Berkowitz/Finley Lecture Hall

Lecture Summary: The survival of our planet requires swift and targeted climate policies to adapt, mitigate and repair. Scientists and political elites acknowledge the urgency to reduce our reliance on coal and fossil fuels to achieve the necessary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Academics have been studying the impacts of investment treaty protections on climate action and argued that investment treaties raise the cost of climate action, financially and via regulatory chill and limit their ability to combat climate change. There also have been instances where investment treaties protected investors in the renewable energy sector leading to the argument that international investment law can support transition to renewable energy. This lecture will reflect on the compatibility of states’ existing investment treaty obligations with their climate obligations. It will consider the consequences of investment law’s distaste of local politics, stakeholder participation and public protest, which are essential to the realization of the right to a healthy environment, climate policy-making, and more broadly to democratic governance. Anil is a Senior Lecturer at Essex Law School and a co-director of the Essex Business and Human Rights Project. A sandwich lunch is available for all attendees from 12.30 pm in the Old Library.

This lecture has been rescheduled from Friday 10 February to Monday 6 February due to strike action. Lecture summary: After 1945, the United Nations – and international organizations (IOs) more generally – were widely embraced as the ideal, democratic means to resolve international conflicts and promote global welfare. Sharing this almost feverish enthusiasm, a Western-controlled International Court of Justice adopted a deferential attitude toward IOs. The law it developed exuded confidence in the impartiality of IOs, premised on an unquestioning assumption that their subjection to legal discipline and judicial review would be unnecessary and even counterproductive. I propose that the time has come to concede that the utopian premises upon which the international law relating to IOs is based are flawed and outline a new course for the international law on IOs, one that addresses the inherent flaws of collective decision-making and can assist IOs to achieve their stated goals. Professor Eyal Benvenisti is Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law, Columbia Law School (2022). He is the Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, CC Ng Fellow in Law at Jesus College, and the Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Global Visiting Faculty of New York University School of Law. He is Member of the Institut de droit international and of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The Lauterpacht Centre Friday lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press A sandwich lunch is available for all attendees from 12.30 pm in the Old Library.

Please note: this lecture will not be recorded. Lecture summary: While there is a broad agreement that certain norms of international law reflect and protect the interests of the international community as a whole, these are rarely framed or assessed as a unitary concept. Instead, communitarian norms are disaggregated into the distinct if related concepts of jus cogens norms, erga omnes obligations, intransgressible principles of humanity, fundamental values and interests of the international community as a whole. I argue that these categories are facets of a single overarching concept, namely, that of communitarian norms of international law understood as multilateral norms of general international law recognised by the international community as reflecting and protecting its common interests. The lack of a priori classification of the community interests under international law and their inherently dynamic character corresponding to that of the international community itself underlie the need for developing a clear methodology for the identification of these norms. In my talk, I will focus on construing a methodology for identifying communitarian norms based first and foremost on State practice, particularly in relation to the formulation of international treaties but also in the context of custom and the general principles of law. I will also explore the key legal characteristics or the communitarian features of the norms by reference to the case law of international courts and tribunals, as well as the work of the International Law Commission. The questions of methodology and characteristics are key for delineating the scope of the concept of communitarian norms, as well as for grounding the normative claim as to which norms can generate communitarian legal effects and on what basis. Dr Rumiana Yotova is an Assistant Professor in International Law, Fellow and Director of Studies in Law at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge and a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre. Chaired by: Prof Sandesh Sivakumaran

A series of three lectures by Benedict Kingsbury , New York University. Vice Dean and Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Director, Institute for International Law and Justice Faculty Director, Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies. 6 pm, Tuesday 29 November 2022 Lecture 1: Futurities: International Law as Planning 6 pm, Wednesday 30 November 2022 Lecture 2: Infrastructure, Data & AI RESCHEDULED DUE TO INDUSTRIAL ACTION 6 pm, Thursday 1 December 2022 Lecture 2: Infrastructure, Data & AI 11.30 am - 12.30 pm, Friday 2 December 2022 Lecture 3: Replenishing the International Law Endowment in the Planetary Epoch 12.30 pm - 1 pm, Friday 2 December 2022 Sandwich lunch in the Old Library 1 pm, Friday 2 December 2022 Q&A There is limited capacity in the Berkowitz/Finley Lecture Hall. Please arrive early to secure your place and to avoid disappointment. The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht . These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law.