This article examines the Philippines’ engagement with international law and institutions under Duterte’s populist presidency. While populism is often associated with hostility toward multilateralism, this case study reveals a more nuanced dynamic. The article argues that state engagement under populist administrations is more complex than assumed, and populist rhetoric does not uniformly dictate international behaviour. Using a novel conceptual framework and empirical data, it analyzes the Philippines’ multilateral interactions in human rights, trade, and health. Duterte’s government displayed ritualistic engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), constructive engagement with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization (WHO), and destructive disengagement from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Key themes include the divergence between rhetoric and action, instrumental use of institutions for domestic priorities, and the critical filtering role of domestic institutions. These findings offer broader insights as to how populist states balance domestic imperatives with international commitments, offering broader insights into the interplay between populism, foreign policy, and multilateralism.

This article critically examines the claim that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has acquired “legislative powers”, as suggested by the practices over the last two decades. This purported “legislative” role derives from Resolutions 1373, 1540, and 1422. However, an expansive interpretation of Chapter VII powers or viewing the UNSC as a legislative body within a “World Government” does not hold. Additionally, shifts in the international political landscape have made the expansion of UNSC’s legislative powers impossible, and the UNSC has largely refrained from adopting legislative resolutions in the past decade as they have learned the lessons from Resolution 1540. Finally, this article proposes a solution that although these resolutions do not qualify as a direct source of law under Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), their binding nature remains as acts détournement de pouvoir and shall not be regarded as ultra vires.

International law has been predominantly shaped by the West. Despite decolonization, insufficient attention has been paid to non-Western civilizations’ practices, including Asian civilizations. This article examines this insufficiency in relation to treaty interpretation and customary international law identification. To do so, it uses the notion of conscientious objection to military service as a case study. Despite particularly adverse state practice, chiefly in Asia, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) treaty body and UN organs began affirming in the 1990s that the Covenant includes a right to conscientious objection to military service. The first part analyzes whether such a right can be implied from the ICCPR, inter alia, by assessing the practice of Asian states. The second part endeavours to explain the gap between the international human rights machinery’s pronouncements and non-Western practice by discussing the Western-centrism and individual-centrism of interpretations adopted by human rights bodies and organs.

This article examines the legal framework for offshore CO2 sequestration in South Korea, paying particular attention to how to ensure the protection of the marine environment from CO2 sequestration in sub-seabed geological formations. It analyses the relevant international regulatory framework, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 1972 London Convention and the 1996 London Protocol. It then examines the Korean national legal framework relating to offshore CO2 sequestration. In the absence of detailed regulations on the process of CO2 sequestration in sub-seabed geological formations in South Korea, the article suggests detailed regulations regarding site selection, assessment of potential risks, monitoring and long-term liability to ensure environmental safety and security from offshore CO2 sequestration, which should comply with the 1996 Protocol and relevant guidelines. The development of detailed Korean national regulations ensuring compliance with international rules and standards could serve as best practices driving offshore CCS in the Asia-Pacific region.

As the UNCITRAL Working Group III is deliberating on an appellate mechanism for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), this article analyzes the debate surrounding the necessity and feasibility of such an appellate mechanism. It highlights the political and practical issues in establishing such an appellate mechanism, drawing on its comparison with the WTO Appellate Body. Emphasizing the need to balance the interests of developed and developing countries, this article argues that the absence of a structured method in the existing proposals to evaluate equal representation and fairness in the institutional design for the appellate mechanism poses significant challenges. The article makes specific proposals to address such challenges as the financial burden on developing countries, the risk of procedural delays, and the requirement for impartial and diverse tribunal composition. These considerations underscore the critical need to balance party autonomy with centralized oversight and ensure that procedural reforms do not unintentionally disadvantage developing nations.

In the 2023 judgment of Nicaragua v. Colombia, the International Court of Justice ruled that, under customary international law, a State’s entitlement to a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from its baselines is not permitted to extend within 200 nautical miles from the baselines of another State. In identifying this customary rule, the Court did not apply the two-element approach. The state practice relied upon by the Court to identify the general practice is not sufficiently widespread, representative, or consistent. The opinio juris is inferred from such state practice, which is not necessarily driven by a sense of legal obligation. The Court’s assertion of the customary rule constitutes, in effect, a rewriting of the relevant provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, amounting to a legislative exercise.

The interaction between international law and constitutional law has been increasingly recognized as salient to understanding the functioning of both and hence as worthy of academic attention. This Introduction to a special issue on how a selection of five Asian courts engage with international law when adjudicating constitutional cases explains the significance of studying such judicial behaviours, outlines the conceptual framework to be used in this regard, and identifies and reflects on some of the key findings from the case studies, including by highlighting domestic constitutional factors that help account for observed divergencies in judicial approach. This contribution also points to the value of examining courts’ attitudes towards international law for a variety of scholarly debates.

Mauro Cappelletti’s waves of domestic and transnational constitutionalism have reached Asia where courts exercise constitutional review and engage with international law in the process. Institutional and sociological legal scholars celebrate this as the inexorable global constitutionalization of international law through the liberal structures of judicial review and dialogue. A previous article cast doubt on the inevitability of global constitutionalization in view of material inconsistencies in interactions with international law by Asian courts, even those with rule of law and liberal democratic traditions. The present article on the Philippine Supreme Court sheds light on an underlying cause: arbitrary and contradictory selection and application of secondary rules for identifying international law by its source. The consequent degradation of international law and delegitimization of judicial engagement with it are the makings of the third wave of judicial review that Doreen Lustig and Joseph Weiler warned will reverse the gains of transnational constitutionalism.

This article examines the feasibility of enforcing Singapore money judgments in Cambodia, focusing on the “guarantee of reciprocity” – an ambiguous yet critical condition. It is ambiguous because Cambodian courts have not yet interpreted it. It is critical because it is perceived as the main obstacle to enforcing foreign judgments. Without a treaty-based mutual enforcement mechanism between Cambodia and Singapore, it is unclear whether a Singapore money judgment could be enforced in Cambodia or if a judgment creditor’s application would be dismissed in any event citing lack of reciprocity. Following an analysis of the laws of Cambodia, Singapore, and Japan, the article concludes that there is no legal obstacle before the Cambodian courts to enforce a Singapore money judgment. The flexible interpretation of the guarantee of reciprocity outlined in this article would enhance access to justice, eliminate a trade barrier, and make the investment environment more attractive in Cambodia.

Joining the line of free trade agreements involving civil society in climate change-related commitments, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) installs a public submissions and referral procedure (SRP) under its environmental chapter. China’s application to join the CPTPP and the peripheral role of civil society in its climate decision-making furnish a curious opportunity to contemplate dynamics between the SRP and domestic regimes with historically limited civil society involvement.

The article cites China as an illustrative case to show how a state-centric approach to climate change, lacking civil society engagement, may render mitigation efforts unreliable, unsustainable, and inequitable. It argues that the submissions and referrals procedure (SRP)’s unique procedural features offer potential as a testing ground for building up previously constrained civil society involvement in climate decision-making. It also exposes the design flaws in the SRP that require reform to uphold its identified experimental value, regarding which several proposals are put forward.