarian law etc); their impact (if any) on the work of international organizations; and recommendations on tackling climate-focused displacement and migration. 

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

 It is now widely accepted that international law as a discipline and as a field of practice contains different, competing legal, political and economic projects. There are a myriad of approaches, interests, sensibilities that structure the way in which we perceive, interpret and construe its most relevant institutions, principles and even the facts that underlie the international sphere. Often, these differences are construed in methodological terms. Accordingly, doctrinal approaches are supplemented and challenged by critical legal studies; TWAIL, Marxist, Feminism, empirical legal studies, are among the forms of critique on how to construe the international legal order. This panel builds on these approaches by drawing on regional(ist) outlooks and projects which are embedded within the international sphere. It thereby seeks to contribute to a more diverse, de-centered and granulated understanding of international law, one which is more attuned to regional trajectories, sensibilities and ideas beyond the North Atlantic region. At the same time, it seeks to explore and critically engage the relationship between these regional projects and sensibilities and the Western canon.

By invitation only.

In recognition of the important role that student-edited international law journals play in the dissemination of international legal scholarship, the Society hosts an annual International Law Review Editor Roundtable. This Roundtable will discuss key issues around legal scholarship, including: selecting great topics that might be more relevant to the various audiences of law journals, including scholars and practitioners; how international law journals can be more effective at soliciting and/or selecting relevant pieces of international legal scholarship; and how to work with authors (who may have different cultural perspectives) to successfully publish their pieces. The Roundtable will be facilitated by international law experts as well as sitting editors-in-chief of law student-run international law journals. The Society invites current students and recent graduates interested in the process of scholarship and publication in international law to connect with their peers and distinguished scholars and practitioners.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

The Goler T. Butcher Medal Lecture will be delivered by the 2023 recipient of the Goler T. Butcher Medal, special advisor for prosecution strategies for the International Criminal Court Patricia Viseur Sellers. Her lecture is entitled “Chanting Their Names” and will address the regrettable absence of the slave trade as an international crime in the justice arsenal.

The Goler T. Butcher Medal has been awarded by ASIL since 1997 to a distinguished person of American or other nationality, for outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights. It is named for Goler Teal Butcher, a prominent African American scholar and professor of international law at Howard University School of Law, who served as assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Carter Administration and was a leading advocate for ending global hunger.

• Patricia Viseur Sellers, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

Does multilateralism have a role in the adjudication and execution of public international law? This panel will address the legitimacy and underpinnings of multilateral participation in proceedings before international courts and tribunals, such as in the context of the increasing number of third party interventions in the ongoing Ukraine v. Russian Federation proceedings, as well as planned interventions in the Gambia v. Myanmar case, which itself is an example of a multilateral litigation brought by a party that is not specially affected by the harm claimed of in the underlying matter. The panel will explore the existing legal precedents in which a State (or States) has either brought or participated in proceedings where it is not specially affected by the wrong of which it complains, or seeks to enforce legal obligations owed to the community of States as a whole, or in which all or most States do have a specific interest, but in which the level of support and participation remains an open question. The panel will specifically address the factual and legal subject matter of the cases and deal with the conceptual and practical issues and consequences arising from multilateral participation in those cases. The Panel will address the current status quo (such as the sufficiency of existing principles and mechanisms for international litigation), and explore whether there is a need to innovate and expand beyond just the resolution of disputes between States directly concerned, and establish rules that provide specifically for multilateral participation in the consideration of certain questions of international law.

CLE Credit Hours: 1.0

Sponsored by Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, LLP

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 put the spotlight on the potential and limits of economic sanctions as a tool for achieving foreign policy goals. In response to the invasion, the United States and allied countries coordinated on an impressive range of economic sanctions on Russian banks, financial institutions, officials, and wealthy supporters of the regime. The wave of coordinated sanctions in 2022 focused public attention on the value and limits of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. While much of the discussion has focused on Russia sanctions, the United States, either individually or in coordination with allies, also maintains sanctions on states and non-state actors around the world to achieve a wide range of geostrategic and economic goals. The events of the past year thus provide an opportunity to reflect more broadly on the role of sanctions in the international order, and on the role of law in controlling and shaping them. This wide-ranging panel will consider a broad set of pressing questions in a roundtable format.  Is there any international legal consensus on the rules that govern states’ resort to economic coercion outside the framework of the Security Council or other treaty-based organizations? What are the possibilities for developing these rules in the future? How can sanctions be calibrated to achieve discrete foreign policy goals, instead of hindering them?  What are the benefits and downsides to seizing frozen assets in reparations efforts, and how can we learn from the past in this respect? What are the humanitarian effects of sanctions, both within and beyond the target country, and how can they be mitigated?

Co-organized by the T.M.C. Asser Institute

Sponsored by the Municipality of the Hague

Location:

National Press Club

529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045

Buses will be available.

Pursuing Global Accountability for Atrocity Crimes: Needs, Challenges and the Path Forward

Russian aggression against Ukraine commenced in 2014 and escalated to full-on war in February 2022. This manifest violation of the UN Charter and the casual disdain with which Russia undermined the international legal order led some to wonder whether international law should be pronounced dead. However, a contrary argument has emerged: the rapid mobilization and use of international law in the context of the war in Ukraine has been hailed, in the words of Dr. Gabija Grigaite Daugirde, the Vice-Minister at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania, as international law’s “renaissance.” At the same time, some have criticized what they perceive as a disproportionate focus on the situation in Ukraine, selectivity, and the lack of attention to other conflicts. This panel will address these fundamental questions and explore specific situations around the world in which atrocities, crimes and other serious human rights violations have taken place to identify the needs, challenges, and path forward to accountability.

Sponsored by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, the Cheng-Harrell Institute for Global Affairs, and ASIL

National Museum of Asian Art
1050 Independence Ave SW

The museum has free, self-service lockers located in both the Freer and Sackler buildings.

9:15 am: Private tours of the museum
10:15 am: Panel discussion (Meyer Auditorium)

Political and military conflicts have long been associated with the destruction and looting of cultural heritage. Protecting cultural heritage is a complex task, touching on a range of social and legal issues, including property rights, cultural identity, provenance, national sovereignty, and post-colonial responsibility, among others. This Roundtable will discuss how the protection of cultural heritage, specifically in conflict zones, is being addressed across a variety of disciplines, where these disciplines intersect, and how we might work together to meet current challenges.