New periodical: Journal of International Peacekeeping

The first issue of the Journal of International Peacekeeping has just been published, and the full text of all the articles are available online.

The Journal of International Peacekeeping is devoted to reporting upon and analyzing international peacekeeping with an emphasis upon legal and policy issues, but is not limited to these issues. Topics include inter alia peacekeeping, peace, war, conflict resolution, diplomacy, international law, international security, humanitarian relief, humanitarian law, and terrorism. The journal is of scholarly quality but is not narrowly theoretical. It provides the interested public - diplomats, civil servants, politicians, the military, academics, journalists, and NGO employees - with an up-to-date source of information on peacekeeping, enabling them to keep abreast of the most important developments in the field. Peacekeeping is treated in a pragmatic light, seen as a form of international military cooperation for the preservation or restoration of international peace and security. Attention is focused not only on UN peacekeeping operations, but other missions as well.

The Journal of International Peacekeeping is the continuation of the journal and yearbook International Peacekeeping, founded in 1994.

Of course, from our perspective, the most interesting issues relate to the accountability of international organizations (and perhaps of private military companies) for the actions of their peacekeepers, whether taken out in furtherence of their mandate, or in blatant abuse of their position. This is a range of topics on which I have blogged a couple of times before. I've only had time for a quick look, but there are a range of articles in the first volume of the Journal of International Peacekeeping that are of interest (and will have to be added to the GAL Bbiliography): One on the role of the UN in promoting the rule of law in post-conflict societies; on the ECtHR's Behrami decision; another on the House of Lords' Al Jedda judgment; and another on the immunity of the UN over Srebrenica before a Dutch court. There are also some relevant reviews of books on UN peacekeeping in Lebanon, Somalia and Kosovo, legal implications of peacekeeping, on international territorial administration, and on the "unintended consequences" of peacekeeping missions.

That's a lot of GAL for the first issue of a journal. Definitely one worth keeping an eye on...

Forthcoming event on GAL in International Organizations in Geneva

A quick post to highlight the fact that this week (Friday and Saturday to be precise) a major GAL event will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Practical Problems of International Organizations: A Global Administrative Law Perspective on Public/Private Partnerships, Accountability, and Human Rights. The conference will feature Panels on the increasing use of public-private partnerships by international organizations; legal process and mandate issues; accountability and immunities; and human rights issues in field operations. There will also be a general round table discussion, involving the chief legal officers of a number of important organizations. A detailed overview and programme of the event is available here.

The conference is jointly organized and sponsored by the Department of Public International Law and International Organization (and in particular by Professor Laurence Boisson de Chazournes) at the University of Geneva Law School and NYU's Institute for International Law and Justice (where the GAL project, led by Professors Benedict Kingsbury and Richard Stewart, is based). The event is also sponsored by the Institute for Research on Public Administration of Rome (led by Professor Sabino Cassese), the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Special mention must also go to my friend and colleague Lorenzo Casini, who has written more emails in this regard than I even knew existed.

The purpose of the meeting is to raise, analyze, and discuss important operational issues that confront major international organizations (IOs) that may not as yet have been sufficiently addressed in systematic fashion. In order to do so, the conference will bring together leading experts – both practitioners and academics – in the field.

Unfortunately, the meeting is by invitation only. The various contributions will, however, be collected into a volume for publication after the conference; and I will post some reflections on the event here at some point early next week.