{"title":"The Plea of Necessity in Cyber Emergencies Unresolved Doctrinal Questions","authors":"Henning Lahmann","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10063","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although an increasing number of states has explicitly acknowledged the plea of necessity as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness to be applicable in situations of cyber emergencies, important doctrinal questions remain underexposed in both official expressions of opinio juris and in the literature. The article closes this gap by giving an account of three of the most salient issues in the context of the necessity defence: the “only way” requirement, the condition of non-contribution, and assistance by unaffected states to defensive measures taken in emergencies. It concludes that while recently growing academic criticism of the prevailing strict understanding of the “only way” criterion might be less relevant in the cyber context, states should consider more explicitly how emerging norms obliging states to observe a certain standard of cyber hygiene in regard to domestic cyber infrastructures could influence legal assessments as to a possible contribution to a situation of cyber emergency, potentially precluding the necessity defence. Finally, long-running doctrinal debates surrounding the exact legal nature of the defence within the larger context of the customary rules on state responsibility are revisited to examine whether third states could be permitted to come to the help of imperilled states even if the defence does not apply to them individually.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135960894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Guardians of Legality?","authors":"Sarah Thin","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10064","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000There is an essential conflict at the heart of the international judicial function. On the one hand, interstate courts and tribunals (ict s) are viewed as guardians of international legality; organs of the international community itself. On the other, they are the tools of their creator states. Accordingly, traditional conceptions of the international judicial function frame ict s as dispute settlors pure and simple, a perspective which comes into conflict with a more community-oriented role for ict s. This article explores these different approaches to the international judicial function, presenting them as two opposing perspectives: one bilateralist, one based on the community interest in legality and the international rule of law. It then assesses the practice and procedure of the icj, itlos, and the wto dsm in relation to jurisdiction and admissibility against these differing views of the international judicial function. It concludes that, although the bilateralist perspective still holds considerable sway, a more systemic, community interest-oriented international judicial function is clearly emerging in the field of international adjudication.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41905459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sovereign Immunity of Uncrewed Surveillance Vehicles and the Limits of Enforcement Jurisdiction","authors":"S. McKenzie","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10062","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000States have long trespassed on the territory of other States to carry out surveillance. However, new technologies are changing the stakes of these incursions: uncrewed aerial vehicles (uav s) and uncrewed maritime vehicles (umv s) used for surveillance can trespass in on foreign territory without risk to their operators. In addition, States appear to be more willing to capture or destroy trespassing uncrewed vehicles. This paper assesses whether these developments suggest there is a basis to denying trespassing uncrewed devices sovereign immunity from the enforcement jurisdiction of territorial States. It argues that while uncrewed devices (like other forms of military property used for non-commercial purposes) are entitled to sovereign immunity, they can lose that immunity through their conduct, including by trespassing on the territory of another State. This allows for the territorial State to exercise enforcement jurisdiction, including the use of force, over the uav or umv.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46176324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty for Core Crimes","authors":"A. Bisset","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10056","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Mutual Legal Assistance Initiative (mlai) was established to fill the widely acknowledged gap that currently exists within the international legal framework on inter-state cooperation in the prosecution of international crimes. Recent drafts of the mla Convention are concerned not only with mutual legal assistance and extradition, but a series of wider obligations for states on criminalisation in domestic law, exercise of jurisdiction and protection and reparations regimes for victims. It has become much more than a judicial cooperation treaty. This article analyses the developments and directional changes in the mlai, questioning whether the current draft Convention aligns with the Initiative’s original objectives and enables it to fulfil its aims.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42685232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Artificial Intelligence, Decision Making and International Law","authors":"M. Arvidsson, G. Noll","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10060","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41908447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Subjecthood in Cyberspace and the Uncanny Valley of International Law","authors":"O. Korhonen, Merima Bruncevic, M. Arvidsson","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10058","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this article the authors build on Masahiro Mori’s 1970s essay “The Uncanny Valley”, psychoanalysis and critical legal pluralism, to analyse how the uncanny in international law is exposed through law’s encounter with the a-human, non-human and more-than-human phenomena challenging legal subjecthood in cyberspace. Discussing autonomous decision-making, dwellers and encounters in international law’s uncanny valley the article proposes that international law needs to cater to a spectrum of non-human subjectivities, entities, laws and normativities. In short, international law needs to ‘get over itself’ and its constant anxiety in the face of the plurality of laws and Others.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41385059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Institutions and Information Technologies: Transformations for a Higher Order System","authors":"G. Gordon","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10053","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This contribution focuses on the interoperation of analogue and digital information technologies (and techniques associated with them), to ask how their interoperation has determined (and changed) what is made legible in practices associated with international institutions. It traces how the interoperation of digital and analogue technologies has supported the intensification of efficiency-maximizing institutional routines, now expressed in the so-called optimization function associated with neural networks and artificial intelligence. As a result, the terrain of contestation has shifted in significant ways from arguments over rules to pattern-recognition processes that determine efficient solutions according to optimal outcomes. Institutional practice on this new terrain aspires to a sort of immediacy, a direct engagement in the becoming of the thing(s) to which the institutional mandate may apply. This immediacy defies the reflective character associated with traditional legal practice, and assumes power by defining problems and engendering governance issues in the very act of addressing them.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42207642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Technologies of Decision Support and Proportionality in International Humanitarian Law","authors":"Markus Gunneflo, G. Noll","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10055","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000What does proportionality reasoning mean for decision support in international humanitarian law (ihl)? We first consider contemporary ihl commentaries on proportionality as an analogue form of decision support through a paradigmatic example. Over time, proportionality in ihl has changed from being a rule-specific space for discretionary decision making to a much broader compromise-seeking within boundaries marked by law. Today, proportionality is a master norm in ihl, remaking rules by stealth and enabling the accommodation of novel master technologies as lawful. Artificial Intelligence (ai) support for military decision making is one such master technology that resonates particularly well with the inner structure of proportionality thinking: both build on cost-benefit analysis and engender the quantification of the world through data collection. We analyse how cost-benefit analysis and digitalization and algorithmic processing intersect in the U.S. legal context, to then proliferate into U.S. warfare and decision support systems, and onwards into ihl.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43109940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decision Making in Asylum Law and Machine Learning","authors":"M. Arvidsson, G. Noll","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article avails an autoethnography of the authors’ attempt to construct a post hoc intervention machine learning (ml) system responsive to the problem of discrimination in asylum law decisions. In the article we revisit the conjunction of law as a slow hermeneutic, against the fast-paced pull of ai and commercial imperatives to ask whether a ml-driven post hoc intervention system such as the one set up in the research project reduces the overall risk of discrimination emerging from human discretion in legal decision making on asylum. We conclude that a ml-driven ‘anti-discrimination machine’ will displace rather than reduce that overall risk. We warn that similar attempts at using ml as part of legal decision making, decision support, and post hoc interventions, in international law and beyond, may need to take seriously the risks of human discretion embedded in ml design and data selection.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45043994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Global Inequality and the EU International Law Position on Cross-Border Data Flows","authors":"Leila Brännström","doi":"10.1163/15718107-bja10059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10059","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Relevant data resources are critical for ai-supported decision-making. Thus, control over data, and how that moves across borders, has become a key point of international dispute. This article analyses the EU’s international legal positionings regarding cross-border data flows in the context of an increasingly fierce global battle over data resources. It also asks whether the EU approach to data government, which is reflected in its international positionings, can contribute to address the pressing problem of the unequal distribution of the gains of the data driven economy in and among states. The article argues that EU’s approach to data government is ridden with contradictions and that its centrepiece, the data protection framework, is best understood as a non-performative. This non-performativity, together with the determination to climb up the ladders of global digital value chains, makes the EU’s position on cross-border data flows ambiguous and downgrades its punch in international negotiations.","PeriodicalId":34997,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of International Law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42479461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}