Law Commons^™

Enforcing Interstate Compacts In Federal Systems, Michael Osborn

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

The central goal of a federal system is for local government units to retain degrees of independence, specifically over matters of importance to that local unit. A logical corollary to that independence is the ability for local units to negotiate and contract with other local units on matters of importance. Therefore, it is not surprising that almost every federal system allows, either implicitly or explicitly, member states to form binding compacts with other states, the union government, or municipalities.1 Some federal democracies even allow member states to compact with foreign governments. Furthermore, almost every federal constitution includes a provision outlining …

The Failed Transparency Regime For Executive Agreements: An Empirical And Normative Analysis, Oona A. Hathaway, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith

Faculty Scholarship

The Constitution specifies only one process for making international agreements. Article II states that the President “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” The treaty process has long been on a path to obsolescence, however, with fewer and fewer treaties being made in each presidential administration. Nevertheless, the United States has not stopped making international agreements. Even as Article II treaties have come to a near halt, the United States has concluded hundreds of binding international agreements each year. These agreements, known as …

Indian Nations And The Constitution, Joseph William Singer

Maine Law Review

This Constitution Day speech focuses on how the Constitution has been interpreted both to protect and to undermine the sovereignty of Indian nations. The good news is that both the text of the Constitution and the practice of the United States have recognized Indian nations as sovereigns who pre-existed the creation of the United States and who retain their inherent original sovereignty. The bad news is that the Constitution has often been interpreted by the Supreme Court to deny Indian nations protection for their property rights and their sovereignty. Most Americans are not aware of the history of interactions between …

Presidential Control Over International Law, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith

Faculty Scholarship

Presidents have come to dominate the making, interpretation, and termination of international law for the United States. Often without specific congressional concurrence, and sometimes even when it is likely that Congress would disagree, the President has developed the authority to:

(a) make a vast array of international obligations for the United States, through both written agreements and the development of customary international law;

(b) make increasingly consequential political commitments for the United States on practically any topic;

(c) interpret these obligations and commitments; and

(d) terminate or withdraw from these obligations and commitments.

While others have examined pieces of this …

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

In this section: Congress Enacts Sanctions Legislation Targeting Russia • United States and Qatar Sign Memorandum of Understanding over Terrorism Financing • Trump Reverses Certain Steps Toward Normalizing Relations with Cuba • United States Announces Plans to Withdraw from Paris Agreement on Climate Change • President Trump Issues Trade-Related Executive Orders and Memoranda • United States, Russia, and Jordan Sign Limited Ceasefire for Syria • Trump Administration Recertifies Iranian Compliance with JCPOA Notwithstanding Increasing Concern with Iranian Behavior

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

In this section: • Trump Administration Takes Steps to Implement Bilateral Agreement with Australia Regarding Refugees • Trump Administration Criticizes NATO Members for Failing to Meet Defense Spending Guideline; United States Joins Other NATO Members in Supporting Montenegro’s Membership in the Organization • President Trump Issues Executive Orders Suspending Refugee Program and Barring Entry by Individuals from Specified Countries • Trump Administration Maintains Nuclear Deal with Iran, Despite Persistent Skepticism • United States Strikes Syrian Government Airbase in Response to Chemical Weapons Attacks by Syrian Forces; Two Additional Strikes on Syrian Government Forces Justified by Defense of Troops Rationale • …

Making Treaty Implementation More Like Statutory Implementation, Jean Galbraith

Michigan Law Review

Both statutes and treaties are the “supreme law of the land,” and yet quite different practices have developed with respect to their implementation. For statutes, all three branches have embraced the development of administrative law, which allows the executive branch to translate broad statutory directives into enforceable obligations. But for treaties, there is a far more cumbersome process. Unless a treaty provision contains language that courts interpret to be directly enforceable, they will deem it to require implementing legislation from Congress. This Article explores and challenges the perplexing disparity between the administration of statutes and treaties. It shows that the …

From Treaties To International Commitments: The Changing Landscape Of Foreign Relations Law, Jean Galbraith

All Faculty Scholarship

Sometimes the United States makes international commitments in the manner set forth in the Treaty Clause. But far more often it uses congressional-executive agreements, sole executive agreements, and soft law commitments. Foreign relations law scholars typically approach these other processes from the perspective of constitutional law, seeking to determine the extent to which they are constitutionally permissible. In contrast, this Article situates the myriad ways in which the United States enters into international commitments as the product not only of constitutional law, but also of international law and administrative law. Drawing on all three strands of law provides a rich …

Four Problems With The Draft Restatement’S Treatment Of Treaty Self-Execution, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The American Law Institute has embarked on the challenging task of restating the confounding distinction between self-executing and non-self-executing treaties. In some respects, the current draft of the Fourth Restatement of Foreign Relations Law represents an advance from the treatment of the subject in the Third Restatement (Third). At the same time, the current draft retains, and may even aggravate, some of the flaws of that earlier treatment. This Essay suggests four ways the current draft could be improved. First, the draft should explicitly recognize that the concept of self-execution is not a unitary one. The "self-executing" label encompasses four …

A Remedy For Congressional Exclusion Frm Contemporary International Agreement Making, Ryan Harrington

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Agenda: A Celebration Of The Work Of Charles Wilkinson: Served With Tasty Stories And Some Slices Of Roast, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

A Celebration of the Work of Charles Wilkinson (Martz Winter Symposium, March 10-11)

Conference held at the University of Colorado, Wolf Law Building, Wittemyer Courtroom, Thursday, March 10th and Friday, March 11th, 2016.

Conference moderators, panelists and speakers included University of Colorado Law School professors Phil Weiser, Sarah Krakoff, William Boyd, Kristen Carpenter, Britt Banks, Harold Bruff, Richard Collins, Carla Fredericks, Mark Squillace, and Charles Wilkinson

"We celebrate the work of Distinguished Professor Charles Wilkinson, a prolific and passionate writer, teacher, and advocate for the people and places of the West. Charles's influence extends beyond place, yet his work has always originated in a deep love of and commitment to particular places. We …

The Abiding Exceptionalism Of Foreign Relations Doctrine, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In their article The Normalization of Foreign Relations Law, Professors Ganesh Sitaraman and Ingrid Wuerth argue that “[foreign affairs] exceptionalism . . . is now exceptional,” and that this is a good thing. I agree with much of the authors’ normative argument for “normalization” of foreign affairs doctrine (as they define the term). But the authors overstate the extent to which such normalization has already occurred. There have indeed been some recent Supreme Court decisions that seem to lack the exceptional deference to the Executive that had characterized judicial decisionmaking in the foreign affairs area in previous years. But foreign …

Treaty Termination And Historical Gloss, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

The termination of U.S. treaties provides an especially rich example of how governmental practices can provide a “gloss” on the Constitution’s separation of powers. The authority to terminate treaties is not addressed specifically in the constitutional text and instead has been worked out over time through political-branch practice. This practice, moreover, has developed largely without judicial review. Despite these features, Congress and the President—and the lawyers who advise them—have generally treated this issue as a matter of constitutional law rather than merely political happenstance. Importantly, the example of treaty termination illustrates not only how historical practice can inform constitutional understandings …

The United States Government As Defendant - One Example Of The Need For A Uniform Liability Regime To Govern Outer Space And Space-Related Activities, Joseph A. Bosco

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Common Law In An Age Of Treaties, Michael P. Van Alstine

Michael P. Van Alstine

In this article Professor Van Alstine explores the interaction between the limitations on the doctrine of federal common law and the power of federal courts to interpret the law within the scope of treaties. The article first reviews the constitutional foundation for the operation of treaties as directly applicable ("self-executing") federal law. It then explains that, notwithstanding the Erie doctrine, federal courts may obtain lawmaking powers from either a delegation by Congress or in certain areas of "uniquely federal interest." Professor Van Alstine then argues that the judicial relationship with self-executing treaty law in principle proceeds from the same source …

An Agenda For The Obama Administration On Gender Equality: Lessons From Abroad, Adrien K. Wing, Samuel P. Nielson

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

President Barack Obama came into office with a wealth of good will after winning the historic 2008 presidential election to become the first African-American commander-in-chief. Among the many daunting issues we hope he will tackle is one that Abigail Adams mentioned to her husband John in 1776: remember the ladies. How should our President and his new administration affect social justice for women?

International Law And Constitutional Interpretation: The Commander In Chief Clause Reconsidered, Ingrid Brunk Wuerth

Michigan Law Review

The Commander in Chief Clause is a difficult, underexplored area of constitutional interpretation. It is also a context in which international law is often mentioned, but not fully defended, as a possible method of interpreting the Constitution. This Article analyzes why the Commander in Chief Clause is difficult and argues that international law helps resolve some of the problems that the Clause presents. Because of weaknesses in originalist analysis, changes over time, and lack of judicial competence in military matters, the Court and commentators have relied on second-order interpretive norms like congressional authorization and executive branch practice in interpreting the …

Executive Power Essentialism And Foreign Affairs, Curtis A. Bradley, Martin S. Flaherty

Michigan Law Review

Conflict abroad almost always enhances executive power at home. This expectation has held true at least since the constitutions of antiquity. It holds no less true for modern constitutions, including the Constitution of the United States. Constitutional arguments for executive power likewise escalate with increased perceptions of foreign threat. It is therefore hardly surprising that broad assertions of presidential power have become commonplace after the events of September 11, 2001, and the ensuing war on international terrorism. One perennial weapon in the executive arsenal is the so-called "Vesting Clause" of Article II of the Constitution. This clause, which provides that …

Federal Common Law In An Age Of Treaties, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

In this article Professor Van Alstine explores the interaction between the limitations on the doctrine of federal common law and the power of federal courts to interpret the law within the scope of treaties. The article first reviews the constitutional foundation for the operation of treaties as directly applicable ("self-executing") federal law. It then explains that, notwithstanding the Erie doctrine, federal courts may obtain lawmaking powers from either a delegation by Congress or in certain areas of "uniquely federal interest."

Professor Van Alstine then argues that the judicial relationship with self-executing treaty law in principle proceeds from the same source …

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Debate: Time For Some Clarification Of The President's Authority To Terminate A Treaty, Joshua P. O'Donnell

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note explores the legal issues surrounding a president's legal authority to unilaterally withdraw from a treaty. This Note argues that, while international legal issues surrounding treaty termination are not controversial, the domestic legal issues surrounding the president's authority to terminate a treaty are heavily disputed. An analysis of these domestic legal issues does not resolve the controversy. Instead, this Note argues that a functional analysis is required. This functional analysis reveals that the president should have the power to unilaterally terminate a treaty because it maintains foreign policy effectiveness. The Note then argues that the Senate, which informally recognizes …

Nineteenth-Century Orthodoxy, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.

Toward The Enforcement Of Universal Human Rights Through Abrogation Of The Rule Of Non-Inquiry In Extradition, Richard J. Wilson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Making Of International Agreements: Congress Confronts The Executive, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Making of International Agreements: Congress Confronts the Executive by Loch K. Johnson

Termination Of War, John M. Mathews

Michigan Law Review

The termination of war must, at the outset, be distinguished Ifrom the termination of hostilities or actual warfare. As has been said, war is "not the mere employment of force, but the existence of the legal condition of things in which rights are or may be prosecuted by force. Thus, if two nations declare war one against the other, war exists, though no force whatever may as yet have been employed."' Similarly, it follows that, although actual hostilities have ceased, the status of war may continue until terminated in some regular way recognized by international law as sufficient for that …

The Power Of The Senate To Amend A Treaty, Bradley M. Thompson

Articles

The recent refusal of the Senate to ratify eight general arbitration treaties which the President had concluded with Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Mexico,' and Norway and Sweden, until, against the protest of the President, it had modified them materially by amendment, has called public attention to the treaty-making power, and has raised the question as to whether or not any of that power is vested in the Senate.

The Power Of The Senate To Amend A Treaty, Bradley M. Thompson

Articles

The recent refusal of the Senate to ratify eight general arbitration treaties which the President had concluded with Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Mexico, and Norway and Sweden, until, against the protest of the President, it had modified them materially by amendment, has called public attention to the treaty-making power, and has raised the question as to whether or not any of that power is vested in the Senate.