Professor Christian J Tams
Director of the GCILS
Swords, Shields and Other Beasts: The Role of Countermeasures in Investment Arbitration
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"Our topic can be thought of as a meeting of the old and the new, and it can be approached via a straightforward question: is there room, in the contemporary world of investment arbitration, for countermeasures, that traditional means of self-help? Countermeasures—and more so the concept’s traditional label, reprisals—evoke an era of interstate international law of limited reach: an era which, for lack of adequate institutions, accommodated ideas of ‘private justice’ to a significant extent, notably by accepting the right of one State to respond to another State’s wrongful conduct by means of coercion. This right permitted the State to respond to wrongful conduct affecting State rights as well as rights of nationals, despite the obvious risk of abuse. As investment lawyers with a measure of historical awareness know full well, in the field of foreign investment, the risk of abuse regularly materialised, as ‘home States’ (in the contemporary parlance) reacted coercively against host States accused of having interfered with rights of foreign investors. (...)"
article in ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal, Volume 37, Issue 1-2, Winter/Spring 2022, Pages 121–137,
ISSN 0258-3690, EISSN 2049-1999
Investment Protection, Human Rights, and International Arbitration in Extraordinary Times
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The interaction of investment protection, human rights, and international arbitration is complex. Theories on their interaction are helpful starting points. At the same time, general formulas reach their limits as soon as it comes to evaluating concrete issues. In twelve chapters, the present volume therefore analyses different thematic interactions between investment law and human rights in order to develop a more context-specific understanding. With contributions by Filip Balcerzak, Gustavo Becker, Christina Binder, Tillmann Rudolf Braun, Barnali Choudhury, Henner Gött, Martin Gronemann, Edward Guntrip, Malte Gutt, Anna Hankings-Evans, Rainer Hofmann, Markus Krajewski, Juan Ignacio Massun, Tomasz Milej, Julian Scheu, Stephan W. Schill, Peter-Tobias Stoll, Christian J. Tams and Anne van Aaken.
Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2022
ISBN print: 978-3-8487-7405-0, ISBN online: 978-3-7489-1406-8
The ILC Articles at 20
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“The Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (Articles), developed by the International Law Commission (ILC), turn 20 this year. On 9 August 2001 – 45 years after the first report by Special Rapporteur Francisco García-Amador on the topic, after 5 Special Rapporteurs and 34 reports by them – the ILC adopted the final text of the Articles, thus bringing to an end work that (in the words of Rosalyn Higgins) were it not for the Commission’s broad understanding of responsibility, ‘should on the face of it [have] take[n] one summer’s work’.3 On 12 December 2001, the UN General Assembly ‘noted’ the Articles and commended them to the attention of Governments in December.4 Since then, reflected in successive reports compiled by the UN Secretary-General, the Articles have become the obvious reference point for debates about State responsibility: they are invoked, applied, cited, criticised, studied by nearly everyone working in or with international law, from undergraduate students to investment tribunals, and even domestic courts.5 They reflect international law’s everyday, routine, application: mostly unspectacular, sometimes pedestrian; dramatic only rarely. What is more, most readers, users, students, critics have been quick to adopt the ILC’s jargon and categories.”
GCILS Working Paper Series
Experiments Great and Small: Centenary Reflections on the League of Nations
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” Given the abundance of existing League scholarship, the aims of the present contribution cannot but be modest. What it offers is a series of sketches of the League, as seen from the distance of a centenary. These sketches approach their object from two perspectives: three of them provide a highly condensed account of the League’s life (section II); two others draw out some of its legacies (section III). Needless to say, the engagement is selective, the treatment unfinished. But the sketches hopefully capture essential aspects of the League and draw the readers’ eye to features that are worth remembering a century later. ” https://www.duncker-humblot.de/zeitschrift/german-yearbook-of-international-law-gyil-22/?page_id=0&jaids=2019&page=1&type=titel#titlelist
GCILS Working Paper Series
International Courts and Tribunals and Violent Conflict
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“This chapter examines international adjudication and arbitration, assessing the diverse roles of international courts and tribunals (ICaTs) in relation to violent conflicts. It shows that, over time, ICaTs have come to render decision upon decision, but – contrary to the expectations of early arbitration movements – hardly ever prevent ‘wars between nations’. Their mandates have been expanded, but typically only cover aspects of violent conflicts. While such aspects are today increasingly submitted to arbitration or adjudication, ‘conflict litigation’ remains controversial and challenges the authority of ICaTs. As the chapter demonstrates, the significance of arbitration and adjudication over questions of violent conflict has varied over time and forms part of the general history of international dispute resolution. Having surveyed this general history, the chapter sketches out the evolving legal framework governing courts and conflicts. It discusses which aspects of violent conflicts are addressed by ICaTs under contemporary international law and highlights current challenges of ‘conflict litigation’.”
GCILS Working Papers
‘League of Nations’
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World War I to World War II Published under the auspices of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law under the direction of Rüdiger Wolfrum.
in R. Wolfrum (ed) Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (OUP, 2006)