19.05.2021 | Online Discussion

The First 100 Days of the Biden Administration: International Law and Transatlantic Relations

Europe and Germany anticipated the start of the Biden Administration with high hopes. After what has been described by many as the nadir of transatlantic relations, the new administration was expected to herald a reset of international cooperation – generally and in matters of law.

In this event hosted by the DAJV Young Professionals, Professor Russell Miller of Washington and Lee University discussed with Fabian Simon Eichberger and the audience to what extent the first 100 days of the new administration have lived up to this expectation by zooming in on the role and relevance of international law in transatlantic relations.

Brief summary by Fabian Eichberger

Will the Biden Administration signal a paradigm shift with regards to the United States’ approach to international law? This question stood at the centre of the discussion with Professor Russell Miller during the event organized by the DAJV’s Young Professionals Division. By contextualizing different issues ranging from the United States’ re-engagement with the WTO to the possibility of invoking state responsibility as a means to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Miller shed light on current issues of international law from an American point of view. One of the key insights was that Europeans should not take the change in government to mean an automatic alignment of interests between the United States and Europe with regards to matters of public international law. Rather, approaches on the two sides of the Atlantic have always been different and will continue to be so in the future – the challenge will be to still find synergies and work together in a constructive fashion.

 

Speaker:

Professor Russell A. Miller is Senior Research Fellow & Head of the Max Planck Law Network as well as the J.B. Stombock Professor of Law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia.

Full Bio: https://law.wlu.edu/faculty/full-time-faculty/russ-miller

Fabian Simon Eichberger, Dipl. Jur (Bucerius), MJur (Oxford) is acting head of Hamburg’s Young Professionals Division of the German-American Lawyers Association and a PhD Candidate in international law at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge.

Full Bio: https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/research-students/fs-eichberger/79061