This article examines whether mass deforestation could be prosecuted as a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute. It does so in respect of the situation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon in 2019–2021, where the unbridled exploitation and destruction of the rainforest had a disastrous impact at local, regional and global levels. The article covers three main aspects. First, it explores the existing limits of international criminal law for prosecuting mass deforestation as a crime against humanity, and the contours within which criminalization would be possible. Secondly, it discusses the challenges inherent in the anthropocentric nature of the chapeau requirement of Article 7 for the criminalization of mass deforestation under that provision. Thirdly, it analyses the extent to which mass deforestation could qualify as persecution and/or an ‘other inhumane act’ under Articles 7(1)(h) and (k) of the Rome Statute.

Binding taxpayer-initiated international dispute resolution has traditionally played a minor role in the international tax system. Despite being long pursued by corporate interests and increasingly accepted by developed countries, international tax arbitration has remained less developed and less respectful of private interests than investor–State arbitration. The binding multilateral dispute settlement endorsed by over 130 countries as part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Two Pillar Solution to issues raised under Action 1 of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project marks a change and is noteworthy at a time when some States are reconsidering their consent to the international adjudication of trade and investment disputes. The design of international dispute settlement in the Two Pillar Solution, and the focus on the protection of multinationals from juridical double taxation, displays little appreciation of the experience with dispute settlement in international trade and investment over the past two decades.

Given recent data regarding fishing vessels switching off their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) in the Western Indian Ocean, this article assesses the potential illegality of the practice by analysing national and international legislation. It shows that the enforcement of AIS laws is generally poor, and although these are becoming increasingly robust in some jurisdictions, the sanctions are not severe enough to act as deterrents. Furthermore, this article suggests that the insurance industry enables the practice of switching off AIS through weak due diligence practices. Insurers have a role to play in curbing such illegal behaviour, and it is not discretionary.

Data protection law has emerged as an important bulwark against online privacy intrusions, and yet its status within privacy law remains awkward. Its starting point of protecting ‘personal’ rather than ‘private’ information puts it at odds with privacy more generally. Indeed, in its very design, data protection law caters for the protection of public personal information, or personal information which has attained a degree of publicness through disclosure. Building on James Whitman's comparative privacy study, this article argues that data protection law is not the odd bedfellow of privacy law properly so called but may be understood as a manifestation of the Continental European culture of privacy. Its distinctiveness does not lie in its apparent technicality but in its robust openness to privacy in public—an idea that is alien to the Anglo-American culture of privacy. Whilst these two cultures of privacy have long ‘met’ in different jurisdictions, this article locates their enduring influence and antagonism within three contemporary privacy regimes. By taking the right to be forgotten, as an archetypal privacy-in-public right, in the testing context of spent criminal convictions, the article gauges the comparative openness to such claims, first, of the Court of Justice of the European Union as the authoritative voice on General Data Protection Regulation normativity; secondly, of the US judiciary as committed to the First and Fourth Amendment; and, thirdly, of the European Court of Human Rights on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and its fused Anglo-American and Continental European privacy jurisprudence. It is the latter jurisprudence in particular that highlights the tensions arising from trying to marry the two privacy traditions, or merge data protection and ‘privacy’ law. Yet, these tensions also offer insights and opportunities.

The health of the planet and its life forms are under threat from anthropogenic climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, and the extreme weather events, heatwaves and wildfires that accompany them. The burgeoning field of planetary health studies the interplay between humanity and the Earth's biosphere and ecosystems on which human health depends. Scholarship on law from a planetary health vantage point remains scarce. This article fills this gap by delineating the conceptual building blocks of a planetary health law, which, in its latent form, is dispersed across various hard and soft sources of international environmental law and global health law that converge on the right to a healthy environment, and, to a lesser extent, rights of nature emerging in various domestic jurisdictions. It elucidates how the fragmented regimes of international environmental and global health law could be developed in more coherent ways, driven by an overarching concern for the integrity of the planetary foundations of life.

In June 2022, the International Labour Organization (ILO) decided to amend the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in order to include the right to a safe and healthy working environment among the core labour rights to which member States are committed by virtue of their membership. The amendment marks the successful completion of three years of negotiations initiated in response to the 2019 Centenary Declaration by which the ILO's tripartite constituency recognized that safe and healthy working conditions were fundamental to decent work. Adding occupational safety and health as a fifth pillar to the 1998 Declaration was generally welcomed as a commendable development although critics may still assert that as a soft law instrument the amended Declaration may not have decisive impact on workplace safety and health globally. Despite broad agreement about the timeliness and importance of recognizing occupational safety and health as a fundamental workers’ right—especially in light of the pandemic experience—concerns were raised about the possible implications of the amended Declaration on existing trade agreements, and in particular whether it would create, directly or indirectly, new obligations for member States. This article looks into the origins and negotiating history of the amendment to the 1998 Declaration and addresses the scope and legal effect of a saving clause by which the Conference sought to ensure that the amended Declaration would not impact obligations and commitments of States set out in labour provisions of free trade agreements currently in force and would not be subject to dynamic interpretation in the context of a trade dispute.

This article explores the meaning of solidarity in European Union (EU) law in the context of the energy sector and the ongoing energy crisis. Energy provides a powerful and topical sectoral example of the fundamental role and diverse functions of solidarity in EU law. In its OPAL ruling in 2021, the Court of Justice of the EU established that energy solidarity constitutes a legally binding principle of EU energy law that should inform EU institutions and the Member States in their energy decisions. This article adds to legal scholarship on solidarity in three ways. First, it further develops the understanding of the ambiguous solidarity concept in EU law through the lens of the energy sector. Secondly, it contributes to the emerging body of energy law scholarship that seeks to advance the discipline of energy law by focusing on its doctrine rather than on its substantive developments. Finally, it provides a timely and novel analysis of the EU's recent emergency responses to address the acute energy crisis from the point of view of solidarity.

This article presents the first feminist doctrinal textual analysis of cross-pillar synergies within thematic resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Specifically, it examines the pillars relating to ‘participation’ and ‘protection’ under the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. In attempts to balance agency with victimhood, normative advancement of both pillars has until recently evolved along parallel tracks, with little acknowledgment of how protection relates to women's participation. This article identifies synergies, gaps and productive tensions as the WPS agenda begins to engage with the inter-relationship between the pillars. It outlines critical implications and considerations for any future moves towards cross-pillar congruence.

Courts and scholars have interpreted open-ended legal norms as imposing due diligence obligations on States and other entities to mitigate climate change. These obligations can be applied in two alternative ways: through holistic decisions, where courts determine the level of mitigation action required of defendants; or through atomistic decisions, where courts identify some of the measures that the defendant must take. This article shows that, whilst most holistic cases fail on jurisdictional grounds, atomistic cases frequently succeed. Overall, it is argued that atomistic litigation strategies provide more realistic and effective ways for plaintiffs to prompt enhanced mitigation action.

This article explores the doctrine of separability, as understood in particular in the English legal tradition. It does so by reference to the decisions in Sulamérica Cia Nacional de Seguros SA and others v Enesa Engelharia SA and others and ENKA İnşaat ve Sanayi A.Ş. v OOO ‘Insurance Company Chubb’ & Ors that explore the relevance of the concept when determining the law applicable to the arbitration agreement. These decisions largely treat the doctrine as irrelevant to the determination of the law governing the arbitration agreement. They do so because of the way in which English law views separability as tied inimically to the concept of enforcement of the arbitration agreement. This is unsurprising given the content of section 7 of the Arbitration Act 1996 and the position of the doctrine of separability as a legal fiction that must be restricted to its defined purpose. Viewed against the potential reform of the Arbitration Act 1996, the author asks whether a broader view of separability can be adopted. The author's view is that there are cogent and compelling reasons for adopting a broader view, that would promote certainty and consistency in a way that is not best served by the current approach.

The traditional effective control test for determining the existence of a belligerent occupation requires boots on the ground. However, the evolution of the international law of occupation and the emergence of complex situations, particularly of a technological nature, necessitate a functional approach that protects the rights of occupied populations. The political, historical and geographical conditions of Gaza allow Israel to exert effective remote control. Despite the disengagement of Israel from Gaza in 2005 and the assumption of military and political authority by Hamas, this article argues that Israel nonetheless continues to be in effective occupation of the Gaza Strip on the basis of the following grounds: (1) the relatively small size of Gaza in connection with the technological superiority of the Israeli air force allows Israeli boots to be present in Gaza within a reasonable response time; (2) Hamas's authority and armed resistance do not impede the status of occupation; (3) the long pre-disengagement occupation and close proximity between Israel and Gaza (geography) allow for the remote exercise of effective control; and (4) all imports, exports in and out of Gaza, and any movement of persons are fully controlled and regulated by Israel.

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 deprived women and girls of their fundamental rights. The Taliban denied or severely restricted women and girls’ rights to education, work, healthcare, freedom of movement, opinion and expression, and to protection from gender-based violence. This article argues that the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women and girls amounts to persecution, and all Afghan women and girls should be recognised as refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention. The article further examines the feasibility of prima facie recognition for Afghan women and girls.

Recent case law has evidenced doctrinal ambiguity concerning whether State immunity precludes domestic courts’ jurisdiction when rights and interests of third-party States may be affected. This article posits that such confusion arises from a failure to recognize State immunity as a rule predicated on the sovereign status of the defendant. Through an analysis of State practice, the article contends that the concept of indirect impleading incorporated in the United Nations Convention on State Immunity does not challenge the status-based nature of this rule. Construing State immunity as a subject-matter rule erroneously conflates it with distinct doctrines, such as Monetary Gold and the act of State doctrine.

This article explores the concept of consideration in contract law from a comparative perspective, looking at how English law and German law distinguish bargains from gifts. Contrary to the orthodoxy that consideration is unique to Common Law and absent from Civil Law, the bidirectional analysis in this article shows how English law and German law can be understood to fulfil a comparable function and can thus inform and benefit each other. The sophisticated English doctrine can be used to refine the rather imprecise German definition of gifts, whilst the understanding of English authorities can profit from reflecting inversely on the criterion of gratuitousness in German law.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, numerous Western States have supplied Ukraine with arms, munitions and war material, in ostensible breach of their obligations as neutral, non-participating States. States have failed to provide any legal explanation for such transfers, leaving the task to scholars and commentators to provide legal argumentation as to the compatibility of arms transfers to victims of aggression with neutral duties. This article analyses and seeks to evaluate these arguments in favour of ‘qualified neutrality’ and assess which of the proposed grounds, if any, are the most compelling.

The discussion on Taiwan's status under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has picked up steam. After providing some historical background, it is argued that neither doctrinal nor policy arguments can support the application of the Convention to Taiwanese parties. Drawing on case law in the context of other uniform law treaties, the article concludes that the approbation of the CISG by the People's Republic of China should not bind Taiwan and that, as a consequence, Taiwanese parties should be treated as parties from non-Contracting States.