The almost two decade-long bonanza of civil litigation concerning gross human rights violations committed by corporations under the US Alien Tort Statute 1789 was scaled back by the US Supreme Court in Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum in April 2013. The court restricted the territorial reach of human rights claims against transnational corporations by holding that the presumption against extra-territoriality applied to the Act. Thus Shell, the Dutch/British defendant, and the role it played in the brutal suppression by the Nigerian military of the Ogoni peoples' protest movement against the environmental devastation caused by oil exploration, lay outside the territorial scope of the Act. Legal accountability must lie in a State with a stronger connection with the dispute. While this article briefly engages with the Supreme Court decision, its main focus is on the attitude of Western governments to the corporate human rights litigation under the ATS as articulated in their amicus briefs. In these briefs they objected to the statute's excessive extraterritoriality and horizontal application of human rights to artificial non-State actors. In these two respects corporate ATS litigation created significant inroads into the conventional State-centric approach to human rights and thus provided an opportunity for more effective human rights enjoyment. This article tests the validity of the objections of Western governments to corporate human rights obligations under the ATS against the norms of public international law and against the substantive demands arising out of the shortfalls of the international human rights enforcement.

There is a large gap between the proportion of employed and well-educated women and those sitting on the boards of EU companies. However, the Commission's proposal for a Directive on improving the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges does not constitute an appropriate legal solution for this problem. The Commission's reasoning underlying the draft Directive is so strongly pervaded by economic considerations that it gives the impression that women are merely instruments useful to attain economic objectives. By contrast, the need for enhancing women's representation in the boards of companies is justified by much more fundamental and incomparably higher-ranked values, and including equality between women and men and the need for democratic legitimization of the EU and of its economic governance. These fundamental values, however, must be achieved in accordance with the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity. The present article proposes some alternatives to compulsory gender quotas that might be used by EU institutions to promote more gender-balanced boards of EU companies.

After the Lisbon Treaty, the objectives of the European Union are more numerous and ambitious than ever. But what is their importance and function within the ‘thickening’ legal order of the EU? Combining insights from both the law of international organizations and comparative constitutional law, the article traces the diverging role of objectives for, on the one hand, a traditional international organization marked by the principle of ‘speciality’ and, on the other, a maturing legal order increasingly exhibiting ‘constitutional’ traits. It argues that in the case of the EU, objectives and competences have developed into two related but distinct norm categories. While objectives serve to bolster arguments to shape such powers, they no longer represent a rationale in their own right for founding competences. The EU no longer justifies its existence solely by striving for a particular set of goals. Rather, these norms represent an entrenched duty to pursue these objectives through the actors, structures and procedures available, regardless of the Union's ultimate form (finalité). Today, the EU stands for certain values and has been endowed with powers, the exercise of which is guided by promoting these various aspects of the ‘common good’.

Melding the power of the state with the power of capitalism, state-owned and state-controlled enterprises continue to control the commanding heights of the Chinese economy even though market-oriented reforms have led to a rapid expansion of the private sector in China. This article reflects on how China's practice of state capitalism challenges the world trading system and how WTO law, as interpreted by WTO Panels and the WTO Appellate Body (AB), addresses these challenges. The article concludes that the WTO Agreement on Subsides and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) has been interpreted in such a manner that many key features of China's state capitalism could easily be challenged by its trading partners in a WTO-consistent manner. This finding has profound implications for China's domestic economic reforms, especially China's ongoing reforms of its state-owned enterprises and commercial banks.

This article examines the effect of choice of law agreements on the courts’ exercise of jurisdiction. In particular, it considers whether English courts ought to exercise jurisdiction to uphold choice of law agreements that would otherwise be defeated in a competing forum. Two reasons have been advanced in support of this approach: that courts should prioritize the choice of law rules of the forum; and that the parties should be held to their agreement on the applicable law. This article argues that neither of these reasons is justifiable in principle.

The common law rules for recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments were radically reformulated by the Canadian Supreme Court in Beals v Saldanha. Few other common law jurisdictions have considered whether or not to follow Canada in this development in private International Law. In 2012, the Irish Supreme Court definitively rejected the Canadian approach. This note examines the judgment in that case, and assesses the reasoning of the Irish Court.

EU Financial responsibility resulting from investor-state arbitration is a politically sensitive topic that is currently shaping the emerging European international investment policy. What level of protection can foreign investors be granted in future EU investment treaties without compromising EU ‘policy space’? How much review of its regulatory powers by arbitral tribunals, rather than by the CJEU, is the EU willing to accept? Taking the Commission's recent draft Regulation on managing financial responsibility as the starting point, this article analyses the implications that future EU investment agreements may have for the existing safeguards balancing private and public interests in EU law. It discusses the different policy choices in the light of fears that investment treaties may affect the EU policy space. A more scientific and sustainable approach is then suggested for ensuring that future EU agreements provide sufficient clarity regarding the outer bounds of financial responsibility and criteria for liability with the aim of maximizing legal certainty for both investors and host states.

The jurisdictional reach of causes of action brought under the Alien Tort Statute 17891 (ATS) was considered by the Supreme Court of the United States in Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum.2 The claimants in this decision sought to bring an action before a US District Court asserting universal civil jurisdiction over the conduct of foreign corporations performed against non-US nationals in the territory of a foreign State. Although the Supreme Court dismissed the particular claim on the basis of a domestic canon of statutory interpretation (the presumption against extraterritoriality), the narrowness of its reasoning left open the possibility for actions to continue being brought under the ATS which assert universal civil jurisdiction over the harm caused by individuals rather than corporations. Moreover, this position was specifically endorsed by a four-member minority of the Supreme Court in the Concurring Opinion of Justice Breyer. This paper argues that the reasoning of Justice Breyer is unconvincing and goes on to suggest that assertions of civil jurisdiction made under the universal principle are unlawful in international law as they fail to find a legal basis in either customary or conventional international law.

The Warsaw conference, 2013, marked the halfway point from the Durban conference, 2011, that launched negotiations towards a 2015 climate agreement and the Paris conference, 2015, slated as the deadline for these negotiations. As such, the Warsaw conference needed to register a step change in the process—from the airing of differences to negotiating them. It also needed to create the conditions necessary to reach agreement in 2015. This article analyses the outcome of the Warsaw negotiations with a view to determining the extent to which it paves the way for a 2015 climate agreement. In particular, this article explores the divisions over, prospects for and contours of a likely 2015 agreement. The 2015 agreement is likely to be shaped by the resolution Parties arrive at on three overarching issues. These are: architecture—whether the agreement will be ‘top-down’ (prescriptive) or ‘bottom-up’ (facilitative) or a hybrid version of the two; differentiation—the nature and extent of it, and in particular whether it will eschew or replicate the Kyoto model of differentiation and related vision of equity; and legal form—whether the 2015 agreement will be legally binding, and if yes, as is likely, which elements of the 2015 package will be in the legally binding instrument and which elements will be in non-binding complementary decisions. The Warsaw outcome will therefore be analysed with a view to providing insights into the likely architecture and legal form of as well as treatment of differentiation and equity in the 2015 agreement.

In Figueiredo Ferraz v Peru the US Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, deployed the doctrine of forum non conveniens to decline to enforce an arbitral award against Peru. The award had been rendered in Peru and the successful party in the arbitration sought to enforce it against Peru's assets in New York. This article argues that, contrary to the Second Circuit's approach, when the merits of a dispute are decided in an arbitration seated in one jurisdiction and the arbitral award is then presented to a court in another jurisdiction for enforcement against the award debtor and its assets within the jurisdiction of that court, neither forum non conveniens nor any rule performing the same function should arise.

Eweida and others considered the claims of four religious individuals whose employers had rejected their requests for accommodation of their religious practices at work, and who had failed in their attempts to contest those decisions before English courts. However, as a judgment it speaks to a wider array of questions of principle, particularly the appropriate interpretation of Article 9 claims. The case provided the ECtHR with an opportunity to clarify a number of discrete doctrines and interpretative approaches within Article 9 jurisprudence, and the Court decided to use this occasion to elucidate the issues raised by the applicants' cases.

The Nord Stream project, which comprises two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, eminently illustrates several of the ambiguities that pertain to the ability of coastal States to regulate the laying and operation of transit pipelines in their exclusive economic zone and, conversely, the extent of the right of other States to carry out such activities. A highly significant issue is how seabed surveys undertaken in preparation for the laying of pipelines should be characterized, and thus regulated, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. What is to be considered a ‘reasonable measure’ by a coastal State is another crucial issue which, together with the extent of the requirement for consent by the coastal State for any specific pipeline route, are decisive for defining the balance between potentially competing interests relating to submarine transit pipelines.

How should one balance the freedom of expression and the prevention of violence? This article delves into the grey zone between hate speech and incitement to violence by assessing the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in cases of allegedly dangerous speech. Rather than labelling this case law as simplistic, as some critics even within the Court have done, it is shown that the jurisprudence reveals cleavages within the Court on whether to adopt a more or less consequentialist approach on the links between speech and violence. Freedom of expression cases should preferably be assessed on the merits under Article 10 ECHR since this allows for a balancing of the various interests involved. The application of the abuse of rights clause of Article 17 ECHR is for that very reason undesirable, in addition to its inconsistent use by the Court.

This article examines the recent development of mainland Chinese law and judicial practice regarding the law applicable to arbitration agreements. It identifies potential changes to mainland Chinese law and practice that may help to further develop the People's Republic of China (PRC) into a truly international-arbitration-friendly jurisdiction. It argues that in the absence of explicit statutory provisions and a consistent approach in the People's Courts to the determination of the place of arbitration and the law applicable to arbitration agreements, it is important for parties negotiating arbitration clauses with a seat in China and/or for contracts involving mainland Chinese elements to explicitly designate the place of arbitration as well as the law governing their arbitration agreements.

Following the enactment of the 2009 Tort Liability Law the product liability system in China is largely complete. This article sketches the development of this system before outlining some of the main substantive provisions in force today and drawing comparisons between the Chinese approach and the US and European provisions. The Article will conclude that China's product liability system provides an interesting case study which enriches the study of global trends and norms in the product liability arena. In line with many other countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, the main influence on China has been the EC Directive rather than the US model.