In her article, Mason concludes that politics – or “bargaining over national interests”— “will play a starring role in determining the outcomes” of the current digital tax project. In this essay, I apply public choice theory to the politics of international tax and argue that two questions can shape our understanding of international tax negotiations and therefore help us predict the outcomes of future international tax reform projects. First, what interests are country delegates representing? Second, how are countries using their involvement in international negotiations to represent these interests? The first question highlights that country delegates are often not defending some agreed-upon “national interest” but are instead often protecting the interests of particular political parties, industries, or taxpayers, which in turn means that interests can change over time and that some voices are missing from debates. The second question highlights that country delegates can engage in international tax negotiations in a variety of ways. They can try to limit what, if anything, the negotiations achieve; they can try to push for more expansive results; and they can use the negotiations to provide international support for their own country's laws. This essay focuses on one particular version of this third type of engagement, where delegates use their country's involvement in an international project to validate and legitimate an idea or proposal that may previously have had little support. I refer to this involvement as “international legitimation,” and I argue that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project shows that delegates who took this approach may have achieved the most long-term success in that their inclusion of little-known provisions or concepts in the international outputs of the BEPS Project ended up leading to these provisions and concepts being adopted by countries around the world.

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Memorials and monuments are envisioned as positive ways to honor victims of atrocity. Such displays are taken as intrinsically benign, respectful, and in accord with the arc of justice. Is this correlation axiomatic, however? Art, after all, may be a vehicle for multiple normativities, contested experiences, and variable veracities. Hence, in order to really speak about the relationships between the aesthetic and international criminal law, one must consider the full range of initiatives—whether pop-up ventures, alleyway graffiti, impromptu ceremonies, street art, and grassroots public histories—prompted by international criminal trials. Courts may be able to stage their own outreach, to be sure, but they cannot micromanage the outreach of others. And the outreach of others may look and sound strikingly different than that curated and manicured by courts. This essay presents one such othered outreach initiative: a memorial in Tokyo dedicated to Justice Radhabinod Pal of India, who authored a vehement dissent at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). The IMTFE was established in 1946 to prosecute Japan's leadership in the aftermath of the Second World War. Pal would have acquitted each defendant. This essay describes Justice Pal's legal philosophy, situates his place in the currents of international law, and reflects on the broader role of memorials as discursive sites.

The potential convergence of art and international justice has received greater attention in recent years. In light of recognition of the limitations of international courts and the challenges of outreach, scholars and practitioners have begun to seek alternative ways of fostering engagement among the communities most affected by the crimes under their jurisdiction. In this context, the question has arisen: What can art do? What is the potential role of art and aesthetics in furthering goals of international courts beyond justice, i.e., towards peace and reconciliation? In this essay, I discuss three ways in which art has enormous potential, while also acknowledging that there are associated risks and challenges that might cause us to temper our enthusiasm.

One can hope that the convening of the Tokyo Olympics will be a cause for global celebration. Tokyo could prove a focal point for international solidarity, a moment of relief and release after all of humanity faced down an insidious, invisible, and largely indiscriminate attacker. Unified as we otherwise may be, athletes will still come to the Games as representatives of nation-states. That may be an unavoidable organizing principle. Less justifiable will be the requirement that athletes be nationals of the states they play for. Under the Olympic Charter and the rules of particular sporting federations, athletes are subject to a non-state nationality regime that restricts the capacity of individuals to compete for countries for whose delegations they would otherwise qualify. This regime looks to maintain the putative integrity of Olympic competition by maintaining the unity of sporting and sociological national identity. But that legacy of the twentieth century no longer works in the twenty first. Nationality and associated criteria for participant eligibility undermine the autonomy of athletes and the quality of participation. The rules can no longer guarantee any affective tie between athlete and nation, instead arbitrarily enabling some, but not all, to compete on the basis of citizenship decoupled from identity. We don't require that athletes playing for our professional sports teams hale from the cities they represent. There's no reason why we need to require more of our Olympic athletes.

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A common exercise for international lawyers faced with a new global environmental problem consists in undertaking a review of the applicable law. Environmental principles generally feature extensively in such studies: their open-textured nature is recognized to facilitate a fluid adaptation of international law as new risks become apparent. Among these principles is the foundational prevention principle, which is based on the rationale that environmental damage is best avoided rather than repaired. Since its international recognition in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, the prevention principle has gained an influential place in the work of environmental lawyers. While it is readily assumed that the principle is able to guide state responses to the plastics crisis, its exact functions and legal implications in this context remain underexplored. The purpose of this essay is to shed light on the different roles that the prevention principle can play in response to the proliferation of harmful plastics.

The deterritorialization of the Internet and international communications technology has given rise to acute jurisdictional questions regarding who may regulate online activities. In the absence of a global regulator, states act unilaterally, applying their own laws to transborder activities. The EU's “extraterritorial” application of its data protection legislation—initially the Data Protection Directive (DPD) and, since 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—is a case in point. The GDPR applies to “the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to: (a) the offering of goods or services . . . to such data subjects in the Union; or (b) the monitoring of their behaviour . . . within the Union.” It also conditions data transfers outside the EU on third states having adequate (meaning essentially equivalent) data protection standards. This essay outlines forms of extraterritoriality evident in EU data protection law, which could be legitimized by certain fundamental rights obligations. It then looks at how the EU balances data protection with third states’ countervailing interests. This approach can involve burdens not only for third states or corporations, but also for the EU political branches themselves. EU law viewed through the lens of public international law shows how local regulation is going global, despite its goal of protecting only EU data subjects.

Our contribution to this symposium speaks to the origins of international organization (IO) reputation. The one explored by Daugirdas is agency slack: when people delegated power and authority within an organization—in her example, UN peacekeepers and their surrounding bureaucracy—abuse their privilege and stain the institution's character. We explore another that can spark similar reactions and consequences, but which emanates from the behavior of the principals themselves (rather than their agents): the member states. The company an IO keeps—how members behave—can bolster or stain the organization's reputation. That in turn can have consequences, especially for organizations seeking to provide a venue for members to make credible commitments.