Asset recovery is a fundamental principle of anti-corruption law, without which the financial damage from corruption cannot be repaired. Yet recovering assets is notoriously difficult and time-consuming, and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption provides little technical or institutional support to facilitate such returns. To remedy this, we propose the creation of a transnational asset recovery mechanism that could provide myriad services to states upon request, including gathering and publishing information, providing technical assistance and capacity building, helping to conclude agreements on asset return, and monitoring returned funds. Theoretically, we introduce the concepts of customizability and selectability to explain why a flexible transnational asset recovery mechanism has advantages over more formal international institutions, such as an international anti-corruption court. These benefits include lower financial and political costs, enhanced adaptability, and a greater likelihood of enhancing interstate cooperation regarding asset returns.

In the recent theoretical scholarship on sovereignty, it has become commonplace to encounter the numerous ways in which state sovereignty has been quietly “outsourced” and “pooled” with other agents and institutions, especially international institutions aimed at promoting global governance and commerce. Frédéric Mégret's fascinating article, which contributes to this growing body of scholarship, adds an important twist to this literature, by focusing specifically on the privatization of state sovereignty—that is, how various sovereign functions, once thought to be essential or “inherent” to statehood, have now been outsourced and handed over to private actors. While Mégret's analysis concerns the consequences of privatized sovereignty on modern public international law, there is a rich pre-modern legal history anticipating the conceptual and normative problems explored in this piece. This essay focuses on some of those early modern sources, especially the theory of Jean Bodin (c.1530–1596), which bear a striking resemblance to Mégret's analysis. Like Mégret, Bodin, the preeminent theorist of state sovereignty, approached the concept of sovereignty by focusing on those qualities that were regarded to be exclusive.

The European Union (EU) recently proposed the introduction of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) and suddenly transformed into reality an almost two decade-long debate over the hypothetical use of CBAMs as antidotes to uneven carbon prices. The European Commission presented the scheme as a climate measure aimed at reducing the risk of carbon leakage for energy intensive and trade-exposed industries facing the cost of increased climate ambition.1 At the same time, however, it listed the mechanism among the instruments that support a “competitive [green] transition” for EU businesses in the context of the new industrial strategy supporting the EU Green Deal.2 This ambiguity risks undermining the credibility of the scheme as a legitimate climate response unless it can be shown that the equalization of carbon costs (i.e., the fair competition/industrial component) is instrumental to achieving higher emission reduction levels than could have been achieved otherwise (i.e., the carbon leakage/climate component). While the exact balance between climate- and industrial-informed features is ultimately an issue of design, this essay argues that making the scheme (as) compatible (as possible) with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) improves its environmental effectiveness and accordingly contributes to reconciling the CBAM with its stated climate purpose.

The rapid proliferation of international institutions has been a defining feature of the postwar international architecture. Since the end of the Second World War, the international system has seen the creation of thousands of international treaties and organizations that have established rules governing a multitude of issues that range from international security to human rights, and from international trade to the environment.

On October 6, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its judgment in Commission v. Hungary. It found that Hungary had violated the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), as well as internal European Union law—specifically the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter). The case arose out of Hungary's 2017 amendment to its higher education law. The amendment imposed two novel requirements on foreign universities operating in Hungary. It barred any non-EU university from operating unless its country of origin concluded a specific enabling treaty with Hungary. Moreover, it required that the foreign university actually provide educational services in its country of origin. While framed in general terms, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the 2017 amendment was aimed at ending the operations of the Central European University (CEU) in Hungary.

The crime of aggression requires that the perpetrator be in a position effectively to exercise control over—or to direct—the political or military action of a state. This requirement, called the “leadership clause,” has led to the view that private individuals are excluded from criminal responsibility because they lack the necessary authority over the state policy. In this Essay, I argue against this dominant view and outline an analytical framework for criminal complicity in a war of aggression.

The UN General Assembly and the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) have expressed concerns about the pollution of the sea by plastics, which adversely impacts ecosystems, some economic activities (e.g., tourism and fishing), and possibly public health (e.g., consumption of contaminated fish). In December 2017, the UNEA decided to establish the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Expert Group on Marine Litter and Microplastics to examine ways to combat marine plastic pollution. The group met three times in 2018 and 2019, and at least two more meetings are planned. Among potential responses to the issue of marine pollution, the group briefly considered—but eventually dismissed—the possibility of creating a liability or compensation regime. This essay evaluates the prospects for such a regime. As the essay will show, compensation faces significant conceptual problems, not the least of which is the absence of an obvious recipient. However, some form of liability could be imposed on corporations that produce plastic, or on states that fail to regulate them. Such a liability regime, even without financial compensation, could foster the prevention of further marine plastic pollution.

There is general international acceptance at the present time of many limitations placed on the conduct of the forces of states engaged in armed conflict. It is generally agreed, for example, that prisoners of war must be treated humanely; that wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces must receive special attention; and that the position of noncombatants and persons in occupied territory must be safeguarded. Limitations on the use of gases and submarines, among others, have been widely accepted. The rules are recognized as binding even in the event of an illegal war and are accepted, at least to some extent, even by nations and groups not parties to the treaties and conventions which have sought to set forth general limitations.

In 1900, by the opening of the Chicago drainage canal, there was provided a watercourse for the disposal of sewage and for navigation from Lake Michigan by way of the Chicago River to the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. Entailing as it did the reversal of the flow of the Chicago River, this, from the engineering standpoint, has been hailed as a great achievement. The large abstraction of water from Lake Michigan through the canal, however, had its effect in a lowering of levels in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River with consequent injury to navigation. This brought about constant opposition to the canal from the Federal Government and from Canada. Thus the Sanitary District of Chicago has been involved in a host of legal difficulties and put to much expense in adjusting its plant to the demands of the United States Government. The diversion in the meantime has been a constant source of ill-feeling towards the United States on the part of Canada and at present, although under federal control, offers an obstacle to the further development of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence waterways.

On March 18, 2015, an arbitral tribunal (Tribunal) constituted in accordance with Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Convention) under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration handed down its award in a proceeding brought by Mauritius in 2010 challenging the United Kingdom’s establishment of a marine protected area (MPA) around the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, which are claimed by Mauritius. The Tribunal held that it did not have jurisdiction under the Convention to address whether the United Kingdom or Mauritius has the rights of a coastal state regarding the Chagos Islands. Nevertheless, the Tribunal also held that, in creating the MPA by unilateral declaration, the United Kingdom had failed to take into account certain legitimate interests of Mauritius and had thereby breached its obligations under Articles 2(3), 56(2), and 194(4) of the Convention.

Substantial efforts have been made since the close of World War II to transfer resources directly from the richer to the poorer countries in order to foster economic development. There have been multilateral lending agencies such as the International Bank for Eeconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Development Association, the new Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations’ Special Fund; bilateral American programs such as the lending and granting activities of the Export-Import Bank and the various AID programs; bilateral foreign programs such as the French and British loan and grant programs to their respective former colonial territories (and the few which remain under formal political tutelage), the Japanese loan and grant programs in the form of reparations and successor programs, the German loan program (largely in the form of short to mediumterm export credits); and loose co-ordinating or aid-policy discussion centers such as the Colombo Plan and the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.