Introduction - International Legal Developments Year in Review: 2023

This publication, International Legal Developments – Year in Review: 2023, presents a survey of important legal and political developments in international law that occurred during 2023. The volume consists of articles from thirty-three committees of the American Bar Association International Law Section, whose members live around the world and whose committees report on a diverse range of issues and topics that have arisen in international law over the past year. Not every development in international law can be included in this volume and the omission of a particular development should not be construed as an indication of insignificance. The International Law Section committees draft their articles under extremely strict guidelines that limit the number of words that each committee has: approximately 7,000 words, including footnotes. Within these guidelines, committee members contribute submissions that describe the most significant developments in their substantive practice area or geographic region. In some cases, nonsection members who have specialized knowledge or expertise in an area may also be contributing authors.

Committee chairs and committee editors solicited the contributing authors for each committee article. The committee editors, who are identified in each article, had the daunting task of keeping their authors’ collective contributions within the tightly controlled word limit. They made difficult decisions regarding what to include and what to cut. After the committee editors did their work, Professors Kimberly Holst, Rosa Kim, and Jason Palmer, the Co-General Editors, formatted and organized the thirty-three committee submissions and then transmitted the articles to an amazing team of Deputy Editors who performed substantive and technical reviews on the articles. Once the Deputy Editors completed their work and returned the articles, the Co-General Editors reviewed each article again before sending them to the diligent student editors at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Antonio Partida and A.B. Steinberg, the past and current Editors-in-Chief of The International Lawyer (“The International Lawyer”), and Victoria Stranczek and Taylor Rosenbleeth, the past and current Managing Editors of The Year in Review (“The Year in Review”), all performed superlatively in their respective roles.

They supervised an outstanding editorial team whose individual names you can read in the masthead for this volume. These intrepid students checked the sources cited and reviewed each article line by line and word by word.

Professor Beverly Caro Duréus, who was invaluable to the publication of this volume, served again this year as the Faculty Executive Editor, and worked closely with the Co-General Editors and with the student editors. We also appreciate the support received from Robin Kaptzan and Joan Schaffner, the prior and current Publications Officers for the ABA International Law Section the Division Chairs, and the other leaders of the ABA Section of

International Law. Because of all the work that goes into producing the Year in Review, the final product is a useful and reliable overview of international law events during 2023. Readers interested in a particular substantive or geographic area are encouraged to read not only this year’s summary, but also those from earlier years.

The Co-General Editors work with an incredibly dedicated team of volunteer Deputy Editors from around the world. The Deputy Editors include many law professors who specialize in legal writing, international law, and topics related to foreign and international law. The ABA International Law Section is extremely fortunate to have such a skilled, dedicated, and generous team of Deputy Editors, many of whom have now served for several years. Here is the list of the Deputy Editors who worked on articles this year, with apologies to anyone omitted from the list. Together with the lists from previous years, we believe that we have the strongest editorial team of any journal in the world. We thank all our committee editors named in the individual articles and our Deputy Editors named here for the generous contributions of their time and talent.

• Amy Bitterman (Rutgers Law School)
• E. Joan Blum (Boston College Law School)
• Krista Bordatto (Campbell University Law School)
• Glenn Butterton (Georgetown Law)
• Sara Cates (Quinnipiac University School of Law)
• Ann Ching (Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law)
• Sha-Shana Crichton (Howard University School of Law)
• Danielle Copes (St. Mary’s University School of Law)
• Kimberly Dasse (University of North Dakota Law School)
• Anjali Dixit (Shaheed Bhagat Singh Law College)
• Misti Duvall (Columbia Law School)
• Raul Fernandez-Calienes (St. Thomas University School of Law)
• Meredith Geller (Northern Illinois University College of Law)
• Ronnie R. Gipson Jr. (University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law)
• Edward Hart (UNT Dallas College of Law)
• Regina Hillman (The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law)
• Martsyl Joseph (Roger Williams University School of Law)
• Janis Kirkland (Regent University School of Law)
• Charlotte Ku (Texas A&M University Law School)
• Ryan Lincoln (University of Idaho College of Law)
• Yue (Leo) Liu (Peking University School of Transnational Law)
• Elizabeth Kukura (Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law)
• Sercin Kutucu
• Amelia S. McGowan (University of Arkansas School of Law)
• Karin Mika (Cleveland-Marshall College of Law)
• Jennifer Neal-Jones (Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School)
• Srividhya Ragavan (Texas A&M University Law School)
• Diana J. Simon (University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law)
• Laurel Simmons (University of Houston Law Center)
• Monte Smith (The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law)
• Susan Tanner (University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law)
• John Brendan Thornton (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law)

On behalf of the readers and researchers who will use this volume in future years, we thank the hundreds of authors, committee editors, deputy editors, and law student editors whose collective efforts produced this volume and whose work over the years have created a reliable and useful record of international law developments. It has been an honor to work with you.