Comparative Law

This post is part of the Joint Symposium that we are co-hosting with Opinio Juris on Anthea Roberts' new book Is International Law International? (OUP, 2017).  We are familiar with the question: Is international law law? In my new book, I ask instead: Is…

On 10 October 2017, Catalonia issued and then immediately suspended its declaration of independence, and urged Spain to negotiate. Spain does not want to negotiate. Rather, it sought clarification as to whether or not Catalonia’s manoeuvre indeed was a declaration of independence. Such clarification was needed, according to Spain, in order to decide on an appropriate…

On January 26, 2016, during a public meeting organized by the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, the European Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, said that the precautionary principle (PP), the principle which enables rapid response in the face of a possible danger to human, animal or plant health, or to protect the environment, is a fundamental rule in the…

            Jarrod Hepburn is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Exeter, UK. There has been much discussion in recent years – and in recent weeks on this blog – of the potential for investment treaty arbitration to benefit from a ‘comparative public law’ approach. In brief, the approach conceives of…