Following the precedents of previous international conferences, including those of The Hague of 1899 and 1907, the work of preparing clauses on particular subjects for insertion in the Treaty of Peace with Germany was entrusted by the Conference of Paris to various commissions.

Applying economic theory to the analysis of economic “necessity” defenses in international law is highly desirable and Alan Sykes does a wonderful job in his editorial comment. As I have argued, the application of contract theory to international investment agreements (IIAs) helps us analyze their commitment and flexibility mechanisms. Sykes uses such an optimal contracting approach to address the problem of necessity in IIAs. I concur in broad terms with his conclusion, but I argue for greater contextualization in the application of the argument. Contract theory, although useful as a basic frame to address necessity claims, does not by itself fully encompass the economic analysis of law. Economic theory is diverse and not always unequivocal in its insights. Contract theory, as applied so far to international law, takes the state as a black box and assumes that the state will behave rationally. I will take a look into the box in order to analyze the incentives of different actors involved, including some of the beneficiaries of Iias—foreign investors.

Queer theory's commitments are radical and disruptive. They have operated to interrogate the definition and reinforcement of sexuality and gender categories, and to expose and problematize normalized relations of power and privilege in the institutional structures and systems in which we live and operate. Queer's deconstructive and anti-normative (or non-conformist) tendencies, however, can be antithetical to international LGBTQIA+ law reform projects. In much of queer scholarship, human rights activism is framed as reinforcing heteronormative structures of knowledge and power and promoting fixed ideas of monogamy, social reproductivity, and gender identity. In this essay, I work with the tension between queer theory and the law to frame the continued pursuit of human rights by LGBTQIA+ people as queer jurisprudence. I do so by drawing on the methodological tools provided by Eve Sedgwick's technique of reparative reading and Michel Foucault's ethics of care of the self to focus on the lived experience of LGBTQIA+ people. What emerges through the stories of LGBTQIA+ commitments to human rights and legal activism are not themes of naivety, compliance, or assimilation, as often charged, but ongoing efforts toward disruption, creativity, and hope.

The present legal status of Berlin after the conclusion on September 3, 1971 of the Quadripartite Agreement between France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States can only be understood in terms of its own historical development and the context of the international politics of the 1960s. Although any legal and political analysis of divided Germany and Berlin must take into account a period of history dating back to the 1940s, it is assumed here that the essential facts are sufficiently well known to serve as a background for the following analysis.

The exclusion of transnational human rights litigation from U.S. federal courts is, for most practical purposes, now complete. On April 24, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 5–4 ruling in Jesner v. Arab Bank, deciding that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).

European Communities—Measures Prohibiting the Importation and Marketing of Seal Products is the first case in which the dispute system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has wrestled with a regulation that pursued mul-tiple conflicting, legitimate purposes. (I will explain later why Brazil—Retreaded Tyres is not such a case.) This generates puzzles about applying the definition of a “technical regulation” to complex measures; about whether an exception to a ban can be justified by a purpose different from that of the ban; and about how to apply “less restrictive alternative” analysis to measures with multiple goals. The first of these puzzles is unique to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT); the second and third concern the TBT, the General Agree-ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and probably other agreements.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by shortages and potential shortages of products critical to the public health response. Many nations have responded with export restrictions on these products, restrictions that are permitted under international trade law as a temporary response to short supply conditions generally and to public health emergencies in particular. This Essay argues that such export restrictions are economically counterproductive from a global efficiency perspective, and that governments acting unilaterally will nevertheless employ them due to international externalities that propagate through the “terms of trade.” This observation raises a puzzle as to why international law should facilitate rather than curtail them. The most plausible answer is that legal authority for such measures is a politically necessary “escape clause” in trade agreements, akin to safeguard measures.

International arbitration before Western-based institutions is the dominant mode of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, and the International Court of Arbitration of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce handle the vast majority of the world's international investment disputes. ICSID alone administers over sixty percent of the cases, while the others account for an additional twenty percent. Yet China has begun to innovate in ISDS over the last few years. These innovations have taken three main forms. The first is the extension of the jurisdiction of existing commercial arbitral institutions in China to cover foreign investment disputes. The second is the creation of new Chinese courts to possibly handle contractual investment disputes. The third is the formation of joint arbitration centers with states in regions where China invests heavily, such as Africa. This essay describes these changes and argues that they should be understood as reflecting an important facet of China's broader international strategy. In particular, the recent innovations aim to furnish adequate protection to Chinese investors in foreign countries, particularly developing states; actively shape international discourses on international investment law; and offer alternative, Chinese-initiated institutions that will break the monopoly of the West.

There is widespread interest in the United Nations in fostering international co-operation in outer space for two basic reasons: first, to maximize co-operation between the two major space Powers despite their political differences; and second, to encourage the increased peaceful uses of outer space to benefit all countries irrespective of the stage of their economic or scientific development.

In February of 1984, the National Foreign Investment Commission of Mexico surprised the investment community by announcing that it would apply the Foreign Investment Law of 1973 (FIL) with flexibility and would consider permitting foreign capital investment of up to 100 percent in a significant number of activities. Actually, Mexico had been expected to increase its restriction of foreign investment in view of the Government’s efforts to decrease its economic dependence upon other countries.

International Court of Justice, June 30, 1995.

Portugal submitted an Application instituting proceedings against the Commonwealth of Australia before the International Court of Justice on February 22, 1991. Both Portugal and Australia had made declarations accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court pursuant to Article 36, paragraph 2 of the ICJ Statute. Portugal sought a declaration from the Court that Portugal's status with respect to East Timor and the rights of the people of East Timor to self-determination, territorial integrity and unity, and permanent sovereignty over its wealth and natural resources were opposable to Australia. Portugal also sought a declaration that Australia had incurred international responsibility and had caused damage for which it owed reparation to both the people of East Timor and Portugal. Portugal alleged that Australia had incurred this responsibility mainly by negotiating and concluding—not with Portugal, but with Indonesia—a treaty on December 11, 1989, creating a “Zone of Cooperation” in an area of the undelimited continental shelf between East Timor and northern Australia known as the “Timor Gap.”

On June 15, 1992, the United States Supreme Court confronted what the Permanent Court of International Justice termed in The Lotus to be “the first and foremost restriction imposed by international law upon a State: … that—failing the existence of a permissive rule to the contrary—it may not exercise its power in any form in the territory of another State.” Contrary to popular criticism, the Court did not challenge that proposition. But it did apply, without adequate analysis, an antiquated doctrine that permits a defendant to be tried regardless of the unlawfulness of the seizure. In so doing, it ignored altogether the issue of presidential constitutional power to conduct such seizures. And it placed the issue squarely before Congress.

Once again the attention of students of international law and relations has been directed to the use of propaganda as an offensive weapon of power politics. President Eisenhower, in his historic speech last August before the United Nations, included in his comprehensive plan for the Middle East a proposal for a system of monitoring inflammatory broadcasts.