The self-selection of democracies into treaty design: insights from international environmental agreements

Generally, democratic regime type is positively associated with participating in international environmental agreements. In this context, this study focuses on the legal nature of an agreement, which is linked to audience costs primarily at the domestic level that occur in case of non-compliance and are felt especially by democracies. Eventually, more legalized (“hard-law”) treaties make compliance potentially more challenging and as democratic leaders may anticipate the corresponding audience costs, the likelihood that democracies select themselves into such treaties decreases. The empirical implication of our theory is that environmental agreements with a larger share of democratic members are less likely to be characterized by hard law. Results from quantitative analyses strongly support our argument, shed new light on the relationship between participation in international agreements and the form of government, and also have implications for the “words-deeds” debate in international environmental policy-making.     

仲裁协议有效性的法律适用

国际商事仲裁协议的契约性特点决定了它的准据法选择与普通合同的法律适用有相同之处,然而目前国际社会并不存在完全统一的认定仲裁协议有效性的标准,这给国际经济贸易纠纷的解决带来许多不便。我国在进行涉外仲裁时首先应当考虑适用当事人双方在仲裁协议中共同选择的法律,如无此选择,则应当适用与该仲裁协议有最密切联系的国家的法律来认定该协议的有效性。     

Oral International Agreement and China's Relevant Practice

Oral agreements still exist in international practice today.This paper first discusses the nature of agreements in oralform, then turns to introduce relevant practice of China. Theoretically,oral agreements should be regarded as a kind of treaty, althoughthese were not covered by the 1969 Vienna Convention on theLaw of Treaties. In practice, oral agreements were relativelyrare but still had their peculiar utility. The "Zhou Enlai–KosyginAgreement" was a typical example of oral agreement, which ishelpful for us both in observing oral agreements in practiceand in better understanding the Chinese practice of treaty-making.It shows that the choice of form of agreement depends not onlyon the rules of the law of treaties, but also on the circumstancesof conclusion and other factors.     

Thoughts on the theories and practice of chinese private international law

“The parties can only choose facultative legal norms,” “the parties of all foreign-related civil and commercial cases may agree to choose Chinese law as the applicable law governing their legal relationship,” and “the applicable law to the contract chosen by the parties shall not avoid the mandatory provisions of Chinese law” —such viewpoints that have substantial influence among the theorists and in the judicial practices of Chinese private international law are actually based on misunderstandings of Chinese private international law. It is a task of the private international law community of China to eliminate such misunderstandings, hence facilitating the healthy development of Chinese private international law.     

International legal issues on china’s recourse for cultural relics pillaged overseas: dilemma and way out - take the litigation on the auction of rat head and rabbit head bronze statues for example

Facing the dilemma on the recourse for Chinese cultural relics pillaged overseas, China shall get a clear understanding of the international legal situation, strengthen international communication and promote international compromise. Based on this foundation, China shall take rational, beneficial, and moderate legal actions to uphold and protect national rights. The recourse on the ground of international custom has been deemed as a failure by the view of the majority; the recourse in a foreign court will almost certainly encounter numerous obstacles in law that are very difficult to deal with, and the recourse in a national court will not only achieve the expected goals but also raise considerable disadvantages. If China hopes to retrieve the pillaged cultural relics by means of international treaty, it is necessary for China to conclude special agreements with relative states. The latter shall exercise best efforts to recover the cultural relics and return them to China at the expense of Chinese tax payers. On the other hand, there are two choices available if China hopes to settle the problem through general principles of law: One is to make an agreement with relative states, and the other is to authorize certain international tribunals to adjudicate the case according to the general principles of law. If the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) is chosen, then the relative states can authorize the court to decide the case according to the principle of ex aequo et bono; however, the best way is to conclude an international arbitration agreement and renounce the application of certain general principles of law which might hinder the dispute resolutions. The other choice is to make unilateral legal activities with each other according to relative general principles of law, on condition that certain tacit agreement or understanding had been achieved between relative states. However, whether the above international legal methods can be used for the settlement of the problem, it depends on sufficient negotiation and mutual compromise between China and other relative states; the relative national authorities shall pay more attention to such aspects instead on unilateral declarations or sanctions.     

Party autonomy in the choice of law under Indian and Australian private international law: some reciprocal lessons

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the performance of several contracts and is likely to increase the number of disputes before the courts. In agreements with a foreign element, the adjudication of the rights and liabilities will depend on the applicable law. Most legal systems have embraced the doctrine of party autonomy and, accordingly, permit the parties to expressly select the law to govern the disputes that arise from international contracts. India and Australia are no exception to this trend. In general, the courts in both the commonwealth countries have reported having been influenced by judicial practices of one another to develop their own law. Despite their common law roots, the interpretations attached to the doctrine of party autonomy in the choice of law have varied in some respects in these countries. The paper analyses the judicial trends on the subject and demonstrates the role that party autonomy will play in resolving international disputes where the performance has been affected by the eventualities such as the COVID-19 pandemic in India and Australia. The paper delves into the manner in which the courts in India and Australia may offer reciprocal lessons to each another to revolutionise to interpret the doctrine of party autonomy in the choice of law.     

我国刑法规定国际犯罪的立法模式探讨

国际犯罪分为"国际核心罪行"与"一般国际犯罪",它们源于习惯国际法或者条约国际法,但都被国际公约明确规定.我国缔结、加入了大量规定有国际犯罪的国际公约,而这些公约都要求缔约国通过国内立法对国际犯罪加以规定.因此,在我国全面或者大部分地规定国际犯罪,既是作为条约缔约国的义务,也是防止、有效惩治国际犯罪所必需的措施.鉴于我国的刑事立法特点,我们宜在刑法典中统一规定国际犯罪.即在修改刑法第9条、增加其对国际公约适用灵活性的同时,我们可以将一般国际犯罪根据其侵犯的客体规定于现有各章中,并新增一章"危害人类和平与安全罪"来规定战争罪、种族灭绝和危害人类罪这些国际核心罪行.     

Democratic Incongruities: Representative Democracy in Britain

This essay discusses the rationale guiding legislation dealing exclusively with political parties. The analysis is based on examination of party laws in Austria, Finland, Germany, Israel, Poland, Spain and Venezuela. The manner by which a particular legislature applies the general features of party law‐ legislation (general declaration regarding the role of parties in democracies, definition of parties, registration requirements, the democratic character of association in parties, regulation of party finance, legal sanctions) is demonstrated in reference to the Israeli party law, the most recent case of an established democracy whose legislature passed a parties law in 1992.

Throughout the analysis, the study addresses a question of principle: should a legislature comprised of representatives of political parties undertake to legislate laws regulating the activities of political parties in a democratic parliamentary system? It is suggested that a partial response to this question is found in the fact that, with the exception of Finland and Israel, democratic polities that have chosen to legislate party laws had previously experienced a collapse of their democratic systems. In the process of reforming their democratic structures, the legislatures in these polities enacted parties laws that would ensure that political parties perform functions commensurate With the goals and practices of modern democracies.     

论民事执行和解协议效力的完善

民事执行和解协议是中国特有的一种制度,有利于缓解双方的紧张关系,加快法院判决的履行,实现当事人的权利。基于对法院权威的维护、生效判决既判力的尊重以及程序保障的考虑,我国法律没有赋予民事执行和解协议以强制性效力,这不利于执行债权人权利的保护。为了更好的保护执行债权人的利益,应当根据执行和解协议内容的不同而区别对待,对于履行方式的变更以及为债权的执行提供担保的执行和解协议,可以允许执行债权人通过诉讼的方式赋予其强制执行效力。     

Curbing Consumer Financial Losses: The Economics of Regulatory Enforcement

This article deals with the question of how a high level of compliance with consumer protection legislation designed to prevent financial losses can be secured. We use a theoretical framework based on economic analysis of law to address some of the key policy options, such as proactive and reactive monitoring, providing officials with postdetection enforcement discretion, administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions, and facilitating actions by victims and third parties. On the basis of our theoretical framework and a classification of jurisdictions into different groups (models of enforcement policy), we identify some key elements of an enforcement regime and indicate in what circumstances a particular solution can be expected to be more or less cost effective.     

Toward a General Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in International Law?

Three recent International Court of Justice decisions –Oil Platforms, Avena and Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory– highlight the uncertain status of the margin of appreciationdoctrine in the Court’s jurisprudence. The purpose ofthis article is to evaluate, in the light of contemporary practiceof other courts, the current status under international lawof the margin of appreciation doctrine, which encourages internationalcourts to exercise restraint and flexibility when reviewingthe decisions of national authorities, and to offer preliminaryguidelines for future application. The article also discussesa variety of policy arguments concerning the legitimacy andeffectiveness of international courts, which can be raised insupport of the development of a general margin of appreciationdoctrine with relation to some categories of international lawnorms governing state conduct, and it examines potential criticism.Eventually, it argues that the same considerations which haveled to the creation of ‘margin of appreciation type’doctrines in the domestic law of many states and in the contextof specific international regimes (for instance, the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights) also support the introduction ofthe doctrine into general international law. The position ofthe ICJ towards the application of the doctrine therefore meritsreconsideration.     

WTO Dispute Settlement and the Missing Developing Country Cases: Engaging the Private Sector

The poorest WTO member countries almost universally fail toengage as either complainants or interested third parties informal dispute settlement activity related to their market accessinterests. This paper focuses on costs of the WTO’s extendedlitigation process as an explanation for the potential but ‘missing’developing country engagement. We provide a positive examinationof the current system, and we catalogue and analyze a set ofproposals encouraging the private sector to provide DSU-specificlegal assistance to poor countries. We investigate the roleof legal service centres, non-governmental organizations, developmentorganizations, international trade litigators, economists, consumerorganizations, and law schools to provide poor countries withthe services needed at critical stages of the WTO’s extendedlitigation process. In the absence of systemic rules reform,the public-private partnership model imposes a substantial cooperationburden on such groups as they organize export interests, estimatethe size of improved market access payoffs, prioritize acrosspotential cases, engage domestic governments, prepare legalbriefs, assist in evidentiary discovery, and pursue the publicrelations effort required to induce foreign political compliance.     

The European Union in international environmental negotiations: a legal perspective on the internal decision-making process

From an EU point of view, most international environmental agreements are mixed. This means that both the European Community (EC) and its member states are party to the agreement. As the participation of the EC in international negotiations and agreements is properly arranged by the Treaty establishing the European Community, but the EU member states’ participation is not legally organized on the EU level, the internal decision-making process regarding mixed agreements is rather complicated. Insights into this process are needed to understand the representation and the role of the European Union in international environmental negotiations. This article clarifies the legal framework of the EU decision-making process regarding such negotiations.

从宁波工艺品公司案看我国法院对涉外仲裁协议的监督

国家法院对仲裁协议实施监督的核心问题,就是仲裁协议的效力和仲裁庭管辖权的认定：在仲裁程序开始之前,法院就应当根据另一方当事人的请求,令当事人将协议项下的事项提交仲裁解决,除非法院认定仲裁协议无效、失效,或者不能履行;在仲裁程序开始之后,法院仍然有权根据一方当事人的请求对仲裁协议有效性和仲裁庭的管辖权问题进行审理,法院的此项权力来源于法院地国的国内法;在仲裁程序结束之后,当事人还可以裁决所依据的仲裁协议无效为由,申请法院撤销此根据无效仲裁协议作出的裁决,或者拒绝承认与执行此裁决。但如果当事人在仲裁程序中放弃了对仲裁协议有效性或者仲裁庭的管辖权提出异议的权利,则当事人在裁决作出就不能再以仲裁协议无效或者仲裁庭对仲裁协议项下的争议没有管辖权为由,请求法院撤销或者拒绝执行此仲裁裁决。     

The Legal Status of Three Sino-US Joint Communiques

Many would agree that the Sino–US relations are one ofthe most important bilateral relations in the world today, andthe three communiqués signed by the two governments arethe most significant agreements signed so far in managing theirrelationship. This article attempts to examine these joint communiquésagainst their contents and historical backgrounds, and triesto discern their legal status under both international law andUS domestic law. It concludes that they bear features of treatiesunder international law and should be regarded as legally bindinginstruments on the international plane, and that their statusunder US law seems ambiguous in the absence of any court rulingsup to date.     

An Intentionally Unfair Trial

Numerous flaws made the Dujail trial a violation of the internationallyprotected human right to a fair trial. The United States andthe Iraqi authorities conducted an unfair trial knowing thatboth the Third and Fourth Geneva Convention describe ‘wilfullydepriving’ a person ‘of the rights of fair and regulartrial’ as a war crime. Even if Saddam Hussein was notto be regarded as a prisoner of war, that is, merely as a civilian,in any case his right to fair trial was protected by internationallaw. According to the author, both the relevant states and theindividuals involved in the unfair Dujail trial bear responsibilityfor breaches of international law.     

The Proprietary Foundations of Corporate Law

Recent work in both the theory of the firm and of corporatelaw has called into question the appropriateness of analysingcorporate law as ‘merely’ a set of standard formcontracts. This article develops these ideas by focusing onproperty law's role in underpinning corporate enterprise. Rightsto control assets are a significant mechanism of governancein the firm. However, their use in this way predicates somearrangement for stipulating which parties will have controlunder which circumstances. It is argued that ‘propertyrules’—a category whose scope is determined functionally—protectthe entitlements of parties to such sharing arrangements againsteach other's opportunistic attempts to grant conflicting entitlementsto third parties. At the same time, the legal system uses arange of strategies to minimize the costs such protection imposeson third parties. The choice of strategy significantly affectsco-owners’ freedom to customize their control-sharingarrangements. This theory is applied to give an account of the‘proprietary foundations’ of corporate law, whichhas significant implications for the way in which the subject'sfunctions are understood and evaluated.     

Multilevel Judicial Governance of International Trade Requires a Common Conception of Rule of Law and Justice

Since the establishment of the Permanent Court of InternationalJustice in 1922, governments have consented to, and activelyused, an ever larger number of international and transnationalcourts, quasi-judicial dispute settlement bodies and ad hocarbitral tribunals for the settlement of disputes over the interpretationand application of rules of international law. Such judicialclarification of disputed interpretations of incomplete, intergovernmentalagreements reduces not only the negotiation costs of governmentsby delegating the clarification of contested facts and legalclaims to independent third-party adjudication. Judicial decision-makingat intergovernmental, transnational, national and private levelsalso supplements rule-making and offers citizens judicial remediesfor defending their rights and interests. Modern internationaleconomic law increasingly complements intergovernmental, legislative,and administrative governance by multilevel ‘judicialgovernance’ so as to protect rule of law more effectivelyfor the benefit of citizens (Section I). This contribution criticizesthe one-sidedly power-oriented perceptions of WTO law as ‘internationallaw among states’ (Section II) and the related perceptionsof international judges as dependent agents of states (Section III).Civil society, parliaments and democratic governments shouldencourage national and international judges to cooperate intheir legal task of interpreting citizen-oriented internationaleconomic law ‘in conformity with principles of justiceand international law’, as explicitly prescribed in theVienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). The legal coherenceof multilevel judicial governance depends on protecting principlesof procedural as well as substantive justice and a common conceptionof ‘rule of law’ not only in intergovernmental relationsamong states, but also vis-à-vis their citizens engagedin, and benefiting from, international trade (Sections IV–VIII).     

Border carbon adjustments, WTO-law and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities

This paper considers unilateral border measures, as contemplated by a number of developed states in conjunction with domestic emissions reduction schemes, as they relate to international trade and international environmental law. Specifically, I argue that to the extent that WTO-compliance requires strict adherence to the principle of nondiscrimination, as embodied in the national treatment and most-favored nation provisions in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, there is the potential for conflict with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), both as a free-standing principle of customary international law and as set out in various multilateral environmental agreements and, in particular in the climate change context, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. This is insofar as the unilateral imposition of BCAs by developed countries shifts costs of compliance with environmental legislation in developed economies onto the developing world. Such allocation may conflict with the principle of CBDR, which recognizes the unequal contribution to environmental degradation of developed countries as well as their enhanced ability to address the challenges presented by such degradation and, as a consequence, requires that they undertake more onerous obligations with respect to climate change mitigation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the extent to which this conflict is illustrative of a deeper tension between efficiency and equity considerations inherent in the intersection of international economic law and international environmental law.     

Introducing Value Chain Stewardship (VCS)

After a decade of international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a sufficient number of countries have ratified the Kyoto agreement. However, even with this positive development there is a formidable challenge since, according to the World Resource Institute (WRI 2004), For the most part, developed nations have failed to attain the non-binding emission reductions they committed to in the original climate treaty in 1992. Ensuring adherence to the reductions stated in the treaty by these nations may become an immense managerial task, not to mention the enforcement of sanctions. Instead of national emission targets the approach of this paper is to focus on trade within selected industry sectors – i.e. housing and transport – responsible for most of the world’s GHG emissions. This paper shows that vehicle manufacturers – the design owners – may use their information advantages to influence customers to focus on other aspects of the vehicle than costs during use. Expanding the environmental responsibility of the design owners to coincide with the area of environmental impacts will convert emissions cost into a production cost. It is indicated in this paper that when applying the estimated costs for GHG emissions to the vehicle user, strong enough incentives are not given to drive technological change, but if the responsibility is allocated to the design owner the very same additional costs will be an incentive for the designer to use its information advantage to innovate away from those emissions-rendering technologies. A value chain stewardship (VCS) is, thus, established.