2023 ASIL Annual Meeting

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, with the third draft released in 2022. 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 to respect human rights. 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? Are national and regional initiatives leading – or following – developments at the international level? Is the proposed treaty incentivizing States to demonstrate corporate human rights abuses can be addressed at the national or regional level, making a new treaty unnecessary? 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?

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.

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.

Despite the international legal framework in place, impunity for international crimes related to Sexual and Gender Based-Violence (SGBV) remains the norm. Survivors are often left with no legal avenues to seek justice or have to embark in long and painful legal processes. Convictions are rare and reparations remain elusive. In this context, the use of SGBV in situations of conflict around the world is still alarming. The impact of violence on women and girls, children, minorities, and members of the LGBTIQ+ is under reported and often not properly documented. At the end of 2022 the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will launch its first policy on the crime against humanity of persecution on the grounds of gender. Beyond the ICC, survivor groups, academics and practitioners are exploring if and how International Law can address the ongoing violence and prevailing impunity.

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?

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.

Although sovereign immunity and the States’ right to regulate access to their 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, as well as 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. These challenges beg the question of whether these well-established principles can and should adapt to current circumstances. Where should these emerging challenges be resolved?

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. It might also assist States in making claims against investors for environmental harm while expanding the space for investor claims aimed at compelling States to do more to protect the environment. 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.

This panel will focus on the most pressing needs for IA reform and the grounds for reform. What challenges exist to productive reform? What goals or values should reform engage with? How can effective reform be accomplished, if necessary? The panel will explore four areas for potential reform. Panelists will take a position on a proposed need area and analyze the value of reform and the prospects for reform through the context of the need area. Following the presentation of the position papers, in the second section of the program, the moderator will lead a debate. The moderator will involve the panelists in debate, considering in conjunction the merits, demerits, and urgency of the proposed areas for reform.

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

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?

(Organized by the Dispute Resolution Interest Group)

 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.

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.

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.

The movement for making finance more sustainable has steadily grown since 2015, when States agreed to make “finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development” (Paris Agreement, Article 2.1(c)). While there is agreement on the end-goal, however, it remains unclear how it can be achieved. The current policy framework consists in a scattered series of initiatives taken by governments, private actors, central banks, and multilateral investment banks. Attempting to navigate this complex policy framework can be daunting, and leaves many questions open on its real effectiveness. Against this background, this debate aims to shed light on the role and obligations that some of the relevant actors have undertaken, with a view of understanding whether the current policy framework is effective and how it could be strengthened.

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.

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. 

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. Organisations 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. It is arguably symptomatic of the failure of global governance of the 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 role have, and can, international organizations play in the global governance of the pandemic? 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?

As international law falls short and/or is abandoned by states as a mechanism for resolving global challenges, one important tool remaining is diplomacy. Understanding the work of diplomacy and the way it interacts with law, and, correspondingly, how diplomats and lawyers operate within the international system, becomes more central to problem solving during times of change. This roundtable discussion will include senior diplomats, lawyers, lawyer-diplomats and academic researchers, who will address the issue of the interdependence of law of diplomacy. They will bring a range of perspectives to how law and diplomacy interact in international relations, and the proper role of diplomacy – and the respective roles of diplomats, lawyers and lawyer-diplomats -- during times of retrenchment, reform and reconstruction of international law and institutions. The moderator(s) will prompt the speakers to address cross-cutting themes including responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, climate change regulation and environmental disputes, reform within United Nations and other international institutions, and diplomatic responses to the challenges facing human rights and rule of law within and across states.

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 limited reach of the current UN framework for maintaining international peace and security. While there has been mixed success since World War II towards achieving this fundamental purpose under Article 1(1) of the UN Charter, the framers did not anticipate a world in which countries with primary responsibility for peace are themselves a leading cause of global insecurity. Increasingly, permanent members of the UNSC have taken action that threatens or results in breach of the peace through unlawful use of force or perpetration of international crimes, including aggression. In further 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 explore the full range of possible responses available to the UNSC and UNGA under the UN’s Charter and existing structure to respond to threats and breaches to international peace and security. While focusing on current situations 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) Is further reform necessary for responding effectively to ongoing threats and breaches to the peace?; 2) Beyond reform, are there alternatives that should be considered?; and 3) How can such reforms or alternatives be achieved?

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.

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 International Criminal Law Interest Group)

 International law is at a key turning point. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine constituting a clear violation of UN Charter, article 2.4, the international community is faced with the challenge of whether and, if so, where, to prosecute Russian senior civilian and military leaders for the crime of aggression. The ICC's jurisdictional regime regarding the crime is too limited to cover such prosecutions. Thus, many proposals have been made for an ad hoc aggression tribunal. Another relevant consideration is whether to go back and try to amend the crime of aggression's jurisdictional regime -- essentially redo the "Kampala" negotiations insofar as jurisdiction is considered -- another proposal being debated by states. These issues are extremely relevant given the horrific crimes being perpetrated in Ukraine -- not all of which will be able to be prosecuted. This leads one back to consideration of the key crime that started off all of the events -- the crime of aggression -- without which one would not have any of the other crimes. The panel will also explore the question: if not now, when? This panel will address these questions not just in light of the situation in Ukraine, but with an eye towards addressing ongoing critiques that, only in the face of aggressive acts in Europe have mainly Western nations decided to act. Is there space to create long term accountability for aggression through the ICC or is a different venue required? Does the limitations on jurisdiction under the Kampala agreement make the ICC’s jurisdiction too limited for real application? The panel will take the form of a debate on the best way to proceed, posing challenging questions in rapid fire to the panelists to generate a lively discussion. 

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. Along with other tools of economic statecraft, such as export controls, these efforts sought to cut Russia off from key markets and financial networks, thus hindering its ability to continue prosecuting the war. As sanctions result in asset freezes, this has triggered further calls to seize Russian assets for use in Ukraine’s eventual reconstruction, or even to fund Ukraine’s immediate self-defense needs. 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, including in Syria, Iran, Myanmar, China, and elsewhere, 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?

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?

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?

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. For some countries, climate change threatens their very existence. Although the international community has developed a global legal framework to address climate change, 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 two recent initiatives, both spearheaded by Small Island Developing States, to seek an advisory opinion on climate change from the ICJ and, separately, an advisory opinion from ITLOS. In addition, the panel will consider the potential for using the adversarial and incidental jurisdictions of ICJ, ITLOS as well as 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.

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.