In the parable, The Emperor Has No Clothes, an emperor walks naked through a public procession, assured by his own pride and vain advisors that he was wearing a magnificent robe visible only to the smart and worthy. Like the emperor, governments imagine that they have cloaked international economic law in a new “worker-centered” trade policy. This essay explains how their efforts have merely exposed the deficits in international economic law. They have failed to account for asymmetries between capital and labor and hierarchies between sectors of workers. They also exclude the voices of the world's most vulnerable workers—particularly those who do not benefit from union representation or job formality. The essay proposes that if policymakers intend to give workers an authentic voice and bargaining power, they must critically examine international economic law's very corpus.

This essay seeks to show how racialized histories of global political economy have shaped core issues in international economic law. The essay begins by noting challenges to framing the topic of racialized “others,” and then turns to the case study of cotton, showing how U.S. domestic production subsidies—long a focal point of international trade law in both formal dispute settlement and agreement negotiations—have affected persons of African heritage in the United States and internationally. The essay concludes by considering the U.S. and international contexts more generally, both to demonstrate where integral structural biases are at play, and to locate areas of contingency and change.

Most trade scholars treat agriculture as a commodity, and in a sense, agriculture workers and their technological replacements as commodities as well. From a food sovereignty perspective, however, agriculture is part of a food system and what is at stake in trade law is people's way of life. Peasants' and Indigenous peoples’ (and workers’) resistance against the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been an existential struggle. Most trade law scholars, with notable exceptions, have ignored social movements’ demands, including their call to end the WTO. By in effect disregarding the costs and violence of the existing trade system against food producers, trade scholarship makes social movements’ language and political demands less cognizable in international law. In this essay, I provide some context and language that may encourage trade law scholars to engage with the food sovereignty movement. I first explain what is at stake in trade law for the food sovereignty movements. I then briefly describe the underlying three pillars supporting the Agreement on Agriculture, and highlight the limits of trade law. I conclude by offering three principles—dignity, self-sufficiency, and solidarity—that could open trade law to wider perspectives. These principles blur the line between trade and the right to food in order to ensure that neither one is dominant nor an “other.”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought on unspeakable suffering. It has already injured and killed scores of people. It has displaced millions who now face an uncertain future. It raises the specter of all-out cyber war that threatens to draw other countries into the conflict. It is raging not only on the ground in Ukraine, but also on internet platforms where disinformation has spread. It tests the resilience of international partnerships and alliances. Beyond these immediate implications, the Russian attack on Ukraine also violates the prohibition on aggressive use of force, a foundational principle of the post-World War II international order. Facing these alarming prospects, many are pessimistic about what the war in Ukraine may portend for the future of international law and international relations. Surprisingly, however, some of the bleakest predictions have not yet been realized. Quite the contrary. We argue that there is a lot to be optimistic about when it comes to the role of international law, partnerships and norms in this conflict.

In 1970, Thomas Franck asked a rhetorical question of enduring significance: Who Killed Article 2(4)? The reference is to the provision of the United Nations Charter that requires all member states to refrain “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Vladimir Putin's gambit in Ukraine, conducted with the rhetorical purpose of eliminating the country as an independent state, is the latest in a series of events that periodically cause analysts to bemoan the end of the post-World War II international order. Will this time be different? Will it mark a definitive change in international law? This short essay will argue that, bloody as the Ukraine conflict has been, the immediate response has been to reinforce rather than reject traditional norms about sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time, the invasion and other states’ reaction to it illustrate both the character of, and limits to, authoritarian use of international law.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered an unprecedented wave of sanctions targeting every facet of the Russian economy. In the early months of the conflict, the sheer scope, speed, and coordination of this response to Russia's aggression instills hope that economic pressure may yet play a decisive role in this conflict. But the massive scale of the effort is also cause for concern. In particular, it highlights the relative lack of legal constraints governing economic warfare, even in the face of potentially grave harms to third parties and the global economy. While these concerns have provoked no shortage of proposals for reform, the fragmented institutional landscape and a lack of political will are likely to frustrate any attempts at far-reaching transformation.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has exposed the capriciousness of state and corporate power over human rights online. Events since the invasion have demonstrated the coercive power of the state over online expression, privacy, and public protest. Russia's longtime “war against reality” has deepened in its repression and is dependent on the raw power of criminal law enforcement, surveillance by security forces, censorship by its media regulator, and legal and extralegal demands against internet platforms. Without drawing an equivalence, the European Union has imposed a comprehensive ban on Russian state-controlled media outlets, encouraged in part by the Ukrainian government, whose moral authority under the circumstances has been particularly strong. Notwithstanding state power over them, technology companies continue to be capable of causing or mitigating, if not preventing, human rights harms. Foreign companies and local partners have heroically maintained internet access in Ukraine and resisted Russian censorship and propaganda, the latter resulting in the blocking of key internet platforms by Russia. It is the latest chapter in the struggle among governments, companies, and individuals to control online space. But it is also an opportunity for reflection, for while the Kremlin has flouted its international obligations, governments and companies committed to human rights law cannot so behave. They should exercise their power over public space according to transparent rule of law standards of non-discrimination, legality, necessity, and legitimacy. A headlong rush to Russia-specific rules and enforcement, unmoored from public articulation of human rights standards, risks corroding the global normative framework for fundamental rights online.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has put to the test theories about how cyberattacks fit into conventional war. Contrary to many expectations, cyber operations appear to have played only a limited role in the initial stages of the invasion, prompting competing theories and rampant speculation about why. Although written while the conflict continues, this essay considers how either of two broad explanations for the limited role of cyberattacks to date—that Russia's attempted cyberattacks were thwarted or that Russia chose not to deploy them widely—challenges conventional wisdom about cybersecurity. The essay concludes by suggesting that one lesson international lawyers should draw from the current conflict is the urgent need to clarify and enforce international rules not just for the rare high-end destructive or widely disruptive cyber operations, but also for lower-level operations that have proven more consistently problematic, both in Ukraine and elsewhere. Clarifying such rules could help to manage escalation risk now and in the future, even if such rules—like the most venerable international law prohibitions that Russia's invasion has violated—do not necessarily restrain behavior directly.

The situation of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion exemplifies, as the organizers of this symposium note, both a shock to the international order and a powerful international response. Europeans, and Global North states more broadly, have welcomed Ukrainians with a generosity that sits in stark contrast to their treatment of the vast majority of contemporary refugees. This exceptional response demonstrates a key gap in the legal architecture, namely the absence of an international agreement on shared responsibility for hosting refugees. It also highlights a substantive shortcoming in international refugee law: its failure to protect most people fleeing armed conflict. In contrast, regional law from Africa and Latin America has for some time extended refugee protection to individuals escaping generalized violence. Beyond the substantive law, in many cases, regional protection is a preferable option for individuals fleeing violent conflict. In addition to these structural and substantive concerns, the exceptionally rapid and generous response to the Ukrainians demonstrates the deep politicization of international refugee policy and highlights the invidious role of race in the international legal order.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine violated the prohibition of force contained in the United Nations Charter and the peremptory norm of general international law prohibiting aggression. The invasion was not an exercise of individual or collective self-defense, or a humanitarian intervention, as Russia variously claimed. The United Nations General Assembly rejected all such claims when 141 member states voted to deplore “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in violation of Article 2 (4) of the Charter” as well as “the involvement of Belarus in this unlawful use of force against Ukraine.” This essay traces the legal implications of Russia's act of aggression, and its violations of international humanitarian law, through international criminal law, international human rights law, and the law of state responsibility. It argues that Russia violates the human rights of every person it kills, and that states are permitted and may be required to provide military assistance to Ukraine and impose economic sanctions on Russia. As Ukraine fights for its survival as an independent state, international law remains both a moral guide and a strategic asset.

International courts and tribunals must maintain a delicate balance between consent and coherence when they consider incidental questions as part of their dispute settlement function. There are compelling reasons, in the contemporary world of unprecedented complexity and interdependence, to instill coherence into dispute settlement procedures, so as to avoid the denial of justice. The exercise of jurisdiction over an “incidental question,” however, must not be forced to the point that it undermines the willingness of states to give their consent to such procedures.

In this essay, I discuss whether and to what extent the framing of the main dispute and incidental questions can have a gatekeeping function in relation to the jurisdiction and applicable law of a dispute settlement body. Recent cases have attached critical importance to the identification of the “real” main object of the dispute, and the “characterization” of claims to then determine which issues are incidental to the dispute, rather than focusing on which issues are within the tribunal's ratione materiae jurisdiction. Through an examination of selected case law, I argue that this “characterization approach” could in effect elevate a subjective framing of the “main” dispute to a jurisdictional gatekeeper. This approach introduces unnecessary evaluative determinations while obscuring normative clarity regarding the limits of consent-based jurisdiction and its relationship to incidentally applicable law.

Human rights courts and bodies do not rely on the concept of incidental jurisdiction. As far as I am aware, they never have. Given that these courts and bodies are in many ways typical examples of international courts, this is at first glance surprising. However, a closer look suggests that human rights bodies employ rival techniques to tackle the same problem to which incidental jurisdiction is supposedly responding. This essay sets out, first, that there is nothing unique about the institutional set up of human rights courts and human rights bodies in international law that might explain the absence of incidental jurisdiction. Second, I offer a plausible reconstruction of this absence. I argue that it is not only a rational response to the particular demands of human rights litigation, but that it may even be normatively preferable. The tension between dispute settlement and state consent is modified and heightened in international human rights law; this justifies treating incidental questions with the weight usually attached to the main issues of a case by turning them into questions of treaty interpretation. Third, I illustrate these rival techniques in two areas: jurisdiction in international human rights law, and cases involving armed conflicts.

Arbitral tribunals in investment treaty arbitration have not contributed much to the theoretical development of the concept of incidental jurisdiction, even though they have occasionally exercised it in practice. One possible explanation for their apparent reluctance to make explicit and greater use of the concept of incidental jurisdiction is the tendency to adopt a strict approach to jurisdiction governed by party consent. In this essay, I argue that incidental jurisdiction is not in tension with the consensual foundations of international jurisdiction when it is viewed as one inherent power of international courts and tribunals. Key to this argument is that incidental determinations are not binding, and therefore do not need to fall within party-defined jurisdictional limits.

International courts and tribunals have developed two criteria for the exercise of incidental jurisdiction: necessity and ancillarity. Yet the question of whether to make an incidental determination is not unique to the adjudicatory context. International organizations sometimes confront it as well. And their practice in dealing with this question suggests that the criteria of necessity and ancillarity alone are insufficient for assessing whether an incidental determination should be made.

The European Union (EU) has been a frontrunner in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, having established in 2005 the Emission Trading System (ETS) and having adopted in July 2021 a proposal for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This essay explains how the design of the EU CBAM proposal complies with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, in particular with the principle of non-discrimination. It then discusses how the EU can cooperate with other countries that share similar climate ambitions to decarbonize industrial sectors and achieve the aims of the Paris Agreement. The essay argues that autonomous measures and international cooperation initiatives can work as complementary tools to attain climate neutrality.

Assessments of the relationship between trade agreements and the climate regime often focus on the potential for normative conflict. Concerns that trade commitments may prevent the adoption of measures to curb climate change, or at least that these are two regimes that “point in different directions,”1 are often voiced to suggest that taking climate action requires fundamentally modifying, and maybe getting rid of, current trade agreements. In this essay, we argue that allegations of conflict disregard longstanding World Trade Organization (WTO) jurisprudence on policy-justified trade measures. As a matter of principle, this alleged conflict has been essentially overcome since the 1998 Appellate Body report in United States – Shrimp.2 Focusing on potential conflict distracts from the real challenges and dilemmas involved in designing and implementing a global carbon regime, including through the trade instruments known as carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs and so-called “climate clubs”), for which the legal parameters provided by trade agreements may be instrumental.

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.