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Issue: Fall 2010

The Fall 2010 issue of the Journal of International Law and Politics is available at our official NYU website.  The contents are as follows: Georges Abi-Saab, The Normalization of International Adjudication: Convergence and Divergencies, 43 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. &…

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The Amendment of Spain’s Arbitration Act: A Promising But Unfinished Agenda

By Guillermo Bayas Fernández
Attorney-at-law in Spain
Fundación Rafael del Pino scholar
NYU LL.M. Candidate, Class of 2011

Abstract

Last September, the Spanish Government sent to the Parliament a bill (the Bill) to reform the current Spanish Arbitration Act (Ley 60/2003, de 23 de diciembre, de Arbitraje), which is now being discussed in Congress. The Bill improves different aspects of the existing regulation, mainly those concerning the action to set aside the award, arbitrators’ liability, arbitration of corporate disputes and the effect of insolvency proceedings on arbitration agreements. However, the possible suppression of dissenting opinions prejudices arbitration and the regulation on challenge of judicial jurisdiction favors frivolous attempts to avoid abiding by arbitration agreements. respective  Additionally, the proposed assignment of functions among judicial bodies in arbitration issues lacks coherence and does not create a long-demanded unification appeal on arbitration matters. While this article welcomes some of the intended modifications, it raises concerns that Spain might be losing a unique opportunity to adopt a modern regulation that would advance its chances of becoming a prime international arbitration seat.

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Louis Henkin in JILP

In memory of Louis Henkin, who died last month in New York, I recently took to the archives, to see whether any of his work had found its way into the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics.  While Henkin’s byline never appeared in any of JILP’s forty-two volumes, his work nevertheless left a mark on our pages.

In the seventh volume of JILP, a review of Henkin’s Foreign Affairs and the Constitution recognized the supreme importance of this work to the field of U.S. foreign relations law.  (7 N.Y.U. J. Int’l L. & Pol. 203.)  Henkin, Stanley Futterman wrote, spoke with “the natural modesty and courage of the true teacher.”  But our reviewer soon takes  a more critical stance in light of Henkin’s discussion of Vietnam.

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Prisoners’ voting rights: a success story for the enforceability of the ECHR?

By Emily MacKenzie, NYU School of Law, (LL.M Candidate, 2011)

The last week has seen a tense discourse in political and legal circles in the UK centering on prisoners’ voting rights. This discussion in some sense represents the culmination of five years of debate about the enforceability of judgments made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In March 2004 the ECtHR held unanimously in Hirst v UK that the UK’s blanket ban on prisoners voting violated Article 3 Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Despite the rejection of the UK’s appeal to the Grand Chamber, and the obligation under Article 46 ECHR to enforce Strasbourg judgments, the government has to date failed to enact legal reform to implement this decision. Whilst there has been an ongoing consultation, it is not overly cynical to describe the process as merely ‘going through the motions.’ The unexplained delays, refusal to entertain the option of allowing all prisoners to vote, and the government’s consistent expression of its disagreement with the ruling all attest to this conclusion.

Repeated criticisms by the Council of Europe came to a head when the government failed to act on any of the proposals in time to allow prisoners to vote in the June 2010 election.  Last week, however, UK newspapers reported that the new coalition government is finally going to implement the judgment. (See coverage by The Guardian here.)  The exact program and timescale of reform remain unclear, but it seems to be generally accepted that a change is in the offing. The governmental attitude remains, however, that such reform is something imposed on the UK by Europe, that it is not something that the government wants, and that they will apply it as restrictively as possible. In light of this continued reticence, one may ask: why after five years of stalling is the government finally giving in?

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Video from Arctic Symposium

NYU Law has posted video of our Oct. 22 symposium on “International Law and Environmental Protection in a Melting Arctic.”  Below is the keynote address, given by Peter Taksoe-Jensen, Danish Ambassador to the United States.  The Ambassador’s speech begins at 25:34, preceded by short introductions from Jose Alvarez and Herbert Rubin.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNF02K9pgCQ&fs=1&hl=en_US]

See more video after the jump.

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