This article reviews the history and politics of the English foreign act of State and non-justiciability doctrines in light of recent judgments in Belhaj and Rahmatullah. It argues that the doctrines have a political unconscious—a term borrowed from literary theorist Fredric Jameson—and that an appreciation of this should inform the Supreme Court's approach to the forthcoming appeals.

The issues of State and diplomatic immunity in cases involving persons employed by foreign States in embassies or consulates or engaged directly by diplomats remain controversial. The focus of this article is on recent developments in European law, in particular under the European Convention on Human Rights, the Brussels I Regulation and the Charter of the European Union, the effect of which has been to enhance the rights of employees of foreign States. Analysis is also made of the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property and the current domestic practice of States with the aim of identifying the present international law standard on State immunity and embassy and consular employment. Employees of diplomats, however, remain inadequately protected and this article considers possible strategies for improving their position.

Comparing the EU law principle of loyalty with international law good faith and the duty of federal good faith in German constitutional law (Bundestreue), this article contributes to the discussion on the nature of the EU legal order and its relationship to international law more generally by finding that EU loyalty is in essence a specific incarnation of the international law principle that treaties are to be interpreted in good faith. At the same time, it challenges the assumption that international law good faith differs fundamentally from federal good faith. To this end, the article points at historical links between both, and posits that good faith is in essence a principle of constructive interpretation, the strictures of which increase with the level of integration of the legal order in which it is applied.

Global experimentalist governance has emerged within and across a number of international regulatory regimes, but its potential contribution to the global governance of climate change remains largely unexplored. This article investigates the opportunities and barriers to developing global experimentalist governance approaches in the international regulation of climate change technologies, focusing on the recent framework for marine geoengineering under the London Dumping Protocol. It argues that, in the face of the limits of international law in dealing with uncertainty, multilevel distribution of power and regulatory disconnection, global experimentalist governance is attractive to catalyse adaptability, iterative learning, participation and cooperation. Such approach can help rethink the way international law deals with technological development, by emphasizing its problem-solving function.

The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts have appeared in a small but steady trickle of investment treaty arbitrations over the last decade. This article considers the use of the Principles by investment tribunals on questions of both domestic law and international law. It suggests that reference to the Principles can play an important legitimating role on questions of domestic law, but that this should not replace reference to the applicable law. On questions of international law, reference to the Principles may be justified by resort to the general principles of law. However, the article contends that there is only a limited role for the UNIDROIT Principles where the primary and secondary rules of investment protection are already found in treaties and custom. In addition, while general principles have historically been drawn from domestic private law, there is increasing recognition that general principles of public law are more relevant to investment arbitration. Given this, arbitrators resolving questions of international law must be cautious in references to the UNIDROIT Principles, a quintessentially private law instrument.

Global laws are an important inspiration for commercial law reforms around the world. Much analysis of this phenomenon emphasizes the capacity of regulatory élites, such as lawmakers, courts and lawyers, to adapt global laws to local conditions. What is often absent from this top-down analysis is a wide-ranging consideration of what the regulated think about global laws. This article aims to redress this shortcoming in the comparative literature by drawing fresh perspectives from bottom-up responses to global laws. It takes from socio-legal scholarship a framework for analysing the interface between thought formation and social action and explores the question—how do the regulated conceptualize and localize global laws? If compliance is socially constructed from below, as this literature suggests, then attempts to understand legal globalization by focusing exclusively on regulatory élites misses much of the localization story.

In its eagerly awaited judgment in Gazprom, the CJEU declined to follow the Opinion of Advocate General Wathelet that West Tankers is no longer good law. The West Tankers case decided that the courts of one Member State are precluded from granting antisuit injunctions directed at proceedings in the courts of another Member State, even if the proceedings in which the injunction is granted fall outside the scope of the Brussels Regulation by reason of the fact that they are concerned with arbitration. The Gazprom case confirms that West Tankers is still good law.