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Full-Text Articles in Law
Mandatory Versus Default Rules: How Can Customary International Law Be Improved?, Curtis A. Bradley, Mitu Gulati
Mandatory Versus Default Rules: How Can Customary International Law Be Improved?, Curtis A. Bradley, Mitu Gulati
Faculty Scholarship
Customary International Law (CIL) is plagued with uncertainties about its sources, its content, its manipulability, and its normative attractiveness. The rise of law-making through multilateral treaties also makes the proper role of CIL increasingly uncertain. This is an opportune time, therefore, to be thinking of ways to revive and improve CIL. In a prior article, we argued that the "Mandatory View" of CIL, pursuant to which nations are barred from ever withdrawing unilaterally from rules of CIL, is functionally problematic, at least when applied across the board to all of CIL. We also suggested that CIL might be improved by …
Emergency And Escape: Explaining Derogations From Human Rights Treaties, Laurence R. Helfer, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, Christopher J. Fariss
Emergency And Escape: Explaining Derogations From Human Rights Treaties, Laurence R. Helfer, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, Christopher J. Fariss
Faculty Scholarship
Several prominent human rights treaties attempt to minimize violations during emergencies by authorizing states to “derogate”—that is, to suspend certain civil and political liberties—in response to crises. The drafters of these treaties envisioned that international restrictions on derogations and international notification and monitoring mechanisms would limit rights suspensions during emergencies. This article analyzes the behavior of derogating countries using new global datasets of derogations and states of emergency from 1976 to 2007. We argue that derogations are a rational response to domestic political uncertainty. They enable governments facing serious threats to buy time and legal breathing space from voters, courts, …
Introductory Note To The International Centre For Settlement Of Investment Disputes: Aes Summit Generation Ltd. V. Republic Of Hungary, Charles O. Verrill Jr.
Introductory Note To The International Centre For Settlement Of Investment Disputes: Aes Summit Generation Ltd. V. Republic Of Hungary, Charles O. Verrill Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Withdrawing From International Custom: Terrible Food, Small Portions, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Withdrawing From International Custom: Terrible Food, Small Portions, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Curtis A. Bradley and Mitu Gulati’s Withdrawing from International Custom brings to mind the old joke recounted by Woody Allen in Annie Hall: “Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’” Similarly, while Bradley and Gulati attack international law’s current prohibition of unilateral withdrawal from custom, they propose an alternative that differs only modestly from it (small portions). At the same time, the doctrinal change they propose would take customary international law in the …