ABSTRACTS
Aarushi Nargas
Undergraduate, National Law University
(India)
Sagnik Das
Law Clerk, High Court of Delhi (India)
Can Third World Arguments Succeed at the
World Court? Solutions for a Postcolonial State
In this research paper, our goal is to focus on the manner
in which these boundaries have come to be constructed,
particularly by dealing with instances where
postcolonial States have been represented by counsels
from their own States (or other third world States).
Through this, we wish to analyze possible differences in
their argumentative technique with a view to making
any instance of an intellectual challenge to the discipline
prominent, even in exploring its failure. The authors will
also be exploring the doctrinal techniques through
which the ICJ has historically defeated such counter-
hegemonic arguments, particularly by perpetuating the
law-politics divide.
The overall aim of this research paper is to posit solutions
for States to overcome this paradox. This paper seeks to
argue that the only possible solution would be for
postcolonial States to consistently reject western
notions of international law in their arguments before
the Court, as a first step to which they must engage only
domestic counsels to represent them. Drawing on the
success of such a strategy used by developing countries
in investor-State arbitrations, the authors will attempt
to examine its tenability before the ICJ. The authors
will finally also examine incentives that a State may
have in raising “third world” arguments in an
international dispute, given the increasingly globalized
approach to international law among postcolonial
States and their desire to attract international capital.
Aeyal Gross
Professor, Tel-Aviv University (Israel)
The Writing on the Wall: Is the Law of Occupation
an antithesis to colonialism or its new form?
In a benevolent reading, the law of occupation
guarantees that occupied territories will not be subject
to regimes akin to colonialism or apartheid but to a
temporary rule that will benefit the local population. A
contrary reading is suggested in my research, pointing
out that the law of occupation, enjoying the advantage
of temporality and the stamp of international legality,
may offer a way of legitimising new forms of conquest
and colonialism by dressing them up as a legal
institution. I argue this development is inevitable unless
occupation is reconceived as not merely a factual
situation but as a normative content, stressing its
character as a temporary regime that does not grant the
occupier sovereignty and is instead a form of trust. This
normative content, however, often clashes with the
interests pursued by occupying states. The debate about
the legitimacy of “transformative occupation”
surrounding the occupation of Iraq illustrates this
tension, highlighting the need for rethinking the terms of
the preservative vs. transformative debate as reflecting
a gap in the law of occupation.
The problem identified here is especially apparent in long
term occupations, such as the Israeli occupation of the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, the occupation of
Northern Cyprus by Turkey, and the occupation of
Western Sahara by Morocco. How can we distinguish
long term occupations typified by the presence of
settlers from the occupying state from colonialism? In
the Israeli case the appropriation of land, water and
work force add to this dilemma. The purpose of the
paper is not to analyse whether this occupation or others
in fact fit the model of colonialism, but rather consider
the role of the law of occupation in legitimizing – or
upending – new forms of colonialism. Thus, unlike
research that points to violations of the law of
occupation, this research ponders whether the law of
occupation itself may be part of the problem.
Alexis Ian Dela Cruz
Associate Solicitor, Office of the Solicitor
General of the Republic of the Philippines
(Philippines)
Due Process of Law as Resistance: Situating
dialogue from empire to rule-of-law promotion
in the Global South
The idea that due process of law is, in essence, a
conversation between ruler and ruled underpins many
legal systems. Following Lon Fuller, due process creates
a ‘peculiar form of dialogue’ that seeks to uphold the
interests of those affected by decision-makers’ actions.
As empire’s most enduring legacy to postcolonial legal
systems, due process of law has come to be integral to
the postcolonial state’s purposive self-imagining in a bid
for universality. Yet, despite its symbolic value as an
instrument of ‘justice’ in the postcolonial state, due
process produces little actual dialogue between ruler
and ruled. In rule-of-law promotion in the Global South,
due process thinking remains firmly anchored to its
adjudicatory origins and in rationalising formal domestic
judicial procedure and institutions for the efficient
settlement of prosaic claims. Following the coercive
imposition of the rule of law in an imperial and
developmental historical context in the Philippines,
contemporary conceptions of due process of law fail to
protect individuals against the arbitrariness of the
exercise of state power. I use the 2012 Access to Justice
Assessment Tool: A guide to analyzing access to justice
for civil society organizations published by the American
Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (‘ABA ROLI’) and
the Rule of Law Index 2016 report by the World Justice
Project (‘WJP’) in considering this argument. My purpose
is to invite a rethinking of due process from as a dialogue
in the courts into one that enables resistance to silencing
forms of imperial intervention.
Allan Chester B. Nadate
Hilton A. Lazo
University of the Philippines College of Law
(Philippines)
Hyper-Presidentialism, the Rhetoric of
Sovereignty, and the Repudiation of the
International Legal Order in the Philippines’ “War
on Drugs”
The Philippine government’s “War on Drugs” continues
to gain general public acceptance in light of the
sustained popularity of President Rodrigo Duterte. Now
on its second year, this criminalization and militaristic
approach in national drug control policy has resulted to
inordinate increases in illegal drugs-related prosecution
and detention.
In this study, the authors offer an explanation to both
the public acquiescence of possible and blatant human
rights violations; the legitimization of the isolationist,
insular policies; and the relative failure to enforce IHRL
obligations. We focus on the critical, but overlooked,
issues of accused’s and prisoners’ rights and fair trial
guarantees as articulated in the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
We argue that these incidents are attributable to the
country’s “hyper-presidential” legal regime, largely
patterned after the American constitutional set-up as a
former colony. We build upon the observations of Rose-
Ackerman, Desierto, and Volosin , contextualizing the
same within the “War on Drugs”. We argue that this
constitutional design has legitimized the usurpation of
administrative frameworks under the “leader of the
executive branch” doctrine, and facilitated undue
institutional deferment under the “chief architect of
foreign policy” doctrine. Similarly, we argue that the
foreign policy architect doctrine has resulted to a hands-
off approach in other branches of government, despite
changes in institutional mandates in the post-
revolutionary 1987 Constitution and despite the dictates
of checks and balances.
Amritha V. Shenoy
Research Associate, Centre for Comparative
Law, National Law University (India)
PhD Candidate, Dickson Poon School of Law,
King's College London (United Kingdom)
Alternative Histories of International Law:
A Multicivilisational Perspective From India
Interdisciplinarity in international law is inevitable today.
History is one of the disciplines which has influenced
international law. History of international law has
emerged in the near past as an independent and
significant discipline. Eurocentrism has dominated
international law and the history of international law in
particular. European perspective still remains the
dominant perspective but it is being challenged by many
alternative perspectives of history of international law.
One such perspective is the multicivilisational
perspective. It stands for recognition of various
civilisations of the world in formulation of international
law. It calls for narration of history of international law
as existed in various civilisations. Indian civilisation is one
of the ancient civilisations of the world. Since ancient
times, India had international relations with other parts
of the world. These interactions were governed by rules
which can be very well termed as international law. The
rules governing inter-State relations ranged from law of
diplomacy, international humanitarian law, international
trade law, international maritime law etc. India also had
a different perspective of international human rights law
with focus on duties or dharma over the contemporary
rights perspective. Initially, the Europeans who visited
India followed the principles of international law as
practised in India. After gaining power, they rejected the
international law of pre-colonial India and imposed their
own laws through colonisation. International law was
not applied to the colonised. Thus, the narrative of
history and that of international law gained a superficial
European tinge. The present paper would discuss the
alternative perspectives of the history of international
law with a focus on multicivilisational perspective. Since
international law existed in India since ancient times,
some examples of international law principles from pre-
colonial India would be highlighted.
Ana Luísa Soares Peres
Imbalance of Power in the Multilateral Trading
System: Democratising the WTO to Meet the
Needs of Developing Members
The initial purpose of this paper is to assess whether
there is a democratic deficit in the WTO and how it
impacts developing Members. We will then examine the
dual nature of the WTO system: its political and
normative aspects. The political feature, related to
participation and vocalisation, is essential in ensuring a
deeper legalization of the multilateral trading system.
Our first hypothesis states that the democratic deficit
would be one of the main causes of the negotiations
deadlock. The second hypothesis turns to the possibility
of rendering the WTO more democratic, reconciling the
diversity of Members and agendas and the need for
dialogue and cooperation to advance a wide range of
interests.
Starting from a critical approach, based on the Third
World Approach to International Law (TWAIL), we will
seek to demonstrate that the deficiencies of the WTO
decision-making system are part of a conjectural
problem. We will then apply a doctrinal approach,
looking briefly into the evolution of the term democracy
and its implications for international law. The goal is to
determine what would be democratic practices in an
international organisation. Regarding the WTO, we will
focus on how to balance legitimacy, inclusiveness, and
efficiency, in a system built on the principles of
consensus and the single undertaking.
We conclude that reforming the WTO decision-making
system would contribute to a more representative
institution. The decisions should be the outcome of a
process that comprises all interested actors, rather than
an excluding one. Such a reform would strengthen the
multilateral trading system, which is still the best
alternative for ensuring fairer, open, and inclusive trade.
Anam Soomro
PhD Candidate, Freie Universität Berlin
(Germany)
A Critical Inquiry into Freedom of Movement:
Race, Colonialism and the Making of International
Law
My research examines the role of race and colonialism in
shaping the freedom of movement as a human right,
during the first half of the 20th century. Mobility is an
essential aspect of imagining the world, and historically
the emergence of international law is closely entwined
with the history of human mobility. The discipline traces
its humanistic origins to the writings of de Vitoria who
wrote in the 1500s on the subject of freedom of
movement within the context of the Spanish
colonization of the Americas (Anghie 1996; Rossi 1998).
Progressively over the centuries, scholars such as
Pufendorf, Vattel, Grotius and Kant deliberated on the
subject of freedom of movement, utilising concepts such
as hospitality, transit and communication amongst
others (Chetail 2016).
I investigate the colonial management of Indian
mobilities, focusing on the discourses and practices
which framed these movements. By drawing on
experiences of Indian travel and migration during the
formative phases of an international human right to
freedom of movement, I seek to understand how
‘knowledge’ or underlying assumptions about race
shaped law-making on this issue. Central to
understanding mobility rights is the idea of state
sovereignty, which often features as an unnegotiable
aspect of the modern state system in international law
and international relations scholarship. Following from
third world approaches to international law, my paper
historicises concepts of state sovereignty and freedom
of movement, to discern the contested politics
underlying the legal architecture of mobility that we
normatively take as given today.
Benoit Mayer
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, The
Chinese University of Hong Kong
(Hong Kong)
The international law on climate change: a view
from the South
Climate change is fundamentally a North-South issue.
Most of the excessive greenhouse gas emissions which
have set our climate system havoc stem from the Global
North. Most of the harms, at least when calculated in
human or ecological terms rather than financial terms,
affect the developing world the most.
International negotiations on climate change have been
shaped by this North-south dimension of the problem. In
1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
recognized the “principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities.” In 2007, the Conference of the Parties
recognized the existence of “loss and damage
associated with climate change impacts in developing
countries particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects
of climate change.”
Yet, this paper argues that, altogether, the South has
had very little influence in the conduct of international
negotiations on climate change – and that this has
hindered efforts towards international cooperation. This
argument is supported by several case studies, detailed
below. For each case study, the paper identifies the
causes of domination as well as potential paths towards
emancipation.
Bruno Verdini
Executive Director, MIT Harvard Mexico
Negotiation Program, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (USA)
U.S.-Mexico Natural Resource Management
Partnerships: Tearing Down Walls
Transboundary natural resource negotiations, often
conducted in an atmosphere of entrenched mistrust,
confrontation, and deadlock, can go on for decades. In
this paper, I outline an approach by which government,
private sector, and nongovernmental stakeholders can
overcome grievances, break the status quo, trade across
differences, and create mutual gains in high-stakes
water, energy, and environmental negotiations.
The paper compares two landmark negotiations
between the United States and Mexico. The two cases—
one involving conflict over shared hydrocarbon
reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico and the other involving
disputes over the shared waters of the Colorado River—
resulted in groundbreaking agreements resolving 70
years of disputes. Both deals, signed in 2012, have been
further ratified and fully implemented over the past 6
years, in spite of significant changes in the political,
economic, and environmental landscape in both
countries.
Building upon the theoretical and empirical findings, the
paper offers concrete advice for practitioners on
effective negotiation and dispute resolution strategies
between North and South that avoid the presumption,
quite widespread in the current political discourse in the
West, that one side must win and the other must
inevitably lose.
The research underpinning this paper is built upon my
new book with MIT Press, Winning Together: The
Natural Resource Negotiation Playbook (December
2017). The investigation is the winner of Harvard Law
School’s Raiffa award for best research of the year in
negotiation, mediation, decision-making, and dispute
resolution. This is the first time in the decades-long
history of the award that it has been given to someone
from MIT, as well as the first time it has been awarded to
someone born and raised in Latin America.
Buhm-Suk Baek
Assistant Professor, Kyung-Hee University,
South Korea (Korea)
Victim-centred Approach in International Human
Rights law: Focusing on the Japan-South Korea
'Comfort Women' Agreement in 2015
This paper examines how a victim-centered approach
has developed conceptually to protect and promote
victim's rights based on international human rights law.
It also maintains that as a state-centric paradigm of
international law has been gradually challenged,
especially in human rights fora, it is necessary to adopt a
victim-centered approach for achieving a full measure of
international justice. The possible theoretical and legal
bases of a victim-centered approach to international
human rights law is reviewed by examining relevant
provisions of the international treaties, decisions from
regional human rights courts, and various views from
international human rights institutions including "2005
Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy
and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of
International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations
of International Humanitarian Law.”
Especially, this paper will focus on the Japan-South
Korea 'Comfort Women' Agreement in 2015as a test-
case. In this agreement, with an apology and an $8
million payment to a support fund for survivors by Japan,
the Korean and Japanese foreign ministers announced
that they had “final[ly] and irreversibl[y]” resolved the
issue of Japanese wartime sexual slavery, so- called
comfort women, who have been the most painful legacy
of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea.
Caroline Omari Lichuma Cheah Wui Ling
Florence Karimi Gakungi Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National
Lecturers, Riara University (Kenya) University of Singapore (Singapore)
Decolonizing Foreign Aid: A Neo-Liberal Analysis International Courts as Cross-cultural Translators:
of Chinese Developmental Assistance to Kenya An Expressivist Analysis of the Judicial
Accommodation of Cultural Evidence in
This article seeks to delve into an analysis of Chinese International Criminal Law Trials
developmental assistance to Kenya through a
decolonization lens. The authors argue that Chinese Defendants often raise cultural evidence before
foreign aid is a form of South-South colonization in the international criminal law courts (‘ICL courts’), causing a
twenty first century and that even though Kenya is dilemma for these courts that purport to enforce a
politically independent, it remains shackled economically universally applicable law. Thus far, ICL courts have not
through heavy dependence on developmental substantially engaged with cultural evidence when
assistance. determining individual criminal responsibility. This has
attracted much criticism, but there needs to be more
The article will be divided into four parts. Part I will research on why and how ICL courts should treat cultural
outline the Constitutional underpinnings of public debt evidence. Using an expressivist theoretical lens, this
in Kenya with the aim of analyzing whether current debt paper seeks to advance academic debate by arguing that
levels are unsustainable and potentially ICL courts should act as cross-cultural translators that
unconstitutional. accommodate, rather than ignore or dismiss, cultural
evidence.
Part II of the article argues that Chinese foreign aid is a
form of economic colonization with parallels drawn with
colonization by the British before Kenya attained
independence in 1963.
Part III elucidates upon Chinese developmental analysis
from a neoliberal perspective and specifically looks at
the influx of Chinese companies into Kenya and the
effect this has had on local businesses. The Mombasa-
Nairobi SGR project is used as a case study in this regard.
In Part IV of the article, the authors conclude that
Chinese foreign aid is potentially dangerous for Kenya
and there is need to decolonize the economy if the
country is to make steps towards economic
independence and sustainable economic growth.
Chen Yifeng
Associate Professor, Peking University
(People’s Republic of China)
Economic Laws of Humanitarianism: ILO and the
Labour Protection in the Far East
The ILO was established in 1919 as a direct response to
contemporary labour movements in Europe, and
functioned as a political project of encapsulation of
labour conflicts. From the very beginning in 1919, the ILO
was designated with the mandate to promote the
“humane conditions of labour”. And as such, the ILO was
often presented as an institution and forum of the labour
and capital to conciliate on labour standards. Yet, this
typical narrative is only part of the story about the actual
work of the ILO.
The other part of the narrative presents the ILO as an
institution continuously embedding the developing
countries into the industrial world. By virtue of the
formation and expansion of a globalized market, labour
became a universal issue of humanitarian, political and
economic ramifications. To the drafters, the humane
conditions of labour adopted in more advanced
countries had to be protected against unfair competition
by non-European countries exploiting cheap labour for
commercial advantage. In particular, the issue of labour
protection in the Far East became an important concern
of the ILO and was used for the justification of the ILO
expansion. The labour cause has its strong economic
rationale behind.
In response to nineteenth century globalization, a
system of vocabulary about universality, peace,
humanitarianism, and social justice emerged at the
international level on the discourse about labour. In the
course of developing its knowledge about the labour
conditions in the Far East and globally, and of
constructing its global jurisdiction, the ILO had to
transform from a Eurocentric institution to a globalized
one. This humanitarianism vocabulary then justified the
nascent form of international administration of labour
on a global scale.
Daniel Acquah
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Faculty of Law,
University of Turku (Finland)
Decolonizing the EU's Intellectual Property Policy:
Proposal for a 'Substantive Equilibrium'
It has been argued that an essential instrument in the
process of neo-colonialism by economic means is the
establishment of a legal framework of international
trade that confers legally enforceable rights that support
and safeguard economic penetration and control. To
decolonize its intellectual property laws, this paper
proposes the concept of substantive equilibrium specific
to the bilateral treaties and EU secondary legislation. By
substantive equilibrium, I mean moving the provisions
on development (e.g. public health) and references to
the TRIPS flexibilities in bilateral treaties and relevant EU
secondary norms from the preamble or ‘general
provisions’ to the substantive part of the treaty or
legislation.
Darryl Li
Assistant Professor, University of Chicago
(USA)
Black Beards and Blue Helmets: Jihad, Peace-
keeping, and the Question of Universalism
The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a defining
moment of the post-Cold War order, pivotal to the
development of UN peacekeeping and the project of
European integration. Less well-explored is Bosnia's
significance throughout the Muslim world and the
numerous solidarity efforts that emerged during the
war. As a predominantly Muslim country in Europe,
Bosnia presented opportunities and dilemmas for
universalist projects in both the West and the Muslim
world. This paper traces two of the most important
attempts to embody Islamic solidarity with Bosnia and
their respective relationships to international law and
legal institutions: foreign volunteers in the Bosnian army
("mujahidin") and military units seconded to the United
Nations peacekeeping forces by predominantly Muslim
countries, such as Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey. This
paper is part of a broader project to move away from a
Eurocentric conversation on the Balkans crisis by
connecting it to histories of empire, race, religion, and
Non-Alignment. It shows how both migratory
movements for jihad as well as peacekeeping forces
from the global south are embedded in colonial histories
and presents a set of views of the Bosnia crisis that are
neither those of the Eurocentric "International
Community" nor that of the local population.
This paper is based on 13 months of ethnographic
research in Bosnia with Bosnian, Arab, and other ex-
fighters, as well as interviews in Egypt, France, Pakistan,
Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, United
States, and Yemen. It also makes extensive use of the
archives of the United Nations peacekeeping force in ex-
Yugoslavia and the trial records of the UN International
Criminal Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia.
Devahuti Pathak
Lawyer, Delhi High Court (India)
Who Draws the Shadow Lines? Big Pharma v.
Access to Medicines
This paper, seeks to examine the Indian intellectual
property (IP) law regime in the pharmaceutical industry;
in relation to regulation of business, promotion of
research and accesibility to medicines. It studies the
impact of international patent law, particularly, the
Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPs) Agreement on the legal regime governing the
‘Big Pharma’ industry in India.
The paper will examine the area of compulsory licensing
and explore the scope to reconcile the rights of patent
holders, licensors, licensees with the obligations arising
from related international treaties and conventions,
inter alia, the TRIPs Agreement, from a TWAIL lens.
The paper, further, examines the scope of the Bolar
exception and parallel importation in Indian IP
jurisprudence, from a TWAIL persepective, in light of
promotion of research/experimental use in India. The
paper will examine cases and jurisprudence where the
Bolar exception, and separately, parallel importation
provisions have been discussed and analyse the extent
to which western/ international law has affected these
decisions, and subsequently the ‘Big Pharma’ industry in
India.
The paper concludes with drawing comparisons on the
abovementioned areas of Indian patent law, within the
pharmaceutical industry, to study the effect of
international law on access to medicines and related
research. Further, suggestions will be proposed on how
to make international law relating to pharmaceutical
patents more inclusive, immersive and acquainted to the
domestic patent rights regime governing the
pharmaceutical industry.
Edwin Bikundo
Senior Lecturer, Griffith Law School, Griffith
University (Australia)
Enslavement as a Crime against Humanity: Some
Doctrinal, Historical and Theoretical
Considerations
Although Slavery is legally defined as ‘the status or
condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers
attaching to the right of ownership are exercised’ this
paper argues that ‘status’ is emphasised at the expense
of ‘condition’. Slavery was declared a crime against
international law much earlier than the category of
crimes against humanity crystallised. In international
humanitarian law it is also punishable as a war crime. In
international human rights law slavery bears the
distinction of being prohibited both under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as
well as – albeit less prominently - the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In that
way, it crosses the public/private divide as well as
arguably sits at the threshold where entitlements almost
seamlessly merge into rights. Historically slavery was
justified on the one hand as an expression of natural law
and contradictorily on the other hand as only justifiable
through positive law because it was in breach of natural
law. It therefore interrogated even the natural
law/positive law dichotomy in illuminating ways. The
inclusion of enslavement under the rubric of crimes
against humanity therefore helps to not only further
explain the essential elements of that category but also
highlights how humanity itself is an evolving project and
international criminal law plays a crucial role in this on-
going anthropogenesis.
Emre Senbabaoglu
PhD Candidate, University of Sussex
(United Kingdom)
An Examination of the Right to Self-Defence
against Non-State Actors under the Unwilling or
Unable Doctrine: Challenges to Third World
Countries and the Reconstruction of the Doctrine
from TWAIL Perspective
In the post-9/11 period, among several doctrines, the
unwilling or unable doctrine re-emerged as a response to
threats posed by NSAs, and certain states applied the
doctrine as a justification for self-defence against NSAs.
In general terms, the doctrine assumes that a state
(“victim state”) might use force in self-defence against a
NSA located in another state (“territorial state” or “host
state”) without the latter’s consent, if the latter state is
unwilling or unable to eliminate the threat emanating
from that NSA.
However, the controversy over the legality of the
doctrine remains unsettled and its invocation raises
several issues. In this regard, the legal and normative
structure of the doctrine, and its application in line with
the right to self-defence in international law will be
examined through the lenses of TWAIL, because the
invocation of the doctrine reproduces the “standard of
civilization” pursued by the hegemonic powers in the
19th century in general.
This paper argues that the hegemonic version of the
doctrine supresses and classifies Third World countries,
creating a hierarchy in international system similar to the
one between civilized and uncivilized states in the 19th
century and therefore it will attempt to deconstruct the
doctrine into its essential elements and re-establish a
normative framework in a more unambiguous and
balanced way from TWAIL perspective. Thus, it aims to
clarify linguistic, normative, evidential and procedural
uncertainties by offering an alternative legal system
which includes the principle of “due diligence” and the
rules of the law of state responsibility, and identifying
situations in which victim states do not intend to carry
out politically-motivated military interventions or pursue
regime change policy in host states where a non-state
operates.
Erika George
Professor of Law & Co-Director, Center for
Global Justice, S.J. Quinney College of Law,
The University of Utah (USA)
The Imperative of Including Human Rights Issues
in Investment Agreements and Disputes: Lessons
from the BITS Strategies of South Africa and China
This article contributes to a growing body of human
rights scholarship on business and human rights by
examining the role of bilateral investment treaties in the
context of South African and Chinese relations regarding
the inclusion of policy space for states to regulate in the
interest of human rights. We discuss the growing trends
associated with protecting human rights in the
international investment law context and how such
trends can be applied to greater African continent
through South Africa’s example.
The article is structured in four parts to first discuss the
historical relationship between China and South Africa,
the role of BITs within the ISDS system, discuss particular
Model BITs in Africa, and to highlight the relationship
between international investment law, foreign direct
investment, (FDI), BITs, and human rights. By
illuminating the positive and negative impacts of
investment on human rights in the African continent, the
article further addresses the possible implications of
including human rights policies as part of BITs within the
South African-Chinese context, and concludes with how
such policies could translate into a new era for the
inclusion of human rights in international investment law
more broadly. Finally, the article offers a
recommendation regarding South African-Chinese
investment relations; as the eve of the termination date
for South Africa and China’s BIT draws near, now is the
time for South Africa to negotiate the integration of new
standards for responsible foreign direct investment
through BITs, which include human rights protections, in
order to preserve the progress made away from
colonialism and into a new dawn of democracy in Africa.
Ernesto Hernandez Lopez
Professor, Chapman University (USA)
Precaution over GMO corn in Mexico: Between
Cortes's Salvation and Quetzalcoatl preservation
This paper describes México’s efforts to combat
genetically modified (GMO) corn. This legal fight reflects
a contemporary sovereign struggle to preserve genetic
diversity in the Global South. Like with empire’s prior
challenges, GMO technology promises new ideologies
and material salvation.
GMO critics worry that commercial permits will
contaminate México’s genetic corn diversity and
irreversibly alter its traits. Non-GMO, landrace, corn is
valued to combat drought, pests, and disease. GMO corn
requires single-use seeds, monoculture farming, and
highly toxic herbicides. Economics motivate
policymakers to favor GMO corn, since México is not self-
sufficient in corn and is one of the world’s largest
consumers of corn.
This paper contrasts how a class action lawsuit prohibits
this release while México’s LBOGM and trade obligations
are more accommodating of GMOs. The dispute reflects
México’s historical contest with foreign powers. This
history mixes ideology and material expectations. This
includes: colonial Christian salvation and the search for
silver, liberalism and the lure of oil and markets, and bio-
technology and increased corn production. When Spain
landed in México the figures of the conquistador Hernan
Cortes and Aztec god Quetzalcoatl framed the
encounter. Spanish empire capitalized on the Mexican
expectation for Quetzalcoatl, the plummed serpent.
The current GMO dispute illustrates how law (intellectual
property and international trade) protects bio-
technology threatening genetic diversity. GMO’s
purported salvation capitalizes on narratives of
increased corn production to address hunger. In the
past, global forces threatened control over ideology,
territory, and markets. Commercial GMO seeds risk the
genetic make-up of México most common and sacred
item, maíz.
Eugenio Gomez-Chico
Research Associate, Centre for International
Law, National University of Singapore
(Singapore)
Capacity building: the spillover of modern
investment treaties
The emerging environment of regional economic
integration agreements and new generation international
investment agreements has resulted in the rise of a variety
of new challenges, most of which were not central to the
negotiations of the first generation bilateral investment
treaties (BITs). In this new setting, technical assistance and
capacity building of developing host countries becomes a
critical factor for the success of these ambitious treaties.
Concrete capacity building and technical assistance
provisions are relatively rare in international investment
agreements. In the overwhelming majority of the more than
3300 existing IIAs, these provisions are absent or weak, and
when present they are likely to be covered as “investment
facilitation measures.” However, this trend might be
changing as a variety of institutions and governments are
engaging in capacity building efforts in the framework of
investment commitments.
International cooperation on what is broadly defined as
“investment facilitation”, is referred to in a relatively large
number of recent IIAs. This is understandable considering
the current trend in investment treaty drafting where states
increasingly include institutional provisions, such as joint
committees, to guarantee the implementation of IIAs.
Concrete actions to strengthen investment facilitation
efforts in developing countries, or to enhance investment
policy and attraction in developing countries, however, are
unusual even in recent IIAs.
This project seeks to study to what extent technical
assistance and capacity building initiatives are being
developed in the framework of new international
investment agreements and what is the legal basis for
these. Are joint projects between developed and
developing nations being launched in response to treaty
commitments or practical need? Are these initiatives
reforming or just fulfilling the objectives of the IIAs that give
them life? In which sectors or areas are these capacity
building efforts being enacted? This project explores these
questions as an analysis of the positive spill-over effect of
investment agreements in developing host countries.
Fabia Fernandes Carvalho Veçoso
Postdoctoral Fellow, Arc Laureate Program
in International Law, Melbourne Law School
(Australia)
Intervention, sovereign debt, and the making of
spatial order: revisiting the 1902-1903 Venezuelan
Blockade
This contribution redescribes the 1902-1903 Venezuelan
Blockade and the legal discussions related to
intervention and sovereign debt in the Americas. I argue
that the legal treatment of intervention in the region in
the beginning of the twentieth century involved an
assemblage of political and economic ideas. The
operation of the Monroe Doctrine and the many
reconstitutions of the doctrine that followed since its
enunciation in 1823, as well as the legal discussions on
the lawfulness of the use of force to collect debts, are
core aspects of this research. Under a detailed
assessment, which will be the focus of this paper, the
Venezuelan claims were not substantively robust as to
justify an armed intervention by European powers.
Moreover, Venezuela had been a chronic debtor
throughout its life as an independent country, and
armed interventions by creditor states were not the rule
in this scenario. More specifically, this paper assesses the
issue of sovereign debt and the role of the Corporation
of Foreign Bondholders (CFB) in the Venezuelan case.
Based in London, the CFB was the venue to negotiate
settlements with defaulting states according to the
interests of the bondholder, and it worked in closed
relationship with the British Foreign Office. The focus on
sovereign debt opens space for broader interrogations
on the role of states in protecting common interests in a
political community, and the ways in which armed
interventions can be legally justified to that end.
Moreover, geopolitical issues also come to the surface
when discussing the Venezuelan sovereign debt. In this
setting, the Latin American reactions to the Venezuelan
Blockade, especially the famous Drago Doctrine, show in
detail the stakes of the Latin American commitment to
the idea of non-intervention.
Fabia Fernandes Carvalho Veçoso
Farhaan Uddin Ahmed
Postdoctoral Fellow, Arc Laureate Program
Lecturer, School of Law, BRAC University
in International Law, Melbourne Law School
(Bangladesh)
(Australia)
REDIAL - Rethinking International Legal
Education in Latin America: sharing a
conversation
REDIAL (Rethinking International Legal Education in
Latin America) is a collaborative academic project that
brings together Latin American researchers interested in
exploring the current stakes of international legal
education in the region. Its main objectives are as
follows: a) create a network of Latin American scholars
who do research in the field of international law; b) offer
a space to discuss international legal education from a
critical perspective; and c) propose alternative
approaches to international legal education considering
a Latin American perspective. Our starting point is that
international law in Latin America is mainly taught, learnt
and perceived as an abstract, neutral system that
regulates the relationships between subjects of
international law, which works for the benefit and
purposes of the international community. This form of
teaching and learning international law is based on a
specific (but not unique) vision of the law that often
leaves aside challenging and relevant debates for the
region. In this setting, it is necessary to create awareness
about the advantages and disadvantages of an orthodox
and Eurocentric approach to international law, which
includes reexamining the colonial past embedded in the
field, but also interrogating ways and possibilities of
transforming it. This contribution aims at sharing this
conversation with colleagues from the Global South,
opening space for new thinking and innovative practices
in international legal education.
The Creation of Bangladesh: Remedial Secession
or Fait Accompli?
Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan) is the only territory;
not conforming to the accepted colonial territorial
framework, to have successfully seceded from a state
(i.e. Pakistan) in the post-decolonisation paradigm. An
inquiry into the relevant international law pertaining to
the creation of the sovereign state of Bangladesh (i.e.
the secession of East Pakistan) in 1971 leads to two
opposing points of view.
The first point of view propounds that the secession of
East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from Pakistan is the only
successful case of the exercise of the right of (external)
self-determination by a non-self-governing territory in
the post-decolonisation paradigm, with some caveats.
On the other hand, the second point of view argues that
the secession of East Pakistan was a fait accompli of the
war between India and Pakistan in the December of 1971.
The aim of this paper is to analyse relevant
contemporary international law on self-determination,
secession, statehood, territorial integrity, use of force,
and humanitarian intervention with the aim of outlining
the legal justifications behind the two viewpoints, the
areas of contentions in each of them, and lastly, to
explore whether the two can be reconciled or whether
one should prevail in the present international order.
Farnush Ghadery
Federico Suárez Ricaurte Gabriel Antonio Silveira Mantelli
PhD Candidate, The Dickson Poon School of
Professor, Externado University of Colombia Graduate Student, São Paulo Law School of
Law, King's College London
(Colombia) the Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil)
(United Kingdom)

"Sticking to their Guns" - The International
Community's failure to see the potential of Islamic
Feminism in the Promotion of Women's Right in
post-conflict Muslim states
This paper focuses on international actors’ attempts at
advancing women’s rights in predominantly Muslim
post-conflict countries. It discusses the reluctance of
international actors during such processes, particularly
international organisations such as the United Nations,
to engage with the possibility of having recourse to
Islamic feminism or a conception of women’s rights and
gender equality rooted in Islam itself, as opposed to
basing their attempts at advancing gender equality on
the Western liberal conception of women’s rights as part
of the ‘universal’ human rights imaginary.
The article will particularly focus on the Afghan case and
the potential of Islamic feminism as a way of furthering
women’s rights in that country context.
Financialization’, Constitutionalism and (Neo)
Colonialism: How the financial capital
subordinates the Constitutional State?
The broad argument that I will present in this paper is
that under ‘financialization’, the financial capital and the
financial activities become in the principal engine of the
economy. As a consequence, the financial sector can
control and formulate directly and indirectly the public
policies of States in several areas of the society.
Therefore, Constitutional States modified their norms
and institutions according to the interests of the
financial sector and the financial capital, even though
that amendments harm the entire society. This
phenomenon reproduces a (neo) colonial relationship
between global north and global south in the XXI
century.
In particular, I aim to demonstrate, that there is a direct
link between the shareholder model and democracy,
thereby when scholars and corporations argue about
one specific model of corporate governance they are
also arguing about a model that has several implications
for democracy.
The structure of my argument consist four parts. Firstly,
I will refer to the concepts and characteristics of the
process known as ‘financialisation’. Secondly, I will
discuss some recent features and flaws of the
Constitutionalism that have been crafted accordingly to
the interest of the financial capital and the financial
sector with a particular focus on (neo) colonialism in
Constitutionalism of the Global South. Thirdly, I will refer
to some consequences of financialisation in the
international economic system, specifically, to the
financial crisis of 2008 and to the capital drain that
developing countries are living at the moment. Fourth, I
will present some conclusions.
Latin American Approaches Resisting From The
Margins: Rewriting International Law,
Development and Postcolonialism
The relationship between international law,
development and postcolonialism established by critical
international law illustrates how the universal discourse
around development has structured the current
ideological-institutional complex of international law
and how it has shaped resistance dynamics in the Global
South, as presented by Sundhya Pahuja and Balakrishnan
Rajagopal. The paper reviews relevant literature in the
field and argues that, although critical international law
has illuminated many concerns and asymmetries in
international law, this literature, that includes scholars
around NAIL and TWAIL projects, has not yet managed
to fully explain the Latin American experience. As argued
in this paper, this blind spot occurs due to two factors.
First, established critical literature has limitations
concerning its historical- temporal framework, focused
fundamentally on the historical past of international law
and its Eurocentric critique. Second, a limitation on the
conceptualization of international law that overshadows
alternative narratives of international law, such as global
law and transnational law, which have an influence on
Latin America due to the North-American hegemony in
the region. In this context, the paper offers two
innovative contributions in order both to bring more
Latin American perspectives to critical international law
debate and to try to engage Latin American scholarship
with the global debate. First, it covers postcolonial and
decolonial literatures in international law, in order to
expand the understanding of the past of international
law, including perspectives of Latin America, as reported
by Arnuld Becker Lorca, José-Manuel Barreto and Liliana
Obregón. Second, it intends to reconceptualize
international law by uncovering the dynamics of
power/oppression in the current expressions of
international law, as proposed by Luis Eslava, Fabio
Morosini and Michelle Ratton Sanchez Badin. In doing
so, the paper advances towards the critique of
international law from the Global South, particularly in
Latin America.
Gammanpila Imiyage Dona Isankhya
Udani
Lecturer, University of Colombo (Sri Lanka)
Legal Subordination of Married Women in Special
Laws of Sri Lanka; A Critique on Certain Aspects of
'Thesawalamai' in light of the International
Standards
Sri Lanka is a country enriched by multifarious systems of
law, including, three customary laws, namely;
Thesawalamai, Kandyan Law, and Muslim law. In
general, although Thesawalamai recognises the
property rights and economic independence of the
women, it must be acknowledged that, some legal
restrictions have been imposed on married women in
Thesawalamai, by section 06 of the Jaffna Matrimonial
Rights and Inheritance Ordinance 1911 (as amended by
the Ordinance No 58 of 1947) by preventing them from
enjoying the full power of disposing and dealing with her
separate property without the written consent of the
husband. Therefore, it is needed to have possible
reforms in this area of law, in order to ascertain the
principle of substantive gender-equality. The main
objective of this research is to make possible
recommendations to eliminate the discriminatory legal
provisions in Thesawalamai, in light of the international
human rights standards. This study further focuses to
analyse the gender-discrimination in non-western
philosophical viewpoint. In third world feminism, it is
clearly underlined that inferiority is enforced on women,
not only on sex, but also in the name of culture, ethnicity,
and religion. This is a qualitative research; mainly, carried
out by reference to secondary data. The research
problem is analysed by using legislation, case law,
international conventions, reports of the international
committees, academic writings, and electronic
databases.
Gangesh Sreekumar Varma
Associate Professor & Legal Advisor,
PhD Candidate, Jawarharlal Nehru University
University of Brasilia, Brazil & Ministry of
(India)
Foreign Affairs (Brazil)
TWAIL-ing Internet Governance: Examining
Multistakeholder Institutions through a TWAIL
lens
The internet governance regime is at its nascent stages
but is progressing in a rapid and complex manner.
Internet governance was defined by the United Nations
Working Group on Internet Governance as “the
development and application by Governments, the
private sector and civil society, in their respective roles,
of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making
procedures and programmes that shape the evolution
and use of the internet.” The definition itself embodies
the concept of a multistakeholder model where states
are not the only stakeholder group that will participate
and develop the internet governance regime. The idea of
the multistakeholder model is considered to create more
inclusive, transparent and democratic institutions and
processes. However, there is concern that certain
stakeholders continue to be marginalized.
TWAIL is considered to have grown into an analytical tool
and continuously evolving methodology. It is identified
as ‘anti-hierarchical, counter-hegemonic, and suspicious
of universal creeds and Truths’. This very vocabulary of
TWAIL is perfectly complementary to the decentralized
nature of internet and its governance through
multistakeholder models. The internet governance
realm provides TWAIL an opportunity to create
imaginative solutions and highlights the need to
‘inject[ing] people’s interests in non-territorialised legal
orders’ as one of the areas to further develop the TWAIL
research agenda.
TWAIL can offer an analysis that moves internet
governance debates away from a poor choice between
flawed multistakeholder models and a purely state-
centric approach. While most of the focus on TWAIL has
been on looking into the past, the internet governance
regime presents an opportunity to look at the future of
TWAIL.
George Galindo
Thinking (International Law) in Portuguese
Thinking is possible only through languages. The variety
of languages, however, affects more thoroughly certain
kinds of knowledge. That is the case of international law.
The discipline’s appeal for universality often suggests
that, although international lawyers have different
mother tongues, they think under the assumption of a
common legal system. Consequently, the use of a
specific language is usually seen as a mere technology to
achieve greater objectives, such as order, justice, or
peace. Nevertheless, a concept of universality that
disregards the variety of languages invariably relies on a
high level of abstraction that is capable to produce
forgetting.
Thinking international law in Portuguese can make
international lawyers to remember Portugal’s
colonialism in a special way. Memory is what allows the
coming close to the reconstruction of contexts, because
it is the most plausible medium between reason and
history. Memory is also the internal moment that makes
possible a critical consciousness that looks for its self-
understanding. It is not any memory, however, that has
such a potential; it is the memory of other’s suffering
that makes the experience of otherness possible.
Thinking international law in Portuguese can bring
important contributions to the construction of the idea
of universality in international law. On what relates
TWAIL, one clear consequence of thinking international
law in Portuguese is making evident that the narratives
that sustain post-colonial (English-spoken) theories only
explains part of the problem; in certain cases, it
misrepresents other narratives that support a set of
different experiences towards colonial domination and,
consequently, disregards the memory of other’s
suffering. More concretely, for example, the idea of
resistance can be grasped not only through
revolutionary moments, but in the way “mulatos”
behave in colonies or in the way legal rules were clearly
disregarded by colonized societies.
Hadeel Abu Hussein
Haris Jamil
Visiting Researcher, Max Planck Institute for
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law,
Comparative Public Law and International
University of Delhi (India)
Law, Heidelberg (Germany)
Geography of Power & the Law
The paper focuses on land law and provides an overview
of the right to land under international law, followed by
a background of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Subsequently, exploring the underpinning of the land
regime in Israel, while focusing on land expropriation
and forced housing eviction.
Examining the state of Israel provides an example for
'filling the gaps and silences in dominant historical
narratives, and understanding of the historical
background to the creation of the legal system towards
empowering [the] ideologically strong nationalism
domination of one ethnic group'.
Against this backdrop, this paper endeavors to
understand spatial strategies adopted by state of Israel
to organize the entire territorial expanse of the country
as Jewish, while excluding Arab Palestinian citizens of
Israel and residents of East Jerusalem from landscape. It
is important in the research dealing with space and land
within the state of Israel itself, to highlight what
happened to land belonging to the Palestinian refugees
as a result of the 1948 war and, later, the 1967 Six-Day
War. This experience is distinctive because they are living
within the architecture of exclusion rooted within socio-
legal framework in Israel. The systematic nature of
marginalization is mapped out in various ways across the
civil, political, and socio-economic landscape. This paper
is an attempt to explore the underpinning of the land
regime, focusing on land expropriation and housing
eviction and how did the law shape the development of
social and political space.
Huixin Qiu
PhD Candidate, Wuhan University (People’s
Republic of China)
A TWAIL critique of the element of state practice
in the formation of customary international law
Imperialism is not dead, though its tools have changed.
International law is used as a potent weapon to suppress
the aspirations of the third world and its people. Not just
specific international legal regimes or instruments are
detrimental to interests of the third world people; a
TWAIL critique of international law also highlights the
hierarchical nature of the entire legal system. The
growing interest in customary international law makes it
imperative to present a third world critique of its
formation process and effect. This paper seeks to
engage in a similar exercise, thereby focussing not on
content but rather form. It focuses on the element of
state practice in the formation of CIL, and critiques the
notion that this element strengthens democratic values,
signifies empirical acceptance and helps in the
universalisation of international law. This paper
identifies and critically evaluates the characteristics,
especially in the light of the recent work of the ILC on the
identification of CIL, which ‘state practice’ must possess
in order to be relevant for the formation of CIL. In
particular, this paper critiques the identification process
of the state practice and argues that it predominantly
represents the aspirations and interests of the social,
political, economic national elites, and has a tendency to
exclude the voices of the third world people. In this
regard, the paper also draws attention to the politics of
exclusion of the practices of non-state actors.
Strategies for including LGBT as an "Ethnical
Group" under Genocide Article of Rome Statute
The global recognition of LGBT rights has received
increasing attention in recent years. Nevertheless, LGBT
people still face violence, discrimination and persecution
in many parts of the world. With the rise of International
Criminal Law, it has been hoped that the International
Criminal Court (ICC) might provide LGBT people with
protection. This essay will argue that LGBT people can be
recognized as an “ethnical group” 3as that term is
defined by of the Genocide Convention. (hereinafter
“The Convention”) Recognizing LGBT people as an
ethnical group will therefore provide LGBT people with
international criminal law protection from genocide.
“Ethnical group” has been defined as a cultural, linguistic
or other distinct minority group within or outside a state.
This group was primarily based on common traditions
and culture, which belongs to four protected groups
under article 6 of Rome Statute. Indeed, as the
International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (“ICTY”)
and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(“ICTR”) stated, “ethnical group” is “a group whose
members share a common language or culture”.
Applying this definition, this paper will contend thatLGBT
people, given their own unique and distinct culture(s),
can be considered as an “ethnical group”.
My paper will argue that on both the objective and
subjective approaches, LGBT people are an “ethnical
group” within the meaning of the term as it appears in
the Genocide Convention. The protection afforded by
the Genocide Convention is therefore available to LGBT
people.
Itty Abraham
Associate Professor and Head, Southeast
Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, National University of Singapore
(Singapore)
Making Refuge Universal: The AALCC and the
Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment
of Refugees (1966)
This paper explores the transformation of the
international refugee regime in the early years of the
Cold War, in particular, the emergence of the Additional
Protocol of 1967. Although the Additional Protocol has
long been touted as a necessary and welcome action in
reducing the exclusionary barriers for eligibility to be
awarded refugee status (produced by the 1951
Convention), and hence, a step in the direction of greater
universality, its origins are not well understood. Most
accounts propose that a meeting of experts in Bellagio
in 1965, convened by the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, was the critical event that led to the
emergence of the Additional Protocol.
This paper will argue that, by contrast, it was the work of
the Afro-Asian Legal Consultative Committee (AALCC),
meeting in Tokyo, Cairo, and Bangkok in the early 1960s,
and the parallel deliberations that would lead to the
Organization of African Unity’s historic 1969 Arusha
Declaration on the rights of refugees, that tipped the
balance with regard to the need for an Additional
Protocol. In addition, it should be noted, both the
Bangkok Principles (AALCC, 1966) and the Arusha
Declaration are more expansive and humane in their
treatment of refugees than the Additional Protocol. The
role of postcolonial countries in reforming international
law is often either ignored entirely or subsumed into
Cold War narratives. A careful excavation of this
transformation of an international legal regime offers us
a chance to revise conventional historiography and to
highlight the central role of weak, poor, and
underdeveloped countries in establishing a more
progressive international legal order.
Izhari Mawardi
PhD Candidate, Leiden University
(Netherlands)
Government intervention in the private sector –
case study of Indonesia electricity tariff setting
This article investigates the political economy aspect of
the Electricity reform, including how foreign
intervention leads to a more open market involving the
private sector.
The paper starts with an introduction on the IMF
recommendations in 1999 and the Government action
undertaken to stabilize the economic condition of PLN as
the sole state owned company in the Power & Utilities
sector. The IMF recommendations includes private
sector intervention in the Electricity sector which leads
to the creation of Law 20/2002. The significance is
privatization to ensure private sector involvement.
In the second part of the paper, I will elaborate the
increase of Electricity tariff introduced by President
Megawati in four phases.
I would argue that the existing electricity tariff do not
reflect the economic value of generating electricity.
Where quantity of demand is small, price is low – in
contrary where quantity demand is large, price is high.
This condition is against the economics of Electricity
Markets, where quantity of demand is small, price would
be set high.
The third section elaborate the first presidential election
held by popular vote which leads to 10 years of stagnant
price setting. The fourth section discuss the response of
the Constitutional Court revoking Law 20/2002. The final
section ends with a conclusion and lessons learned from
the effort to increase the electricity tariff.
Jay Ramasubramanyam
PhD Candidate, Department of Law and
Legal Studies, Carleton University (Canada)
Subcontinental Defiance to the Global Refugee
Regime: global leadership or regional
exceptionalism?
As the theme of the conference suggests, I will attempt
to engage in discussions on South Asia’s approach to the
1951 Convention on Status of Refugees and the 1967
Protocol. I will do this by engaging in discussions on
characterization of forced migration in South Asia. While
many scholars have called for South Asian nations to sign
and ratify the 1951 Convention, many others have
pointed to the absence of a comprehensive refugee
framework in the region as exceptional. However, South
Asian states, more specifically India and Pakistan, have
hosted, and continues to host several refugees since
1947. The thoughts I will present in my paper will also be
with respect to South Asia’s non-conformism to the
global refugee regime, and whether or not it shows a
sign of exceptionalism or leadership. South Asia
continues to reject the global refugee framework and
does not have a comprehensive domestic refugee law in
place. Therefore, it is critical to engage in some
discussions on how persecution and protection has been
conceptualized in the region in order to understand
mobility.
Jayson S. Lamchek
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Faculty of Law,
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
Disentangling Human Rights from the
Counterterrorism Agenda
International human rights advocates and scholars have
assumed that the best way to ensure that human rights
survive in the age of counterterrorism is to synthesise
human rights with counterterrorism. The result is a vision
of counterterrorism transformed, a counterterrorism
that is governed by legal frameworks that acknowledge
a role for rights in its success. The experiences of the
Philippines and Indonesia challenge this assumption.
They illustrate serious problems with the entanglement
of human rights advocacy with the counterterrorism
agenda.
In the first place, the discourse of terrorism itself is
problematic and forms part of the conditions that
generate violations; the increased legalization of
counterterrorism entrenches this discourse of terrorism.
Second, the vision of a reformed counterterrorism
eclipses more radical demands from local advocates that
have nothing to do with the improvement of
counterterrorism. Third, governments can seize on the
language of reformed counterterrorism to present their
violence as fundamentally sound despite the persistence
of gross violations like extrajudicial killings and torture.
In brief, human rights have been entangled in the
perpetuation and justification of the “fight against
terrorism” which result in serious abuses. These
reflections imply that human rights advocates have to be
more aware of the politics involved in the development
and promotion of human rights-compliant
counterterrorism. Instead of insisting that
counterterrorism can be made compatible with human
rights, I propose a disentangled advocacy which insists
on a thorough-going rejection of the discourse of
terrorism and refuses to propound fantastic legal
solutions to abuses.
Jeroen van Bekhoven
Post-Doctoral Fellow, National Taiwan
University (Taiwan)
Isolated at the Island? The Meaning of
International Law to Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples
Taiwan’s indigenous peoples live under a system of
oppression, “internal colonialism.” This means that they
are fully subjected to Taiwan’s government. They do not
have self-government and they are being deprived of
their lands. But internal colonialism can be dismantled
through the transition process of “internal
decolonization.”
This paper explains that international law to a degree has
recognized that indigenous peoples are independent
actors. Taiwan’s indigenous peoples therefore have
been able to get access to international institutions and
to establish contacts with other indigenous peoples.
They have also used international law to develop and
make claims to Taiwan’s government. In this way,
international law has influenced the development of
Taiwan’s laws and policies on indigenous peoples,
despite Taiwan’s complex international status. Yet,
Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have also been confronted
with international law’s prevailing shortcomings for
indigenous peoples. International law is still centered on
the State. It does not challenge the State and restricts
indigenous peoples’ self-government. Consequently,
Taiwan’s indigenous peoples cannot fully participate in
international institutions and are blocked from
complaining before monitoring bodies because they live
in a non-UN Member State. They also are excluded from
the financial and technical support of international
institutions. This lack of international supervision and
assistance has hampered the further progress of internal
decolonization in Taiwan, also because Taiwan’s
government routinely ignores indigenous peoples’
needs and interests. In general, the obstacles
encountered by Taiwan’s indigenous peoples underline
that the current framework of international law is not
yet tailored to indigenous peoples.
Jin Sheng
Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Law,
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
The "One Belt, One Road" Initiative as Regional
Public Goods: Opportunities and Risks
This paper includes four parts. Part I “Introduction”
maps the supply and demand of Asian infrastructure
market, as well as the imbalance between supply and
demand for infrastructure investment, and analyses the
prospect of Asian urbanization and development
finance. Part II “The OBOR’s Opportunities” discusses its
opportunities and spill over effects as regional public
goods. Part III “The OBOR’s Risks” analyses major risks
among the above-mentioned barriers to investment
including (a) sovereign and credit risk, (b) political and
corruption risks, (c) foreign exchange risk, (d) limited
product offerings and liquidity constraints, and (e) deal
implementation risks. A few recent cases show that
counterparty developing countries may suffer from
heavy debt burden and financial risks. For instance, the
$15 billion China-Uzbekistan investment transaction
agreed by both parties occupies almost 25% of
Uzbekistan's GDP. In another example, the $24 billion
China-Bangladesh agreement signed in October 2016
accounts for around 20% of Bangladesh's GDP.
Geopolitical factors matter too. Particularly, the United
States and China have different visions on how the OBOR
program would affect the existing international
economic order. Part IV “The OBOR as a ‘Great Leap
Outward’” examines the OBOR’s impacts on reshaping
the regional infrastructure and development strategies.
It concludes that developing quality, sustainable and
inclusive infrastructure is imperative for Asian
developing countries and emerging economies.
Jose Mauricio Gaona
Research Fellow & PhD Candidate, Centre
for Human Rights and Faculty of Law, McGill
University (Canada)
Refugees in the 21st Century: Victims or Threats?
Refugees are nowadays trapped between the conflicts
of the developing world (e.g., civil war, famine, climate
change, drug trafficking, gangs’ violence, ethnic
annihilation, religious persecution, gender
discrimination) and the gradual shift of narrative from
fear-to-hate in the ‘developed world’, which threatens
not merely refugees but eventually the very moral
attribute of international public law. Moreover, as
domestic (e.g., United States, Argentina, Poland,
Hungary, Italy, Australia) and regional (e.g., EU) legal
systems are progressively dismantling some of refugees’
most basic legal protections, refugees across the globe
are increasingly portrayed as security, economic, and
cultural-identity threats.
The core questions my paper raises are these: What are
the axiological elements that propel countries to
consider refugees as threats? And what is the “vector”
that could redress, if possible, such equation?
My paper studies and disputes this seemingly global
trend. My analysis uses a comparative and
interdisciplinary approach aimed at depicting original
contentions and corollary reflections on the modern
reconceptualization of refugees. This analysis is
structured in two sections. First, the genesis of the
refugee threat. In this section, I explore the perception-
conception formulations leading to a radical shift on
refugee protection. Next, the metamorphosis of the
refugee protection. Here, I asses the current interplay
between law and politics while describing the major
consequences that both the dehumanization of refugees
and the disarticulation of their legal protection produce
vis-à-vis society’s most precious yet gradually neglected
entities—that is, identity, diversity, common security,
and humanity.
Julia Dehm
Lecturer, Latrobe University (Australia)
Highlighting Inequalities in the Histories of
Human Rights: NIEO and “Structural Approaches
to Rights in the 1970s
The technical legal expertise of the International Court
of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United
Nations, is rarely questioned. However, from its
inception critics have questioned its partiality by drawing
attention to apparent extrajudicial influences on its
decisions. While there has been no lack of research
assessing the ICJ judges’ voting behavior,
methodological limitations of prior research designs
have stymied empirical assessments of the extent and
nature of extrajudicial factors’ influence over the ICJ
judges’ voting behaviors. This paper challenges previous
research concluding that political and military
alignments have no effect on judicial decision-making. In
contrast to previous research findings, with the help of
hierarchical cluster analysis and OLS regression analysis,
this paper reports that ICJ judges vote closely with those
from countries that have regional or military alignments
with the countries that nominate or appoint them.
Judges from countries with a similar degree of economic
and democratic development, and with cultural or
religious similarities, also voted closely with each other.
This paper concludes with a consideration of the causes
and implications of the influence of non-legal factors on
the World Court’s decisions.
Kai-Chih Chang
Research Fellow, National Chengchi
University Center for International Legal
Studies (Taiwan)
Alignments between the Judges: The Voting
Clusters in the International Court of Justice, 1945-
2015
The technical legal expertise of the International Court
of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United
Nations, is rarely questioned. However, from its
inception critics have questioned its partiality by drawing
attention to apparent extrajudicial influences on its
decisions. While there has been no lack of research
assessing the ICJ judges’ voting behavior,
methodological limitations of prior research designs
have stymied empirical assessments of the extent and
nature of extrajudicial factors’ influence over the ICJ
judges’ voting behaviors. This paper challenges previous
research concluding that political and military
alignments have no effect on judicial decision-making. In
contrast to previous research findings, with the help of
hierarchical cluster analysis and OLS regression analysis,
this paper reports that ICJ judges vote closely with those
from countries that have regional or military alignments
with the countries that nominate or appoint them.
Judges from countries with a similar degree of economic
and democratic development, and with cultural or
religious similarities, also voted closely with each other.
This paper concludes with a consideration of the causes
and implications of the influence of non-legal factors on
the World Court’s decisions.

Kalyani Mala Jayasekara
Lecturer, General Sir John Kotewala Defence
University (Sri Lanka)
Is International Rule of Law a Fiction?
Supremacy of law, equality before law and
predominance of legal spirit are the three main
components of the rule of law principle as explained by
the A. V. Dicey in 1880. In the present identification of
the rule of law according to the World Justice Project,
accountability, just laws, open government and
accessible & impartial dispute resolution are the main
features of the rule of law. When it is applied
internationally, it can be identified as international rule
of law. The aim of this research is to identify the present
legal framework in relation to the international rule of
law, to find out the difficulties to implement the rule of
law in international level and seek new directions for the
rule of law in international law. The problem in
international level is the practice of the international rule
of law in the complex world of today, as there are lots of
politics and different foreign policies among nations.
United Nations also has addressed the issue of
international rule of law and brought out a resolution for
the protection of international rule of law on the premise
of sovereign equality of nations. It protects the
international law concepts and principles such as state
sovereignty, democracy and justice. But in the present
scenario, this study will venture to identify the problems
of legal implementation of rule of law. The international
lawyer can try to assess more important features of the
international geo-political crisis in their effect upon the
law. Given the dilemmas in its practical applicability, it
can be argued that the international rule of law is rather
a myth, a legal fiction which remains an aspiration, for
those countries of the third world which are worse
affected. One may argue whether, by way of
international law, which does not meet the standards of
rule of law, developed countries are going to control the
developing countries. And in this globalized world
international rule of law has to be a reality for the
protection of the rights of the individuals.
Kanad Bagchi, PhD candidate, Frankfurt University
(Germany)
Milan Tahraoui, PhD Candidate, Paris 1 Pantheon
Sorbonne University & Freie Universtität zu Berlin (Germany)
Research Fellows, Max Planck Institute for Comparative &
International Law
Envisioning Contestation in the International Law of
the XXIst Century through the Belt and Road
Initiative
In this study, we look at the ‘Particular’ vs the ‘Universal’
conundrum in international law through the ascendency
and if one may add, the dominance of China. We surmise
that the rise of China offers a distinct phase of particularism
in the 21st contrary and to concretely bring to light the
political, economic and ideational dimensions of Chinese
influence we focus on the Belt and Road Initiative
(thereafter “BRI”), which arguably is one of the most
profound, multi-faceted and colossal projects aiming at
“strengthening international cooperation” through
“connectivity cooperation initiatives” within Eurasia, but
also with the African continent and South America.
Against this backdrop, our overarching research question
is thus: Does Chinese particularism represents a threat to
the ‘universalism’ of international law? Or can a visible de-
Westernisation of international law actually contribute to
further concretisation of the ‘universalist’ project and in
fact, make it more legitimate? Alternatively, could it
increase the legal pluralistic character of international law?
In this endeavour, our analysis of the BRI juxtaposed with
international law essentially gives way to three different
scenarii: (i) A Chinese Reinforced Western Reading of
International Law; (ii) A Uniquely Chinese Approach to
International Law; and (iii) A Chinese-led ‘Parallel’ System
of International Law Exacerbating Multi-Polarity and Legal
Pluralism.
Katherine Fallah
Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of
Technology Sydney (Australia)
Strangers with Knives Between Their Teeth:
Mercenarism's Escape from the Turn to
Criminalisation in International Law
The crime of mercenarism is the international crime that never
was. Despite being one of the first crimes to be proscribed in
international and regional treaties, mercenarism escaped the
overwhelming turn to criminalisation in international law: the
mercenary conventions did not translate into a practice of
domestic or international prosecutions for the specific crime of
mercenarism, and the offence of mercenarism never found its
way into the statutes of the ad hoc international criminal
tribunals or the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’). Instead,
war-fighting for profit has been normalised and legally-
privileged through a series of international regulatory efforts
that see private military contractors invited to self-regulate,
contribute to multi-stakeholder oversight initiatives, and submit
to voluntary codes of conduct that promise a ‘value-add’ for
industry.
In this paper, I offer a TWAIL account of international law’s half-
hearted and inchoate efforts at criminalising mercenarism. First,
I argue that the prohibition of mercenarism was largely a
concern of decolonising and decolonised states, and I contend
that from the very beginning, the weak law of mercenarism was
an example of a fundamental refusal to accede to Third World
demands of international law. The collapse of the norm against
mercenarism is emblematic of international law’s routine
privileging of the violence of the West in the name of
universality.
Second, I ask what we are to make of mercenarism’s quiet
departure from international criminal law. While much
discussion of the global inequalities produced by the ICC turns
on practices of selective application of the Rome Statute and a
prosecutorial focus on suspects from the Global South, in this
paper I pursue another TWAIL concern: identifying inequalities
produced at the substantive, rather than procedural or
structural, level of international criminal law. I argue that the
failure to designate mercenarism as an international crime
within the jurisdiction of the ICC is, in itself, a reason to doubt
the universality claims of the international criminal justice
project.
Finally, I query whether a renewed push to strengthen the
international proscription of mercenarism would offer any
emancipatory potential for the Third World, or whether it is a
regulatory strategy that is bound to reproduce the very global
inequalities that it seeks to resist.
Kathryn Greenman
Senior Researcher, Maritime Territory
Junior Researcher, University of Amsterdam
Centre, Korea Maritime Institute (South
(Netherlands)
Korea)
State Responsibility, Revolution and Economic
Imperialism
In this paper, I will explore how state responsibility first
emerged, and was contested, during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries as a means to insure or
guarantee the continuity of certain economic
relationships in times of revolution. Particularly, the
doctrine of state responsibility for injuries to aliens
allowed states to intervene to protect the property,
investments and, to a lesser extent, lives of their
nationals in other states during revolutionary periods.
The context for this was the decolonisation of Latin
America. During the nineteenth century, newly
independent Latin America offered vital new markets for
(initially European then later increasingly US) surplus
capital and manufactured goods, and the natural
resources essential to the continued growth of
European/US industry. Revolution was a threat to such
foreign trade and investment, on the one hand because
it was simply disruptive, but also because sometimes –
such as in the case of Mexican Revolution, with its calls
for agrarian reform and economic nationalism – it posed
a more radical challenge to the capitalist imperialist
project. State responsibility was the solution to this
threat that sought to ensure the continuity of economic
relations of exploitation beyond formal colonialism and
to insulate them from challenge by revolutionary
movements. Despite strong resistance to the doctrine of
state responsibility for injuries to aliens and the
intervention it justified, I will argue that it is the
protection of foreign capital against revolution which
has had the more enduring legacy in international law,
while fragmentation has made more difficult the type of
resistance which came from Latin America during this
period.
Kim Wonhee
Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow in
International Law, Melbourne Law School,
The University of Melbourne (Australia)
(Non-)Applicability of the Principle of uti
possidetis juris to Territorial Disputes in Asian
region
The aim of this paper is to review colonial legacy in
judicial settlement of territorial disputes and its
applicability or non-applicability of the principle of uti
possidetis juris to the territorial disputes in Asian region.
In the Frontier Dispute case, for the first time, the
International Court of Justice recognized that the
principle of uti possidetis juris is “a firmly established
principle of international law where decolonization is
concerned” and that it is “a general principle which is
logically connected with the phenomenon of the
obtaining of independence”. Since then, the
international courts and tribunals have referred and
applied uti possidetis juris in the judgements concerning
the territorial disputes. Moreover, the principle of uti
possidetis juris was not only relied upon by the Badinter
Arbitration Commission to resolve boundary issues
arising from the dissolution of the Former Yugoslavia,
but also referred with regard to the case of unilateral
secession by the Province of Quebec.
This paper firstly analyzes into the aforementioned
colonial legacy of judicial precedents applying and
referring the principle of uti possidetis juris to resolve the
territorial disputes in the context of decolonization.
Then it will delve into the issues whether the principle of
uti possidetis can appropriately be applicable to the
territorial disputes in Asian region or not. Lastly, it will
inquire to what extent uti possidetis juris can be applied
to the remaining territorial disputes between the former
imperial powers and their former colonies in Asian
region.
Konstantina Tzouvala
Between North and South: the Balkans as a liminal
space in the history of international law
My paper interrogates the place of the Balkans in
European thought as a liminal space between East and
West, Europe and the Orient. Moreover, both
international antagonisms and local dynamics meant
that direct political control of the region by one
European power was both undesirable and
impracticable.. Moreover, by discussing the history of
the Balkans I aim to enrich TWAIL histories with insights
from a largely neglected region and to trace the origins
of techniques that in the 20th century were mobilised to
foreclose the possibilities of meaningful decolonisation.
I do so by examining the history of international law and
state formation in the Balkans. My paper examines a
period stretching from the disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire in the 19th century to the Greek civil
war (1946-1949). More specifically, I explore the deep
intertwining between international law and the
‘Macedonian question’, concerning the fate of the
‘European’ parts of the Empire. In this respect, I situate
the UN’s intervention, which emphasised heavily the
destabilising potential of minorities, refugees and
unsettled borders and proposed mechanisms such as
population exchanges and border treaties as ways of
pacifying the region, within a broader trajectory of
international legal interventions in the Balkans that
reached their apogee in the interwar period. This vision
was centred around the consolidation of ethnicised,
territorially bound national statehood, which at the
same time was decisively limited through the imposition
of international legal obligations for the protection of
foreign capital and subject to various forms of
internationalised economic administration, as the only
imaginable form of political organisation for the region.
Larissa Ramina
Associate Professor, Universidade Federal
do Paraná (Brazil)
Patrícia Ramos Barros
LLM Student, University of Brasilia (Brazil)
The everyday life of international law in Latin
America: what does American new undeclared
war against Venezuela tell about fascism?
The observation of daily operation of international law
on everyday life may show how places and subjects are
currently constituted before the discipline and the
international community. In this sense, dominant
interests shape the recognition of some facts as
important to international law narrative, while other
ones are silenced. Even nowadays, international law also
is able to support fascist purposes, manifested by
political subjugation and territorial expansionism. This
paper aims to discuss in which manner new undeclared
war of USA – against Venezuela – is creating the
narrative that Venezuela’s problems are merely
ideological instead of having international character. The
going narrative is that socialism has destroyed the
country and people want to be free. Actually, from 2014,
Saudi Arabia has flooded the market with cheap oil,
coordinated with US imperialist goals, that is, to
undermine Venezuelan economy. In this context, one
may suspect that American-backed companies are
slowing production to create a scenario of shortage of
food and other basic items, that Americans are financing
oppositional movements and even fascist organisations
in order to overthrow the government. So, one could ask
how current Venezuelan crisis can be considered, at least
in part, a result of fascist American interests in the
region, and how international law approaches fascism as
an international legal phenomenon. Firstly, this paper
intends to investigate if that crisis has relevance to
international law as an “event” to be considered and
what are the consequences of the resulting verification
in regard of Third World. Secondly, it seeks to identify
how the long lasting multifaceted intervention in the
country works as a fascist counterforce that prevents
the Venezuelan political and economic stabilization. The
main argument is that this American long lasting
multifaceted intervention represents a manifestation of
territorial and political expansionism over the country
and over its oil reserves.
Luis Eslava M. Yakub Aiyub Kadir
Senior Lecturer, University of Kent Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Syiah Kuala
(United Kingdom) University (Indonesia)
New Poverty and Third World Youth: Inequality, Resource Nationalism in Indonesia
Insecurity and Unemployment
This paper examines resource nationalism in the legal
Young people in the Global South are on the front line of system of Indonesia under the interpretation of Articles
the encounter between rising levels of global inequality, 33 and 18B2 of the 1945 Constitution. It will describe the
the increase of domestic and transnational insecurity evolution of the meaning of resource nationalism since
patterns and, as James Ferguson has recently affirmed, the Indonesia’s independence to the present date, in the
the ‘end of labour’ as a mechanism of social integration context of foreign investment, to investigate the extent
and redistribution. Located in a highly-interconnected to which resource nationalism has benefited indigenous
world, the experiences of these young people are peoples. This paper argued that resource nationalism in
conditioned both by the fall-out from past legal and the legal system of Indonesia has been driven by the
developmental failures and by their position as the state centric and far away from benefits to the
target of new forms of legal and developmental policy indigenous people (Masyarakat Hukum Adat/MHA), as
experimentalism. Their lives have come to be marked, in to dominantly benefit the elites of government and
this process, by new trade arrangements, new foreign investors. A new conceptual framework will be
surveillance technologies, and new efforts to solve the introduced in order to develop an effective argument
consequences of ‘job-less’ growth and the about resource nationalism, through International
financialisation of the global economy. In this talk I will Human Rights Law (IHR) Law.
start to chart the different ways in which international
law and development policies have come to produce, are
aiming to manage, and have come to influence the
experience by young people of this ‘new form of
poverty’ in the 21st Century. I will focus, in particular, in
how this situation is playing out in the city of Cali, in the
south-east part of Colombia. Cali, like many others cities
in the Global South today, is engaged in combating its
high levels of insecurity via the active inclusion of the
city’s so-called ‘petty criminals’, often young males
between 14 and 18 years old, into the formal, above-line,
official life of the municipality. As I will demonstrate in
my talk, even though some of these policies are quite
courageous, they tend to (re-)produce, however, a
particular set of extremely precarious – inter-nationally
constructed – institutional and human arrangements.
Mariyam Zulfa
Graduate Student, University of Melbourne
(Australia)
Is the 'act of state' doctrine no longer relevant to
successfully argue for a stay of proceedings in
international commercial arbitration? An
examination of the judgement in Maldives
Airports Co Ltd and Another v GMR Male'
International Airport Pte Ltd?
The ‘act of state’ doctrine applies when courts of one
state will not adjudicate upon the acts of a foreign state
carried out within that state’s own territory. It has
originated from the common law world and crossed over
into the sphere of international commercial arbitration,
propped as a defence by parties seeking to avoid
proceedings.
The case examined in this paper involved the pleading of
such a defence by the Government of the Maldives
(GOM) against an Indian-based foreign investor GMR-
MAHB Consortium (GMR), with whom it had signed a
concession agreement in 2010 to develop operate and
manage the Maldives’ main international airport for a
period of twenty-five (25) years.
This paper explores the current status of the law when
applying the legal tests to facts as evidence when state
immunity is pleaded, and under what terms will a stay of
proceedings be justified when the act of state defence
applied, if at all. The paper concludes with the author’s
observations as to the case’s implications to TWAIL.
Matiangai Sirleaf
Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Law School (USA)
Responsibility for Combatting Highly-Infectious
Diseases
The recent Ebola and Cholera epidemics raise crucial
questions about international responsibility. This Article
juxtaposes these two epidemics to undermine the
tendency to think that epidemics like Ebola or Cholera
just happen spontaneously. Certainly, vulnerabilities do
not just fall from the sky. Principles of responsibility need
to be expanded to fully account for the role of
international actors, as opposed to pretending that the
status quo distribution of highly-infectious diseases is
simply due to erratic nature or local backwardness. This
Article forces us to grapple with several questions: When
do international actors become responsible for ensuring
the right to health? More broadly, when should
international actors be responsible for their omissions,
or actions direct and indirect that result in massive health
violations? What should such responsibility look like for
international actors?
Matthew Windsor
Junior Research Fellow, Oxford University
(United Kingdom)
Provincialising the Adviser in International Legal
Thought
This paper seeks to provincialise knowledge production
on the role of advisers in international legal thought.
Examining issues of epistemology in international law
catalyse an awareness that international law does not
exist apart from its ‘knowers and their idiosyncrasies and
interests’ (Focarelli 2012). Knowledge about advisers has
largely been generated by ‘insider accounts’, penned by
role occupants based on their professional experience,
typically in either the UK Foreign and Commonwealth
Office or the US State Department (Part I). The issue of
cultural bias in knowledge production is addressed by
historically situating the emergence of an Anglo-
American interest in the advisory role at the intersection
of decolonisation and Cold War geopolitics in the early
1960s (Part II). The production of insider accounts, on a
‘West-to-Rest’ conveyor belt, were a means to influence
the advisory practice, institutional design and ideological
trajectory of newly independent states. Despite the
appearance of technical assistance and beneficent
comparative exchange, I read the insider accounts as a
concerted effort to discipline future mandarins, and as
an exercise in development managerialism. The
pedagogic and socialising subtext of the insider accounts
is further explored through a case-study pertaining to
the inauguration of the Government Legal Adviser’s
Course at IALS in 1964, described by its convenor as a
‘cause as well as a course’ (Part III). The picture that
emerges is of Anglo-American advisers as postcolonial
administrators, engaged in the reinstatement of
‘international pecking orders’ (Pouliot 2016). The insider
accounts they have continued to produce reflect
contingent balances struck between knowledge and
power – a celebration of commitment among a coalition
of the liberal internationalist like-minded – rather than
revealing immutable truths about the advisory
encounter. Through its analysis of knowledge
production on the advisory function, the paper seeks to
provoke critical reflection on the politics of
epistemology in global socio-legal
enquiry.
Michelle Burgis-Kasthala
Lecturer, Edinburgh Law School/Australian
National University
Governing Third World States through Exemplary
Justice? International Criminal Law and
Statebuilding in Syria and Palestine
International Criminal Law (ICL) is concerned with
ensuring that those individuals most responsible for
atrocity crimes are held accountable in the interests of
truth telling, social repair and deterrence. Yet as ICL
tends to take centre stage in instances of profound state
neglect, its application ensures that the very basis of
domestic rule is questioned. This is captured most simply
in the complementarity provision of the Rome Statute,
which requires that the International Criminal Court hear
only matters where the state itself is shown to be
unwilling or unable to prosecute alleged crimes. Here
then, the state becomes ‘complicit’ through its
unwillingness or ‘failed’ through its inability to perform a
vital element of rule. In either case, ICL discourses then
can discipline such errant governments with its promise
of a global standard of good governance. Here in this
paper, I seek to explore how ICL is a required idiom for
states-in-the-making through two cases: Syria and
Palestine. Syria currently exemplifies the 'failed state'
paradigm where a number of competing governmental
and non-governmental actors seek to stake a claim for
the country's future governance. International criminal
accountability is central to these efforts and is intimately
linked to wider capacity building and rule of law efforts.
Palestine too is a land interspersed with a dense - even if
fragmented - network of governance projects that have
evolved over the course of its long occupation, which
has ensured a perpetual stateless limbo. ICL constitutes
the latest idiom through which governmental and non-
governmental elites seek to perform Palestinian
stateness. Regardless of the likelihood of criminal trials
in the near future for these two cases, the paper seeks
to understand the relationship between ICL, third world
'failing' statehood and global governance.
Michelle Burgis-Kasthala
Lecturer, Edinburgh Law School/Australian
National University
Palestine as (Decolonial) Pedagogy? Reflections
on the Ethics of Student Fieldtrips
As a compulsory component of a Masters course (within
the School of International Relations at the University of
St Andrews) on the Arab-Israeli conflict, I designed and
led three student groups on a fieldtrip to Israel and the
(occupied) Palestinian West Bank and Syrian Golan
Heights in 2009, 2010 and 2011. During these trips we
travelled to a variety of locations and met with a number
of governmental and non-governmental actors. In
particular, we focussed on the role of NGO groups within
Israeli and Palestinian society in their attempts to
generate awareness of and end human rights abuses
resulting from the occupation. These encounters proved
invaluable for students, who could appreciate the
human dimension to the conflict in a new way within the
crucially important context of the occupation’s
geography. In this presentation, I want to talk about
three things. First, the ethically problematic nature of
‘human rights educational tourism’ that in some ways
these fieldtrips represent. Second, the story of faith and
disenchantment in non-violent struggle that sustained
my students during and after the fieldtrip. In particular, I
explore student reactions to the murder of peace activist
Juliano Mer Khamis that took place only a few days after
our visit to the Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp.
Third, the extent to which Palestine’s particular
predicament can serve as an exemplar of decolonial
struggles across the globe.
Mohammad Ataul Karim
Senior Lecturer, Department of Law, East
West University (Bangladesh)
Hegemony of ‘Moral High Ground’ and Third
World Resistance to Global Intellectual Property
Regime
The positivistic approach of absolute juridical
sovereignty of third world in domestic law making and
public interest policy adoption in intellectual property,
particularly on pharmaceutical patent and public health
crisis, has been critically undermined and challenged by
the first world and their MNCs. In addition, third world
has been facing serious onslaughts in protecting and
managing their traditional knowledge, intangible
cultural expressions, geographical indications, bio-piracy
and other intellectual properties. However, there has
been some sort of resistances, notably, on the public
health matter which resulted in the historical Doha
Ministerial Declaration in 2001 and subsequently the
Doha Development Agenda. Third world leaders, human
rights activists and judiciary had to play significant role in
the resistance process. Still, there are ample scopes of
third world scholars to challenge the ‘moral high ground’
hegemony and crystalize the third world resistance
theory so that it cannot be confused between ‘liberal
optimism’ and ‘left wing pessimism’.
This paper, will provide an overview and challenge
existing hegemony of ‘moral high ground’ of the first
world. In doing so, it will narrate some story of third
world resistance and will further explore scopes, ways
and means of third world resistance to the global
intellectual property regime.
Mohammad Shahabuddin Mohsen al Attar
Reader in International Law and Human Mostafa Haider
Principal Teaching Fellow, Warwick Law
Rights, Birmingham Law School, University Lecturer, Curtin Law School (Australia)
School (United Kingdom)
of Birmingham (United Kingdom)

The Myth of Colonial Protection of Indigenous
Peoples: The Chittagong Hill Tracts under British
Rule
The unique process of the ‘making’ of postcolonial states
is intrinsically connected to the suppression of ethnic
minorities and the ensuing humanitarian catastrophes in
these states. With the continuation of colonial
boundaries, ambivalence with minority group rights, and
neoliberal ‘developmentalism’, international law
facilitates many of these catastrophes in postcolonial
states. Thus, instead of thinking of humanitarian crises in
postcolonial states as a mere failure of international law
enforcement, this paper explores how international law
principles regarding the making of postcolonial
boundaries contributed to the Rohingya crisis in
Myanmar by depriving the Rohingya of their legitimate
right to self-determination.
Can TWAIL have its cake and eat it too?
Doctrinal analysis may still rule the roost in international
legal scholarship but we would be remiss not to
recognise the developments that have transpired since
the days of Lauterpacht, McNair, and Oppenheim.
Progress is widespread in Feminist Legal Theory, Critical
Race Theory, and Commodity Form Theory, each of
which begins with a rejection of positivist orthodoxy in
international legal analysis: ‘The current boom in social
theory is deeply critical in spirit. Much of its energy is
directed against the pretensions of science and the
positivist temper of the modern world.’ Other than
undermining the positivist premise that ‘things must be
one way or the other’, what insight do critical
perspectives bring to international legal theory?
In the following article, I answer this question through
an examination of TWAIL. Troubled by the geopolitical
imbalance in the enterprise of international law, a group
of critically minded scholars sought to expand the scope
of international legal scholarship. They would do so by
growing a scholarly community sensitive to Third World
concerns in their engagement with international law.
Modern Poverty As Expertise
This paper aims to demonstrate that ‘modern poverty’ is
fundamentally a manifestation of knowledge by experts.
It does so by broadly mapping the contemporary
intellectual trends in global poverty thinking. It argues
that these intellectual understandings of poverty
actually set the tone for the implementation of global
poverty eradication agenda. Taking Sustainable
Development Goals as an example, it shows that political
leaders reformulate certain forms of expertise as
expressive of a collective political will on the part of the
international community. In other words, experts of
modern poverty, while being in the background, both
determine and dictate the terms of political commitment
by the leaders of the international community.

Self-described as a theory, method (occasionally

methodology), sensibility, movement, and, as per the
moniker, approach, its place in legal theory remain
ambiguous. Does it proffer ideas about international
law’s character and legitimacy or is it solely dedicated to
identifying instances of operational prejudice? Does it
possess its own identity or is its existence contingent on
the thing it opposes? Drawing on a range of TWAIL
scholars as well as journeymen contributors, I
investigate, first, how its scholars represent TWAIL’s
theoretical credentials and, second, what contribution
TWAIL makes to the field.

My key finding, which I will explore in this presentation,

is that TWAIL is theoretically incongruous.

Mostafa Naser
Assistant Professor, Lahore University of
Lecturer, Edith Cowan University (Australia)
Management Sciences (Pakistan)
International Law, Climate-induced migration and
Human Rights: A Third World Perspective
A global perspective on climate change migration and
human rights demands some consideration of the wider
state of human rights in today’s world. Sadly, there are
plenty of grounds for pessimism. In early 2018, conflicts
persist in Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen,
Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar and elsewhere. Thus, the
global displacement problem is growing. Climate change
displacement is an important factor in a global problem with
many causes.
Since the 1990s, the human and social dimensions of climate
change have garnered increasing focus. Walter Kälin stated
in 2011 that, ‘while mitigation and adaptation are on the
agenda of the regular conferences of States Parties to the
UNFCCC, the protection dimension and with it displacement
triggered by the effects of climate change have been largely
neglected in international discussions thus far’. This has now
changed. The human dimension of climate change has
garnered some increased focus, albeit at slow pace. A global
consensus is emerging on climate change, migration and
human rights. Nansen, Sendai, Paris COP21 and other
initiatives highlight increasing international agreement.
In this milieu, the key questions this paper will address is the
significance of this change; is a global consensus on climate
migration emerging? And, if so, what is the value and local
impact in a variety of sensitive areas in global south of this
global consensus? Migration is often described as a key
human dimension of climate change. Do these global
initiatives adequately address the human dimension of
climate change? Is international progress on climate change
and migration being translated into discernible, individual
human benefits? To explore these questions, this paper
reviews the accumulating stock of international policies and
initiatives relevant to climate-induced migration and
examines whether an international ‘acquis’ on climate-
induced migration is emerging.individual human benefits?
To explore these questions, this paper taking stock of the
recent international institution and policy developments in
this field fathoms the human rights implications of climate
change displacement.
Muhammad Azeem
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Doha Center,
Brookings Institution (Qatar)
TWAIL, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC), and Labour- Critical Reflections
“One Belt One Road” (OBOR) is a triumph of Chinese
capital, and CPEC or the China Pakistan Economic
Corridor is one of the crucial links of this initiative. I ask,
what is the logic of this ‘non-Western,’ ‘Third World,’
‘non-European’ and very ‘state’-driven investment,
which is going to shape legal regimes of Pakistan, in
particular the labour regime. In doing so I assess three
theoretical concepts of TWAIL: the Third World, its
states, and their proposed resistance to international
regimes.
I expect to argue that China will use International law to
pacify resistance. For instance, President Xi boasts that
China leads environmental reforms globally, thereby
projecting a socially progressive face. On the other hand,
based on China’s investment experience in Africa, Latin
America, and now unfolding in Pakistan, it is clear that
China’s investment comes with little commitment to
human rights, good governance or democracy in host
countries, and is really akin to re-colonization in many
respects.
The different moves by the Chinese state challenge
TWAIL as ‘way of thinking’ which, firstly, did not
anticipate relations of ‘sub-imperialism’. Further, how is
TWAIL to be re-conceptualized where the colonized
state is not ‘helpless’ but rather comprador or captured.
The range of oppositional movements also do not look
like what TWAIL envisaged, as the points of international
conflict have shifted to spontaneous and diverse
struggles ranging from class to identity-based to anti-
war movements. I suggest a shift in TWAIL’s theory and
methodology to bring strategic groups of people, not
states, to the heart of its analysis, and their recognition
and distributive justice as core values.
Noha Aboueldahab
Ode to Equality in an Unequal World:
Yemen, Syria, and International Criminal Justice
Yemen is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,
resulting from war and decades of aggressive domestic
and international policies that have entrenched socio-
economic inequalities. The war in Syria is the deadliest
conflict of the twenty-first century and has resulted in
one of the world’s worst refugee crises. In both
countries, atrocities including mass killing, torture, mass
rape, forced displacement and enforced disappearances
are prevalent. It is not surprising, then, that some who
seek a resolution to these conflicts as well as those
against whom these crimes have been inflicted have
invoked international law –and in particular international
criminal law – as an appropriate outlet for redress.
This paper examines how existing critiques of
international criminal law can explain the political
decision-making that has shaped the individual criminal
accountability discourse with regard to Syria and Yemen.
In doing so, the paper uses TWAIL to explain the
strategies pursued by the Yemeni and Syrian diasporas in
their quest for criminal accountability and others forms
of justice.
The paper begins by outlining the trajectory of criminal
accountability pursued (and not pursued) by
international actors in the Yemeni and Syrian conflicts. It
then explains how actors in the diaspora, in all their
diversity, have pushed the boundaries of international
criminal law by resisting its selective and colonial
tendencies largely from within the movement itself.
While these strategies have not necessarily been
successful, they present examples of innovative
resistance to both ongoing violence and a hegemonic
international criminal law system. The paper concludes
with reflections on how the actions of these diaspora
actors inform and develop the ‘TWAILing’ of
international criminal justice.
Okechukwu Emmanuel Effoduh
PhD Candidate, Osgoode Hall Law School,
York University (Canada)
Human Rights in the Fourth Industrial Revolution:
Activist Forces, Information Technology, and the
Pursuit of Human Rights in Africa
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (“4IR”) is affecting
almost every sphere of human endeavour, including the
pursuit of human rights across the world. But how is the
4IR affecting the pursuit of human rights in the Third
World (“TW”) (particularly in African countries where
the second industrial revolution is yet to be fully
realised)? Notwithstanding the exiguity of the 4IR in the
TW, Information Technology (“IT”) is liquefying
boundaries and is enabling the flow of data and
resources to move with speed and ease, between
jurisdictions, for the pursuit of human rights. IT tools are
also moving mostly from the Global North into the Global
South – and is increasingly being utilised by Activist
Forces (“AF”) in their pursuit of human rights. Within
African States, how is the “globalizing” process of the
4IR accommodating the pursuits of human rights – in
both their “traditional” and now “contemporary” ways?
Is the use of IT (as a part of the 4IR process), aiding or
obstructing the pursuit of human rights in Africa? Is it
responsible for hegemonic or counter-hegemonic
displacements in the pursuits of human rights? What
does the 4IR mean for the future of rights in this part of
the TW – where many of the IT tools that used for
activism are flowing into but are not created therein.
Pasha L. Hsieh
Associate Professor, Singapore
Management University (Singapore)
The RCEP, New Asian Regionalism and Global
South Powers in International Economic Law
International economic law and the Global South are at
a crossroads in the era of populist isolationism. The
resurgence of Westphalian sovereignty in economic
policy has endangered the neoliberal basis of free trade
that has underpinned the world’s development since the
inception of the postwar Bretton Woods system.
Evolving mega-regionals were once perceived to remedy
the long-standing impasse of the Doha Round of the
World Trade Organization (WTO). Nevertheless, the
globalization backlash, evidenced by Brexit and the
Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP), has invigorated developing
countries to pursue a new normative foundation for
economic integration.
Double the economic scale of the “reborn” TPP, which is
the now 11-party Comprehensive and Progressive
Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the RCEP will
be the most critical milestone since the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation was established in 1989. To a
large extent, premature aspirations for the TPP have
overshadowed academic and policy discourse on the
RCEP. To fill a much-needed gap in legal literature, this
article offers a timely and “on the ground” response to
the systemic implications of the RCEP for international
economic law. By making interrelated theoretical and
substantive claims, the article opens an inquiry into the
assertive legalism of developing countries in the new
regional economic order (NREO).
This article argues that the emerging RCEP represents
the NREO, which will prompt paradigm shifts in Asian
regionalism and construct a normative foundation for
the Global South in international economic law.
Paul van Trigt
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Institute of
History, Leiden University (Netherlands)
International law and disability. A non-linear and
non-western trajectory of disability as a human
rights issue
With the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2006, disability can
no longer be ignored as an issue of human rights and
international law. Within the field Disability Studies the
human rights perspective on disability is already
established, but outside that field this is hardly the case.
Therefore my paper will analyze the trajectory to the
UNCRPD without the assumption that a human rights
perspective on disability is self-evident. On the contrary,
I will‘follow’ the concept of human rights in the United
Nations disability policy since the 1970s and argue that
there was no linear trajectory towards the UNCRPD – as
is often suggested. Moreover, I will fundamentally
question the often expressed assumption that the
history of disability (human) rights is a Western history.
The conceptual history of disability as a human right
issue at the global level has been a rather neglected field
of enquiry when compared to other concepts such as
gender and race. In my paper I will investigate the
following cases from a conceptual history point of view:
how, by whom and why was a human rights perspective
on disability brought to the floor and which alternative
perspectives were used? The cases I want to present are
the Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons (1975),
the International Year of Disabled persons (IYDP, 1981)
with the theme ‘full participation and equality’, the
International Decade of Disabled Persons (1983-1992),
the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities
for Persons with Disabilities (1993) and the UNCRPD in
2006.
The trajectory of disability as a human rights issue that
will arise from these cases, will be situated in the recent
debates about human rights and international law
among historians. Is disability part of 'humanitarian
government' (Fassin) as it is dominant since the 1990s or
are we in need for an alternative framing?
Phattharaphong Phil Saengkrai
Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Thammasat
University (Thailand)
Cognitive Frames and Certainty in Investment
Treaty Interpretation
The field of international investment law is often said to
be in constant flux. One of the reasons for this is, as aptly
explained by Anthea Roberts, the ‘clash of paradigms’ in
which different actors analyse concrete problems and
conceptualise the field by using different analogies and
drawing different comparison between legal fields. As a
response to such a clash, there have been many
attempts to bring about some certainty including, in
particular, the amendment of investment treaties or
model BITs by developing countries so as to assert its
right to regulate more expressly. This paper seeks to
critically analyse such a quest for certainty. It will focus
on how investment treaties have been interpreted by
relevant actors such as the arbitrators, and analyse how
certainty of the outcomes in the interpretive processes
are generated. Here, it will be argued that certainty in
the interpretive process has to do not so much with the
text of investment treaties as with the cognitive frame
though which the treaties are interpreted. Put
differently, the analysis of certainty in the interpretive
process should be shifted from the clarity that is often
thought to be inherent in the text to the overall
homogeneity of the attitudes of the actors in
interpretive communities. In making this argument, the
paper will draw upon and further develop the line of
burgeoning literature in international law that seeks to
go beyond the limits of the rule-based approach to the
study of treaty interpretation.
Prabhakar Singh
Associate Professor, OP Jindal Global
University (India)
India, China, and Customary International Law
China has while welcomed the challenges to her
sovereignty in economic affairs, she rejects treaty law of
the Sea, 1982, in favour of a "residual" customary
international law (CIL) and historic rights. CIL, like treaty,
is international law's main source. Notably, the ICJ had in
the Nicaragua case rejected an “absolutely rigorous”
study of state practice for finding CIL. Unsurprisingly,
international law is silent on the conflict of treaty law and
custom. As such, aided by the ICJ's non-rigourous
approach to state practice in locating custom, 21st
century Chinese scholars - Bing Bing Jia and others - have
argued for left-over customs (residual CIL) againt treaty
law of the sea using history and poetry. How do China,
India, and their publicists compare in advocacy of CIL. In
2018 alone India's three leading publicists - Baxi, Chimni,
and Rao - have theorised CIL while Chinese scholars have
attempted to define CIL ever since the year the South
China Sea dispute began. Overall, CIL, much like the
unequl treaties of the 19th century, appears complicit in
the imperial projection of power. The 21st century
powers use new "historic rights" over treaty law of sea.
While the PRC accepts the ROC's treay rejection (rebus
sic stantibus) policy, PRC criticizes India for a similar
inheritence of British approach. Further, in the Kosovo
case China made plain the blue-water European
colonialism alone to be worthy of remedy under
international law. Effectively, China while alive to
European colonialism is blind to Japanese, Russian and
American imperialism in Asia of the 21st century. This
reflects in China's and India's careful mining of CIL. I
argue that the Sino-Indian approach to CIL mimics the
practices of their colonial masters, respectively, during
Europe colonialism (law of the nations) and North
American imperialism (international law).
Rafael Tamayo Alvarez
PhD Candidate, Universidad de los Andes,
Bogotá (Colombia)
Deconstructing the Subjectivity of the Regulatory
State within the Investment Protection Discourse
Academic research in regards to investment treaty law
currently is dominated by the economic analysis of the
actions of the various actors converging around the
investment treaty regime.
Considering this background, the objective of this paper
is to articulate a critique of the investment treaty regime
from the perspective of the subject-creation power of
the investment protection discourse. The article unfolds
in the following sequence. First, it reviews the legal
techniques through which international investment law
has responded to the risk posed by governmental
activity. These techniques serve a double purpose. They
establish a normative canon and entail a representation
of regulatory action in ways that reinforce the risk to
invest. The theoretical tool used in this part is the legal
orientalism stance on the subject-creation power of law.
Second, the paper draws on the insights of critical legal
studies analysis of legal consciousness, to examine the
extent to which the essentialization of domestic
regulation works as an intellectual layout that limits the
conditions of possibility for conceiving the state in its
regulatory relationship with foreign investors. In this
regard, the internalization of the constructed
subjectivity build upon the regulatory state plays a role
in both the design of investment policies and the
outcome of investment treaty disputes. With this
concept in mind, the paper then undertakes the analysis
of legal materials, namely a sample of decisions by
investment treaty tribunals and investment treaties, to
deconstruct the subjectivity of the regulatory state as
portrayed within them.
Rajshree Chandra
Associate Professor, University of Delhi
(India)
Occupy law: In Pursuit of Indigeneity
A piece of legislation (Forest Rights Act, 2006, India), a
judgement (the Supreme Court’s “Niyamgiri
Judgement”), and the counter-discursive voices of
village communities (from the Raigarh district, India)
form the three sites of this study that reveal the different
ways in which law can come to be “occupied” and
communal ownership asserted. The nomenclature of
“occupy” has acquired contemporary resonance as a
descriptive terminology for practices and protests that
seek to unsettle hierarchical, unequal, discursive
relations of production. One way to think about Occupy
movements is to consider how these movements
engage in, “political disobedience” which accepts the
legitimacy of the political structure and our political
institutions, but resists the moral authority of the
resulting laws. Another way to think about “Occupy” is
perhaps to expand its mandate to include those
practices that contaminate the prudence and the speech
of law with categories that seek to represent the
marginalized and disenfranchised. How might we think
of law as being occupied with categories that subvert
the original meaning and practice of a concept? What
might be the ways in which this occupation is made to
yield a ‘range of possible futures’? I draw on empirical
socio-legal work in Niyamgiri and Raigarh, and a tectual
reading of the Forest Rights Act, to examine how forest
rights have fostered a new practice of property a new
relationship of belonging that occupies law and assigns
jurisdiction to collective, non-proprietorial idea of
property. By severing the contingent link between
formal ownership and right to use and by embedding the
right to exclude in the provision of consent, the genre of
forest rights makes its two of its boldest moves.
Ralph Wilde
Reader, University College London (United
Kingdom)
The International Legal Academy must fall? Some
reflections on recent controversies in
international law
The spread of the ‘Rhodes must fall’ movement beyond
South Africa has coincided with a new generation of
international legal scholars embracing post-colonial
approaches to international law. This of course builds on,
and often references, TWAIL. Such activism takes place
in a distinctive climate in two respects, each linked to the
digital context: first, the easy and rapid global
dissemination of information and source material, and
second, the use of social media to share ideas and
conduct activism. The present paper considers some of
the contemporary tensions and challenges of this work,
in this climate, through three case studies of recent and
ongoing controversies.
The three controversies cover the main elements of the
international legal academy: jobs, publications, and
conferences. All took place in 2017, with ongoing
reverberations. News of each of these developments led
to considerable critical, activist reaction from within and
beyond the international legal academy. The reactions
were multiple and varied, and in some cases are ongoing,
but all manifest one or both of the following features:
first, the use of conventional, positivistic/doctrinal
scientific argumentation (e.g. the Jonestown article was
a poor piece of scholarship, scientifically); second, a
primary and sometimes even exclusive reliance on public
statements, petitions and social media posts—
clicktivism—as a means of resistance and activism.
This piece will reflect on the nature of these responses,
to consider some of the tensions and limitations of them,
placing such reflections within the broader context of
TWAIL scholarship.
Richard Joyce
Senior Lecturer, Monash University
(Australia)
Universality and the infinity of international law:
One legacy of Judge Weeramantry
On the final pages of his thorough critique of
international law’s colonial origins and contemporary
formations, Professor Anghie writes: ‘What is required,
then, is a jurisprudence that draws on all cultures, both
Western and non-Western, to address the problems of
imperialism.’ Professor Anghie argues that in this
respect: ‘the jurisprudence of Judge Weeramantry has
been so important: it draws on a variety of legal systems
and traditions in an attempt to create a truly universal
international law that promotes a compelling vision of
international justice.’
This paper will consider the legacy of the late Judge
Weeramantry’s call for universalising international law in
light of those critics (including, of course, Professor
Anghie) who have pointed out that however broad the
‘promise’ of universality might be, the reality of claims to
universality is that they always emanate from a place of
particularity and are imposed violently. This paper will
consider how scholars who have lost faith in the
universal as a category can respond to Judge
Weeramantry’s call.
Robert Real
Research Assistant, Centre for International
Law, National University of Singapore
(Singapore)
National courts creating regional environmental
norms in ASEAN
Southeast Asian judiciaries have been actively exploring their
role in environmental protection and in providing access to
environmental justice. The annual meeting of the ASEAN Chief
Justices’ Roundtable on the Environment would show the level
of eagerness of judges to study the rules and dispute resolution
mechanisms of each other in dealing with environmental
disputes, as well as to help them develop their own individual
nation’s environmental jurisprudence. However, they appear to
be aiming for something more ambitious than that. Their
statements and their meetings’ outcome documents,
particularly the Jakarta Common Vision, the Hanoi Action Plan,
and the Angkor Statement, reveal how they have been
developing a harmonized, collective approach to the
adjudication of environmental cases. All of these are markedly
unusual given the general sensitivity of the ASEAN member
states to any perceived notion of international and foreign laws
intruding into their domestic legal system. What is odder is their
seeming openness to look to their neighbors, which is in stark
contrast to the failure of the member states to ratify key
regional agreements on the environment, such as the ASEAN
Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources.
The paper will seek to describe the nature, extent, and effect of
the ASEAN Chief Justices’ judicial interaction, which has gone
from mere sharing of best practices in environmental
adjudication, beyond gentle influencing and cross-fertilization
of national judicial decisions, and towards informal regional
norm integration. It will primarily discuss how they are able to
develop a seemingly regional “soft law” on how constitutional
and statutory provisions on the environment could be
interpreted and strengthened. It will also endeavor to provide
insight into the implied and potential motivations of this
voluntary transgovernmental network of Chief Justices in
engaging in a regional framing of how to address environmental
disputes. It will then explore the potential for transformative
impact on state and private actors of the norms that the
network has created. Finally, it will identify key factors that
would allow the expansion of their regional norm creation to
other areas of law, thereby providing an alternative to
intergovernmental negotiations through ASEAN.
Rohini Sen
Rose Parfitt
Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean
Lecturer, University of Kent
(International Collaborations), Jindal Global
(United Kingdom)
Law School (India)
Judicial Imperialism and the Asian Experience:
Outliers and Outsiders
My paper will attempt to understand resistance to
mainstream international law through the outliers and
outsiders in Asia whose historical suspicions of
institutionalized imperialism find faith in failures and
fractures of international courts and tribunals of modern
day. The idea of their relevance and the relevance of
their ideas are inescapable both in the formulation of the
Asian identity and as counter-narratives of
Eurocentricism as a vocabulary of ‘universality.
I hope to sieve and compare the experiences of Judge
Radha Binod Pal, Judge Zafarulla Khan and Judge
Weeramantry among others to understand identity as a
form of performance in international institutions.
Fascist Subjects, Legal Subjects: Imperialism,
Expansionism and the State
I would like to use this paper as an opportunity to sound
out some experiments I’ve been conducting recently in the
area of international legal history with other colleagues
associated with, and influenced by, the TWAIL movement.
In substantive terms, these experiments have been focused
primarily on the question of international legal subjectivity
in the context of my current research project on the
relationship between fascism, imperialism and international
law. The aim of this project is twofold: to establish, in
straightforwardly legal-historical terms, that international
lawyers in the inter-war period did, in fact, devise an
approach that amounts to a fascist doctrine of international
law (a possibility that has been rejected by most historians
of this period up until now); and to examine the implications
of that doctrine for our understanding of international law’s
role in creating and sustaining the increasingly predatory,
extractive and xenophobic world we inhabit today,
notwithstanding the formal end both of imperialism and
fascism as legitimate ways of ordering the world. In
methodological terms, the starting point of these
experiments is the observation that both fascism and law
rely as much on desire as they do on coercion in order to
legitimate and reproduce the social order they purport to
regulate. And yet legal history as a discipline lacks almost
any methodological tools through which it might examine
the emotional forces that encourage individuals and
communities to commit acts of violence and engage in
explicit projects of domination in the name of liberty,
equality and justice. The experiments I hope to discuss
therefore look elsewhere for such tools: to the work of
Marxists, legal scholars, for whom law’s binding force can
only be understood through an examination of the
(re)production of a particular kind of desire; to the work of
art historians, for whom fascism’s power can only be
understood through an examination of the aesthetics of its
attempts at self-materialisation; and to the development of
an approach – a practice of ‘doing’ international legal history
– which is itself aimed at perforating the border between
thinking and making, or scholarship and art, both
metaphorically (e.g. history as shadow-box) and literally (e.g.
cut-outs as critique)
Rumana Islam
Associate Professor, University of Dhaka
(Bangladesh)
A Post-Colonial Study of International Investment
Treaties
The domain of international investment law is one of the
most complex areas of international law and its breadth
is still expanding. While thousands of international
treaties cover wide range of international activity, no
single comprehensive treaty deals with international
investment law. This absence has however not restricted
the ever expanding body of the law regulating foreign
investment through international investment
agreements (IIAs); majority of which are bilateral
investment treaties (BITs) between developed countries
and developing countries. In these developing countries
the foreign investment is perceived as a disguised form
of neo-colonialism since foreign investment in
developing countries covers sensitive areas such as
natural resources. Considering this background of such
conflicting interest between the foreign investors and
the host developing countries this paper conducts a
post-colonial study of these treaties. It argues that these
vast IIAs have not adequately addressed the
developmental issues of these host countries in
investment context.
This paper examines that the large number of these
investment treaties concluded between developing
countries and developed countries is nothing but a
reflection of international law at large; the “theoretical
equality of sovereign states” in international law, the
political economy in which international law is
embedded and the political-economic “context” under
which these treaties are drafted. This paper examines
the attempts to protect the foreign investment and
investors through these IIAs and BITs and their
insensitiveness towards the developmental issues of the
host developing countries is a reflection of the colonial
decades of mercantilist imperial management that
imposed considerable limitations on the scope for
economic development in the former colonies.
Ryan Mitchell
Assistant Professor, Chinese University of
Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
The Exemplary Other in the Making of
International Law and Sovereign Power
It is commonly understood that modern international
law arose out of the humanist legal writings of the
Renaissance and early modern period. The shift from
medieval legal thinking, dominated by universal abstract
categories and theological metaphysics, was in
significant part inspired by a revaluation of specific
examples of state practice, for example in the late 16th
century writings of Gentili and Grotius, among others.
By the 18th century, ancient examples were treated with
far less weight. The practice and opinio juris of the
contemporary leading states of Europe (and some
elsewhere) were instead treated as the most dispositive
evidence of legal obligation. Certainly, by the time of the
systematizing writings of Vattel and other compilers, the
ancient world and the specific doctrines of the Roman
law, for example, held far less sway over the doctrine
than they once had. The idea of an evolving customary
international law necessarily implied the ability of
present states to improve upon past models. The global
legal order had acquired a forward-facing disposition.
But why and how had it done so? And who could be
included in the community of legislators?
This paper seeks to address this question by reference to
an under-studied intellectual shift that occurred
between the two periods noted above. In explaining the
role played by theorizations of the non-European Other
in the foundations of international law, this paper will
focus on the two most important protagonists of such
theories, the Jewish and Chinese peoples, in the
European legal imagination. It will also demonstrate how
Bodin, Hobbes, Selden, and other leading theorists of
law and sovereignty based their “universal” theories on
these specific cases of exemplary Otherness. Finally, the
paper will also inquire into the implications of this
intellectual background for the potential universality of
international law today.
S M Masum Billah
Associate Professor, Department of Law,
Jagannath University (Bangladesh)
Fairness in the “Bangladesh War Trial”:
What to buy from the International Practice of
Alibi?
Since 2010, Bangladesh has been prosecuting the
perpetrators of multi-scale crimes committed during its
1971 Liberation War. This prosecution is an outcome of a
long drawn political and legal battle. Thus for obvious
reasons, the Bangladesh war trial embraces political
ramifications. However, it has important legal
implications for international criminal law, as the
Bangladesh trial applied arguably in a successful manner
several emerging principles of international criminal law
in a domestic set up.
Several criticisms come up with statements devoid of a
proper study of Bangladesh’s historical, political and
constitutional background. A good number of them are
repetitive statements issued by the offices of
international repute --- the US State Department, Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International, to name a few.
Such statements generally fail to note the sufferings of
the many millions including the Hindu minorities and the
women suffering systematic genocidal rape during the
1971`Bangladesh war. Moreover, critics prescribe to
observe a standard of ‘fairness’ that not been achieved
by many justice forums at the international plane. The
question then arises: what ‘fair’ amounts to ‘fairness’ in
the war trail process, in particular for a domestic
jurisdiction like Bangladesh?
In my paper, I propose to address this fairness issue in
the Bangladesh War Trial. In particular, I will pick up the
practice of alibi in understanding the issue of fairness. I
will take this issue with particular emphasis because, in
majority of the cases decided so far by the Bangladesh
Courts, the defence had set the plea of alibi. In response
to the criticisms made, I will examine some leading war
trial cases of Bangladesh to see the extent to which the
Bangladesh Courts have confirmed the notion of
fairness.
Sahana Reddy
Senior Research Fellow, Ramaiah Public
Policy Centre, Bangalore (India)
Stateless Persons and Human Rights: Exploring
the Normative and Policy Gaps through an
Ontological Approach
The paper will present a simple ontological framework of
bases of determination of the status of a person in a
geographical unit, their actual status, and the
consequences of their status on that geographical unit.
The framework will help explore the issues associated
with the status of a people in a population systematically
and systemically. The epistemic novelty of the paper is
the mapping of all the laws pertaining to statelessness,
and also the research literature on the same. The
mappings will highlight the components that are heavily
emphasized, less emphasized, and not emphasized. We
call them the ‘bright spots’, ‘light spots’ and ‘blind/blank
spots’ of the discourse.
Based on the framework and the mappings, the paper
would argue that the problem of statelessness that has
long been perceived as a legal challenge is not merely a
legal problem. It has been conceptualized with a narrow
lens without giving adequate attention to other factors
that are antecedents and consequences of
statelessness. The paper will argue that this skewness is
a consequence of the compromising politics of norm
creation by the first- world. The third-world problems of
statelessness, because of their socio-economic
pressures and other complexities may require a supra-
legal approach.
Samuli Seppänen
Assistant Professor, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
Chinese Legal Development Assistance: An
Ideological Challenge?
China is both a recipient and a donor of foreign
development aid. As a donor state, China insists that it
does not interfere in the internal affairs of foreign states,
and it criticizes Western human rights conditionality and
rule of law advocacy in development cooperation. Due
to this non-interventionist posture, Chinese foreign
development aid is commonly seen to exclude politically
sensitive assistance for governance institutions and the
legal sector in particular. This paper demonstrates that
Chinese foreign development aid does, in fact, include a
legal component. Chinese legal development assistance
comprises advice on law reform in developing countries;
capacity-building programs for lawyers from developing
countries; and, regulatory compliance support for
Chinese companies operating in developing countries.
Through this aid, China does not advocate a specifically
Chinese version of the rule of law.
Sanaa Ahmed
PhD Candidate, Osgoode Hall Law School,
York University (Canada)
Regulatory transgression? Drivers, aims and
effects of money laundering and terrorism
financing regulation in Pakistan
Using Pakistan as a case study, my research examines
how AML-CTF regulation – and its increasing demands
for information – affects established power hierarchies
in states, between states and among states. I’m
interested in how such a universal financial regulation
discourse can threaten basic rights and freedoms and
how this exercise of power affects civil, political and
economic rights in a country, its foreign policy as well as
geopolitics.
By mapping regulation against consequent accruals and
effects of power at every level, I hope to locate specific
interests within the global AML-CTF architecture. While
power is immanent in the existing theories about
regulation, it has yet to be foregrounded and examined
as a possible explanation for the existence of money
laundering and terrorism financing regulation. My
research shall contribute to this largely overlooked area.
The opacity of the discourse regarding international
financial governance makes a closer scrutiny of its aims a
critical imperative. By exploring the links between
regulation, power, knowledge and surveillance, I hope to
understand the aims of this power and offer a critique of
financial regulation as a technique of power and the
geopolitics of making and administering AML/ CTF
regulation, particularly in the global South.

Sanjaya Wilson Jayasekara
Lawyer, Supreme Court, Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka)
Neoliberal Constitutionalism and the Danger of
Authoritarianism in the Third World
A decade after the global financial and economic crisis
that sprang from the collapse of the Wall Street banks
and spiralled all over the world driving the economics of
the developed nations and the Third World into
irrevocable crisis, the States increasingly seem to lose
their democratic credentials. Indebted to the core, the
States of the Third World heavily depend on the bailout
loans from the international financiers, prominently the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, on
drastic conditionalities of reduction of budget deficits
and repayment of debts and for implementing policy
reforms of the World Trade Organization. Consequently,
intended to reduce budget deficit and government debt,
States around the world implemented austerity
measures which included a range of public welfare and
subsidy cuts, cuts of wages, unemployment benefits and
pension and, increase of taxes on consumer products
and services, often referred to as fiscal austerity.
Outside the democratic discourse, geo-strategic
decisions are made and laws are passed through national
legislatures to suit the imperialist demands and the
dictates of the International lending institutions. The
danger of authoritarianism haunts the Third World. This
article proposes that these anti-democratic measures
are legalized and legitimized on the basis of global
neoliberal constitutionalism, which it is suggested is the
overarching politico-legal ideology of the basic structure
of the governance of the Third World in the age of
austerity. On the basis of this political-economic and
legal analysis, this study will then proceed to explore the
domestic legislative measures of the States of the Third
World made to suit international law of austerity and
imperialist demands. This research is interdisciplinary
and will be qualitative while adopting doctrinal method.
The research will cover several significant economies
and jurisprudence of the Third World, including those of
the South and South- East Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Sanzhuan Guo
Lecturer, Faculty of Law, National University
Lecturer, Flinders University (Australia)
of Singapore (Singapore)
China and Cosmopolitanism: A Preliminary
Research
The paper examines China’s recent concept of
‘Community of Shared Future for Mankind’ or
‘Community of Common Destiny with Mankind’ (two
official translation of the same Chinese words) through
a comparison with the Kantian cosmopolitanism idea. It
tries to answer the underlying questions of what China’s
new concept is really about and what are the similarities
and differences between the Chinese version of
cosmopolitanism and the Kantian one.
Trump’s promotion of ‘America first, America fist’
provides an interesting contrast with President Xi’s
embracing globalisation through the idea of ‘Community
of Shared Future for Mankind’. The adoption of the
concept ‘Community of Shared Future for Mankind’ in
two recent UN resolutions indicates the practical
importance of the idea. Alongside realism and liberalism,
globalism is the third theoretical understanding of
international relations. China’s promotion of a
community of shared future leads to a natural question
of whether China would bring a new era for the world.
China not only has its ‘China Dream’, but also a ‘World
Dream’.
The paper includes three main sections. The first section
discusses Kantian cosmopolitanism and sets up a
foundational understanding of philosophical, moral and
political cosmopolitanism. Second, the similarities and
differences between Chinese and Western
cosmopolitanism are explored. The third section
examines the implications of China’s cosmopolitanism
concept for international rule of law, in particular
focusing on equality and inclusiveness in international
law.
Seet Zong Shan, Matthew
Depriving terrorist suspects and returning
fighters of citizenship: discriminatory towards
dual nationals?
Western States have, in recent times, enacted laws and
policies allowing the executive to strip suspected
terrorists and returning ISIS fighters of citizenship, often
as a preventative, security measure as opposed to a
punitive measure safeguarded by due process rights.
Given that public international law largely prohibits a
State from rendering an individual stateless, citizenship
deprivation would, in practice, mostly apply to dual
nationals. The central question of this presentation is
whether dual nationals should in fact enjoy the same
protection from citizenship deprivation as mono-
nationals. While dual nationals were historically
distrusted on the basis that they had separate
allegiances to different States, there is now a growing
acceptance of dual nationality, and dual nationals
constitute a growing proportion of the citizen body in
many States. Scholars have largely criticised the
inequality faced by dual nationals in regards to
citizenship deprivation, given the principle that
citizenship entails equal standing amongst members of
the political community and admits of no gradations;
instead dual nationality is now a marker of foreignness,
suggesting the development of citizenship hierarchies.
This presentation considers the argument that such
differential treatment may be legitimised by how dual
nationals are not only less vulnerable to the harm of
statelessness, but may also enjoy the additional benefits
of more than one citizenship. This presentation also goes
further to discuss the inequality between some
categories of dual nationals, specifically how some dual
nationals in Western States have their second nationality
with a State which does not respect human rights or is
"unable or unwilling" to take them back. The difficulties
associated with the "race" between two States to
deprive a dual national of citizenship first will also be
examined.
Sergey Sayapin
Assistant Professor, KIMEP University
(Kazakhstan)
International Law as Culture: Towards an
Integrated Theory?
Paradoxically, international law´s significance often
grows with the occurrence of armed conflicts and other
situations of violence - as the ICRC´s experience in
Tajikistan in 1993 - 1997, in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and 2010,
or in Ukraine since 2014, exemplifies. In peacetime,
people take international law´s benefits - in the areas of
international trade, communication, transportation,
education, etc. - for granted, and do not necessarily
attribute those everyday benefits to "invisible"
international law. In turn, in situations of violence, the
significance of international law becomes acutely visible
in that it becomes the very basis for a minimum of
security and basic necessities such as water, food,
shelter, etc. Indeed, in some scenarios, international law
becomes the major hope for a nation affected by
violence. In this sense, the "culture of peace" is,
somewhat unexpectedly, not necessarily conducive to
public awareness of international law, whereas the
"culture of war" could - in practical terms - be capitalised
upon by relevant and domestic organisations, as well as
by academic circles, to raise such awareness.
Importantly, the international law of peace and armed
conflict should be treated as a single, integrated whole,
as a system of interrelated rules with common sources
and institutions. International law of peace contains
elements of the law of war in that it regulates the resort
of force (jus contra bellum / jus ad bellum), and the law
of armed conflict (jus in bello) aspires for peace in that it
preserves the elements of humanity (especially, as far as
non-derogable human rights are concerned) in the
violent circumstances of international and non-
international armed conflicts. It is believed that such a
holistic approach towards international law should
contribute to increasing this law´s overall efficiency.
Shahrizal M Zin
Senior Lecturer, University Technology
MARA (Malaysia)
Constitutionalization of investment arbitration:
What this might mean for Asia?
This paper looks at the trend of constitutionalizing
investment arbitration that requires arbitrators to be an
agent of a wider international legal order. In this regard,
arbitration is assumed to be the subject to forces that are
gradually integrating international law and national law.
As a result, arbitrators would have to acknowledge their
roles in international governance, in particular,
rendering justice according to higher constitutional
norms. The paper highlights that role of arbitrators are
no longer the executors of the will of contracting parties.
In addition, it includes application of public policy norms
thereby supplementing the supposedly private nature of
arbitration with broader policy objectives. Whereas most
of the literature addressed a dichotomy between
investor rights and States sovereignty, this paper seeks
to focus on the relationship between States and arbitral
tribunals which received scant attention. It is argued that
constitutional model of arbitration entails a shift in the
law making power from States to tribunals, as it is not so
much for the States who decide whether certain conduct
violate the legal standards on which the parties agreed.
Instead, it is primarily the tribunals that interpret these
standards and thus making rules for every investment
treaties. Of primary concern in this study is how
constitutional model of investment arbitration apply in
Asia taking into consideration of its culturalist character
and institutional barriers. The paper concludes that while
investment arbitration still carries forward the legacy of
the first world domination, efforts to balance the power
of tribunals and States are needed to improve the
current system of investment arbitration.
Shaimaa Abdelkarim
PhD Candidate, University of Leicester
(United Kingdom)
Experiencing Resistance as Tahrir: Exposure and
the Radical
This paper addresses the experience of resistance
through addressing the potentiality in the subjects of
resistance. It focuses on how the event of resistance
relates to its subjects. This experience will be discussed
through the event of Tahrir square and the post-phase of
the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The research question is
what does it mean to move beyond the juridical legal
subject and the right holder and discuss the subjects of
resistance through the event of Tahrir square?
Questioning recent critical scholarship, I will start by
tracing the radical subject of resistance in relation to the
constructed juridical normative order and rights
discourse.
I will argue that placing the potentiality of resistance
against or as a result of the normative order hinders the
openness in the potentiality of resistance. The
discussion on the subject of resistance has to relate to
the temporality of resistance that gets subsumed within
the normative. Thus, I will focus on the temporality of
Tahrir square through three stages: the Egyptian labor
movement uprisings before 2011, the uprisings of 2011,
and the current supremacy of the regime. This
temporality is narrated through an authority of presence
that the juridical assumes dominance over. I will argue
this authority sacrifices all other possibilities, as it
dictates who is scarified and in the name of what and for
that the juridical has to be constantly questioned
through the struggle of resistance.
Shane Chalmers
Shannu Narayan
McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Melbourne
Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of
Law School, The University of Melbourne
Management Kozhikode (India)
(Australia)
The Mythology of International Rule-of-Law
Promotion
In 1992, Peter Fitzpatrick published his seminal book, The
Mythology of Modern Law, a work that exposed the
constitutive relation between Europe’s racialized
imperialism and its conception of modern law. In the
three decades since, a renewed field of ‘law and
development’ has grown, this time in the name of ‘the
rule of law’. The analytical aim of this paper is to show
how the mythology of modern law, as described by
Fitzpatrick in 1992, endures in this field of international
rule-of-law development—and by extension, to show
the enduring importance of Mythology. To do this, part I
draws out the main threads from Mythology. These are
then woven through the analysis in the rest of the paper,
beginning in part II with the World Justice Project’s Rule
of Law Index®, before turning in part III to the UN’s rule-
of-law assistance, and ending in part IV with the World
Bank’s 2017 World Development Report on ‘Governance
and the Law’. In each instance, the analysis shows how
the mythology of modern law, in its racialized imperial
form, is integral to the work that is being done to
promote ‘the rule of law’ around the world. One
especially concerning consequence is the denial of ‘local’
law by a rule of law that obtains its authority by
purporting to be responsive to legal pluralism. At the
same time, the paper points to the mythological
possibilities of decolonisation. This is the paper’s
normative aim: to contribute to the work of
decolonisation, not by seeking to overcome the
mythologization of law, and of the rule of law, but by
helping to create the conditions for a ‘mythological legal
pluralism’ that is attentive to the ways in which the
world’s plurality of laws already rule.
Shi Guopu
Lecturer, School of Law, Anhui Normal
University (People’s Republic of China)
Evolving International Public Health Law: Need for
a Balanced Approach
International health law is also known as “Global Health
Law”. Contemporary International law-making process –
includes individuals, international organizations and non-
state actors too. Global health law is the study and
practice of international law, both hard law (treaties that
makes States bound) and soft instruments (codes of
practice negotiated by states), that shapes norms,
processes, and institutions to attain the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health for the
world’s population. Global health decisions were
predominantly with dominant powers in Europe and
North America. In the recent past, a new multipolar
political climate emerged which shifted power blocs to
the global South—led by states such as Brazil, China,
India, and South Africa. Non-State Actors have emerged
as Stakeholders, which is evident via manifestation of a
larger turn towards ‘the private’ in global health.
In 1980s and 1990s UN agencies themselves recognized
the need for partnerships to respond to the growing
scope and complexity of the challenges they faced. New
sources of funding were mooted – GAVI and Melinda and
Gates Foundation etc., came up. Otherwise called as
Private philanthropic partnerships, which meant that the
source of their money is typically an individual with
private wealth or a corporate initiative, and thus such an
organisation is different from a charitable organisation
like Oxfam, which depends on a more diverse stream of
donations. In the light of the above background this
paper will examine the Challenges of Developing
Countries. This includes: reading Partnerships and
foundations that help to create and legitimise a new
modality of health provision which gives a private angle
to concepts like equity, human rights, and health as a
public good. Emphasise that economic and policy space
of developing countries in key public issues like health is
getting eroded. Promoting public health which grants
access to essential medicines to serve larger good is
need of the hour.
Chinese characteristics in International Dispute
settlement - A theory On li (Etiquette), He
(Harmonization) and Yi (Justice in uncertainty)
Can Chinese theory on rule of li challenge or even work
better than western-centralized theory on rule of law in
the field of international dispute settlement? Under
Traditional Chinese philosophy, Non- Dispute is the
approach to good and good itself .Chinese" li"
represents courtesy, rational compromise and propriety.
Chinese "he" (Harmonization) means to take everyone 's
interests into accounts in order to achieve the real
interests of the whole(or each party) other than to make
a judgment simply of right and wrong. The uncertainty of
international law originated from free will of sovereign
states. Laozi said “Do that which consists in taking no
action, and order will prevail.” International rule of li
advocates to resolve contradiction and disputes in
mutual mindedness(or relativity), which provide
approaches with the maximum degree of flexibility. It
will be wrong to make a conclusion that China's
successful transform to market economy can lead to
successful transform to rule-of- law country. According
to China's understanding to Global Good Governance,
Chinese characteristic theory on li , He and Yi will and can
work in the field of international dispute settlement, and
" rule of li " (li of nations) will fuse , strengthens and
optimize the rule of law to remake world order.
Sinja Graf
Assistant Professor, Department of Political
PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of
Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
New South Wales (Australia)
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
Universal crime in European arguments on
ordering colonial relationships
This essay examines how European political thinkers
have mobilised the notion of an offence against mankind
in order to make arguments about the legitimacy of
political hierarchies in colonial relationships. To this end,
the paper distills the notion of ‘universal crime’ as the
umbrella term capturing various articulations of the
fundamental idea that singular acts injure mankind at
large. Embedding the uses of this idea in arguments
about European colonialism, the paper analyses
arguments by Vitoria, Gentili and Grotius. I find that they
rely on the idea of universal crime in order to negotiate
hierarchical relationships between European colonial
powers and peoples and polities in other parts of the
world as well as between European powers vis-a-vis one
another, both within Europe and in non-European
political geographies. This research focuses on the
political productivity of the notion of universal crime,
rather than on its normative validity.
Souheir Edelbi
Assistant Professor, South Asian University,
New Delhi (India)
Theorising the Role of Complementarity-related
Texts in Narratives of Violence in the Global South
What does it mean to approach the principle of
complementarity, as found in Article 17 of the Rome
Statute, from the viewpoint of its textual production?
How can a decolonial reading of complementarity texts
challenge the dominant interpretation and methods by
which the principle's application in the Global South has
been understood and articulated by the International
Criminal Court (ICC)?
My presentation takes as its starting point the notion
that ICC texts constitute sites and relations of power
that articulate and produce the Global South through
imperial representations of violence. This includes
narratives that promote intervention. In so doing, I
depart from dominant, normative and teleological
interpretations of complementarity. Instead, I pose the
question: what do international lawyers do with
complementarity texts? Here, I am concerned with the
nature, role and uses of complementarity in the
production of narratives about violence in the Global
South. Building on the theoretical insights and methods
of Edward Said, I focus on the notion of texts as 'beings'
in the world that are always already situated within a
particular cultural and historical frame. From this
perspective, I explore the use of complementarity as a
technique for narrating and producing a singular and
homogenised vision of the Global South and of the
principle of complementarity.
Against this singular vision, I argue that complementarity
texts provoke two interdependent visions - one
ambivalent, the other resisting. Following Homi Bhabha,
I explore the possibilities of texts as one site for
articulating resistance to the ICC from the Global South.
In this regard, I explore how texts might announce an
'enunciative disturbance' that exposes the insecurity of
the Court's standardisation of complementarity based
on the 'same case' test and its claims to authority in the
Global South.
Srinivas Burra
Contextualizing TWAIL towards Global Justice
TWAIL as an intellectual engagement provides an
important foundational critique of international law.
Shared experience of colonialism and the post Second
Word War international scenario constitute a
background in creating the Third World and also provide
an important conceptual foundation for the TWAIL
movement. In geographical as well as in conceptual
sense this Third World significantly remains as a
standpoint from which international law is critiqued at.
On the other hand it is argued that there is a globalizing
phenomenon which is leading to the obliteration of
traditional categories and creation of new ones at a
global level. Therefore it is argued that certain
geographically located and identity based assertions
may become irrelevant or insignificant. For example the
current understanding of human rights places individual
and the state in juxtaposition. The traditional critique of
international human rights law is either occupied with
underlining the negligence of certain rights like
economic, social and cultural rights, or is focused on the
dubiousness of selective highlighting of violations by
certain selective States. However, private entities like
multinational corporations, while being accused as
violators of rights argue for the protection of their own
rights by States. This poses certain challenges in
formulating the critique of rights. This is the case with
other contexts also like individual criminal responsibility.
In this backdrop it becomes necessary to evaluate the
TWAIL critique and its emancipatory potential and the
need for constructive solidarity with other forms of
critique. This is very much necessary for the field of law
and international law as their mainstream forms come
with the claims of neutrality, objectivity and impartiality
and disentangling these claims needs comprehensive
critique. Therefore, the proposed paper attempts to
understand the possible limitations the TWAIL
framework may face in addressing the forms of injustice
in a globalizing world and the need for recasting the
TWAIL in relation to other forms of injustice based on
other categories like class, gender and race.
Suddathcharige Manoj Madushanka Teerawat Wongkaew
Sujith Xavier
Fernando Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law,
Legal Officer, Department of Treaties and
Research Candidate, University of Tasmania Legal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
University of Windsor (Canada)
(Australia) Thailand (Thailand)

Post Conflict Reconciliation and TWAIL: Lessons Laws & States: Critically Reflecting on TWAIL's Buddhist Conception of International Law”: A
for Sri Lanka Search for International Justice particular look at international investment law

Conflicts are inevitable. It is human nature to involve in TWAIL can be characterised as an anti-hierarchical The paper seeks to develop a new theory/conception of
conflicts. As a result, conflicts have become a very part counter-hegemonic coalitionary movement that is international law by drawing from principles and
of the human existence. When the worst part of the deeply suspicious of universal creeds and truths. It is teachings of Buddhism and seeks to apply the theory to
conflict, armed violence, is controlled; the central anti-hierarchical because it challenges the Eurocentricity reconceptualize the field of international investment law
challenge of reconciling the divided community of the history of international law and continued as a concrete illustration. The important premise of the
remains.Given that most of the contemporary conflicts propagation of particular monolithic universal values paper is that Buddhist philosophy which aims at personal
emerged in Third World States; most of the therein. Moreover, TWAIL scholars suggest a dialogic enlightenment has relevant principles and doctrines
reconciliation mechanisms implemented were also from maneuverer across cultures in search of justice. TWAIL which can be applied by analogy to regulate the
third world countries. However, in the implementation calls for the recognition of existing inequities within the relationship between States and that of States and
of these mechanisms international interventions from structures of international law. It also calls for the individuals. If Buddhism provides the rules and principles
the developed world insisted in initiating a mechanism recognition of the subaltern voices and demands that all for regulating individuals’ relationships, Buddhist values
which is recognized by the developed states and not by voices be represented to bring about greater can also guide nations on peaceful co-existence. The
the reconciling state.4 The recent international human international justice. In this paper, I critically reflect on main argument in the paper is that Buddhism can
rights law scholarship specifies the major drawback of TWAIL's search for international justice. By examining provide a conceptual tool in developing a theory of
international law was to develop a legal framework and challenging western notions of Laws and States international law which truly promotes the well- being of
which is hegemonic, hierarchical and unique to the embedded in TWAIL's normativity, this paper seeks to society and humanity.
Westernized socio-cultural framework. In response to transcend TWAIL’s limitations. By using Fourth World
this TWAIL emerged as a concept but have not been conceptions of laws and sovereignty (i.e. states), this
investigated in terms of a post-conflict reconciliation paper hopes to build new ground in TWAIL’s vision of
perspective. This makes the existing international legal ‘inter-national’/international law
framework the only source of application for transitional
justice and reconciliation. The theories of TWAIL
provides important elements to build a successful
reconciliation mechanism. Also, TWAIL’s impact on
reconciliation refuses certain existing transitional justice
mechanisms for reconciliation including truth
commissions and reforms in terms of retributive justice.
Instead of this TWAIL builds its own solution and builds
three main arguments: (a) political participation of the
war victims is essential for reconciliation and for this
power sharing mechanism is suitable (b) post-conflict
reconciliation mechanisms must include an economic
arm within the mechanism itself and (c) timeliness of the
reconciliation mechanism is key to a successful
reconciliation mechanism. The proposed three elements
for reconciliation can be applied to the Sri Lankan case
study. Sri Lanka experienced a civil war for more than
thirty years which was concluded in 2009. Currently, it is
undergoing a process of establishing a transitional
justice mechanism.

Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan
PhD Candidate, Harbin Institute of
Lecturer, Griffith College, Dublin (Ireland)
Technology (People’s Republic of China)
The Emperor's New Clothes: The Sri Lankan Post
Colonial Leviathon
Sri Lanka, a country once destined to become one of the
leading post-colonial countries of the South-Asian region,
descended rapidly into ethnic chaos and bloody violence.
Singaporean statesman Lee Kwan Yee remarked: "[A]las, it
did not work out. During my visits over the years I watched
a promising country go to waste."
The tale of Sri Lanka is the tale of a post-colonial super-
majoritarian escalator, embedded in a militant emergency
state. The departure of the external coloniser, the British,
was only replaced by an internal coloniser, the Sinhala.
Certain programmes enhanced status of the majority
community, the Sinhala, while neglecting the needs and
grievances of the minority communities. The post-colonial
state of Sri Lanka, while adopting the Westminster system
of its British colonisers, covered itself in a democratic
camouflage while executing policies to disenfranchise and
stigmatize minority communities. This, eventually,
fomented Sinhala supremacy.
Those who submitted themselves to the Sinhala Leviathan
were tolerated in this post-colonial state. To this end,
Antony Anghie formulates: “[G]iven the formidable power
of the modern state, it is through control over the state that
an ethnic group may prevail against its competitors. (…) the
application of liberal-democratic institutions to the political
universe of competing national groups may distort the
character of these institutions and the concepts which
support them, producing results which are neither liberal
nor democratic. Indeed, democracy itself may become a
mechanism by which racial oppression is furthered.” The
Sinhala are the new emperors who are using international
law to prevent alien intervention and further economic
interests. Hence, Sri Lanka’s case presents an interesting
study: what is the role of international law to enhance the
status of a post-colonial state and decolonise its colonial
antiques – while, however, international law itself its
infiltrated by colonial history?
Tim Wöffen
Tutor, Warwick Law School
(United Kingdom)
Are there Cosmopolitan Ideas in China that may
influence the Discourse about the Principles of
International Public Law?
Considering oneself a ‘citizen of the world’ is often
thought to include two elements, which provide a
working definition for cosmopolitanism: Firstly, the
human individual is considered the ultimate unit of moral
concern (as opposed to certain human affiliations, such
as to a particular nation, a religion etc.), and secondly,
the individual is associated with the whole humankind,
implying obligations to promote justice at the global
level.
In this context, I will introduce following three Chinese
thinkers, who prominently held certain cosmopolitan
ideas: Mozi 墨子 (470-391 BCE) and his concept of
‘Universal Love’ (兼爱 ‘Jian Ai’); Kang Youwei康有为
(1858-1927) with his ‘One World Philosophy’ (大同书 ‘Da
Tong Shu’ ＝ Book of Great Unity); Zhao Tingyang 赵汀
阳 (1961-) and his ‘All-Under-Heaven’ (天下‘Tianxia’)
philosophy: A most recent and widely discussed concept,
with global implications.
I will then point out how they relate to contemporary
questions of public international law:
Lastly, I like to address the question on how
cosmopolitan Chinese concepts (and cosmopolitan
concepts from many other developing countries) may
receive more recognition in a world discourse.
Titilayo Adebola
The Regime Complex for Plant Biological and
Genetic Resources: Contestations, Discontents
and Contemplations
The international treaties for plant biological and genetic
resources comprise of partially overlapping systems and
conflicting principles, with no legal hierarchy. The four
main international treaties discussed in this paper are as
follows - (I) Agreement on Trade- Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); (II) International
Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
(UPOV); (III) Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
and its Nagoya Protocol and (IV) International Treaty on
Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
(ITPGRFA).
Employing a Third World Approaches to International
Law (TWAIL) lens, this paper has three objectives. First,
it presents a historical and socio-legal analysis of the
different international treaties for plant biological and
genetic resources, drawing out the pros and cons of each
treaty for the Global South. Second, it unmasks the
contestations and discontents in the current
international legal architecture for plant biological and
genetic resources from the perspectives of the Global
South. Third, it constructs and offers legal (and non-
legal) alternatives that reflect the needs and aspirations
of the Global South. The paper also draws lessons from
Global South countries such as India and Thailand which
have creatively designed and introduced sui generis
systems suited to their realities. While reforms -or
transformations- at the international level is desired, this
paper argues that Global South countries can also
successfully introduce the alternative systems desired at
the national/regional levels. In fact, creatively designed
national/regional systems for plant biological and
genetic resources could offer alternatives for reforms at
the international level.
Tran Thu Yen
Tor Krever Tugba Karagöz
Lecturer, Faculty of International Trade and
Assistant Professor, School of Law, Research Assistant, University of Würzburg
Business Law, Hanoi Law University
University of Warwick (United Kingdom) (Germany)
(Vietnam)

Intellectual Property Rights and the Access to Depredation at sea, inter-imperial rivalry and the The Reconnection: Bilateral Investment Treaties
Medicines from the Perspective of Human Rights origins of piracy in international law and Foreign Investment Insurance

Medicines must be protected by intellectual property
law in order to ensure the quality, quantity and price of
pharmaceutical products. On the other hand, there is
also a necessity to promote the medical access for
patients. The government may face the difficult policy of
saying one thing while doing another thing when it
comes to balancing between the pharmaceutical
companies rights and the patients rights. The article will
discuss the relationship between intellectual property
rights, for example, the mechanism for the protection of
intellectual property rights to medicines tested data, and
the access to medicines from the perspective of human
rights through the analysis of the TRIPS agreement;
practices in Vietnam.
The article will refer to the enforcement mechanism of
the protection of intellectual property rights to
medicines tested data.
The proposed paper explores the ideological origins of
piracy in international legal thought. The figure of the
pirate is today the epitome of enmity in international
law: hostis humani generis. Where and when did this
figure first emerge? Against transhistorical accounts
which project the pirate backwards in an unbroken arc
from the present to antiquity, the paper locates its
origins in the emerging capitalist world economy of the
long 16th century. The pirate as a figure of universal
enmity, the paper argues, emerged first as a figure of
religious enmity rooted in the inter-imperial Habsburg-
Ottoman rivalry of the 16th-century Mediterranean and
the threat posed by Islamic depredations to a
universalising Christianity. That figure of religious
enmity, the paper suggests, was exported to the Atlantic
by an Iberian empire which saw in Protestant
depredations the same threat to Habsburg efforts to
extend a universal Christian commonwealth to the New
World. With the development of an early capitalist
economy and the growing coincidence of imperial
interests and trade, the nature of the enmity attaching
to the pirate began to change. One of the first
theorisations of this new enmity, the paper suggests, is
found in the work of Grotius, who renders the pirate not
as a religious enemy, but an enemy of commerce and
free trade. It is this new secular figure of enmity, the
paper concludes, that is produced and reproduced in
modern legal thought, the pirate now not an enemy of a
universal Christendom but a universal enemy of
capitalism.
The relationship between bilateral investment treaties
(BITs) and foreign investment insurance is largely under-
researched. Some scholars suggest that investment
insurance may substitute BITs that allegedly have
potential costs and regulatory chilling effect on host
states while they have no proven effect on the
promotion of foreign investments. However, BITs
constitute the basis for the operation of foreign
investment insurance. This paper contributes to the
scholarly debate by explaining the connection of BITs to
the operation of foreign investment insurance with a
particular focus on the impact of foreign investment
insurance on international and domestic law-making and
policy-making.
This paper argues that the main function of a
subrogation clause in a bilateral investment treaty is to
create an illusion of “depoliticization” of the diplomatic
protection exercised with respect to insured investors.
As a universally accepted principle of insurance law,
subrogation makes foreign investment insurance appear
as a typical insurance product that works on the basis of
risk management principles instead of political and
economic power relations between two states.
However, the principle of subrogation is an instance of
diplomatic protection not only because of the
deployment of diplomatic instruments and mechanisms
in the settlement of subrogated claims but also because
the home state relies on its political or economic
leverage over the host state concerning the scope of
investment protection. That is, the scope of investment
protection offered by investment insurance is largely
dependent on interstate power dynamics. However, the
depoliticized form of diplomatic protection through the
execution of subrogation principle constrains public
scrutiny of the investment protection standards to a
large extent. This paper is an attempt to reverse it.
Umair Ghori
Assistant Professor, Bond University
(Australia)
Exploring the Nexus between Export Controls and
Indirect Expropriation?
This paper explores the grey area between international
trade law and international investment regulation. Since
the GATT/WTO system has always been import oriented,
the focus of various WTO agreements such as
Agreement on Safeguards, Agreement on Subsidies and
Countervailing Duties and the Agreement on
Antidumping is on controlling and regulating the import
behaviour of WTO Members. Export controls received
little to no attention during the phased construction of
the GATT/WTO system. It was thought that export
controls will be limited to restricted circumstances such
as during famine and times of war or natural disasters. In
the last decade or so, however, the inadequacies of the
GATT/WTO system regarding export controls have
increasingly emerged. Off course, the question of
whether indirect expropriation has occurred or not
depends on the underlying FTA/BIT which may have led
to the initial investment by the prospecting/mining
companies. With this context, the paper explores the
larger theme on export controls and their effects on
foreign investment. The debate cannot be limited to
natural resources and commodities only. As the global
population grows, other sectors can be affected by the
application of export controls e.g. agricultural products,
food and livestock. This paper briefly explores the
mechanics of export controls in light of the WTO rules
and jurisprudence. The paper particularly looks at GATT
Article XX (j) which refers to the powers of the WTO
Member to adopt measures in order to secure or
distribute products that are in short supply nationally or
locally.
Umut Özsu
Assistant Professor, Carleton University
(Canada)
Fixing Selves: Decolonization, Economic Self-
Determination, and the Making of the Friendly
Relations Declaration
This paper considers the 1970 Friendly Relations
Declaration, the high-water mark of efforts by socialist and
non-aligned states to win recognition for an expansive
interpretation of the UN Charter’s opaque but suggestive
references to self-determination. In addition to revisiting
the meaning of the expression ‘self-determination of
peoples’ in the UN Charter, the declaration engaged a
number of other commitments, from non-intervention and
sovereign equality through peaceful dispute-settlement and
the prohibition of the threat or use of force to inter-state
cooperation and the bona fides fulfillment of obligations
under the Charter. Yet even when they did not discuss self-
determination openly, those involved in the extensive
debates to prepare what would become the Friendly
Relations Declaration frequently found themselves circling
around questions involving its force and range. These
debates took place largely within a special committee that
was established by the General Assembly in late 1963 and
that would meet on no less than six separate occasions
through the remainder of that decade. The United Nations
had admitted large numbers of newly independent states in
the years preceding the committee’s formal constitution in
1964, with seventeen in 1960 alone and another thirteen in
1961 through 1963. Exercising its power to propel the
progressive development and codification of international
law, the General Assembly had begun to grow into its role
as a global legislative assembly of sorts. Many believed that
adopting a resolution that would reinforce the normative
authority of self-determination, alongside related
commitments to principles of non-intervention, sovereign
equality, and the like, would further and accelerate such
change. This paper examines the travaux préparatoires of
the declaration with a view to demonstrating that both it
and the negotiations that gave rise to it traded on particular
logics of statist nationalism and solidaristic internationalism.
These logics, I argue, stemmed both from contradictions in
the concept and practice of self-determination, and from
political and economic strategies pursued by socialist and
non-aligned states during the post-1945 wave of
decolonization.
Valeria Vázquez Guevara
PhD Candidate, Melbourne Law School, The
University of Melbourne (Australia)
Authorizing A ‘Lawful Truth’: Competing
Narratives in Uganda’s 1974 Commission of Inquiry
This paper examines how two major narratives
competed to authorize the lawfulness of ‘the truth’ in
the context of Uganda’s 1974 Commission of Inquiry into
the Disappearances of People in Uganda (considered the
‘inaugural’ truth commission). These two narratives
were created by the International Commission of Jurists,
a Geneva-based international non-governmental
organization, and the 1974 Commission of Inquiry, an
independent yet official investigative institution of the
Ugandan government. Attending to the events and
circumstances surrounding the 1974 Commission of
Inquiry, I argue that these two narratives contain and
propagate competing claims regarding the massive
‘disappearances’ of Ugandans between 1971 and 1974.
Further, the two narratives are informed by distinct and
conflicting notions of ‘lawfulness’. In examining these
competing narratives, the paper recounts, re-describes
and analyzes the respective understandings of
‘lawfulness’ of the International Commission of Jurists
and the commissioners of the 1974 Commission of
Inquiry. The paper then shows how the authorization of
a ‘lawful truth’ was resolved after the end of the Cold
War through a human rights discourse. The analysis
shows how this resolution was informed by a logic that
hierarchically ordered the existing legal plurality. This
logic not only placed distinct forms of laws—such as
Ugandan laws—under international human rights law,
but also displaced the coexisting voices that authorized
and interpreted the ‘lawfulness’ of these forms.
Victor Kattan
Senior Research Fellow, Middle East
SJD Candidate, University of Wisconsin-
Institute, National University of Singapore
Madison Law School (USA)
(Singapore)
The emergence of new rules on the use of force:
Consequences for the 'Third World'
This paper is a cri de coeur to the ‘Third World’ to
respond to developments in the area of the use of force
that deliberately seek to marginalise their contribution
to the development of international law. Recent
attempts to update the law on the use of force have
been the product of high-level discussions between
small groups of lawyers in the United States and Europe
resulting in the publication of principles that seek to
reorient the law away from legal developments during
decolonization. These small groups of mostly Western
educated lawyers view the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) as a disruptive, if not irresponsible, actor in
international affairs: it was no coincidence that the
formulation of these principles took place following the
UN’s World Summit Outcome in 2005, which reaffirmed
that ‘the relevant provisions of the Charter are sufficient
to address the full range of threats to international
peace and security’. While the publication of these
principles do not create international law, in the event
that the principles are adopted by a group of states they
may become law, if they reflect state practice, and if
there is no significant protest from other states—such as
NAM. Already we have seen the adoption by Australia,
the UK, and the US of The Principles Relevant to the
Scope of a State’s Right of Self-Defense Against an
Imminent or Actual Armed Attack by Nonstate Actors
that was published in the American Journal of
International Law in 2012. The danger is that the silence
of the Third World will be construed by these states as
being tantamount to acquiescence. The question is how
to respond. Should ‘Third World’ states play the same
‘game’ and publish their own set of principles or should
they vociferously protest?
Yue Zhang Yuyun Wahyuningrum
PhD Candidate, Erasmus University of
Rotterdam (Netherlands)
The International Right to Restitution of Cultural Explaining States’ Dissidences on Human Rights in
Property before the 1954 Convention Southeast Asia
Many countries are deprived of their cultural artefacts The international law on human rights, as a global norm,
due to plunder, confiscation, seizure, or requisition in plays an important role, not only in the way the states
warfare during the nineteenth and early twentieth perceive and develop their relationships with their own
centuries. Asia was an area that suffered most of such societies and the world politics, but also shapes states’
loss during colonial wars with western powers during dissident behaviour: where states resist systems of rule
this period, such as China, South Korea, and India. beyond the nation-state. This paper concerns on how
However, whether victim states have a legal right to states in Southeast Asia using the regional platform of
regain their cultural artefacts that were taken as spoils the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as
of war in previous centuries is one of the most the vehicle to resist global human rights in the period of
controversial issues in international law. No 2006 to 2017. The examination on the treatment of
conventional law referred to the protection of cultural constitutive relationship between international human
property in war before the Hague Convention II of 1899. rights norms and the act of resistance that performed by
Because of that, some scholars support claims for the states reveals the subtle form of the global norms
restitution using human rights law; they argue the from the perspective of the third world states in
importance of possessing cultural property to preserve Southeast Asia.
the identity of peoples and communities within the
framework of international human rights law. Also, many
scholars argue for restitution on ethical and political
grounds, such as redressing historical wrongs, building
national identities, or the necessity of decolonization.
Contrary to the views of these scholars, this paper
argues victim states have the international right to
restitution of displaced cultural artefacts to its country
of origin. This paper aims to provide the legal grounds
for the restitution claims and thus pave the first steps for
victim states to regain their lost cultural property. This
paper carries out an intertemporal analysis concerning
the evolution of the customary international law right to
restitution, rather than applying our current views of
international law to examine the formation and
development of the rules of customary international law
in previous centuries.
Zubair Ahmed Khan
Assistant Professor, Guru Gobind Singh
Indraprastha University (India)

Settlement of Biodiversity disputes through

emerging shared economy: benefit sharing
mechanism and patent co-ownership

There is obvious fact that international patent system

backed by innovation & fast technology faced many
hurdles & disputes against development & economic
prosperity. As a consequence of it, transnational
companies have to opt for commercial mediation &
negotiation to resolve their legal problems & economic
complication.

Co-ownership of patents mechanism shared among

indigenous communities and transnational companies
can offer monetary & non-monetary benefits to
indigenous communities. The same proposal is
suggested in Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic
Resources related to convention on biological diversity.
There many bio-piracy disputes came into existence
indigenous societies from developing countries where
there is either absence of prior informed consent (PIC)
or ineffective implementation of mutually agreed terms
(MAT). Bio-piracy refers to the process which is
characterized as a kind of biological misappropriation of
indigenous resources, in which plants identified and
cultivated by indigenous communities are collected and
patented by non-community members without granting
property protection to the original cultivators. Usually,
international patent regime didn’t recognize the
mechanism of benefit sharing. Now the point of
deliberation is whether proper settlement over benefit
sharing among indigenous communities will ensure
justice to their social & economical rights?

Accordingly 2010 Nagoya Protocol also encouraged the

usage of benefit sharing principle as a principle of shared
economy for the commercial usage of traditional
knowledge and genetic resources. These marketing
tools and strategic commercial agreements in the form
of benefit sharing having the character of collaborative
economy can certainly expand the horizon of patent
regime in biodiversity area with decreased loss in the
long run without any further dispute.
ROUNDTABLE 1
Decolonizing Law? TWAIL in the
Fourth World
Amar Bhatia
Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York
University (Canada)
Jeffery G. Hewitt
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of
Windsor (Canada)
Sujith Xavier
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of
Windsor (Canada)
Usha Natarajan
Associate Professor, The American University in Cairo
(Egypt)
Law has played an active role in the dispossession and
disenfranchisement of colonized people. Law and its
various institutions are the means by which colonial,
imperial, and settler colonial programs continue to be
reinforced and sustained. Our TWAIL 2018 panel seeks to
reflect on our conference held on the territories of the
Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of
the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Pottawatomie (the
territory that is now known as Canada). Our panel brings
together participants and conference organizers to
articulate and mediate on the possible teachings, lessons
and reflections about the various decolonizations taking
place at the intersection of both Indigenous and Third
World decolonial movements. Our panel will explore the
various methods, tactics and strategies discussed at our
conference in decolonizing law and its various
institutions. Specific panelists will comment on the
relevance of these discussions to their respective and
particular areas of scholarship, pinpointing gaps,
challenges and opportunities.
ROUNDTABLE 2
The Losing End of Globalization -
Law and Literature at the Edge
Christopher Gevers
Lecturer, School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal
(South Africa)
Joseph Slaughter
Associate Professor, Department of English and
Comparative Literature, Columbia University (USA)
Ratna Kapur
Symbiosis School of Law and Queen Mary University of
London
Tor Krever
Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of
Warwick (United Kingdom)
Vasuki Nesiah
Associate Professor, New York University, Gallatin
School (USA)
Against the persistent Eurocentrism of the field of law and
literature, our panel puts the Global South at the center of the
interdisciplinary inquiry in order both to forestall the need for
the kinds of revisionist disciplinary histories and to prioritize the
perspectives of globalization from the edges. Our panel aims
not to tell a single story about the rise of a single dominant
form, vision, or regime of world-making. Rather, we want to
resist the centripetal forces (disciplinary, cultural, geographic,
and otherwise) that tend to pull interdisciplinary and
transnational scholarship back to familiar (Euro-modern)
ground. We intend to do so by staging our inquiries at the edges
of international law, global history, and world literature and our
conversations at various sites in the U.S., U.K., Asia, and Africa.
We are focused on what Gayatri Spivak has provocatively called
“the losing end of globalization” because this is, in fact, where
many of the basic assumptions and doctrines of international
law and comparative literature (e.g., sovereignty, self-
determination, territoriality, equality of states, ethno-cultural
nationalism, national languages, and rights to natural and
cultural resources) were worked out historically. Additionally,
the “edges” of (global) legal regimes, world literature, and
academic disciplines continue to be rich sites of innovation and
improvisation that, while traditionally marginalized, are, in
reality, the “hidden” centers of global history.
ROUNDTABLE 3
Doing ‘Southern Histories’ of
International Law(s) in our Times
Adil Hasan Khan
McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Melbourne Law School,
The University of Melbourne (Australia)
Christopher Gevers
Lecturer, School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal
(South Africa)
Sara Dehm
Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney (Australia)
Sundhya Pahuja
Professor and Director, Institute for International Law
and the Humanities, University of Melbourne (Australia)
Vasuki Nesiah
Associate Professor, New York University, Gallatin
School (USA)
This panel proposes to both explore and enact (with the
emphasis being on the mimetic rather than the diegetic)
some key emerging methods of writing 'Southern
histories' of international law(s). These methods allow
both the making visible imperial 'formations' and
'tendencies' within particular international legal
practices (especially those pertaining to history writing)
and also the recovery of 'other inter-national laws', by
way of a variety of methodological moves and
approaches. They practice attentiveness towards how
practices of history writing give form to different
temporalities, forms of authority, and to lawful relations
across time. They are also both carefully attentive to
specific past historical contexts as well as to the
constitutive or analogical relationships between
different historical pasts and the presents that we
inhabit. Finally they all also entail an acknowledgement
and enactment of the poetic, literary and theatrical
dimensions of the writing of international legal histories.
ROUNDTABLE 4
TWAIL in a Time of Ecological Change -
Climate Justice, Decoloniality and
Rethinking Development
Julia Dehm
Lecturer, Latrobe University (Australia)
Karin Mickelson
Associate Professor, University of British Columbia
(Canada)
Kishan Khoday
Regional Team Leader, United Nations Development
Programme Middle East (Jordan)
Michael Fakhri
Associate Professor, University of Oregon (USA)
Usha Natarajan
Associate Professor, The American University in Cairo
(Egypt)
Ximena Sierra
PhD Candidate, Universidad del Rosario (Colombia)
This panel considers diverse aspects of the relationship between the
global South and the environment as mediated through international
law. Long before and since the inauguration of the TWAIL movement in
the 1990s, Third World international lawyers have remained consistently
focused on the role of international law in providing access to natural
resources in the global South. They have critiqued, among other things,
international and transnational legal regimes for investment, trade,
finance, intellectual property, and so on. For TWAIL scholars, the
challenges of environmental degradation and change in the South today
cannot be disentangled from the imperial legacies of natural resource
exploitation, intimately shaping the economic and environmental
choices available to the peoples of the South. In the twenty-one years
since the first TWAIL meeting, how has our movement’s interest in the
environmental issue evolved? Have our strategies changed alongside the
acceleration of environmental change and the growth of international
environmental law in its administrative reach and technical expertise, as
well as the way it intersects with the aforementioned aspects of
international and transnational economic law? TWAIL interest in natural
resource governance continues unabated, as it should, at a time when
appetite for extraction is intensifying, driving increasing competition and
ruthlessness. Recent TWAIL meetings also evidence growing interest in
the relationship between law and nature within and beyond
international environmental law; and alternative modes of regulation
organization, and development, more suited to a time of environmental
change. The panel considers different modes of intervention into these
debates, what the stakes are, and how to work in solidarity.
PLENARY 2
PLENARY 1
Dialogues Across the Divides –
The Current State of International
Critical Third World Approaches
Legal Scholarship
Across Law and Other Fields
Joseph H.H Weiler Adrien Katherine Wing
Professor, National University of Singapore Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law
(Singapore) Associate Dean of International & Comparative Law
Programs, University of Iowa College of Law (USA)
Balakrishnan Rajagopal
Associate Professor of Law and Development and Head,
International Development Group, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (USA)
B.S Chimni
Professor (Retired), Jawaharlal Nehru University (India)
Daniel Maldonado
Associate Professor, Universidad de Los Andes
(Colombia)
Oren Yiftachel
Professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel)
During the last two plus decades, and notably after the
end of the Cold War, many disciplines and professional
fields have witnessed the move towards critical and
subaltern voices, especially motivated by a greater
engagement with and need to recognize the agency of
the Third World or the ‘South’ (with ‘global south’, now
taking its place, emerging as a category to be critiqued in
itself). The purpose of this roundtable/panel is to assess
the mutual trajectories of TWAIL, Southern,
Southeastern and other critical paths in diverse, yet
increasingly overlapping disciplines and professional
academic fields including international law, comparative
law, urban planning, geography, and economic
development. The panel will assess the diverse and
common intellectual and political origins of the search
for critical voices, and reception of these voices into
what is perceived as ‘mainstream’, the current status of
critical voices in the mainstream, and the possibilities of
overlapping agendas and solidarities. The roundtable
will feature pioneers who have articulated the need for
such voices and assesses the possibilities for the future.
BOOK PANEL 1
Bandung, Global History and International
Law, edited by Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri
and Vasuki Nesiah (Cambridge UP 2017)
Luis Eslava
Senior Lecturer, University of Kent
(United Kingdom)
Michael Fakhri
Associate Professor, University of Oregon (USA)
Vasuki Nesiah
Associate Professor, New York University, Gallatin
School (USA)
Fabia Fernandes Carvalho Veçoso
Postdoctoral Fellow, Arc Laureate Program in
International Law, Melbourne Law School
(Australia)
James Gathii
Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law and
Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago (USA)
Noha Aboueldahab
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Doha Center, Brookings
Institution (Qatar)
BOOK PANEL 2 TWAIL OPENING: SPEAKERS
Mohammad Shahabuddin Ethnicity and Antony Anghie
International Law: Histories, Politics and Practices
Professor, National University of Singapore
(Cambridge UP 2016) (Singapore)
B.S. Chimni, International Law and World Order: A
Critique of Contemporary Approaches, 2d edition James Gathii
(Cambridge UP, 2017) Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law and
Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago (USA)
John Reynolds, Empire, Emergency and International
Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017) Karin Mickelson
Associate Professor, University of British
Noha Aboueldahab, Transitional Justice and the Columbia (Canada)
Prosecution of Political Leaders in the Arab Region: A
comparative study of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Simon Chesterman
Yemen (Hart, 2017) Professor and Dean, Faculty of Law,
National University of Singapore (Singapore)
Usha Natarajan, John Reynolds, Amar Bhatia, Sujith
Xavier (eds.), Third World Approaches to
Sornarajah M
International Law: On Praxis and the Intellectual
CJ Koh Professor, National University of Singapore
(Routledge, 2017)
(Singapore)
Onur Ulas Ince, Colonial Capitalism and the
Dilemmas of Liberalism (OUP, 2018)
Sergey Sayapin and Evhen Tsybulenko (eds.), The Use
of Force Against Ukraine and International Law
(Springer, 2018)
John Linarelli, Margot Salomon and M. Sornarajah,
The Misery of International Law (Oxford, 2018)
Ratna Kapur, Gender, Alterity and Human Rights:
Freedom in a Fishbowl (Edward Elgar, 2018)
Aeyal Gross, The Writing on the Wall: Rethinking the
International Law of Occupation (Cambridge
University Press, 2017)
DELEGATES
DELEGATES
S/N Name
1 Aarushi Nargas
2 Adelle Blackett
3 Adil Hasan Khan
4 Adrien Katherine Wing
5 Aeyal Gross
6 Alexis I.P. Dela Cruz
7 Alistair D. B. Cook
8 Allan Chester B. Nadate
9 Amar Bhatia
10 Amritha V. Shenoy
11 Ana Luísa Soares Peres
12 Anam Soomro
Designation
Undergraduate
Professor of Law and Canada
Research Chair in Transnational
Labour Law & Development
McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow
Professor
Professor
Associate Solicitor
Research Fellow and Coordinator
of Humanitarian Assistance and
Disaster Relief Programme
Research Fellow, NTS Centre
Assistant Professor
Research Associate
PhD Candidate
PhD Candidate
Affiliation Email
National Law University, Jodhpur, India aarushinargas@gmail.com
McGill University, Canada Adelle.blackett@mcgill.ca
Melbourne Law School, Australia khan.adil@graduateinstitute.ch
The University of Iowa, USA adrien-wing@uiowa.edu
Tel-Aviv University, Israel aeyal.gross@gmail.com
Office of the Solicitor General, Philippines ian.p.delacruz@gmail.com
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, iscook@ntu.edu.sg
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
University of the Philippines College of Law, acnadate@up.edu.ph
Quezon City, Philippines
Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, abhatia@osgoode.yorku.ca
Canada
National Law University, Centre for amy.shenoy@gmail.com
Comparative Law, India
King's College London, The Dickson Poon ana.soares_peres@kcl.ac.uk
School of Law, United Kingdom
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany a.soomro@transnationalstudies.eu
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

13 Anna Saunders Senior Program Fellow, Laureate Melbourne Law School, Australia anna.saunders@unimelb.edu.au
Program in International Law
MPhil Candidate & Teaching
Fellow
14 Antony Anghie Professor Faculty of Law, National University of lawanto@nus.edu.sg
Singapore, Singapore

15 Arsya Daniswara Dwitama Student Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia arsyaaldi@gmail.com

16 Balakrishnan Rajagopal Associate Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA braj@mit.edu

17 Benoit Mayer Assistant Professor Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Bmayer@cuhk.edu.hk
Hong Kong (Hong Kong SAR)

18 B.S Chimni Professor Jawaharlal Nehru University, India bschimni@hotmail.com

19 Bibhas Damodar Vaze Barrister and Solicitor Barrister and Solicitor, Canada Bibhas@bdvazelaw.ca

20 Bruno Verdini Executive Director MIT Harvard Mexico Negotiation Program, bverdini@mit.edu
MIT, USA

21 Buhm-Suk Baek Assistant Professor Kyung-Hee University, South Korea buhmsukbaek@gmail.com

22 Caroline Omari Lichuma Lecturer Riara Law School, Kenya clichuma@riarauniversity.ac.ke

23 Cheah Wui Ling Assistant Professor Faculty of Law, National University of lawcwl@nus.edu.sg
Singapore, Singapore

24 Chen Yifeng Associate Professor Peking University, People's Republic of China yifeng.chen@pku.edu.cn

25 Christopher Gevers Lecturer School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal, gevers@ukzn.ac.za

South Africa
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

26 Daniel Acquah Post-Doctoral Researcher Faculty of Law, University of Turku, Finland danacq@utu.fi

27 Daniel Eduardo Bonilla Associate Professor Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia dbonilla@uniandes.edu.co
Maldonado

28 Darryl Li Assistant Professor University of Chicago, USA darrylli@uchicago.edu

29 Deepali Singhal Undergraduate Amity Law School, India deepali23994@gmail.com

30 Devahuti Pathak Lawyer Delhi High Court, India devahutipathak@gmail.com

31 Dila Novita Lecturer Universitas Islam, Indonesia dilanovitapasca@gmail.com

32 Ebrahim Afsah Professor University of Copenhagen, Denmark ebrahim.afsah@jur.ku.dk

33 Edwin Bikundo Senior Lecturer Griffith Law School, Griffith University, e.bikundo@griffith.edu.au
Australia

34 Edy Santoso Soewarto Senior Lecturer Islamic University of Nusantara, Indonesia e_santoso_id@yahoo.com

35 Emily Choo Research Consultant Centre for International Law, National emily.choo@nus.edu.sg
University of Singapore, Singapore

36 Emre Senbabaoglu PhD Candidate University of Sussex, United Kingdom emresenbabaoglu@gmail.com

37 Erika George Professor of Law & Co-Director, The University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College erika.george@law.utah.edu
Center for Global Justice of Law, USA

38 Ernesto Hernandez-Lopez Professor Chapman University, USA ehernand@chapman.edu

S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

39 Eugenio Gomez-Chico Research Associate Centre for International Law, National eugenio.gomezchico@nus.edu.sg
University of Singapore, Singapore

40 Fabia Fernandes Carvalho Postdoctoral Fellow Arc Laureate Melbourne Law School, Australia fabia.fernandes@unimelb.edu.au
Veçoso Program in International Law

41 Farhaan Uddin Ahmed Lecturer School of Law, BRAC University, Bangladesh farhaan17@gmail.com

42 Farnush Ghadery PhD Candidate The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's farnush.ghadery@kcl.ac.uk
College London, United Kingdom

43 Federico Suárez Ricaurte Professor Externado University of Colombia, Colombia fuarez84@gmail.com

44 Florence Karimi Gakungi Lecturer Riara Law School, Kenya fshako@riarauniversity.ac.ke

45 Francesco Corradini Doctoral candidate and Research Graduate Institute of International and francesco.corradini@graduateinstitute.ch
Assistant Development Studies (International Law and
minor in Anthropology and Sociology),
Geneva, Switzerland
46 Gabriel Antonio Silveira Mantelli Graduate Student São Paulo Law School of the Getulio gabrielmantelli@gmail.com
Vargas Foundation, Brazil

47 Gammanpila Imiyage Dona Lecturer University of Colombo, Sri Lanka udanigammanpila@yahoo.com

Isankhya Udani

48 Gangesh Sreekumar Varma PhD Candidate Jawarharlal Nehru University, India gangeshvarma@gmail.com

49 George Rodrigo Bandeira Associate Professor & Legal University of Brasilia, Brazil ggalindo@uol.com.br
Galindo Advisor Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brazil

50 Hadeel AbuHussein Visiting Researcher Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public hadeel.ah@gmail.com
Law and International Law, Heidelberg
(Germany)
51 Haris Jamil Assistant Professor Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, India harisjamil.kls@gmail.com
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

52 Hilton A. Lazo University of the Philippines College of Law, halazo@up.edu.ph

Quezon City, Philippines

53 Huixin Qiu PhD Candidate Wuhan University, People's Republic of China jackieqiu0609@gmail.com

54 Ikenna Aniekwe Graduate Student Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Ikennacolumbus@yahoo.com
Canada

55 Itty Abraham Head, Southeast Asian Studies Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National itty123@gmail.com
University of Singapore, Singapore

56 Izhari Mawardi PhD Candidate Leiden University, Netherlands i.mawardi@umail.leidenuniv.nl

57 James Gathii Professor Loyola University Chicago, USA james.gathii@gmail.com

58 Jay Ramasubramanyam PhD Candidate Department of Law and Legal Studies JayRamasubramanyam@cmail.carleton.ca
Carleton University, Canada

59 Jayson S. Lamchek Post-Doctoral Fellow Faculty of Law, National University of jayson.lamchek@nus.edu.sg

Singapore, Singapore

60 Jeffery G.Hewitt Assistant Professor Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, Canada Jeffery.Hewitt@uwindsor.ca

61 Jeroen van Bekhoven Postdoctoral Fellow National Taiwan University, Taiwan ROC jjpgvanbekhoven@ntu.edu.tw

62 Jin Sheng Senior Research Fellow Faculty of Law, National University of jin.sheng@nus.edu.sg
Singapore, Singapore

63 Jolene Lin Associate Professor and Director Faculty of Law, National University of lawlsjo@nus.edu.sg
APCEL Singapore, Singapore

64 Jose Mauricio Gaona Research Fellow & PhD Candidate Centre for Human Rights and Faculty of Law, jm.gaona@mail.mcgill.ca
McGill University, Canada

65 Joseph Slaughter Associate Professor Department of English and Comparative jrs272@columbia.edu

Literature, Columbia University, USA
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

66 Joseph Weiler Professor Faculty of Law, National University of lawjose@nus.edu.sg

Singapore, Singapore

67 Julia Dehm Lecturer Latrobe University, Australia J.Dehm@latrobe.edu.au

68 Kai-Chih Chang Research Fellow National Chengchi University Center for kcchang0317@gmail.com
International Legal Studies, Taiwan ROC

69 Kalyani Mala Jayasekara Lecturer General Sir John Kotewala Defence kalyajayasekera@gmail.com
University, Sri Lanka

70 Kanad Bagchi Research Fellow & PhD candidate Max Planck Institute for Comparative Lw & bagchi@mpil.de
International Law, Germany

71 Karin Mickelson Associate Professor The University of British Columbia, Canada mickelson@allard.ubc.ca

72 Katherine Fallah Lecturer Faculty of Law, University of Technology Katherine.Fallah@uts.edu.au

Sydney, Australia

73 Kathryn Greenman Junior Researcher University of Amsterdam, Netherlands k.j.greenman@uva.nl

74 Kim Wonhee Senior Researcher Maritime Territory Centre, Korea Maritime whkim14@kmi.re.kr
Institute, South Korea

75 Kishan Khoday Regional Team Leader United Nations Development Programme kishan.khoday@undp.org
Middle East, Jordan

76 Konstantina Tzouvala Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow in Melbourne Law School, Australia konstantina.tzouvala@unimelb.edu.au
International Law

77 Kristi Ueda JD Candidate UCLA School of Law, USA ueda2019@lawnet.ucla.edu

78 Larissa Ramina Associate Professor Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil raminalarissa@gmail.com

79 Lee Zhe Yu Graduate Student/Graduate University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, zlee27@wisc.edu

Teaching Assistant USA
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

80 Lilian Asiimwe Research Associate Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, lasiimwe@osgoode.yorku.ca and
Canada uwaselil@gmail.com

81 Luis Eslava Senior Lecturer University of Kent, United Kingdom L.Eslava@kent.ac.uk

82 M. Yakub Aiyub Kadir Lecturer Syiah Kuala University, Indonesia m.yakub.akadir@unsyiah.ac.id

83 Mariyam Zulfa Graduate Student University of Melbourne, Australia mzulfa@student.unimelb.edu.au

84 Markus Petshce Associate Professor Central European University, Hungary petschem@ceu.edu

85 Matiangai Sirleaf Assistant Professor University of Pittsburgh Law School, USA matiangai.sirleaf@pitt.edu

86 Matthew Windsor Junior Research Fellow Oxford University, United Kingdom matthew.windsor@hertford.ox.ac.uk

87 Mely Caballero-Anthony Head of Centre for Non- S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, ismcanthony@ntu.edu.sg
Traditional Security Studies Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

88 Michael Fakhri Associate Professor University of Oregon, USA mfakhri@uoregon.edu

89 Milan Tahraoui Research Fellow & PhD candidate Max Planck Institute for Comparative Lw & tahraoui@mpil.de
International Law, Germany

90 Mohammad Ataul Karim Senior Lecturer Department of Law, East West University, karimataul24@gmail.com
Bangladesh

91 Mohammad Habibur Rahman District judge Bangladesh Judicial Service, Bangladesh habibynu@gmail.com
Siddiquee

92 Mohammad Shahabuddin Reader in International Law and Birmingham Law School, University of M.Shahabuddin@bham.ac.uk
Human Rights Birmingham, United Kingdom

93 Mohsen al Attar Principal Teaching Fellow Warwick Law School, United Kingdom Mohsen.al-Attar@warwick.ac.uk
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

94 Mostafa Haider Lecturer Curtin Law School, Australia mostafa.haider@curtin.edu.au

95 Mostafa Naser Lecturer Edith Cowan University, Australia m.naser@ecu.edu.au

96 Muhammad Azeem Assistant Professor LUMS University, Lahore, Pakistan muhammad.azeem@lums.edu.pk

97 Noel Chow Zher Ming Asia Regional Manager Tradewin Asia, Singapore noel.chow@tradewin.net;
noelchowzm@gmail.com

98 Noha Aboueldahab Visiting Fellow Brookings Doha Center, Brookings Institution, naboueldahab@brookings.edu
Doha, Qatar

99 Nurfadzilah Yahaya Assistant Professor Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National hisny@nus.edu.sg
University of Singapore, Singapore

100 Norman P Ho Associate Professor Peking University School of Transnational nph225@nyu.edu

Law, People's Republic of China

101 Obiora Chinedu Okafor Professor of Law and York Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, ookafor@yorku.ca
Ressearch Chair in International Canada
and Transnational Legal Studies
102 Okechukwu Emmanuel Effoduh PhD Candidate Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, effoduh@gmail.com
Canada

103 Onur Ulas Ince Assistant Professor Singapore Management University, Singapore ulasince@smu.edu.sg

104 Oren Yiftachel Professor Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel yiftach@bgu.ac.il

105 Pasha L. Hsieh Associate Professor Singapore Management University, Singapore pashahsieh@smu.edu.sg

106 Patrícia Ramos Barros LLM Student University of Brasilia, Brazil patricia.patinet@gmail.com

107 Paul van Trigt Post-Doctoral Researcher Institute of History, Leiden University, p.w.van.trigt@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Netherlands
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

108 Phattharaphong Phil Saengkrai Lecturer Faculty of Law, Thammasat University, phil.saengkrai@gmail.com
Thailand

109 Prabhakar Singh Associate Professor OP Jindal Global University (India) prabhakarsingh.adv@gmail.com

110 Rafael Tamayo Alvarez PhD Candidate Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia ra.tamayo10@uniandes.edu.co

111 Rajshree Chandra Associate Professor (Political University of Delhi, India rajshreechandra@yahoo.in
Science)

112 Ralph Wilde Reader University College London, United Kingdom ralph.wilde@ucl.ac.uk

113 Ratna Kapur Symbiosis School of Law and Queen Mary r.kapur@qmul.ac.uk
University of London

114 Richard Joyce Senior Lecturer Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia richard.joyce@monash.edu

115 Rie Elise Ohta Student UCLA School of Law, USA ohta2019@lawnet.ucla.edu

116 Robert Real Research Assistant Centre for International Law, National ciljrrgr@nus.edu.sg
University of Singapore, Singapore

117 Rohini Sen Assistant Professor and Assistant Jindal Global Law School, India rsen@jgu.edu.in
Dean (International
Collaborations)
Assistant Director, Centre for
Human Rights Studies

118 Rose Parfitt Lecturer University of Kent, United Kingdom r.s.parfitt@kent.ac.uk

119 Rudrani Banerjee Advocate Aarna Law, India b.rudrani@gmail.com

S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

120 Rumana Islam Associate Professor University of Dhaka, Bangladesh rumana.law@du.ac.bd

121 Ryan Mitchell Assistant Professor The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong ryan.mitchell@cuhk.edu.hk
Kong SAR

122 S M Masum Billah Associate Professor Department of Law, Jagannath University, billah002@gmail.com
Bangladesh

123 Sagnik Das Law Clerk High Court of Delhi, India sagnik.nlu@gmail.com

124 Sahana Reddy Senior Research Fellow Ramaiah Public Policy Centre, India sahana.reddy@rppc.ac.in

125 Samuli Seppänen Assistant Professor Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of sseppanen@cuhk.edu.hk
Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

126 Sanaa Ahmed PhD Candidate York University, Osgoode Hall Law School, SanaaAhmed@osgoode.yorku.ca
Canada

127 Sanjaya Wilson Jayasekara Lawyer Supreme Court, Sri Lanka sanjayawilson@gmail.com

128 Sanzhuan Guo Lecturer Flinders University, Australia sanzhuan.guo@flinders.edu.au

129 Sara Dehm Lecturer University of Technology Sydney, Australia Sara.Dehm@uts.edu.au

130 Saraban Tahura Young Professional Programme Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust sarabantahurazaman@gmail.com
coordinator (BLAST), Bangladesh

131 Seet Zong Shan, Matthew Lecturer Faculty of Law, National University of matthew.seet@nus.edu.sg
Singapore, Singapore

132 Sergey Sayapin Assistant Professor KIMEP University, Kazakhstan s.sayapin@kimep.kz

133 Shahrizal M Zin Senior Lecturer University Technology MARA, Malaysia mzinshahrizal@yahoo.com
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

134 Shaimaa Abdelkarim PhD Candidate University of Leicester, United Kingdom srha1@leicester.ac.uk

135 Shane Chalmers McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow Melbourne Law School, Australia shane.chalmers@unimelb.edu.au

136 Shannu Narayan Assistant Professor Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, shannu.narayan@iimk.ac.in
India

137 Shi Guopu Lecturer School of Law, Anhui Normal University, sgptreatise@sina.com
People's Republic of China

138 Simon Chesterman Professor and Dean Faculty of Law, National University of chesterman@nus.edu.sg
Singapore, Singapore

139 Sinja Graf Assistant Professor Department of Political Science, Faculty of polgsu@nus.edu.sg
Arts and Social Sciences, National University
of Singapore, Singapore
140 Siti Munafiah Walker Postgraduate Student in The University of Melbourne, Australia fia.walker@yahoo.co.uk
Development Studies by Research

141 Sornarajah M CJ Koh Professor Faculty of Law, National University of lawsorna@nus.edu.sg

Singapore, Singapore

142 Souheir Edelbi PhD Candidate University of New South Wales (Australia) s.edelbi@unsw.edu.au

143 Srinivas Burra Assistant Professor South Asian University, India srinivasb@sau.ac.in

144 Suddathcharige Manoj Research Candidate University of Tasmania, Australia manoj.madushanka49@gmail.com

Madushanka Fernando

145 Sujith Xavier Assistant Professor Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, Canada sxavier@uwindsor.ca

146 Sundhya Pahuja Director of the Law and University of Melbourne, Australia s.pahuja@unimelb.edu.au
Development Research
Programme, Institute for
International Law and the
Humanities
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

147 Tamara Nair Research Fellow S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, istnair@ntu.edu.sg
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

148 Teerawat Wongkaew Legal Officer Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs, teewongkaew@gmail.com
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand,
Thailand
149 Thamil Venthan Lecturer Griffith College, Ireland thamil.ananthavinayagan@griffith.ie
Ananthavinayagan

150 Tim Wöffen PhD Candidate Harbin Institute of Technology, People's tim.woeffen@gmail.com
Republic of China

151 Titilayo Adebola Tutor School of Law, University of Warwick, United titilayoadebola@gmail.com
Kingdom

152 Tor Krever Assistant Professor School of Law, University of Warwick, United tor.krever@gmail.com
Kingdom

153 Tran Thu Yen Lecturer Hanoi Law University, Faculty of International tranyenlhp@gmail.com
Trade and Business Law, Vietnam

154 Tugba Karagöz Research Assistant University of Würzburg, Germany tugba.karagoez@uni-wuerzburg.de

155 Umair Ghori Assistant Professor Bond University, Australia ughori@bond.edu.au

156 Umut Özsu Assistant Professor Carleton University, Canada Umut.Ozsu@carleton.ca

157 Usha Natarajan Associate Professor & Associate The American University in Cairo, Egypt unatarajan@aucegypt.edu
Director, Center for Migration and
Refugee Studies
158 Valeria Vázquez Guevara PhD Candidate Melbourne Law School, Australia v.vazquezguevara@student.unimelb.edu.au

159 Vasuki Nesiah Associate Professor New York University, Gallatin School, USA vn10@nyu.edu

160 Victor Kattan Senior Research Fellow Middle East Institute, National University of vkattan@nus.edu.sg
Singapore, Singapore
S/N Name Designation Affiliation Email

161 Vidya Kumar Associate Professor, Deputy Leicester Law School, Leicester University, vidya.s.a.kumar@gmail.com
Director of Research Outputs and United Kingdom
Co-Director LLB. Senior Status
Programme

162 Ximena Sierra PhD Candidate Universidad del Rosario, Colombia jimenasierra@gmail.com

163 Yue Zhang SJD Candidate University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, zhang458@wisc.edu
USA

164 Yuyun Wahyuningrum PhD Candidate Erasmus University of Rotterdam, wahyuningrum@iss.nl

Netherlands

165 Zubair Ahmed Khan Assistant Professor Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, khanzobair@gmail.com
India
 TWAIL Singapore Secretariat
Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
469G Bukit Timah Road
Eu Tong Sen Building
Singapore 259776
Email: twail@nus.edu.sg