Free Access to Leiden Journal

The Leiden Journal of International Law is provides a forum for two vital areas, namely international legal theory and international dispute settlement. Its articles section publishes critical contributions to legal and political theory. This makes it of interest to IR scholars too. Alexander Wendt considers LJIL 'to be an indispensable gateway to work at the intersection of international law, international relations, and even political theory'.

Cambridge University Press is pleased to offer you complimentary access to a collection of articles from the Leiden Journal of International Law that reach firmly into the realms of international relations. These LJIL articles are available - completely free - for a limited period here.

ISA Round Table on Judicial Coordination and the Global Community of Courts: Critical Perspectives

National courts often use international norms in their decisions even when such norms have not been incorporated into their domestic legal systems. Judicial cross-fertilization also occurs as a result of mutual referencing of foreign decisions that have persuasive appeal, and through extensive networking initiatives. It is argued that this phenomenon signals the emergence of a "global community of courts" and the merging of international and domestic legal systems. To evaluate this claim, research needs to engage two types of questions with far reaching implications for politics and law. The first, empirical question is whether transjudicial cooperation is indeed a global trend: is it occurring across legal traditions and cultures? What motivates courts to turn to international and foreign law in reasoning their decisions? How do other actors outside the judiciary perceive this practice? The second, normative question is whether this observed merging of international and national law may take place in the absence of shared values, principles and normative underpinnings. In other words, even if empirically it can be shown that judicial cross-fertilization is global in scope, and that it may blur the distinctions between international and national law, what are the ethical implications of such developments?

Participants: Kerstin Blome (University Bremen), Charlotte Ku (Univerity of Illinios), Philip Liste (University of Hamburg), Andreas von Staden (University St Gallen), Chair: Antje Wiener (University of Hamburg)

The Round Table discussion is taking place at the ISA Annual Convention, Montreal, Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:30 AM
Room: Viger A

Karlsruhe dankt ab - Prantl in der SZ

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht schleicht sich aus dem Grundrechtsschutz für Flüchtlinge heraus. Es verlässt sich erneut darauf, dass die Politik alles richtig machen wird - und degradiert sich mit dieser Entscheidung selbst.
zum Kommentar in der SZ

Global Organisation as Text in Context, Call for papers - 6th ECPR General Conference (25th - 27th Aug. 2011)

For a panel on "Global Organisation as Text in Context" at the ECPR General Conference, Section 82: "Developments of and in International Organisations – From Interstate Cooperation to Global Order?" we are calling for paper proposals  (Deadline Feb 1, 2011).

International Organisations/Institutions and discourse are not mutually exclusive. Focussing on the institutionalisation of discourses and on the discursive production and reproduction of institutions, the panel is based on the assumption that discourses and institutions are inextricably intertwined and, thus, should be analysed accordingly. In terms of empirical studies, a textual perspective allows to access the micropolitics of institutions and international organisations.
We are interested in the discursive processes that bring forth what Max Weber has called the “congealed spirit [...] embodied in that living machine which is represented by bureaucratic organisation with its specialisation of trained, technical work, its delimitation of areas of responsibility, its regulations and its graduated hierarchy of relations of obedience”. Against the background of a renewed interest in the formalisation of institutions, for instance in the context of debates about global constitutionalisation, the panel engages with the self-generative processes of (highly) formalised institutions, i.e. IOs.
Questions for papers in the frame of this panel could include:
How is the social context of international organisations/institutions reflected in their institutional discourses? What is the relation between organisations and their social/political environment? How do institutions structure their discursive arenas – and the subject positions connected to them?

All paper proposals must be submitted via email and online under http://www.ecprnet.eu/conferences/general_conference/reykjavik
(Deadline: Feb 1, 2011)

Lecture Series: Law in a Transnational Context, MPI Frankfurt

Law in a Transnational Context
Historical and Theoretical Perspectives
Series of Lectures from January to April 2011

The world of traditional legal theories has become too small. It seems too small for a law that is more and more losing its old territorial, political, and national bonds and that becomes part of worldwide social and economic processes. Law of this kind tends to statelessness. It is no more focussed on a territory, national state, or a local community, but constitutes itself through the communicative networks of highly specialised discourses. The production of law shifts from the nation state to the specific dynamic of social systems which conventional terms and criteria of politically orientated legal theories hardly touch upon. Terms like “constitution”, “legislation”, “unity”, “hierarchy”, “sanction” etc. become uncertain. Nowadays law is at home in a world that is fragmentary, that has no centre, no middle point, or unity. Legal pluralism dominates the scenery.

“Globalization” is the common word for this phenomenon, which is accompanied by a review of traditional concepts of law, of their premises and implications. Legal history is constantly confronted with phenomena of this kind, especially when processes of global interlacing beyond territorial and national boundaries are being examined, or when societies with a plurality of norms are being put into perspective.

The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in cooperation with the Cluster of Excellence at the Goethe-University Frankfurt will start in the winter term 2010/2011 a series of lectures dedicated to historical paradigms and theoretical concepts of such processes. Scholars from different countries and with strong expertise in theory and history of law, in sociology and political sciences will hold lectures about chosen subjects.


Lecture: Wo bleibt der Dritte im Rechtspluralismus?
13. January 2011
Prof. Dr. Klaus Günther, Institut für Kriminalwissenschaften und Rechtsphilosophie der Uni Frankfurt

Lecture: Domesticating Modernities: Transfer of Ideologies and Institutions in Southeastern Europe
3rd February 2011
Prof. Dr. Diana Mishkova, Director of Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS)

Lecture: International Law in a World of Empires: Constructing a Global Prohibition Regime in the Long Nineteenth Century
7th March 2011
Prof. Dr. Lauren Benton, History Department, New York University

Lecture: The New Global Law. A Historical Perspective
14th April 2011
Prof. Dr. Rafael Domingo Oslé, Faculty of Law, Universidad de Navarra

New Book on IR Theory and International Law by A Sincliar

Adriana Sinclair, International Relations Theory and International Law: A Critical Approach (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010).

International law is playing an increasingly important role in international politics. However, international relations theorists have thus far failed to conceptualise adequately the role that law plays in politics. Instead, IR theorists have tended to operate with a limited conception of law. An understanding of jurisprudence and legal methodology is a crucial step towards achieving a better account of international law in IR theory. But many of the flaws in IR's idea of law stem also from the theoretical foundations of constructivism – the school of thought which engages most frequently with law. Adriana Sinclair rehabilitates IR theory's understanding of law, using cases studies from American, English and international law to critically examine contemporary constructivist approaches to IR and show how a gap in their understanding of law has led to inadequate theorisation.

seven postdoctoral fellowships in Berlin

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien invites scholars to apply for seven postdoctoral fellowships for the research project

RECHTSKULTUREN: CONFRONTATIONS BEYOND COMPARISON for the academic year 2011/12 in Berlin.

Please find the call for applications below, or as a PDF document attached to this message or via the following link:
http://www.forum-transregionale-studien.de/fileadmin/pdf/rechtskulturen/pdf-Rechtskulturen-cfa.pdf

The Forum Transregionale Studien is a new research platform of the Land of Berlin designed to promote research connecting systematic and region-specific questions in a perspective that addresses entanglements and interactions beyond national, cultural or regional frames. The Forum works in tandem with established institutions and networks engaged in transregional studies and is supported by an association of the directors of research institutes and networks mainly based in Berlin. It started its activities in 2010 by supporting three research projects in the fields of law, philology, and urban sociology.

For more information, please see our website (under construction) www.forum-transregionale-studien.de