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14 April 2016: Inaugural Thomas Franck International Law Debate

On 14 April 2016, the Research Group held its inaugural Thomas Franck International Law Debate on the topic

"The International Rule of Law:
Rise or Decline in a Changing Global Order?".

The Panel included

Georges Abi-Saab, Geneva (frm. Judge ICTY, ICTR and frm. member AB WTO)
Andrew Hurrell, Oxford (Professor of International Relations, Balliol College)
Georg Nolte, Berlin (Professor of International Law, Humboldt-Universität)
Chair: Heike Krieger, Berlin (Professor of International Law, Freie Universität)

It discussed crisis symptoms of the current global order and their implications for international law. Multiple military interventions in the Middle East, conflicts over the sea in East Asia and over territory in Eastern Europe, movements of people on a massive scale, a stagnation of treaty making, and disintegrative tendencies in certain international and European institutions are among the many challenges which our international legal and political system currently faces. Despite such signs of crisis we are also seeing successes, such as the Paris Accord on Climate Change and the Iran Nuclear Accord.

It was assessed, among the panelists and with the audience, whether we can, under the current significantly changing conditions, still observe an increasing juridification of international relations based on a universal understanding of values. Or are we, to the contrary, rather facing tendencies towards an informalization of international law, or towards its reformalization, or even an erosion of international legal norms?