Friday Lecture: 'The Conditions for Inferring a "Dispute" from State Silence' - Dr Danae Azaria, University College London

This lecture is a hybrid event. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome.

Register online 

Lecture summary: On the one hand, inferring a ‘dispute’ from State silence ensures that States cannot unilaterally control and impede the jurisdiction of numerous international courts and tribunals merely by remaining silent. On the other hand, such an inference may exceed the respondent’s consent to a court’s jurisdiction, insofar as no real dispute exists, thus departing from the voluntarist basis of international adjudication. This article argues that State practice and international decisions support the proposition that a dispute can be inferred from a prospective respondent’s silence only exceptionally. More specifically (a) the claim of a prospective applicant must be such as to call for the reaction of the silent State; (b) the silent State must be aware of the claim; (c) the silent State must be in a position to react; and (d) reasonable time must pass. These conditions do not lower but arguably even heighten the threshold for establishing jurisdiction. 

Dr Danae Azaria is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Laws, University College London (UCL), and the Principal Investigator of the grant on State Silence funded by the European Research Council. She is a laureate of the Guggenheim Prize in Public International Law (2017) for her monograph ‘Treaties on Transit of Energy via Pipelines and Countermeasures’ (OUP 2015), and was scholarship holder of the Academy of Athens (for her PhD studies). In addition to her scholarship on international energy law and State responsibility, she has written widely in the field of international law, inter alia on the International Law Commission, the law of treaties, law of the sea, the intersection between trade and security, and acquiescence. Her research has appeared in journals including the European Journal of International Law, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Cambridge International Law Journal, British Yearbook of International Law (forthcoming). She is the Book Reviews editor of the British Yearbook of International Law, Co-Rapporteur of the ILA Committee on Submarine Pipelines and Cables, member of the ILA Committee on Use of Force by Invitation, and member of the Advisory Panel of Public International Law of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL). She is currently Senior Global Hauser Fellow at NYU Law School (2023-2024), and previously Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School (2023), and Senior Humboldt Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at Humboldt University of Berlin (2018-2019). She is on the EU's list of potential Arbitrators and Experts on Trade and Sustainable Development in the EU’s bilateral disputes under trade agreements with third States. She regularly advises international organizations and governments on issues of public international law, trains government officials, including in the regional courses on international law of the United Nations, and her lecture on State Silence has been included in the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law.

Advanced reading SSRN paper: The Conditions for Inferring a 'Dispute' from State Silence (This is an early version of the paper which will be presented).

Chair: Dr Joanna Gomula

The Friday Lunchtime Lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press & Assessment.