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This article intends to consider what the new generation of FITs might signify for our understanding of public law. Rather than modelling international public law or questioning its legitimacy derived from national public law (or one independently generated), I want to focus on a ‘public law’ thread running through all of this. The analysis here traces the transliteration of investment protection arbitration from public international law to international public law. It begins first by briefly outlining the established position of foreign direct investment protection in public international law. It then reviews the public law character claimed for investor-state arbitration, a claim which is criticised. And finally the analysis considers how those public law elements can feed ‘international public law’. This points to forms of transnational legal pluralism and I consider at the end what the implications may be for a conception of state and law.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that states can consent to the military presence of other states on their territory. This is better known as intervention by invitation. Yet many issues surrounding this concept remain unclear or are too easily accepted, e.g. its name and its place within the rules of jus ad bellum. This article seeks to clarify and resolve these issues. First, an analysis is conducted into what the two terms intervention and invitation actually entail. The term intervention is contrasted with the use of force and the entire concept of intervention by invitation is differentiated from collective self-defence. It is concluded that the threshold of force has been met and thus the focus should be placed on the rules regulating this field of law, rather than the rules of non-intervention. The concept would be more aptly labelled as the use of force by invitation. Second, this article examines where intervention by invitation finds its place in relation to the prohibition of the use of force. Alternative perspectives are investigated encompassing the scope of Article 2(4) UN Charter and the circumstances precluding wrongfulness under the rules of state responsibility, of which consent is of particular relevance here. This article concludes that intervention by invitation falls outside the scope of Article 2(4) as the force is not used within international relations. The prohibition of the use of force therefore does not apply to intervention by invitation. Consequently, an action of intervention by invitation is legal.

Securitisation is a financing technique that, if applied under the appropriate circumstances, enables capital utilisation, improves market efficiency and allows a better allocation of risk. This financial tool has evolved over the past few decades and represented a substantial part of Irish and global debt capital\ud markets.\ud The key to securitisation is the concept of bankruptcy-remoteness with respect to the securitisation special purpose vehicle (“SPV”). This because SPV will normally be a company which has only minimum outside creditors, and whose sole functions are to acquire and hold the assets and to issue the securities.\ud Thus, the value of securities issued by the SPV will be determined by the performance of the pool of segregated assets, and not by the continuing creditworthiness of the originator the assets. The separation of the credit risk\ud of the originator of the assets (“Originator”) and the credit risk of the SPV in this way often enables the originator to obtain lower-cost financing through the\ud SPV than it would otherwise be able to obtain. As a result, the objective of Irish securitisation structures is to isolate the SPV from insolvency risks. This article\ud will explore the potential risks that investors in an Irish securitisation transaction may have to face should the underlying assets fail to perform as initially expected.

Timber legality trade restrictions and verification are a bundle of contemporary mechanisms triggered by global concerns about forest degradation and deforestation. The European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade initiative is a significant effort to not only screen out illegal timber and wood products from the EU, but also support trading partner countries to improve their legality definitions and verification processes. But by using bilateral agreements (Voluntary Partnership Agreements) as a key mechanism, the EU legitimizes trade partner nation-states as the authority to decide what is legal. We engage in a theoretical debate about the complexities of the meaning of legality, and then analyze empirical data collected from interviews in Ghana, Indonesia, Vietnam and Europe with policy, civil society and industry actors to understand how different actors understand legality. We find hegemonic notions of Westphalian statehood at the core of 'global' notions of legality and often contrast with local understandings of legality. Non-state actors understand these hegemonic notions of legality as imposed upon them and part of a colonial legacy. Further, notions of legality that fail to conform with hegemonic understandings are readily framed by nation-states as immoral or criminal. We emphasize the importance of understanding these framings to elucidate the embedded assumptions about what comprises legality within assemblages of global actors. Key words: FLEGT, timber legality, hegemony, power, globalization

The ever-increasing scholarship on the politics of human rights focuses on either international treaty negotiations or domestic politics after ratification. It thus misses how the stage of implementation is often crucially set in the period between signing and ratifying. This article addresses this lacuna via an in-depth discussion of the ratification process of the Disability Convention (CRPD) in the Netherlands. In this period, stakeholders highlight certain treaty obligations, while downplaying or ignoring others. This theory of preratification politics calls for more differentiation between treaty obligations and attention to the politics of their mobilization, even in the most monist countries. Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme

‘Naming and shaming’ those accused of abuse and misconduct is one of the most common strategies of transnational activists. Yet both qualitative and quantitative studies show that the policy and behavioural effects of naming and shaming are often contradictory. Named and shamed actors do respond at least partially by adjusting their policies and behaviour to some extent, but the actions challenged publicly as human rights violations may not cease and can even become more widespread. This ambivalent outcome is usually explained by the uneven capacity of the target to reform or by its ‘strategic’ response to escape the consequences of naming and shaming. By contrast, I show that naming and shaming can be brought to a standstill when the frame used by transnational activists is ambiguous. I trace the role of framing ambiguity during the Human Rights Watch (HRW) ‘naming and shaming’ campaigns against the Israel Defence Force (IDF) in the course of the July–August 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war (Lebanon war), and the December 2008–January 2009 Israel-Hamas war (Gaza war). I argue that HRW's use of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as a frame led to an argumentative deadlock (frame implication contest). This legal frame, and the process of legal framing, did genuinely constrain the IDF, affecting its operations and behaviour. However, the ambiguity of the frame also provided the IDF with a range of material and ideational assets that gave it scope to claim that its actions were actually in conformity with applicable law, and to justify continuing to use force in densely populated areas.

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight present strategies to prevent money laundering in Dubai. Design/methodology/approach – Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted with Anti Money Laundering Suspicion Cases Unit (AMLSCU), Anti Organized Crime Department (AOCD) and Central Bank employees. Findings – This paper shows that AMLSCU, AOCD and Central Bank employees are aware that future strategies to prevent money laundering are needed. Research limitations/implications – Limited available secondary data and cases of money laundering. Originality/value – Interviews with key personnel in main organisations tasked with preventing money laundering in Dubai.

This article focuses on the financial sanctions adopted by the European Union (EU) against individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. This sanctions regime has been sharply criticised for its negative impact on human rights and has seen several judicial challenges before the European Courts. In contrast with most of the existing literature, which focuses on legal issues or examines the consequences of the EU financial sanctions, this article takes a step back to examine the reasons for which the EU decided to adopt these controversial financial sanctions in the first place. This article argues that it is mainly its commitment to ‘UN-centred effective multilateralism’ that has led the EU to adopt these financial sanctions measures in order to align itself with the UN financial sanctions regime. However, the Kadi landmark ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has challenged the pre-eminence of multilateralism over other considerations, such as the respect for human rights. As the Court of Justice prepares to hand down its second judgment in this case, the EU is left torn between its commitment to multilateralism and its commitment to human rights, which can be fully reconciled only if the UN sanctions regime meets the EU’s human rights standards.