Law Commons^™

Promises Unfulfilled: How Investment Arbitration Tribunals Mishandle Corruption Claims And Undermine International Development, Andrew T. Bulovsky

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, the investment-arbitration and anti-corruption regimes have been in tension. Investment tribunals have jurisdiction to arbitrate disputes between investors and host states under international treaties that provide substantive protections for private investments. But these tribunals will typically decline to exercise jurisdiction over a dispute if the host state asserts that corruption tainted the investment. When tribunals close their doors to ag-grieved investors, tribunals increase the risks for investors and thus raise the cost of international investment. At the same time, the decision to decline jurisdiction creates a perverse incentive for host states to turn a blind eye to …

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 …

Congress's International Legal Discourse, Kevin L. Cope

Michigan Law Review

Despite Congress’s important role in enforcing U.S. international law obligations, the relevant existing literature largely ignores the branch. This omission may stem partly from the belief, common among both academics and lawyers, that Congress is generally unsympathetic to or ignorant of international law. Under this conventional wisdom, members of Congress would rarely if ever imply that international law norms should impact otherwise desirable domestic legislation. Using an original dataset comprising thirty years of legislative histories of pertinent federal statutes, this Article questions and tests that view. The evidence refutes the conventional wisdom. It shows instead that, in legislative debates over …

Peace Through Law? The Failure Of A Noble Experiment, Robert J. Delahunty, John C. Yoo

Michigan Law Review

Ever since its publication in 1929, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front has been regarded as a landmark of antiwar literature. Appearing a decade after the end of the First World War, the novel became a literary sensation almost overnight. Within a year of publication, it had been translated into twenty languages, including Chinese, and by April 1930, sales for twelve of the twenty editions stood at 2.5 million. Remarque was reputed to have the largest readership in the world. Hollywood took note, and an equally successful film appeared in 1930. The success of the novel was …

Rational Choice, Reputation, And Human Rights Treaties, Alex Geisinger, Michael Ashley Stein

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Review sets forth Guzman's general theory of international law with specific consideration of the way reputation influences state behavior. Part II then tests Guzman's overarching thesis by applying it to human rights treaties and concludes that explaining states' entry into human rights treaties requires a broader conception of reputation than Rational Choice allows.

Don't Cross The Streams: Past And Present Overstatement Of Customary International Law In Connection With Conventional Fair And Equitable Treatment Obligations, Theodore Kill

Michigan Law Review

The obligation to provide fair and equitable treatment to foreign investors and investments has existed as a concept of international economic law at least since the 1919 Covenant of the League of Nations. The fair and equitable treatment provision is a key protection contained in the vast majority of modern bilateral investment treaties. Tribunals adjudicating alleged breaches of these fair and equitable treatment provisions have not arrived at a uniform interpretation of the term. As a threshold issue, however each tribunal must address the question of whether a state's obligations under a given treaty's fair and equitable treatment provision will …

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 …

International Law As A Process, Louis B. Sohn

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It by Rosalyn Higgins

The Uncitral Framework For Arbitration In Contemporary Perspective, Alyssa A. Grikscheit

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The UNCITRAL Framework for Arbitration in Contemporary Perspective by Isaak I. Dore

The Age Of Rights, Stephen D. Sencer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Age of Rights by Louis Henkin

A Recommended Approach To Bail In International Extradition Cases, Jeffrey A. Hall

Michigan Law Review

This Note proposes such a consistent approach, arguing that courts in international extradition cases should focus on the accused's risk of flight rather than on the presence or absence of specific "special circumstances." Part I briefly discusses the international extradition process and outlines the important societal and individual interests at stake in the bail decision. Part II discusses the origin and evolution of the judicial approaches to bail in international extradition cases and demonstrates the inconsistency in the lower courts' treatment. Part III suggests an approach for making bail decisions in international extradition cases. It argues that the determinative factor …

The Lawful Rights Of Mankind: An Introduction To The International Legal Code Of Human Rights, Alexander W. Joel

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Lawful Rights of Mankind: An Introduction to the International Legal Code of Human Rights by Paul Sieghart

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

Prior Consultation In International Law: A Study Of State Practice, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Prior Consultation in International Law: A Study of State Practice by Frederic L. Kirgis, Jr.

Managing The Risks Of International Agreement, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Managing the Risks of International Agreement by Richard B. Bilder

Compensation And Reward For Saving Life At Sea, Steven F. Friedell

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores the life salvage rules under the general maritime law and under the 1912 life salvage statute. Surprisingly, some life salvors had greater rights under the general maritime law than they have under cases construing the statute. This Article suggests that courts have given insufficient attention to the purposes of the Brussels Salvage Convention of 1910, which inspired the 1912 statute, and that American courts should .remain free to recognize all rights that life salvors possessed before the Brussels Convention.

This Article then considers whether American courts should further expand the rights of life salvors by awarding life …

Jus Non Scriptum And The Reliance Principle, Stanley L. Paulson

Michigan Law Review

On the Continent, a general theory of customary law has been developed-what I term the Continental theory; it identifies formation and validity as the central issues in the analysis of custom and customary law. Yet the Continental theory, notwithstanding its longevity and continuing favorable reception among international lawyers, is ridden with problems. In particular, as I argue in the following section, the theory fails for want of a coherent position on the formation issue. In the course of my argument, I suggest a classification of the norms of customary law in terms of a generic category broader in scope than …

Stein: Impact Of New Weapons Technology On International Law: Selected Aspects, Egon Schwelb

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Impact of New Weapons Technology on International Law: Selected Aspects by Eric Stein

Boskey & Willrich: Nuclear Proliferation: Prospects; And Willrich: Civil Nuclear Power And International Security, Charles N. Van Doren

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Nuclear Proliferation: Prospects for Control edited by Bennett Boskey and Mason Willrich, and Civil Nuclear Power and International Security edited by Mason Willrich

Controlling Great Lakes Pollution: A Study In United States-Canadian Environmental Cooperation, Richard B. Bilder

Michigan Law Review

In this context, a study of the proposed Agreement and, more particularly, of the long history of developing United States-Canadian cooperation that preceded it may be of use. First, this United States-Canadian experience offers guidance for the solution of some of the specific problems that programs for international environmental cooperation may face: questions of framework and approach; institutional organization, function, and authority; determination of objectives; apportionment of burdens; coordination; and implementation. Second, at a time when international discussion has focused principally on global approaches to the solution of environmental problems, it calls attention to the important, if less dramatic, contribution …

Fawcett: International Law And The Uses Of Outer Space, Stanley D. Metzger

Michigan Law Review

A Review of International Law and the Uses of Outer Space by J.E.S. Fawcett

International Law-Self-Executing Treaties-The Genocide Convention, William C. Gordon S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The crime of genocide is committed when a person is harmed because of his nationality, race or religion. Because of the number of offenses committed with genocidal motives during and before the last war, and the shortcomings of the customary international law rules on the subject, the General Assembly of the United Nations unanimously adopted a Convention on Genocide, which has been submitted for ratification by the members, including the United States.

What Of The World Court Now?, C. Sumner Lobingier

Michigan Law Review

The Permanent Court of International Justice was expressly provided for in the League of Nations Covenant (Article XIV) of 1919 and the "Statute" creating it was drafted by an advisory committee of the League, meeting at the Hague, and opened for signature in the following year. By 1921 the ratifications of twenty-eight states put it into effect and the Court was formally opened, with a full quorum of judges, on February 15 (Bentham's birthday) 1922. For nearly twenty years it continued to function and its sessions were suspended only by the presence of the Nazi invaders of the Netherlands.

The Constitution And The International Labor Conventions, Harold W. Stoke

Michigan Law Review

The International Labor Organization, since its establishment in 1919, has become one of the most active of the international institutions of the post-war period. It was founded upon that provision of the Treaty of Versailles which binds each signatory nation and those which should later join the organization to endeavor to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labor for men, women and children, both in their own countries and in the countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend.

League Of Nations And The Laws Of War, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

Everyone would agree that the renovation of international law presents a problem of commanding importance. Diversity of opinion is manifested, however, as soon as attention is directed to the details of the renovating process. Where to begin, what to emphasize, and how to go about it are questions which provoke a medley of discordant answers. Out of this medley a few paramount issues are beginning to emerge. One such issue concerns the so-called law of war. What shall be done about it? The World War revealed its lack of sanction, its confusion with self-interest, its chaotic uncertainty. Can it really …

Sources Of International Law, Charles G. Fenwick

Michigan Law Review

International law has clearly reached a drisis in its development. For a period of nearly 300 years preceding the outbreak of the present war international law appeared to the casual observer to have grown steadily and progressively. The student of history was able to point out certain clear and definite advances in the development of the law and assign them to particular dates. Grotius could be pronounced the Father of International Law, and the year 1625, which marked the appearance of his great treatise, could be set as the beginning of the modem period. A noticeable improvement in the law …

Executive Legislative And Judical Recognition Of International Law In The United States, Charles G. Fenwick

Michigan Law Review

The indefiniteness which attends both the concept and the con- tent of what is known as international law will sufficiently explain why it is difficult to -determine the exact relation which that body of law which regulates the conduct of states bears to the domestic law of each individual state. First of all, jurists are not agreed as to whether international law deserves to be called law in any real sense. The followers of the school of AUSTIN who, restrict law to the category of commands imposed by a political superior upon a political inferior, naturally refuse to recognize the …

An Organic Conception Of The Treaty-Making Power Vs. State Rights As Applicable To The United States, Charles Sumner Clancy

Michigan Law Review

When we talk of the State, its rights or its structures, we are necessarily led to the inquiry, "What do we mean by the State?" Beginning with the proposition that the State is a composite formed of individuals whose lives are shaped by the life of the whole, it necessarily follows that a perfect understanding of any particular State would involve a knowledge of the characteristics of the members who compose it. This of course is obviously impossible, but the theory underlying States generally is founded upon general human characteristics. So we may take as a basis the great truth …