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Full-Text Articles in Law
International Civil Individual Responsibility And The Security Council: Building The Foundations Of A General Regime, Vincent-Joël Proulx
International Civil Individual Responsibility And The Security Council: Building The Foundations Of A General Regime, Vincent-Joël Proulx
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article focuses on a few tools at the disposal of the United Nations Security Council (“UNSC”) to enhance individual (read: civil) responsibility concerning nonstate terrorist actors with a view to opening other avenues of inquiry regarding other subversive nonstate actors (“NSAs”), for instance in the areas of transnational torts, human rights (“HR”) violations, and environmental damage caused by business entities. As discussed in Part V, recent developments surrounding the application of the Alien Tort Claims Act (“ATCA”) in the United States and the prospect of establishing a basis for universal civil jurisdiction further signal that no such solid basis …
A Theory Of Constructive Interpretation For Customary International Law Identification, Nadia Banteka
A Theory Of Constructive Interpretation For Customary International Law Identification, Nadia Banteka
Michigan Journal of International Law
Scholars and judicial practice have long debated the nature of customary international law (“CIL”) as a source of international law, including its normative identification. Existing approaches to CIL identification largely follow the methods of induction and deduction. However, these methods are only two ends of a spectrum, and international law has yet to engage systematically with other methodological approaches that lay within this spectrum. This Article introduces a mid-spectrum approach by applying the theory of constructive interpretation to CIL identification. The Article introduces the guiding principles of constructive interpretation, examines the process of constructive interpretation in the abstract, and applies …
A Global Perspective On Citizenship-Based Taxation, Allison Christians
A Global Perspective On Citizenship-Based Taxation, Allison Christians
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article contends that, with regard to individuals who reside permanently outside of the United States, the global assistance sought under FATCA to enforce U.S. income taxation solely on the basis of citizenship violates international law. It argues that insisting upon foreign cooperation with the FATCA regime, under threat of serious economic penalties, is inconsistent with universally accepted norms regarding appropriate limits to the state’s jurisdiction to tax, while also being normatively unjustified. Accordingly, FATCA should be rejected by all other nation states to the extent it imposes any obligations with respect to individuals who permanently reside outside of, and …
The Law Of Diplomatic Asylum–A Contextual Approach, Paul Behrens
The Law Of Diplomatic Asylum–A Contextual Approach, Paul Behrens
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article will deal with the conduct of diplomatic missions and their agents; it will primarily address the question of whether they are entitled to grant asylum on diplomatic premises. That is not the same as the question whether a refugee may be entitled to asylum on mission premises— the individual asylum seeker may be subject to a different set of norms.
International Law's Erie Moment, Harlan Grant Cohen
International Law's Erie Moment, Harlan Grant Cohen
Michigan Journal of International Law
The episode put the question starkly: Who fills the gaps in international law and how? A series of tribunals operating under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had adopted broader interpretations of vague treaty language than those recommended by the state parties. In response, government ministers from the three state parties, Mexico, Canada, and the United States, operating through the Free Trade Commission (FTC) established by the treaty, adopted "Notes of Interpretation" clarifying their view of the treaty's meaning. International tribunals are generally tasked with examining state practice, either to recognize rules of customary international law …
An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton
An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton
Michigan Journal of International Law
The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …
Making Room For Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity In International Human Rights Law: An Introduction To The Yogyakarta Principles, David Brown
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Note evaluates the Yogyakarta Principles' legal and inspirational capacity to drive the development of human rights law. Part I describes the most common patterns of violence and discrimination suffered around the world on account of sexual orientation and gender identity, and the process by which the Principles' drafters sought to apply principles of international law to stem these outrages by developing a restatement of international human rights law that would leave no doubt as to their illegality. Part II assesses the Principles' claim to accuracy as a restatement of existing, binding international law. It shows that the most basic …
Asat-Isfaction: Customary International Law And The Regulation Of Anti-Satellite Weapons, David A. Koplow
Asat-Isfaction: Customary International Law And The Regulation Of Anti-Satellite Weapons, David A. Koplow
Michigan Journal of International Law
The argument in this Article proceeds through several steps. As background, Part I outlines the current and projected future human uses of outer space, emphasizing the plethora of civilian and military applications that now rely on satellites. The United States, especially, but other countries, too, are coming to depend on multiple space assets for the performance of a wide array of vital functions; the investment is huge, diverse, and growing, despite the costs and natural perils of operating in the harsh exoatmospheric environment.
Custom, Power, And The Power Of Rules, Michael Byers
Custom, Power, And The Power Of Rules, Michael Byers
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article begins by explaining briefly the differing perspectives which these two general categories of scholars - those who study international law and those who study international relations - have of international society generally, and of law and power more specifically. This article exposes the fact that power is an important but largely unnoticed subject of much international legal discourse and also canvasses attempts by international relations scholars to incorporate law into their understandings of power.
Libya And The Aerial Incident At Lockerbie: What Lessons For International Extradition Law?, Christopher C. Joyner, Wayne P. Rothbaum
Libya And The Aerial Incident At Lockerbie: What Lessons For International Extradition Law?, Christopher C. Joyner, Wayne P. Rothbaum
Michigan Journal of International Law
Does concerted action taken by the U.N. Security Council against Libya bolster the international extradition process? Or do these resolutions represent little more than a new coat of legal paint on the same old political problems? This article seeks to answer these questions through an analysis of the nature of terrorism, the customary bases for jurisdiction and extradition, and the validity of Libya's refusal to surrender the Lockerbie suspects.
International Human Rights Law In United States Courts: A Comparative Perspective, Anne Bayefsky, Joan Fitzpatrick
International Human Rights Law In United States Courts: A Comparative Perspective, Anne Bayefsky, Joan Fitzpatrick
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article will catalogue the various contexts in which United States courts have agreed or refused to follow international human rights law, treating separately the larger number of cases concerning customary norms, the relatively small group of cases relating to human rights treaties, and the cases in which international norms are referenced without regard to their status as binding law. In each of these sections we will analyze areas of confusion, disagreement, or under-development in international legal doctrine that impede the productive use of human rights norms by domestic courts. We will also compare the approaches of United States courts …
Customary International Law: Its Nature, Sources And Status As Law Of The United States, Jordan J. Paust
Customary International Law: Its Nature, Sources And Status As Law Of The United States, Jordan J. Paust
Michigan Journal of International Law
Customary international law is one of the primary components of law in the international legal process, a dynamic process profoundly interconnected with our own domestic legal processes for at least the last 250 years. In our history, customary international law has also been received as part of the "law of nations," a phrase used interchangeably by our courts with the phrase "international law" from the dawn of the United States. What, more particularly, has been the perceived nature of customary international law in the United States? Despite much theoretical discussion (usually without adequate attention to actual trends in judicial decision), …
The Authoritative Sources Of Customary International Law In The United States, Harold G. Maier
The Authoritative Sources Of Customary International Law In The United States, Harold G. Maier
Michigan Journal of International Law
In this discussion, the author distinguishes the authoritative source of law from the substantial source of law. The authoritative source of law is the political body that confers authority on the decision maker to select and interpret the rule. By doing this that body politic creates the authority that gives the rule status as a rule of law in the forum of decision. The substantial source of a legal rule is that body of law in which the rule's original policy bases and the verbal form that describes the effect to be given to that policy are found. The substantial …
Third State Remedies In International Law, Jonathan I. Charney
Third State Remedies In International Law, Jonathan I. Charney
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article explores issues arising from third state enforcement of international law. Support for third state remedies may be found in law, practice, and the literature. It is not, however, definitively stablished. Third state remedies may appear at first glance to serve only the desirable goal of promoting rules of international law, but they may also produce negative side effects. The challenge to the international community is to design an effective third state enforcement regime that minimizes undesirable side effects.
What Does It Mean To Be An Internationalist?, Anthony D'Amato
What Does It Mean To Be An Internationalist?, Anthony D'Amato
Michigan Journal of International Law
A scholar of public international law, such as Professor Bishop, has a unique place among legal academicians. There is no other field of law where the writings of a respected scholar constitute an actual source of law. The Statute of the International Court of Justice, repeating an authoritative provision that applied to its predecessor court the Permanent Court of International Justice, lists as a subsidiary means for the determination of rules of international law "the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations." The term "highly qualified publicists," of course, is synonymous with what the author has …
Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind
Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind
Michigan Journal of International Law
It is submitted, at the risk of being accused of idealism, that those who most conspicuously don the mantle of realism are also guilty of normative sloppiness, a form of sloppiness which deserves the name "normative surrender" because it concedes large areas of the law to the will and whim of States. This article will examine the phenomenon of normative surrender and provide some examples of it.