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Articles 31 - 60 of 364
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Aggravating Duty Of Non-Aggravation, Steven R. Ratner
The Aggravating Duty Of Non-Aggravation, Steven R. Ratner
Articles
International law's duty of non-aggravation requires states to avoid actions that might inflame an international dispute, both to maintain international peace and to preserve the effectiveness of judicial or arbitral proceedings. Yet parties on the receiving end of calls for non-aggravation --whether from the Security Council or at tribunal -- have little idea of what conduct they are expected to avoid. This state of affairs is most unfortunate in light of the centrality of this norm to the peaceful resolution of disputes and, in particular, examples of seemingly provocative and aggravating acts in recent years. This article attempts to give …
Domestic Courts And The Generation Of Norms In International Law, Charles T. Kotoby Jr.
Domestic Courts And The Generation Of Norms In International Law, Charles T. Kotoby Jr.
Articles
International law in the form of treaty and custom is primarily shaped by national executives and legislatures. To be sure, “judicial decisions” are deemed a “subsidiary means for the determination of [international] law,” but that still does not give domestic courts an everyday role in the generation of universal norms and international law. This article proposes a more dynamic reality which elevates the importance of municipal courts in the generation and creation of international law. The truth is that domestic courts interact regularly to announce and create important universal norms—by, for instance, adjudicating expropriation claims, passing on the recognition and …
A Hague Convention On Parallel Proceedings, Paul Herrup, Ronald A. Brand
A Hague Convention On Parallel Proceedings, Paul Herrup, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The Hague Conference on Private International Law has engaged in a series of projects that, if successful, could provide the framework for critical aspects of trans-national litigation in the Twenty-first Century. Thus far, the work has resulted in the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. Work now has begun to examine the need, desirability and feasibility of additional instruments in the area, with discussions of an instrument that would either require or prohibit the exercise of jurisdiction by national courts, and …
The Worst Tax Law Ever Enacted?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The Worst Tax Law Ever Enacted?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
Some tax laws are worse than others. The 1986 Tax Reform Act is generally considered one of the best. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is generally considered one of the worst, although I would say it is too early to tell what its long-term impact might be, and some of its worst features (like the Code Sec. 199A deduction) might be repealed in the future.
Another example of a generally condemned tax law is the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. This law was a must-pass piece of legislation because Congress needed to react to the sanctions imposed …
The Vulnerable Sovereign, Ronald A. Brand
The Vulnerable Sovereign, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The connection between sovereignty and law is fundamental for both domestic (internal sovereignty) and the international (external sovereignty) purposes. As the dominant forms of government have evolved over time, so has the way in which we think about sovereignty. Consideration of the historical evolution of the concept of sovereignty offers insight into how we think of sovereignty today. A term that was born to represent the relationship between the governor and the governed has become a term that is used to represent the relationships between and among states in the global legal order. This article traces the history of the …
The Hague Judgments Convention In The United States: A “Game Changer” Or A New Path To The Old Game?, Ronald A. Brand
The Hague Judgments Convention In The United States: A “Game Changer” Or A New Path To The Old Game?, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The Hague Judgments Convention, completed on July 2, 2019, is built on a list of “jurisdictional filters” in Article 5(1), and grounds for non-recognition in Article 7. If one of the thirteen jurisdictional tests in Article 5(1) is satisfied, the judgment may circulate under the Convention, subject to the grounds for non-recognition found in Article 7. This approach to Convention structure is especially significant for countries considering ratification and implementation. A different structure was suggested in the initial Working Group stage of the Convention’s preparation which would have avoided the complexity of multiple rules of indirect jurisdiction, each of which …
International Rule Of Law And Domestic Courts: A Few Concerns, Akhila Basalalli
International Rule Of Law And Domestic Courts: A Few Concerns, Akhila Basalalli
Articles
The manifestation of the international rule of law appears as one of the possible paths to check the rule of power and establish an egalitarian system. Many international organizations have emphasized on the international rule of law in their objectives and mandates and have called the states to act in their service. The domestic courts have resonated with the call by exhibiting internationalism in their decisions. The international norms have been domesticated by the courts by adopting several incorporation and interpretation methods. The domestic courts, therefore, have been called as the ‘agents’ in the service of international law and protectors …
Appraising The U.S. Supreme Court’S Philipp Decision, Vivian Grosswald Curran
Appraising The U.S. Supreme Court’S Philipp Decision, Vivian Grosswald Curran
Articles
This article assesses the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) after the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Germany v. Philipp. Philipp’s rejection of a genocide exception for a foreign state’s act of property expropriation comports with the absence of such an exception in the FSIA’s text. The article also suggests that the genocide exception as it had been developing was a detrimental development in FSIA interpretation, and was also harmful to international human rights law, inasmuch as it distorted the concept of genocide. The Philipp Court’s renewed focus on the international law of property, rather than of human rights, should …
The Life And Death Of Confederate Monuments, Jessica Owley, Jess Phelps
The Life And Death Of Confederate Monuments, Jessica Owley, Jess Phelps
Articles
Confederate monuments have again received increased attention in the aftermath of George Floyd's tragic death in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. Momentum and shifting public opinion are working toward the removal of these problematic monuments across the country. This Article seeks to provide insight for monument-removal advocates: specifically focusing on the legal issues associated with the "death" or removal of these monuments, how property law shapes and defines these efforts, and briefly examining what happens to these statues after removal. Our exploration of Confederate monuments reveals that some removal efforts occur outside of legally created processes. Both public and …
Federal Rule 44.1: Foreign Law In U.S. Courts Today, Vivian Grosswald Curran
Federal Rule 44.1: Foreign Law In U.S. Courts Today, Vivian Grosswald Curran
Articles
This article presents an in-depth analysis of the latent methodological issues that are as much a cause of U.S. federal court avoidance of foreign law as are judicial difficulties in obtaining foreign legal materials and difficulties in understanding foreign legal orders and languages. It explores Rule 44.1’s inadvertent introduction of a civil-law method into a common-law framework, and the results that have ensued, including an incomplete transition of foreign law from being an issue of fact to becoming an issue of law. It addresses the ways in which courts obtain information about foreign law today, suggesting among others the methodological …
High Seas Governance: Gaps And Challenges, Bernard H. Oxman
High Seas Governance: Gaps And Challenges, Bernard H. Oxman
Articles
No abstract provided.
Family Law Disputes Between International Couples In U.S. Courts, Rhonda Wasserman
Family Law Disputes Between International Couples In U.S. Courts, Rhonda Wasserman
Articles
Increasing mobility, migration, and growing numbers of international couples give rise to a host of family law issues. For instance, when marital partners are citizens of different countries, or live outside the country of which they are citizens, or move between countries, courts must first determine if they have jurisdiction to hear divorce or child custody actions. Given that countries around the world are governed by different legal regimes, such as the common law system, civil codes, religious law, and customary law, choice of law questions also complicate family litigation. This short article addresses the jurisdictional and other conflicts issues …
Introduction To The Symposium On Soft And Hard Law On Business And Human Rights, Steven R. Ratner
Introduction To The Symposium On Soft And Hard Law On Business And Human Rights, Steven R. Ratner
Articles
This symposium turns to a major debate within a field of international law that has moved from the periphery to center stage in just a few decades—business and human rights, or BHR: Can and should international law's approach to the human rights impacts of business activity shift from today's mostly soft-law framework to a multilateral treaty regime? While advocates for and against such a treaty debate this point at the UN Human Rights Council and other venues, this symposium examines the problem from four theoretical perspectives. Each contribution offers insights for practitioners and scholars alike, but they suggest no easy …
Tax Treaties, The Constitution, And The Noncompulsory Payment Rule, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Tax Treaties, The Constitution, And The Noncompulsory Payment Rule, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
US Tax treaties have been regarded as self-executing since the first treaty (with France) was ratified in 1932. Rebecca Kysar has argued this raises a doubt on whether the treaties are constitutional, because tax treaties (like other treaties) are negotiated by the executive branch and ratified by the Senate with no involvement by the House, and all tax-raising measures must originate in the House under the Origination Clause (U.S. Const. Art I, section 7, clause 7). Her preferred solution is to make tax treaties non-self executing, but that would reverse the universal practice since 1932, and is therefore unlikely. Moreover, …
International Law And Theories Of Global Justice: Remarks, Steven R. Ratner, James Stewart, Jiewuh Song, Carmen Pavel
International Law And Theories Of Global Justice: Remarks, Steven R. Ratner, James Stewart, Jiewuh Song, Carmen Pavel
Articles
International law (IL) and political philosophy represent two rich disciplines for exploring issues of global justice. At their core, each seeks to build a better world based on some universally agreed norms, rules, and practices, backed by effective institutions. International lawyers, even the most positivist of them, have some underlying assumptions about a just world order that predisposes their interpretive methods; legal scholars have incorporated concepts of justice in their work even as their overall pragmatic orientation has limited the nature of their inquiries. Many philospophers, for their part, have engaged with IL to some extent—at a minimum recognizing that …
Constructive Dialogue: Beps And The Tcja., Reuven Avi-Yonah
Constructive Dialogue: Beps And The Tcja., Reuven Avi-Yonah
Articles
From its inception, the international tax regime was heavily influenced by the United States. The regime is traditionally traced back to the work of the four economists for the League of Nations in 1923, who came up with the orig- inal compromise underlying the tax treaty network, i.e., that passive income should be taxed primarily at residence and active income primarily at source (the “benefits principle”). Arguably, this compromise between the claims of res- idence and source countries was made possible by the U.S. unilateral adoption of the foreign tax credit in 1918, because the United States (already the world’s …
The Perils Of Pandemic Exceptionalism, Julian Arato, Kathleen Claussen, J. Benton Heath
The Perils Of Pandemic Exceptionalism, Julian Arato, Kathleen Claussen, J. Benton Heath
Articles
In response to the pandemic, most states have enacted special measures to protect national economies and public health. Many of these measures would likely violate trade and investment disciplines unless they qualify for one of several exceptions. This Essay examines the structural implications of widespread anticipated defenses premised on the idea of “exceptionalism.” It argues that the pandemic reveals the structural weakness of the exceptions-oriented paradigm of justification in international economic law.
The International Claims Trade, Kathleen Claussen
The International Claims Trade, Kathleen Claussen
Articles
Investments are mobile in the twenty-first century international economy. They are seldom held for their duration by a single owner from a single country. They change hands and they do so for a variety of reasons, often in the course of a dispute. But the scholarship addressing what happens when international investments and legal claims against sovereigns regarding those investments change hands appears only at the margins. The practice of buying and selling claims or claims trading is well known and institutionalized in some areas of domestic litigation. For cross-border investment disputes against sovereigns, however, many of the cases discussing …
Debating The Interface Between International Law And Municipal Law: A Few Concerns Regarding The Relevance Of The Traditional Debate, Primary Of Law And Integration Of The Legal Systems, Akhila Basalalli
Articles
The interface between international and municipal legal systems has moved from segregation towards convergence and integration. The changing contours of sovereignty are evident by the blurring divide between the two legal systems. This process is manifested by relaxing the requisite of transformation of treaties and elevating status of customary norms to ‘law of the land’. The Indian Courts too have emanated a varied set of judicial techniques. Considering contemporary developments, the paper examines the relevance of the monist-dualist debate, questions the primacy of law in the event of conflict and pursues the trending integration.
Comparative Method And International Litigation 2020, Ronald A. Brand
Comparative Method And International Litigation 2020, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
In this article, resulting from a presentation at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law, I apply comparative method to international litigation. I do so from the perspective of a U.S.-trained lawyer who has been involved for over 25 years in the negotiations that produced both the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. The law of jurisdiction and judgments recognition is probably most often taught in a litigation context. Nonetheless, that law has as much or more …
Financing The World Health Organization: What Lessons For Multilateralism?, Kristina Daugirdas, Gian Luca Burci
Financing The World Health Organization: What Lessons For Multilateralism?, Kristina Daugirdas, Gian Luca Burci
Articles
When it comes to financing the work of international organizations, voluntary contributions from both state and nonstate actors are growing in size and importance. The World Health Organization (WHO) is an extreme case from this perspective, with voluntary contributions - mostly earmarked for particular purposes - comprising more than 80 percent of its funds. Moreover, nonstate actors are by now supplying almost half of WHO’s funds, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ranking as the second-highest contributor after the United States. A number of public-health and international relations scholars have expressed alarm over these trends, arguing that heavy reliance …
International Law And Political Philosophy: Uncovering New Linkages, Steven R. Ratner
International Law And Political Philosophy: Uncovering New Linkages, Steven R. Ratner
Articles
The legal regime regulating cross-border investment gives key rights to foreign investors and places significant duties on states hosting that investment. It also raises distinctive moral questions due to its potential to constrain a state’s ability to manage its economy and protect its people. Yet international investment law remains virtually untouched as a subject of philosophical inquiry. The questions of international political morality surrounding investment rules can be mapped through the lens of two critiques of the law – that it systemically takes advantage of the global South and that it constrains the policy choices of states hosting investment. Each …
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's Evolving Genocide Exception, Vivian Grosswald Curran
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's Evolving Genocide Exception, Vivian Grosswald Curran
Articles
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) was passed by Congress as a comprehensive statute to cover all instances when foreign states are to be immune from suit in the courts of the United States, as well as when foreign state immunity is to be limited. Judicial interpretation of one of the FSIA’s exceptions to immunity has undergone significant evolution over the years with respect to foreign state property expropriations committed in violation of international law. U.S. courts initially construed this FSIA exception by denying immunity only if the defendant state had expropriated property of a citizen of a nation other …
The Circulation Of Judgments Under The Draft Hague Judgments Convention, Ronald A. Brand
The Circulation Of Judgments Under The Draft Hague Judgments Convention, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The 2018 draft of a Hague Judgments Convention adopts a framework based largely on what some have referred to as “jurisdictional filters.” Article 5(1) provides a list of thirteen authorized bases of indirect jurisdiction by which a foreign judgment is first tested. If one of these jurisdictional filters is satisfied, the resulting judgment is presumptively entitled to circulate under the convention, subject to a set of grounds for non-recognition that generally are consistent with existing practice in most legal systems. This basic architecture of the Convention has been assumed to be set from the start of the Special Commission process, …
Online Dispute Resolution, Ronald A. Brand
Online Dispute Resolution, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
This chapter was prepared from a presentation given by the author at the 2019 Summer School in Transnational Commercial Law & Technology, jointly sponsored by the University of Verona School of Law and the Center for International Legal Education (CILE) of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In the paper, I review online dispute resolution (ODR) by considering the following five questions, which I believe help to develop a better understanding of both the concept and the legal framework surrounding it:
A. What is ODR?
B. Who does ODR?
C. What is the legal framework for ODR?
D. What …
Reputation And Accountability: Another Look At The United Nations’ Response To The Cholera Epidemic In Haiti, Kristina Daugirdas
Reputation And Accountability: Another Look At The United Nations’ Response To The Cholera Epidemic In Haiti, Kristina Daugirdas
Articles
The cholera outbreak in Haiti offers a useful case study of reputation as a disciplinarian of international organizations. On the one hand, UN officials and member states alike have emphasized the need to repair the organization’s damaged reputation. On the other hand, the UN secretariat declined to take certain steps that might have averted—or at least mitigated—that reputational damage in the first place. This contribution argues that the United Nations’ response to cholera in Haiti showcases some important limitations and complications of reputation as a disciplinarian. Reputation will function as a less effective disciplinarian of organizations in the context of …
The International Law Commission's Soft Law Influence, Elena Baylis
The International Law Commission's Soft Law Influence, Elena Baylis
Articles
Since the 1990s, the International Law Commission has increasingly produced soft law, such as principles and draft conclusions, in addition to hard law like draft treaty articles This essay explores the implications of the International Law Commission’s transition toward a greater emphasis on soft law. Soft law is an effective vehicle for the International Law Commission’s mission of codification and progressive development of international law; the International Law Commission’s involvement increases the clarity and accessibility of international law norms and promotes a dynamic, synergistic relationship between hard law and soft law that contributes to the effective evolution of international law. …
The Private Law Critique Of International Investment Law, Julian Arato
The Private Law Critique Of International Investment Law, Julian Arato
Articles
This Article argues that investment treaties subtly constrain how nations organize their internal systems of private law, including laws of property, contracts, corporations, and intellectual property. Problematically, the treaties do so on a one-size-fits-all basis, disregarding the wide variation in values reflected in these domestic legal institutions. Investor-state dispute settlement exacerbates this tension, further distorting national private law arrangements. This hidden aspect of the system produces inefficiency, unfairness, and distributional inequities that have eluded the regime's critics and apologists alike.
The Past, Present And Future Of The Cisg (And Other Uniform Commercial Code Law Initiatives), Harry Flechtner
The Past, Present And Future Of The Cisg (And Other Uniform Commercial Code Law Initiatives), Harry Flechtner
Articles
As the keynote speaker of the Spring 2019 CISG Conference, Harry M. Flechtner, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, candidly shares his perspectives on the development and progress of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) through the years. He begins with his initial introduction to the convention and then reflects upon several important issues and challenges facing the CISG, particularly involving uniform international law initiatives. Professor Flechtner looks hard at what's working and what's not and with a critical eye he draws attention to crucial matters yet to be resolved. While his perspective is light …
The Cisg: Applicable Law And Applicable Forums, Ronald A. Brand
The Cisg: Applicable Law And Applicable Forums, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
Despite being in effect for over thirty years, a debate continues on whether the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has been a success. With 89 Contracting States, it clearly is widely accepted. At the same time, empirical studies show that private parties regularly opt out of its application. It has served as a model for domestic sales law, and as an important educational tool. But has it been a success? In this article I consider that question, and suggests that the scorecard is not yet complete; and that it will perhaps take significantly …