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From the Directors
The faculty at McGeorge School of Law continues to engage at all levels with international law and practice, whether through thought-provoking international law scholarship or impactful participation in transnational policymaking and pedagogy. We’re excited not only to share our recent news, but also to extend the invitation below to our virtual symposium on “Israel, Palestine and the First Amendment” scheduled for Friday, November 4, 2022. We hope you can join us!
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With warm regards,
Omar M. Dajani & Jarrod Wong
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International Law Scholarship | |
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In Police Brutality as Torture, 70 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023), Assistant Professor Nadia Banteka proposes a model statute that criminalizes particular incidents of police brutality as torture to increase accountability for officers, deter police misconduct, and bring the US legal framework closer to the obligations under the UN Convention against Torture. Separately, building on previous scholarship assessing the compatibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) entities with legal conceptions of personhood, Professor Banteka’s chapter, Artificial Intelligence Personhood on a Sliding Scale, in The Cambridge Handbook of Private Law and Artificial Intelligence (Ernest Lim & Philip Morgan eds., Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming 2022), situates the question within the global debate about legal regulation of AI.
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Professor Omar M. Dajani’s co-edited volume, Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming 2023) (with Aslı Bâli) is the first scholarly work in the English language to offer a comparative assessment of the law and politics of decentralized governance in the MENA region. The book presents a series of eleven case studies by experts across multiple disciplines ― constitutional law, conflict resolution, comparative politics, comparative law, political theory, economics, sociology, and urban planning ― examining the experience across the region with a synthetic conclusion by Dajani and Bâli offering a new typology of drivers of decentralization, and exploring the various novel approaches to decentralized governance. Dajani’s chapter in the volume, Stuck Together? Can a Two-State Confederation End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? (with Dahlia Schendlin), evaluates proposals for creating a confederation in Israel-Palestine, placing confederalism in historical and theoretical context and exploring the process and institutional design considerations it presents as a framework for conflict resolution. With co-author Mira Sucharov, Dajani also contributed an essay, “Dear Omar, Dear Mira: A Correspondence,” to a special issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies on Zionism and its Critics (forthcoming 2023).
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Professor Jarrod Wong and Abdallah Abuelfutuh Ali (McGeorge JSD candidate) offer a new typology of legislative stabilization clauses (LSCs) in The Legislative Stabilization Clause, 55 N.Y.U. J. of Int’l L. and Pol. (forthcoming 2022), arguing that what they call Contractual LSCs best address the interests of both foreign investors and host states in the stabilization of foreign investments. In Best Evidence Rule, Max Planck Encyclopaedia of International Procedural Law (forthcoming 2022), Wong analyzes the “best evidence rule” as interpreted and applied by international courts and tribunals. The best evidence rule provides that a party trying to prove the contents of written, recorded or photographic evidence must ordinarily introduce the original evidence.
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In The Vienna Convention and the Ordinary Meaning of International Law, 46 Yale J. Int’l L. 191 (2021), Professor Brian Slocum and Wong offer the first sustained interdisciplinary critique of international law’s ordinary meaning standard. Drawing on tools and insights from linguistic theory, they argue that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) leaves judicial interpretive discretion unconstrained because it does not meaningfully restrict the allowable sources of meaning or how those sources can be used.
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Distinguished Professor Michael P. Malloy’s article The Emerging Regime of International Financial Services Regulation, 46 N.C. J. Int’l L. 439 (2021), examines the impact of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in which U.S. bank regulators have been participating directly, on banking regulation.
International publisher Wolters Kluwer has issued or will issue five 2021 and five 2022 supplements for Malloy’s three-volume treatise Banking Law and Regulation. Spanning hundreds of pages, the Supplement provides new and updated legislative, regulatory, and case law developments in financial services regulation. Malloy's treatise has been in print for over 30 years, and remains a key source on financial services regulation for courts, attorneys, and scholars.
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Associate Dean for Scholarship
and Distinguished Professor of Law, Franklin Gevurtz, provides a comprehensive and often critical examination of the approach taken in the United States to applying statutes and regulations to events outside the United States in Extraterritorial Application of Statutes and Regulations, 70 Am. J. Comp. L. i347 (2022).
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Distinguished Professor Michael Vitiello considers the plight of revenge porn victims in Revenge Porn and Other Crime Victims: Is It Right to Blame Them? in Criminalising Intimate Image Abuse (Gian Marco Caletti and Kolis Summerer, eds., Oxford University Press) (forthcoming 2023), a book with contributions from European and US scholars analyzing intimate image abuse from a comparative perspective. Vitiello also examines the push to extend or abandon statutes of limitations in sex crimes and raises concerns that such efforts increase the likelihood of punishing innocent defendants in Expanding Statutes of Limitations for Sex Crimes: Bad Public Policy, 49 Diritto Pubblico Comparato Ed Europeo 4093 (2021), a peer-reviewed Italian law review. Meanwhile, in Globalism and Sustainable Vineyard Practices, 53 U. Pac. L. Rev. 623 (2021), Vitiello explains how sustainable vineyard practices in the US are improving through expanded production of quality wine and the need to find foreign export markets notwithstanding the fact that efforts to legislate such practices in the US are unlikely to bear fruit as it were.
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Professor Francis J. Mootz III and Professor Jeffrey A. Michael were invited by a peer-reviewed Brazilian law journal to analyze the regulation of California’s gig economy in ‘Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose’: The Ongoing Struggle to Properly Regulate the Gig Economy in California, in Revista da AGU -Advocacia-Geral da União (forthcoming 2022).
By way of his book chapter, Gadamer and Jurisprudence in The Gadamerian Mind 364-75 (Theodore D. George and Gert-Jan van der Heiden, eds., Routledge Publishing) (forthcoming 2022), Mootz joins other international scholars in focusing on the work of German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer. Not wishing other European philosophers to feel left out, Mootz has also taken on the work of the French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, in The Unbearable Between-ness of Law in Reading Ricoeur through Law (Marc de Leeu, George H. Taylor, and Eileen Brennan, eds., Lexington Books)(2021); the Dutch-born philosopher Professor Jan Broekman in his chapter, Jan Broekman and the Multicultural Self, a solicited contribution to a Festschrift honoring Broekman that will be published by Springer in 2022 as part of a book series devoted to Visual Jurisprudence and edited by Frank Fleerackers and Anne Wagner; and the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico in his chapter Giambattista Vico, in a book that Mootz coedits titled Classical Rhetoric and Contemporary Law: A Critical Reader (Francis J. Mootz III, Kirsten Davis, Brian Larson, and Kristen Tiscione, eds., University of Alabama Press) (forthcoming 2023).
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Understandably concerned that all this work and no play would make him dull, Mootz gamely responds with his book chapter At Play in the Fields of the Law, in Philosophy's Arena: Play and Players in a Gamified World (Jeremy Sampson, ed.; Vernon Press) (forthcoming 2023), a book that includes philosophers across the globe writing on play as being central to human understanding. Which finally leaves Mootz’s chapter, Rhetoric and Law, in The Cambridge History of Rhetoric: Volume V 1900–, (Daniel M. Gross, Steven Mailloux, LuMing Mao, eds, Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming 2023), a volume that promises to be the standard reference for the history of rhetorical studies with its lineup of international scholars from around the world.
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Global Impact
Carol Olson Endowed Professor of International Law Stephen McCaffrey represented the Republic of Chile in hearings before the International Court of Justice in Chile's case against Bolivia concerning the Silala River. In 2021, McCaffrey also delivered a series of five 50-minute virtual lectures entitled, “The Evolution of the Law of International Watercourses” for The Hague Academy of International Law. These Hague Lectures, which trace the development of the law in the field from the first recorded treaty on any subject ― concluded in ca. 3100 BC between two Mesopotamian city-states ― to the present in covering both navigational and non-navigational uses, have been published in 426 RECUEIL DES COURS 241 (2022).
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Three McGeorge professors served as U.S. National Rapporteurs in the XXI Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, which was held in October 2022 in Asunción (Paraguay). Franklin Gevurtz’s report on extraterritorial application of statutes and regulations, Leslie Gielow Jacobs’ report on freedom of speech and “fake news,” and Jarrod Wong’s report on the independence and impartiality of international adjudicators have been published in a special online issue (70 Supp.) of the American Journal of Comparative Law on the Oxford University Press website. Wong also spoke on the panel on the independence and impartiality of international adjudicators, which was the opening substantive session at the Congress.
In February 2022, Omar M. Dajani traveled to Washington and New York to promote The Holy Land Confederation as a Facilitator for a Two-State Solution, an effort by former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and policy experts to explore what form an Israeli-Palestinian confederation might take. Dajani accompanied Yossi Beilin, Hiba Husseini and others, to discuss the study with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. They also met with U.S. State Department officials and members of Congress, as well as analysts from a number of leading think tanks in Washington, D.C. – including the U.S. Institute of Peace, Brookings, and the Middle East Institute. In October 2022, Dajani and Beilin also presented their study at events at Dartmouth College and Michigan State University.
Linda Carter served as a consultant to the defense team for Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court through the appellate brief and argument, which occurred in February 2022; Carter assisted with issues of first impression for the Court on multiple convictions and burdens of proof. Additionally, Carter’s co-edited volume, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Deterrent Effect of International Criminal Tribunals (Torkel Opsahl 2017) (with Jennifer Schense), served as the basis for A Practical Guide for Evaluating the Deterrent Effect of International and National Judicial Proceedings on Atrocity Crimes, which was published in 2021 by the International Nuremberg Principles Academy.
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Professional Leadership
In 2022, Michael P. Malloy participated in planning sessions of the Real Estate Markets Advisory Group of the Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Land Management, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, that considered proposals for innovative financing and for sustainable housing, which was the theme of the Policy Framework for Sustainable Real Estate Markets (UNECE, rev. 2019) for which Dr. Malloy was a contributor. Malloy also served on the organizing committee for the 18th and 19th Annual International Conference on Law in Athens, Greece, sponsored by the Athens Institute for Education and Research in July 2021 and July 2022 respectively; Malloy’s presentation at the July 2022 conference, Russia-Ukraine Economic Sanctions: Legal Responses to a Crisis, assessed the effectiveness of sanctions imposed by the United States in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, Malloy served on the organizing committee and as co-host for the 8th and 9th Annual International Conference on Business, Law, and Economics, sponsored by the Athens Institute for Education and Research, in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Jarrod Wong serves as the American Society of International Law observer delegate to the United Nations Commission of International Trade Law, Working Group III, on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) reform. With state and observer delegates across the world, the Group is embarked on a historic multi-year project to address procedural and structural concerns with ISDS, including inconsistent arbitral outcomes, capacity-building of host state governments, and third-party funding. Wong is also a member of the Academic Forum on ISDS, which was established to reflect on and contribute to the work of UNCITRAL on ISDS. Additionally, Wong serves on the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, an international educational forum in the field of transnational arbitration that counts among its members many of the leading arbitrators and arbitration counsel in the world.
Franklin Gevurtz served as the Editor for the special issue of the American Journal of Comparative Law devoted to the U.S. National Reports to the 2022 International Congress of Comparative Law.
Linda Carter serves as a trustee of the International Bar Foundation, which is a support organization for rule of law projects through the International Bar Association. As a panelist in a program on international criminal law for Ukrainian lawyers co-sponsored by the International Bar Association and the Ukrainian Bar Association, Carter spoke about theories of liability ― including command responsibility, joint criminal enterprise, and co-perpetration ― that are crucial for holding responsible high-level military and political leaders.
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2021 Annual Global Center Symposium
On Friday, April 9, 2021, McGeorge’s Global Center convened an online symposium entitled "Rethinking International Law for the Age of the Anthropocene." The symposium examined how international law can meet the challenges presented by the climate crisis, potential mass extinctions, and other threats to the planetary ecosystem and address the consequences of environmental degradation, including the decrease of habitable lands and the mass migration of those displaced by it.
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Upcoming Global Center Events
McGeorge International Programs Evening Reception at the 2023 AALS AM
Thursday, January 5, 2023
6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.
San Diego, California
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Since time immemorial, McGeorge has convened an International Programs Breakfast at the Annual Meeting of the International Associations of Law Schools. For 2023, however, McGeorge will be shaking things up ― literally should martinis be served ― and hold a McGeorge International Programs Evening Reception instead on the subject of “Politically Sensitive Places and Activities in International Programs.” We invite faculty and administration attending the 2023 AALS meeting in San Diego to join us for a discussion on how your various international programs whether involving faculty or students have had to negotiate politically tricky terrain for taking place in countries mired in controversy for, say, objectionable human rights records or policies that discriminate against women or a religious or racial minority; or have invited controversial foreign speakers, teachers or other affiliates with politically illiberal views including government officials from repressive regimes. We tentatively plan to hold the reception on Thursday, January 5, 2023 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. with room and other logistical information to follow. Hold the date for now and come prepared to talk about Molotov cocktails over cocktails of a smoother variety!
Virtual Law Review Symposium - Israel, Palestine, and the First Amendment: Defining the Boundaries of Freedom of Speech
Friday, Nov. 4, 2022
8:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. PT
Virtual event
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On Friday, November 4, the University of the Pacific Law Review and the Global Center will convene a virtual symposium entitled Israel, Palestine and the First Amendment: Defining the Boundaries of Freedom of Speech. We will examine several contexts in which the boundaries of freedom of speech are being tested by the regulation of expression implicating the State of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights, exploring the constitutionality — and propriety — of federal and state legislation prohibiting boycotts of Israel, of efforts by universities to manage the sometimes clamorous debate about Israel-Palestine on their campuses, and of policies and processes adopted by digital platforms to moderate content pertaining to one of the most hotly contested places on the planet. The symposium will bring together an uncommon array of experts, diverse in perspective, experience, and discipline, including: Lindsey Andersen (BSR), Aslı Bâli (Yale), Peter Beinart (Jewish Currents), Susan Benesch (Dangerous Speech Project, Harvard), Marwa Fatafta (Access Now), Brian Hauss (ACLU), Lara Friedman (Foundation for Middle East Peace), Yehuda Kurtzer (Shalom Hartman Institute), Maha Nassar (Arizona), Mira Sucharov (Carleton), Katie Strickland (Meta), and Eugene Volokh (UCLA).
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