Digital Commons Network^™

Data Beyond Borders: Mutual Legal Assistance In The Internet Era, Andrew K. Woods

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The global nature of today’s Internet services presents a unique challenge to international law enforcement cooperation. On a daily basis, law enforcement agents in one country seek access to data that is beyond their jurisdictional reach; as one industry analyst put it, there has been, “an internationalization of evidence.” In order to gain lawful access to data that is subject to another state’s jurisdiction, law enforcement agents must request mutual legal assistance (MLA) from the country that can legally compel the data’s disclosure. But the MLA regime has not been updated to manage the enormous rise of requests for MLA. …

The Sustainable Development Principle In United States Environmental Law, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The American public perceives the principle of sustainable development and sustainability, the shorthand nomenclature, through green-tinted lenses. Whether the user of the term is academic, corporate, or governmental, the advocate of sustainability is understood as an advocate of protecting the environment. The international legal understanding of the principle of sustainable development, however, is more ambiguous than this popular American understanding.

Part II of this Article describes the important principle of sustainable development in modern international environmental law. It discusses how the sustainable development principle has evolved from its initial appearance in the 1987 Brundtland Commission Report through its central position …

A Behavioral Approach To Human Rights, Andrew K. Woods

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

For the last sixty years, scholars and practitioners of international human rights have paid insufficient attention to the ground level social contexts in which human rights norms are imbued with or deprived of social meaning. During the same time period, social science insights have shown that social conditions can have a significant impact on human behavior. This Article is the first to investigate the far-ranging implications of behavioralism—especially behavioral insights about social influence—for the international human rights regime. It explores design implications for three broad components of the regime: the content, adjudication, and implementation of human rights. In addition, the …

Book Review | Dan Sarooshi, International Organizations And Their Exercise Of Sovereign Powers (2005) & Margaret P. Karns & Karen A. Mingst, International Organizations: The Politics And Processes Of Global Governance (2004), Christopher G. Bradley

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This book review considers two books on international organizations: (1) Margaret P. Karns & Karen A. Mingst, International Organizations: The Politics and Processes of Global Governance, and (2) Dan Sarooshi, International Organizations and Their Exercise of Sovereign Powers.

The review notes several features that set the Karns & Mingst book apart from other treatments of international organizations. First is a thoroughgoing commitment to an integrated view of international organizations. The book insists (and demonstrates) that knowledge of politics, theory, and history are all indispensable to a rich understanding of the problems and processes of global governance. Second, Karns …

The Internet And Public International Law, John M. Rogers

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

It is perhaps commonplace to observe that recent developments in information technology are revolutionizing most aspects of our lives. Anything that affects our lives so profoundly will, of necessity, have a significant effect on the law. We can expect that the information revolution will have a comparably significant impact on the international system of binding obligations often called public international law. Just what that will be is of course extremely difficult to predict. Compounding that difficulty is the lack of consensus on just what actually amounts to the public international legal system. Scholars and lawyers still debate fundamental questions regarding …

International Environmental Damage Control: Some Proposals For The Second Best Of All Possible Worlds, Stephen J. Vasek Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Recent meetings of international law experts have produced considerable debate over the type of international regime necessary to effectively control pollution. Divergent views expressed range from the "survival approach" of Professor Falk to the "grocery-list approach" of Christian Herter Jr., Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Environment. The "grocery-list approach" is an operational approach which involves doing what can be done by the use of available means including discussion to define common interests, international agreements based on those shared interests, unilateral action where appropriate and increased use of the UN for a variety of purposes such as environment …