This article explores the meaning of solidarity in European Union (EU) law in the context of the energy sector and the ongoing energy crisis. Energy provides a powerful and topical sectoral example of the fundamental role and diverse functions of solidarity in EU law. In its OPAL ruling in 2021, the Court of Justice of the EU established that energy solidarity constitutes a legally binding principle of EU energy law that should inform EU institutions and the Member States in their energy decisions. This article adds to legal scholarship on solidarity in three ways. First, it further develops the understanding of the ambiguous solidarity concept in EU law through the lens of the energy sector. Secondly, it contributes to the emerging body of energy law scholarship that seeks to advance the discipline of energy law by focusing on its doctrine rather than on its substantive developments. Finally, it provides a timely and novel analysis of the EU's recent emergency responses to address the acute energy crisis from the point of view of solidarity.

Companies from emerging economies have started internationalizing their production operations; they are following the same path as American, European and East Asian corporations before them, setting up factories in third countries to serve their export markets from closer locations and produce more efficiently. Thus, it is no longer only developed countries’ multinationals which are moving their operations to developing countries, but emerging market companies that are increasingly engaging in production abroad. This is having beneficial effects in countries where these companies invest and might help them start their own industrialization process. This has attracted the ire of developed countries, which are now targeting these downstream production plants abroad by using the so-called anti-circumvention instrument, resulting in trade defence duties imposed on the parent companies being extended to their foreign subsidiaries. This application of the anti-circumvention instrument departs from its historic rationale and might hinder the development of countries in need of foreign investment. Therefore, affected governments should consider taking international legal action to bring developed countries to the negotiating table to put a halt to this abuse of the anti-circumvention instrument.

Plastic pollution is a planetary crisis posing a significant threat to humans and the environment. The regulatory response to this crisis has so far been piecemeal and has not prevented the accumulation and ubiquity of plastic pollution. The growing concern over plastic pollution and the first regulatory measures directed against it soon resulted in court cases. By early 2023, cases concerning plastic pollution emerged in more than 30 countries around the world. From holding private polluters accountable to considering the constitutionality of restrictions on certain plastic products and to ordering regulatory bodies to adopt or implement such measures, courts are playing an increasingly important role in plastic pollution governance.

Binding taxpayer-initiated international dispute resolution has traditionally played a minor role in the international tax system. Despite being long pursued by corporate interests and increasingly accepted by developed countries, international tax arbitration has remained less developed and less respectful of private interests than investor–State arbitration. The binding multilateral dispute settlement endorsed by over 130 countries as part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Two Pillar Solution to issues raised under Action 1 of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project marks a change and is noteworthy at a time when some States are reconsidering their consent to the international adjudication of trade and investment disputes. The design of international dispute settlement in the Two Pillar Solution, and the focus on the protection of multinationals from juridical double taxation, displays little appreciation of the experience with dispute settlement in international trade and investment over the past two decades.

The discussion on Taiwan's status under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has picked up steam. After providing some historical background, it is argued that neither doctrinal nor policy arguments can support the application of the Convention to Taiwanese parties. Drawing on case law in the context of other uniform law treaties, the article concludes that the approbation of the CISG by the People's Republic of China should not bind Taiwan and that, as a consequence, Taiwanese parties should be treated as parties from non-Contracting States.

The negotiation of the free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the United Kingdom promised to integrate trade and climate policies. As a leader of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Glasgow, the UK seemed well-placed to exert pressure on Australia, a country that was yet to embrace a target of net zero emissions by 2050. This article asks whether the FTA achieves this aim. It explains the link between trade liberalisation and climate change, referring to the scale and composition of economic activity and drawing upon examples from energy, agriculture, building and transportation sectors, as well as strategic factors. It provides an original analytical framework to assess the FTA's contributions to climate change goals, pointing to: (1) provisions to strengthen climate commitments, including net zero targets; (2) provisions to facilitate trade and investment in climate-related areas; and (3) provisions relating to enforcement and cooperation. It compares selected initiatives of other FTAs, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the European Union–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the UK–New Zealand FTA and the Singapore–Australia Green Economy Agreement. It reviews the FTA's negotiating process and its aftermath, including complaints about public participation. The article's conclusion that the FTA makes minimal contribution to climate change mitigation has implications for the broader quest for mutually supportive trade and climate policies, and, now that a net zero target has been legislated by the newly elected Australian Parliament, for the FTA's future implementation.

This article presents the first feminist doctrinal textual analysis of cross-pillar synergies within thematic resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Specifically, it examines the pillars relating to ‘participation’ and ‘protection’ under the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. In attempts to balance agency with victimhood, normative advancement of both pillars has until recently evolved along parallel tracks, with little acknowledgment of how protection relates to women's participation. This article identifies synergies, gaps and productive tensions as the WPS agenda begins to engage with the inter-relationship between the pillars. It outlines critical implications and considerations for any future moves towards cross-pillar congruence.

Public participation in international environmental decision-making can seek to fulfil different goals. This article explains how these goals can affect the design and appraisal of participatory processes and highlights the under-recognised value of law in determining the objectives of public participation in international environmental forums. A doctrinal analysis finds that substantive goals are most prominent in current international environmental law, but that a normative rationale for public participation could be gaining more formal endorsement through the growing legal recognition of linkages between procedural human rights and environmental protection.

The Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has featured remarkable solidarity over diplomatic and sanctioning initiatives. This unity of action, however, has largely not extended to developing or non-Western States. Many such States have, instead, expressed their non-alignment in respect of Western ‘economic warfare’, albeit not infrequently while also condemning Russia's military actions. This article proposes an approach to reconciling the positions of States in different economic, geopolitical and regional/cultural alignments. First, it suggests that current norms on State responsibility do not rule out using collective countermeasures against States accused of erga omnes norm violations, including via sanctions not authorised by the United Nations but rather imposed by coalitions. At the same time, however, it is argued that individual third-party States retain extensive rights to decide whether or not to participate in such initiatives. This autonomous agency can be derived, in part, through the continued applicability of traditional neutrality principles that require all sides to a conflict to respect the status of neutral States. As collective countermeasure initiatives come to be used more frequently in response to global conflicts, the ‘forgotten’ rules of neutrality provide a useful guide for balancing inter-State legal relations.

Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights enshrines the right to liberty, one of the oldest and most fundamental rights in the human rights tradition, and one of the core rights in the Convention. Central to the judicial understanding of Article 5 is the ‘exhaustive justification principle’: unlike with other rights, such as the right to privacy, interferences with liberty can only be justified by one of the specific reasons listed in Article 5 itself. This article shows that this rigidity has posed problems in practice: faced with modern developments unforeseeable at the time of the Convention's writing, such as the use of novel policing techniques and the COVID-19 pandemic, judges have interpreted Article 5 in an unusual and artificial way, sacrificing the exhaustive justification principle in doing so, in order to achieve sensible outcomes. The integrity of Article 5 has been threatened, with serious consequences for the future protection of the right to liberty. This trend is explained, evidenced and evaluated, and some (partial) solutions and concessions are considered.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, numerous Western States have supplied Ukraine with arms, munitions and war material, in ostensible breach of their obligations as neutral, non-participating States. States have failed to provide any legal explanation for such transfers, leaving the task to scholars and commentators to provide legal argumentation as to the compatibility of arms transfers to victims of aggression with neutral duties. This article analyses and seeks to evaluate these arguments in favour of ‘qualified neutrality’ and assess which of the proposed grounds, if any, are the most compelling.

Courts in a number of jurisdictions have attempted to resolve the relationship between winding-up proceedings and arbitration clauses, but a unified approach is yet to appear. A fundamental disagreement exists between courts which believe that the approach of insolvency law should be applied, and those which prefer to prioritise arbitration law. This article argues that a more principled solution emerges if the problem is understood as one of competing values in which the process of characterisation can offer guidance. This would allow both a more principled approach in individual cases, and a more coherent dialogue between courts which take different approaches to the issue.

Knowing receipt requires the satisfaction of disparate elements under English domestic law. Its characterisation under domestic law is also unsettled. These in turn affect the issues of characterisation and choice of law at the private international law level, as knowing receipt sits at the intersection of the laws of equity, restitution, wrongs and property. This article argues that under the common law knowing receipt ought to be considered as sui generis for choice of law purposes and governed by the law of closest connection to the claim. Where the Rome II Regulation applies, knowing receipt fits better within the tort rather than unjust enrichment category and the escape clause in Article 4(3) of the Regulation ought to apply.

A principle that prohibits States from weakening their domestic levels of environmental protection continues to emerge at varying speeds within international trade, investment and environmental law. This article explores the principle's diverse history, rationale and legal expression in each of these domains and finds that its various articulations in different international treaties suffer the same shortfalls and deficiencies. Non-regression clauses may leave the complexities and nuances of implementing environmental protections unaddressed, including identifying and measuring when a regression has occurred and balancing these environmental protections with other legitimate policy and environmental measures. As these clauses are increasingly subject to investor–State and State–State dispute procedures, States expose themselves to heightened liability for changes to their environmental laws, even where those changes might be legitimate and reasonable. The particular emergence of this principle in environmental law offers treaty-makers an opportunity to clarify the rights of States to derogate from otherwise narrowly drafted clauses that require them to maintain their level of environmental protection strictly.

Given recent data regarding fishing vessels switching off their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) in the Western Indian Ocean, this article assesses the potential illegality of the practice by analysing national and international legislation. It shows that the enforcement of AIS laws is generally poor, and although these are becoming increasingly robust in some jurisdictions, the sanctions are not severe enough to act as deterrents. Furthermore, this article suggests that the insurance industry enables the practice of switching off AIS through weak due diligence practices. Insurers have a role to play in curbing such illegal behaviour, and it is not discretionary.

This article explores the concept of consideration in contract law from a comparative perspective, looking at how English law and German law distinguish bargains from gifts. Contrary to the orthodoxy that consideration is unique to Common Law and absent from Civil Law, the bidirectional analysis in this article shows how English law and German law can be understood to fulfil a comparable function and can thus inform and benefit each other. The sophisticated English doctrine can be used to refine the rather imprecise German definition of gifts, whilst the understanding of English authorities can profit from reflecting inversely on the criterion of gratuitousness in German law.

This article argues that although most Caribbean States have in the last 60 years ascended to statehood, colonialism continues to exist in new and variable forms. It relies upon the concept of ‘coloniality’ as advanced by Schneiderman to contend that the international investment law regime, whose history and evolution is rooted in colonialism, relentlessly pursues the economic interests of foreign investors and capital-exporting countries. It draws important connections between historic colonialism and the contemporary regime for the protection of foreign direct investment by situating the Caribbean's experience in the light of the rationales, tropes and methods arising in the past which endure in investment law's domains, as advanced by Schneiderman in his new book, Investment Law's Alibis, namely (a) profitability and privilege; (b) a discourse of improvement; (c) distrust of local self-rule; and (d) construction of legal enclaves. It is argued that each of these features of colonial rule, from a Caribbean perspective, is inscribed in the discourse and practices of the international investment law regime.

The European Union (EU) is contemplating the adoption of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which would extend its domestic carbon price to emissions that are produced outside its borders but are embodied into its imports of carbon-intensive commodities. In doing so, the EU is testing the boundaries of permissible unilateral action at the interface of international climate and trade law. However, the question of whether the proposed CBAM is compatible with these two multilateral legal regimes is yet to be addressed in an integrated manner. This article seeks to fill this gap in the scholarship and makes two main arguments. First, the CBAM as presently designed does not respect the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDRRC) and needs to be adjusted through two forms of differential treatment: a full exemption for least-developed countries and Small Island Developing States and the use of CBAM-generated revenue to support decarbonisation efforts in other affected developing countries. Secondly, this CBDRRC-based differentiation should be permissible under WTO law on the grounds that it does not amount to discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail.

Courts and scholars have interpreted open-ended legal norms as imposing due diligence obligations on States and other entities to mitigate climate change. These obligations can be applied in two alternative ways: through holistic decisions, where courts determine the level of mitigation action required of defendants; or through atomistic decisions, where courts identify some of the measures that the defendant must take. This article shows that, whilst most holistic cases fail on jurisdictional grounds, atomistic cases frequently succeed. Overall, it is argued that atomistic litigation strategies provide more realistic and effective ways for plaintiffs to prompt enhanced mitigation action.

Four years following the entry into force of the EU data protection framework (the GDPR) serious questions remain regarding its enforcement, particularly in transnational contexts. While this transnational under-enforcement is often attributed to the role of key national authorities in the GDPR's procedures, this article identifies more systemic flaws. It examines whether the GDPR procedures are deficient-by-design and, if not, how these flaws might be addressed. The conclusions reached inform our understanding of how to secure effective protection of the EU Charter right to data protection. They are also of significance to EU law enforcement more generally given the increasing prevalence of composite decision-making as the mechanism of choice to administer EU law.