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Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Conflict of Laws

Lotus Case

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Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Consent, Estoppel, And Reasonableness: Three Challenges To Universal International Law, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

Consent, Estoppel, And Reasonableness: Three Challenges To Universal International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Like consent and estoppel, the concept of reasonableness, while failing to provide an adequate explanation of the source of obligation in customary international law, does play an important psychological role in adding to the pressure of international norms upon states. The result is to increase the sense of legality of the rules that are accepted by states as part of "customary international law." This is not to say that each and every alleged rule of universal international law must contain one or more of the elements of consent, estoppel, or reasonableness in order for it to be "valid."


The Concept Of Special Custom In International Law, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

The Concept Of Special Custom In International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

General customary international law contains rules, norms, and principles that seem applicable to any state and not to a particular state or an exclusive grouping of states. For example, norms relating to the high seas, to airspace and outer space, to diplomatic immunities, to the rules of warfare, and so forth, apply equally to all states having occasion to be concerned with these areas. Similarly, the facts of a given case may suggest exclusively the application of general custom—such as cases concerning collision on the high seas between ships of different countries, cases involving general principles of international law, cases …


Treaties As A Source Of General Rules Of International Law, Anthony D'Amato Jan 1962

Treaties As A Source Of General Rules Of International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Attempts a theoretical explanation of the power of treaties to extend their rules to nations not parties to them—to rationalize, in a nonpejorative use of that term, the Court's citation of the Bancroft treaties in Nottebohm and its use of treaty provisions in other cases—and to provide a basis for the continued use of the contents of treaties in assessing the requirements of international law. Thus this paper is basically argumentative—it attempts to state what the law ought to be by demonstrating that the law as it is logically compels the adoption of the present thesis