The Public International Law Discussion Group

The Public International Law Discussion Group at the University of Oxford hosts a weekly speaker event and light lunch at New College, Oxford. Topics involve contemporary and challenging issues in international law. Speakers include distinguished international law practitioners, academics, and legal advisers from around the world. The discussion group’s meetings are part of the programme of the British Branch of the International Law Association and are supported by the Law Faculty and Oxford University Press.

The group typically meets each Thursday during Oxford terms in Lecture Room 6 in New College, with lunch commencing at 12:30. The speaker will commence at 12:45 and speak for about forty minutes, allowing about twenty five minutes for questions and discussion. The meeting should conclude before 2:00. Practitioners, academics and students from within and outside the University of Oxford are all welcome. No RSVP is necessary.

PIL Lunchtime Discussion Group Co-ordinators:

Lawrence Antony Hill-Cawthorne lawrence.hill-cawthorne@merton.ox.ac.uk
Jarrod Hepburn jarrod.hepburn@balliol.ox.ac.uk
Kubo Macak kubo.macak@some.ox.ac.uk

Faculty PIL Lunchtime Discussion Group Co-ordinator: Dapo Akande dapo.akande@law.ox.ac.uk

Schedule for Hilary Term 2012:

Week 1 (19 January) Professor Vera Gowlland Debbas
The Role of the International Court of Justice in the Formulation and Development of Fundamental Norms of International Law

Vera Gowlland Debbas is Emeritus Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and a Visiting Professor at University College London. She has also been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Université Paris II, and the University of California at Berkeley. Her publications include Collective Responses to Illegal Acts in International Law (1990), Law-making in a Globalized World, Bancaja Euromediterranean Courses of International Law (2004-5), and The Security Council as Enforcer of Human Rights, Academy of European Law, Florence, 2009. A forthcoming publication is the course she gave at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2007, on The Security Council and Issues of Responsibility under International Law. She has written also on a wide range of public international law issues, including on the International Court of Justice, human rights and state responsibility. She acted as Counsel for the Arab League in the ICJ Wall Opinion, advises governments, IOs and private law firms and is a Member of the Academic Experts panel at Doughty Street Chambers, London.
Week 2 (26 January) Dr Martins Paparinskis, Junior Research Fellow, Merton College
Investment Treaty Arbitration: The (New) Law of State Responsibility?

Martins Paparinskis is a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College. He was recently a Hauser Research Scholar at New York University (2009-2010), and before that tutored as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Oxford whilst completing his DPhil. Martins has varied research interests in the field of general international law. His recent and forthcoming publications mainly address the place of investment protection law and international economic law in the international legal order.
Week 3 (2 February) Professor Du Ming Michael, Assistant Professor, Law Faculty, Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Place of National Preferences in International Trade Law

Du Ming is an assistant professor at the faculty of law, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his DPhil in public international law from the University of Oxford. He also holds an LLM from Harvard Law School. Before he joined the CUHK in 2009, he was an associate attorney in the New York office of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP. He specializes in international economic law, corporate law and Chinese law. His recent publications include ' The Rise of National Regulatory Autonomy in the GATT/WTO Regime' (JIEL, 2011) and 'Standard of Review under the SPS Agreement after EC- Hormones II' (ICLQ, 2010).
Week 4 (9 February) Sir Frank Berman, Visiting Professor in International Law, All Souls College, Oxford
Another look at the Interpretation of Treaties

After undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town (B.A., B.Sc.), Sir Frank Berman came to Wadham on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1961 to read law, taking 1st class honours in Jurisprudence and winning the Martin Wronker Prize in 1963. He continued with doctoral research at Wadham (later at Nuffield) under the supervision of the late Sir Ian Brownlie until joining the Foreign Office as an Assistant Legal Adviser in 1965.During his time in the Diplomatic Service, he served abroad in the British Military Government in Berlin, in the British Embassy in Bonn, and as Legal Counsellor to the UK Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, where he was in addition Alternate Representative to the General Assembly and the Security Council. He became Deputy Legal Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1988, and was appointed the Legal Adviser in 1991, which position he held until his retirement in 1999. He was made CMG in 1986, KCMG in 1994, and was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Star of the Republic of Austria in 2007.

Sir Frank was called to the Bar in 1966, appointed Honorary QC in 1992, and elected an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple in 1997. Since 2000 he has practised at Essex Court Chambers as a barrister and international arbitrator. He currently sits as arbitrator in ten cases under the ICSID system of the World Bank, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, and the rules of the UN Commission on International Trade Law, in five of them as President. He has served as Agent or Agent and Counsel for the United Kingdom in various proceedings before the International Court of Justice, and as Judge ad hoc in the Case concerning Certain Property between Liechtenstein and the Federal Republic of Germany. He is acting for Cambodia in the pending ICJ proceedings on the Interpretation of the Judgment in the Temple Case, and was recently appointed by the Lord Chief Justice to be the Legal Member in the Court of Arbitration under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1961.

Since 2000, Sir Frank has been Honorary Fellow of Wadham and Visiting Professor of international law in the Law Faculty at Oxford, holding visiting professorships as well at the University of Cape Town and King’s College London. At Oxford, he has played a full part in undergraduate teaching of public international law, shared in collaborative teaching for the BCL/MJUR, acted as research supervisor for MPhil and DPhil, and as assessor or internal examiner for both degrees and for the MLitt. For OUP he is the editor of McNair’s Law of Treaties and general editor of the Oxford International Law Library. He is a member of the editorial board of the British Year Book of International Law.
Week 5 (16 February) Tullio Scovazzi, Professor of International Law, University of Milano - Bicocca, Milan
The Restitution of Removed Cultural Properties: a Historical Precedent
Week 6 (23 February) Dr Alexander Orakhelashvili (LLM Leiden, PhD Cantab), University of Birmingham
The Jurisdictional Immunities case (Germany v Italy) - judicial development of natural law

Dr Alexander Orakhelashvili (LLM Leiden, PhD Cantab) is a lecturer at the University of Birminghamteaching international law, jurisprudence and theory of criminal law. Prior to that he was a junior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and has taught international law at the universities of Cambridge, London and Oxford. His publications include Peremptory Norms in International Law (OUP 2006), Interpretation Acts and Rules in Public International Law (OUP 2008), and Collective Security (OUP 2011), as well as edited collections and over 50 articles in leading law periodicals.
Week 7 (1 March) Dr Kimberley Trapp, College in Lecturer in Law, Newnham College, Cambridge
State Responsbility for International Terrorism
Week 8 (8 March) Professor Catherine Redgwell, Professor of International Law, UCL
International Energy Law in the 21st Century

Schedule for MT 2011:

Week 1: Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor of International law, London School of Economics
A Mechanism for UN Accountability for Violations of Human Rights: The Kosovo Human Rights Advisory Panel
Week 2: Dr Ralph Wilde, University College London
The Al-Skeini decision of the European Court of Human Rights - a Landmark on the Extraterritorial Application of Human Rigths Law?
Week 3: Dr Gleider Hernandez, Lecturer, Durham University
A Reluctant Guardian? The International Court of Justice and the Concept of 'International Community'
Week 4: Professor Goodwin-Gill, All Soul's College
Palestine, Statehood and the Challenges of Representation
Week 5: Dr Anthony Cullen, Research Fellow in International Law, University of Leeds
Military Necessity and International Humanitarian Law
Week 6 - 17 Nov: Professor Sienho Yee (Fowler Hamilton Visiting Research Fellow, Christ Church, Oxford; Changjiang Xuezhe Professor and Chief Expert, Wuhan University Institute of International Law)
The Presidency of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the 'National State Extension' Concern
Week 7 - 24 Nov: Prof Bill Bowring, Professor of Law, Birkbeck, University of London
A Political Theory of International Law and Human Rights. Click here for PowerPoint presentation
Week 8 - 1 Dec: Professor Piet Eeckhout, Professor of Law, King’s College London
The Autonomy of EU Law and International Human Rights Law

Previous PILDG Events and Photos from the PIL Lunchtime Discussion Group

PIL Mailing List

Join the PIL Email List to receive information about the PIL Discussion Group meetings, as well as special events, forthcoming publications, International Law Association Conferences, International Court of Justice news, discounts to buy public international law books, scholarships, employment opportunities.

For information on how to join the PIL email list, please click PIL Mailing List link.

Research Seminars

On Wednesday mornings in term time, from 09.30 to 10.30, a seminar for research students writing MPhil, MLitt or DPhil theses in International Law, is held in the Wharton Room in All Souls College. Each week a researcher makes a brief presentation on the subject of his or her research and the topic is then opened for discussion. This is one of the liveliest and most searching of forum for discussion of international law in the University, and an excellent way of keeping up to date in the subject and of honing analytical skills.

Oxford Institute for Ethics, law and Armed Conflict (ELAC):

In association with the University of Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War (CCW). Seminars are on Tuesdays, 1.00-2.30pm in Seminar Room G, Manor Road Building. All Seminars are free and open to all and no registration is required. A light sandwich lunch will be served.

Week 1 - Dr Hugo Slim, ELAC Visiting Fellow -Humanitarian Ethics in Armed Conflict: Aid Agency Dilemmas and Responsibility
Week 2 - Professor Leonard Smith, Oberlin - Ending Wars in a Wilsonian World: Sovereignty of the Paris Peach Conference of 1919
Week 3 - Professor Fernando Teson, Florida State University College of Law - Targeted Killing in War and Peace: A Philosophical Analysis
Week 4 - William Dutch, Senior Associate, Stimson Centre - Letting Go and Staying Gone: Elements of Exit for post-Conflict Peacebuilders
Week 5 - Professor Cecile Fabre, Fellow in Philosophy, Lincoln College, Oxford - Living with the Enemy: The Ethics of Belligerent Military Occupation
Week 6 - Dr Laleh Khalili, SOAS - Genering Counterinsurgency
Week 7 - Dr Antulio Echevarria II, US Army War College, tbc
Week 8 - Professor Daniel Joyner, University of Alabama School of Law - Iran's Nuclear Programme and International Law

For further information about the Lunchtime Seminar Programme, please visit http:ccw.modhist.ox.ac.uk and www.elac.ox.ac.uk

Forthcoming Louwes Lecture 2012

Professor Edith Brown Weiss, Francis Cabell Brown Professor of International Law, and Co-Director of the Joint Degree in Law and Government, at Georgetown University Law Centre, has kindly agreed to come from Washington, D.C. to give this year's Louwes Lecture on 23 February 2012. Building on her work as former Chair of the World Bank Inspectional Panel, the lecture will be entitled Accountability and International Law: Reflections from Water Projects. The lecture will be held from 4:30-6.00 pm at Christ Church in the Blue Boar lecture theatre. It will be followed by a reception in the Freind Room. If you plan to attend, please email louweslecture@gmail.com to register.

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PAST EVENTS:

‘Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Territorial Dispute: The Case for Arbitration’

Dr Asaf Siniver (Birmingham University) Week 2, Thursday, 26 January @ 8pm. Lincoln College, Lower Lecture Room

Dr. Siniver is a senior lecturer in International Security. He holds a PhD and an MA in International relations from Nottingham, and a BA in Political Science from Tel Aviv University. His research focuses on the international relations of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the broader Middle East; third party mediation and conflict resolution; US foreign policy and Foreign Policy Analysis. His recent publications include a monograph titled Nixon, Kissinger, and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Machinery of Crisis (CUP 2011) and an edited book titled International Terrorism post 9/11: Comparative Dynamics and Responses (Routledge 2010).The lecture is part of the "Israel: Historical, Political and Social Aspects" series at Oxford University convened by Peter Oppenheimer (Christ Church). FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Log on to http://www.ihps-oxford.co.uk/events.php or Contact the organisers at lsi2006@herald.ox.ac.uk

Dr Mehmet Karli, Galatasaray University Law Faculty: ‘The uses and abuses of anti-terror legislation: An insider's report on current human rights developments in Turkey' Wednesday 25th Jan, 12.45-2pm, the Seminar Room, European Studies Centre, 70 Woodstock Road. This lunchtime seminar is convened by Dr Kerem Oktem. All are welcome. For more information please contact julie.adams@sant.ox.ac.uk. Please see the webpage at http://cis.politics.ox.ac.uk/events/ forfull information on these and other forthcoming events

Seminar: Is UNHCR becoming a migration agency? Thursday, 19 January 2012 (Week 1 HT), Seminar Room 1, Refugee Studies Centre - Queen Elizabeth House (3 Mansfield Rd - Oxford OX1 3TB)

State Control over Private Military & Security Companies in Armed Conflict - Book launch with Dr Hannah Tonkin, UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania
Monday 10 October 2011 1pm / Venue: Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building
Co-hosted by Oxford Transitional Justice Research and Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC)

The past two decades have witnessed the rapid proliferation of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in armed conflicts around the world, with PMSCs participating in, for example, offensive combat, prisoner interrogation and the provision of advice and training. The extensive outsourcing of military and security activities has challenged conventional conceptions of the state as the primary holder of coercive power and raised concerns about the reduction in state control over the use of violence. Hannah Tonkin critically analysed the international obligations on three key states – the hiring state, the home state and the host state of a PMSC – and identifies the circumstances in which PMSC misconduct may give rise to state responsibility. This analysis facilitated the assessment of state responsibility in cases of PMSC misconduct and set standards to guide states in developing their domestic laws and policies on private security

Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict: The Legacy of 9/11
Professor Jennifer Welsh, Dr David Rodin, Dapo Akande
Monday 10 October 2011 5pm / Venue: Seminar Room G, Manor Road Building

As the world marks the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the high-profile remembrance events draw to a close, this panel discussion reflected on the lasting impact of these shocking attacks in terms of the new ethical, political and legal landscape brought about by the 'War on Terror' and conflict in Afghanistan.

The Prosecutor - Film Screening and Discussion- with Deputy Prosecutor Bensouda, International Criminal Court
Thursday 17 November 2011 5pm / Venue: The Auditorium, Magdalen College, Oxford

ELAC hosted a screening of the film 'The Prosecutor' (Barry Stevens 2010) followed by a discussion with Deputy Prosecutor Bensouda, ICC, chaired by Dapo Akande (Co-Director, ELAC). This feature documentary followed the Chief Prosecutor through the first trials of the newly formed International Criminal Court. Luis Moreno-Ocampo investigates and prosecutes some of the world's worst criminals for some of the world's worst crimes. He's a hero to genocide survivors, but has bitter enemies on both the Right and the Left. Is the ICC a groundbreaking new weapon for global justice or just an idealistic dream?’ (National Film Board of Canada /White Pine Pictures)

The Oxford Centre for Water Research co-hosted an International Conference on the Right to Water in Theory and Practice November, 2008
Every other year, the Oxford Centre for Water Research hosts the Louwes Lecture, where a leading scholar is invited to speak on a topical issue related to the freshwater sector. This year Professor Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Chair of the Department of International Law, at the University of Geneva, presented a paper on 'Freshwater and International Law: Universal and Regional Perspectives'. For more info please visit wesbite: http://ocwr.ouce.ox.ac.uk/louwes/index.php

Social Events

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