Freya Baetens speaks on shared international responsibility at GRILI
The Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI) is a research institute within the Faculty of Law at Ghent University. Founded in 2015 at the initiative of Prof. Tom Ruys, the Institute brings together the existing expertise within the law school in the broader international law domain.
The Institute consists of 10 faculty members and ca. 20 doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. Its activities span the entire realm of public international law, ranging from the law of armed conflict and international human rights law, to the law of the sea, international environmental law, international criminal law, and international economic law, as well as the history of international law.
Upon invitation of Prof. Diederik Bruloot, Freya Baetens gave a guest lecture last month in the GRILI lecture series at her alma mater, on the challenges arising from the determination of shared responsibility under international law. She discussed shared responsibility between states, as for example in the Eurotunnel case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration; between states and individuals, as for example in the CME v. Czech Republic case before an arbitral tribunal under the auspices of the Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID); and between states and international organisations, as in the Dutchbat cases before the Dutch domestic courts. She weighed the pros and cons of proactively trying to anticipate and prevent these problems via treaty-drafting, as opposed to tailor-made ad hoc solutions for specific cases.