Concept:

How do States settle their disputes? When can they bring other States before international courts and tribunals – and when may these hear cases? How do proceedings in international fora look like? What are the effects of decisions rendered by international courts and tribunals? Do States follow them, can they be enforced, and can they have an impact even if they are not complied with?

These are some of the questions that the course will tackle. It will do so with a focus on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) but other international courts and tribunals will also be considered (such as ITLOS, the WTO DSB, and inter-State or mixed arbitration). We will discuss these issues based on landmark cases as well as recent and current proceedings, such as the Treaty of Amity case brought by Iran against the US or the Relocation of the US Embassy case (Palestine v US).

We will ask participants to prepare brief presentations of relevant cases to kick off our discussions. These will be assigned at the first meeting. If there is sufficient interest, a Mini Moot Court will be organized.

Interested students are warmly encouraged to approach the course instructors ahead of the course with any questions they may have.

Language:

The course will be held in English.

Suggested Reading:

• Collier and Lowe, The Settlement of Disputes in International Law (OUP 1999)
• Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (8th edn OUP 2012) pp. 693-743
• Merrills, International Dispute Settlement (6th edn CUP 2017)
• Pellet, ‘Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes’ in Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, available at:
  http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e70?rskey=y9kCQe&result=7&prd=EPIL (last visited: 18 December 2018)
• Rosenne, ‘International Court of Justice (ICJ)’ in Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, available at:
  http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e34?rskey=UGE0id&result=2&prd=EPIL (last visited: 18 December 2018)
• von Bogdandy and Venzke, In Whose Name? A Public Law Theory of International Adjudication (OUP 2014)
• Shany, Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts (OUP 2016)
• Alter, The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights (Princeton University Press 2014)

Further reading will be communicated to the participants ahead of each session.

Participants:

The course is open to all law students. It is coordinated with the specialization “Internationalisierung der Rechtsordnung” (SB 7) and its curriculum. Students taking this specialization are thus particularly encouraged to participate. Interested students from other specializations may also attend. Exchange students are also welcome. Basic knowledge of public international law is helpful but not mandatory. The number of participants is limited to 30.

Dates:

4 May 09:00-18:30
25 May 09:00-18:30
15 June 09:00-18:30

Course Registration:

Please register via Campus Management, module "Fremdsprachenfachkompetenz A or B".

Frequency:

The course will be held in summer semester 2019.

Course instructors:

Robert Stendel (stendel@mpil.de) and Alexander Wentker (wentker@mpil.de), research fellows at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. close