January 2, 2022

Two Weeks in Review, 20 December 2021 – 2 January 2022

Written by Gail Lythgoe

EJIL: The Podcast! Episode 13: Loot!

This podcast, the second in the series, ‘Reckonings with Europe: Past and Present’ by Surabhi Ranganathan and Megan Donaldson, reflects on calls for return of cultural artefacts looted under European empire. The hosts are joined by Evelien Campfens (Leiden University, former lawyer at the Dutch Restitutions Committee for Nazi looted art, and member of the Ethics Committee of the Dutch Museum Association); Chika Okeke-Agulu (Professor of African and African Diaspora Art at Princeton University); and Dan Hicks (Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at Oxford University, Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and author of The Brutish Museums. The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution) to reflect on the role of (international) law in response to these calls for return.

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Our Most Read Posts of 2021

Read about the most read posts of 2021 and recent changes to the blog in a post written before the end of last year by Dapo Akande.

Blog Posts

Martin Jarrett, Sergio Puig and Steven R. Ratner examine the issue of investor accountability and the procedural tools, specifically ‘direct actions by states’ and ‘direct actions by individuals’, to enforce investor obligations. Read more here.

As part of the most recent EJIL Debate! on the topic of attacks against missions abroad, Gabor Kajtar and Gergő Barna Balázs publish a Rejoinder to Tom Ruys. The original article and Ruys response from EJIL Vol 32, Issue 3, can be read here and here. Read their Rejoinder here.

Elizabeth Mavropoulou asks whether UNCLOS is fit for protecting human rights at sea and notes there are several gaps when it comes to protecting human rights. Yet Mavropoulou argues

‘this is not to say that UNCLOS has failed the world, or that it has become irrelevant for the 21^st century. On the contrary, UNCLOS should be better understood as a ‘framework convention’, one of many in international law, setting the general rules and principles surrounding the use of the seas and the oceans. It must also be seen as a product of its time, an instrument that could not have foreseen most of the contemporary human rights challenges that arise in today’s maritime environment, and which require careful attention.’

Paolo Busco and Filippo Fontanelli analyse the Italian courts approach to state immunity and find ‘six symptoms’ of their ‘diffident’ approach, which include reading provisions of the Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property contrary to their ordinary meaning, interpreting other treaties’ provisions contrary to the Convention, and questioning the Convention’s legal status. Read more here.

Jacques Hartmann comments on the recent conviction of Inger Støjberg, a former Minister of Immigration, by the Danish Court of Impeachment for having unlawfully instructed public authorities to separate migrant couples one of whom was a minor. Hartmann notes that ‘human rights did not play a crucial role in the Court’s finding. The real issue was that the executive did not follow the right procedure. An element of the rule of law, which is often overlooked.’

Lorenzo Gradoni looks at the Oversight Board established by Facebook, now known as Meta, and argues that this Board forms part of the elusive ‘global law’. Gradoni first examines the Oversight Board before discussing whether the Board is a ‘global institution’.