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After Action: The U.S. Drone Program's Expansion Of International Law Justification For Use Of Force Against Imminent Threats, Elodie O. Currier

Vanderbilt Law Review

Until the 2000s, the United States' attempts to shift international legal norms on imminence to allow for greater use of armed force abroad were largely unsuccessful. In the past two decades, however, drone use and careful legal gamesmanship by U.S. officials have opened an unprecedentedly broad allowance for use of force in imminent self-defense. As drones become increasingly available to state and non-state actors, this permissive regime poses a threat to national and international security. This Note analyzes two decades of international customary law formation around drone use outside of armed conflict through a new lens post U.S.-withdrawal of Afghanistan. …

Regulating Global Stablecoins: A Model-Law Strategy, Steven L. Schwarcz

Vanderbilt Law Review

Digital currencies have the potential to improve the speed and efficiency of the payment system. The principal challenge is retail: to facilitate day-to-day payments among consumers as an alternative to cash, both domestically and across national borders. Two models of digital currencies are becoming viable: central bank digital currencies and nongovernment-issued currencies that are backed by assets having intrinsic value (stablecoins or, when widely used internationally, global stablecoins). Because they are not government issued, global stablecoins present complex and novel cross-border regulatory challenges, including managing the costs of complying with a multitude of national laws and ensuring international legal enforceability. …

Presidential Factfinding, Shalev Roisman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The modern President possesses enormous power. She can use military force abroad without congressional authorization, impose economic sanctions on foreign powers, or enter into trade agreements with foreign states. She can do all this on her own, with little constraint. Or so it seems. In reality, these important powers, along with numerous more mundane ones, are all contingent on the President first making certain factual determinations. For example, to use force abroad, the President must first determine that the use of force is in the "national interest," perhaps that it will preserve "regional stability" or protect American lives. To impose …

The Dragon In The Room: China's Anti-Monopoly Law And International Merger Review, Christopher Hamp-Lyons

Vanderbilt Law Review

In a world where mergers affect every corner of the planet, any government seeking competitive markets has an interest in ensuring that these mergers are not harmful to competition. As China, the world's most populous country, has committed to a market economy, it has now taken the momentous step of enacting its own Anti- Monopoly Law ("AML"). This effects a dramatic change in the antitrust regulation of multinational mergers. In international antitrust, even subtle legal differences between jurisdictions create significant potential for conflict. For this reason, the advent of antitrust merger review by a country with such massive international economic …

A Theory Of Expressive International Law, Alex Geisinger, Michael A. Stein

Vanderbilt Law Review

What is the "pull of international society" and how does it influence the willingness of States to enter into or comply with international law? Since Grotius first identified the concept that States seek esteem from the broader global community, its parameters have proven illusive. Nonetheless, the notion remains central to discussions of why States comply with international agreements.

Understanding the reputational mechanism that impels State compliance is especially important to human rights treaties. Unlike other regimes, States that ratify and abide by the terms of these instruments receive neither reciprocal nor immediate benefits.

Consequently, the desire for international esteem is …

The Role Of International Law As A Canon Of Domestic Statutory Construction, Ralph G. Steinhardt

Vanderbilt Law Review

From the beginning of our constitutional life, the Supreme Court has articulated principles that structure the juridical relationship between international law and domestic law. These principles purportedly offer rules of decision for resolving in domestic courts the potential in-consistencies between external and internal sources of law, and they do so with the surface simplicity of axioms. Treaties, for example, cannot trump constitutional norms.' Customary international law can provide a rule of decision at least in the absence of controlling legislative or executive acts. In the case of an irreconcilable conflict between a treaty and a statute, the latter-in-time prevails. When …

The Status Of The Law Of Nations In Early American Law, Stewart Jay

Vanderbilt Law Review

A perennial issue is the relationship of international law to the domestic law of the United States. The question appears in various con-texts, but in each the central problem is determining whether the body of customary international law is binding on the national and state governments. Discussions about this subject inevitably lead to consideration of separation of powers at the national level. If the United States may depart from international law, which branch of government has the power to do so? If one branch transgresses international law, is this action binding on the others?' For example, a recent case examined …

The Executive Branch And International Law, Arthur M. Weisburd

Vanderbilt Law Review

Public international law, through its rules regulating the dealings between independent nations, purports to impose limits on the actions of all governments, including those of the United States. In this context American lawyers interested in foreign relations may reasonably wonder whether American courts would enforce rules of public international law purporting to bind the United States against the United States government, particularly the executive branch. A fair number of Supreme Court cases have dealt with the enforce ability of treaties in American courts.' Treaties, however, are only one source of international law. The other important source, customary international law, is …

The Extraterritorial Reach Of The Federal Securities Code: An Analysis Of Section 1905, John M. Liftin

Vanderbilt Law Review

Section 1905 of the proposed Federal Securities Code' sets forth the applicability of the Code to transnational securities transactions. The drafters could have stated in each provision of the Code whether and to what extent it was to apply extraterritorially. Instead, they placed in one section a set of general principles that cuts across all other sections of the Code and indicates which sections are to have extraterritorial application. The result is a descriptive guide that relies on a classification of transactions rather than a section-by-section enumeration...

This Article will not analyze the existing cases, except to the extent they …

Book Note, Daniel C. Turack

Vanderbilt Law Review

The volume contains 28 essays, representing only one-third of Professor Cooper's aerospace articles, but as the editor concedes,they represent areas in which his contribution was most significant.These spheres are: the history of air law; the fundamental principles of air law (notably airspace sovereignty and nationality of aircraft); and space law. In the first part, four essays serve to introduce the reader to the problems of terminology and the scope of air and space law,the economic and political basis of air power, and certain specific problems to be examined subsequently in depth. Part two, entitled "Rights In Airspace: From Antiquity To …

Elliott Evans Cheatham, Willis L.M. Reese

Vanderbilt Law Review

Cheatham has made a marked imprint through his teaching and his writing on five areas of the law: international law, property, legal education, the legal profession, and conflict of laws. Of these, the legal profession is probably the field where his influence has been most deeply felt. Indeed, it is largely because of his ground-breaking casebook that the subject figures so prominently today in law school curriculums. Likewise, his Carpentier Lectures of a few years ago on "A Lawyer When Needed" provided the entering wedge into a subject that is of great contemporary significance. What Cheatham has done in the …

International Law, National Tribunals And The Rights Of Aliens:, Richard B. Lillich

Vanderbilt Law Review

There is growing concern everywhere these days with the application of substantive international law rules to individuals as well as to nations. Indeed, after years of relative neglect, the procedural side of international law is coming into its own, a development that is as welcome as it is overdue. To readers who recall Morris R. Cohen's observation that "students of legal history know the truth of the statement that 'the substantive law is secreted in the interstices of procedure,' nor need practitioners be reminded how frequently changes in procedure affect the substantive right of parties,"' this trend is a particularly …

International Law, National Tribunals And The Rights Of Aliens: The West European Experience, Peter E. Herzog

Vanderbilt Law Review

The local remedies rule is usually considered a device to accommodate the legitimate desire of states to preserve their own sovereignty with the equally legitimate desire of states to protect their nationals who have suffered injury abroad. It is obvious that the adequacy of the rule in serving the second of these ends will depend on the nature and quality of the local remedies available. In turn, the effectiveness of local remedies in protecting the rights of aliens will depend on a variety of factors. Most importantly, there is the adequacy of the substantive legal rights in the fields of …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Antitrust--Unincorporated Divisions of a Corporation May Be Separate Entities for Purposes of Antitrust Laws

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Constitutional Law--One-Year Residence Requirement as Condition of Eligibility for State Welfare Aid Held Unconstitutional

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International Law--Sovereign Immunity and Act of State--Hickenlooper Amendment Precludes Assertion of Act of State Where Act Is Violative of International Law

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Products Liability--Lender Held Liable for Gross Defects in Housing Development It Had Financed

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Taxation--Constructive Ownership Rules Automatically Applied to Section 302(b) (1)Dividend Equivalency Test

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Taxation--IRS Rules Organization Which Discriminates on Basis of Race Not Charitable

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antitrust, constitutional law, international law, products liability, taxation

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Civil Rights--Exclusion of Wage Earners as a Class from Jury Service in State Courts Violates

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International Law and Trademark Infringement--Rights of Former Owners of Confiscated Cuban Businesses Under Hickenlooper Amendment

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Jurisdiction--Minimum" Contacts--First Amendment Requires a Greater Showing of Contact in a Libel Action To Satisfy Due Process Than Is Necessary in Other Types of Actions

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Labor Law--Attorney Undertaking Persuader Activity on Behalf of Employer Must Report Such Activity Under LMRDA

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Labor Law--Employer Must Bargain About an Economically Motivated Decision To Close a Portion of Its Operations

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Labor Law--Employer's Duty To Bargain When Authorization Cards Are …

Developments In Space Law, Albert Gore Senator

Vanderbilt Law Review

A democratic society could not long endure without the voluntary support of its citizens of application of legal proceedings for settlement of disputes. Perhaps few take the time to consider the extent to which our daily lives are affected by the judicial machinery which a free people have established. Here I refer not merely to the deterrent effect of criminal laws by which we deal with offenses against society. I refer also to our system for the legal settlement of controversies arising between individuals. After all, without our courts and our lawyers, questions involving tort and breach of contract would …

Antitrust Laws And The Territorial Principle, G. H. Haight

Vanderbilt Law Review

During the past few years there has been extensive discussion regarding the extraterritorial application of antitrust laws and some attempts have been made to consider the matter in the context of public international law principles.' Notwithstanding objections raised by foreign governments to court orders and subpoenas directed to foreign corporations in relation to their activities abroad, some commentators still appear to consider that there are few, if any, limitations imposed by law upon such assertions of penal power. This position requires reexamination, and in undertaking a review it will be relevant to consider the nature and effect of new antitrust …

Book Reviews, Ferdinand F. Stone (Reviewer), Reginald Parker (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

Governmental Liability By H. Street New York: Cambridge University Press, 1953. Pp. 221. $5.00.

reviewer: Ferdinand F. Stone

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Roman Law and Common Law: A Comparison in Outline, Second Ed. By W. W. Buckland and Arnold D. McNair. Revised by F. H. Lawson New York: Cambridge University Press, 1952.Pp. xii, 439. $7.00.

reviewer: Reginald Parker

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Books Received

Availability for Work

By Ralph Altman

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950. Pp. 350. $4.50

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Comparative Law, Cases and Materials

Rudolf B. Schlesinger

Brooklyn:The Foundation Press, Inc., 1950. Pp. 552. $7.50

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Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure, Cases

By Ray Forrester

St. Paul:West Publishing Company, 1950. Pp. 990. $8.50.

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Financial History of Tennessee Since 1870

By James E. Thorogood

State of Tennessee: Department of Finance and Taxation, 1950. Pp. 245.

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International Law, Cases and Materials

By Edwin D. Dickinson

Brooklyn: The Foundation Press, Inc., 1950. Pp. 740. $8.00

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Primer of Procedure

By Delmar Karlen Madison:

Campus …