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Decolonization As Dialectic Process In Law And Literature, Laura Nyantung Beny

Reviews

The Battle for International Law addresses the South-North contest over the content and structure of international law during the period of decolonization in the global South (1955-1975). Edited volumes are inherently risky because the quality and perspectives of the various chapters can vary widely, resulting in thematic incoherency. However, J. von Bernstorff and P. Dann have successfully assembled many excellent chapters on varied topics by a diverse range of authors. Each chapter contributes significantly to the editors’ overall goal “to provide an intellectual history of the transformation of international law in the 1950s to 1970s and to offer a better …

The Integrative Effects Of Global Legal Pluralism, Monica Hakimi

Book Chapters

International lawyers widely understand that legal pluralism is a fact of global life and that it can, in certain settings, be desirable. But many still approach it with some trepidation. A prominent skeptical claim is that pluralist structures lack the integrative resources that unify people around a shared governance project. This claim has been prominent with respect to two kinds of conflicts that are routine in international law: (1) conflicts that play out within a single international legal arrangement, and (2) conflicts that cut across multiple legal arrangements. For both, the skeptical claim is directed at the pluralist structure itself. …

Resources For Foreign, Comparative, And International Legal Research, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

In our increasingly globalized world, a legal issue outside of American domestic law can pop up in a variety of circumstances. Commercial transactions, marriage and custody issues, immigration statuses, and more may involve the law of another nation or be governed by an international treaty. This article outlines some resources to help you tackle foreign, comparative, and international legal issues, whenever they arise.

Keeping The Barbarians At The Gates: The Promise Of The Unesco And Unidroit Conventions For Developing Countries, Michael P. Goodyear

Michigan Journal of International Law

The illicit trade in cultural property is a global phenomenon, powered by criminal networks and smuggling trains that sacrifice local culture for the black market of the art world. Headlines featuring the Islamic State’s lucrative exchange in stolen cultural property, among other incidents, have raised the profile of the illicit cultural property trade on the global stage. Developing countries, as the most prominent source countries of cultural property, are particularly at risk. Existing scholarship has searched for a solution to this crisis, suggesting a new international treaty to protect cultural property or recommending the utilization of adjacent legal fields. However, …

Fixing The Problem Of Incompetent Defense Counsel Before The International Criminal Court, Matthew Catallo

Michigan Journal of International Law

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth-century, defense counsel arguing before international criminal tribunals provided notoriously ineffective assistance. This note examines whether defense counsel similarly fail to provide competent assistance at the International Criminal Court––and if they do so for similar reasons. In examining the ICC’s procedural and regulatory framework, this note highlights the systemic inequities at the Court that favor the prosecution and devalue the defense, thereby hindering the acquisition of competent defense counsel and promoting the retention of incompetent defense counsel.

To address these iniquities, this note promotes various administrative reforms, all of which could be implemented without …

Making Sense Of Customary International Law, Monica Hakimi

Michigan Law Review

This Article addresses a longstanding puzzle about customary international law (CIL): How can it be, at once, so central to the practice of international law—routinely invoked and applied in a broad range of settings—and the source of such persistent confusion and derision? The centrality of CIL suggests that, for the many people who use it, it is not only comprehensible but worthwhile. They presumably use it for a reason. But then, what accounts for all the muddle and disdain?

The Article argues that the problem lies less in the everyday operation of CIL than in the conceptual baggage that is …

Reassessing Aspects Of The Contribution Of African States To The Development Of International Law Through African Regional Multilateral Treaties, Tiyanjana Maluwa

Michigan Journal of International Law

For decades, debates about Africa’s contribution to the development of international law have been dominated by two opposing schools of thought. First, that European colonial powers deliberately erased Africa and Africans from the history of the creation and use of international law. Second, that, on the contrary, over the last six decades (since the emergence of the newly independent African states in the late 1950s and early 1960s), Africa has contributed to the making of international law and has not been merely a passive recipient of a Eurocentric international law.

This article underscores the role of the postcolonial periphery in …

Introduction To The Symposium On Soft And Hard Law On Business And Human Rights, Steven R. Ratner

Articles

This symposium turns to a major debate within a field of international law that has moved from the periphery to center stage in just a few decades—business and human rights, or BHR: Can and should international law's approach to the human rights impacts of business activity shift from today's mostly soft-law framework to a multilateral treaty regime? While advocates for and against such a treaty debate this point at the UN Human Rights Council and other venues, this symposium examines the problem from four theoretical perspectives. Each contribution offers insights for practitioners and scholars alike, but they suggest no easy …

Why Should We Care About International Law?, Monica Hakimi

Michigan Law Review

Review of Harold Hongju Koh's The Trump Administration and International Law.

Tax Treaties, The Constitution, And The Noncompulsory Payment Rule, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

US Tax treaties have been regarded as self-executing since the first treaty (with France) was ratified in 1932. Rebecca Kysar has argued this raises a doubt on whether the treaties are constitutional, because tax treaties (like other treaties) are negotiated by the executive branch and ratified by the Senate with no involvement by the House, and all tax-raising measures must originate in the House under the Origination Clause (U.S. Const. Art I, section 7, clause 7). Her preferred solution is to make tax treaties non-self executing, but that would reverse the universal practice since 1932, and is therefore unlikely. Moreover, …

Constructive Dialogue: Beps And The Tcja, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

US international tax law is commonly conceived as developed in the US and influencing the development of other countries' international tax law. This paper will argue that in the case of the TCJA, the US legislation was heavily influenced by the OECD BEPS project, and that the continuing OECD work in Pillars I and II is likely to have a similar influence on the future development of US international tax law.

Breaking The Silence: Why International Organizations Should Acknowledge Customary International Law Obligations To Provide Effective Remedies, Kristina Daugirdas, Sachi Schuricht

Law & Economics Working Papers

To date, international organizations have remained largely silent about their obligations under customary international law. This chapter urges international organizations to change course, and to expressly acknowledge customary international law obligations to provide effective remedies. Notably, international organizations’ obligations to afford effective remedies need not precisely mirror States’ obligations to do so. Instead, international organizations may be governed by particular customary international law rules. By publicly acknowledging obligations to afford effective remedies, international organizations can influence the development of such particular rules. In addition, by acknowledging obligations to afford effective remedies — and by actually providing effective remedies — international …

Member States' Due Diligence Obligations To Supervise International Organizations, Kristina Daugirdas

Law & Economics Working Papers

There are two reasons to consider obligations to supervise international organizations as a distinct category of due diligence obligations. First, due diligence obligations typically require states to regulate third parties in some way. But it is harder for states to regulate international organizations unilaterally than to regulate private actors within their own territories because international law protects the autonomy of those organizations. Second, such due diligence obligations merit attention because they may compensate for the dearth of mechanisms to hold international organizations accountable when they cause harm. These accountability concerns are especially acute when it comes to private individuals who …

Investor-State Arbitration: Economic And Empirical Perspectives, Michael Faure, Wanli Ma

Michigan Journal of International Law

The investor-state arbitration system (“ISA”) was originally modelled on traditional commercial arbitration and was expected to deliver fast, good, and cheap decisions, especially in comparison to domestic court systems. Yet the ISA system has increasingly been criticized, especially by developing countries. Developing countries claim that the system is not cheap, that decision-making increasingly takes a long time, and that arbitrators are biased in favor of investors (often coming from developed countries in the global North) and against states from the developing South. Several developing states have even withdrawn from the ICSID Convention, which governs the settlement of disputes between investors …

The Possibility Of Prosecuting Corporations For Climate Crimes Before The International Criminal Court: All Roads Lead To The Rome Statute?, Donna Minha

Michigan Journal of International Law

Due to rapid developments in climate science, scientists are now able to quantifiably link significant greenhouse gas emissions caused by major oil and gas corporations to specific climate impacts. These scientific advances have been accompanied by the publication of documents and studies suggesting that the oil and gas industry allegedly had knowledge of climate change as early as sixty years ago, and yet it actively worked to promote climate change denial and to delay governmental regulation on this matter. Though climate-related litigation is proceeding against the industry in different jurisdictions, proceedings brought against oil and gas corporations mainly focus on …

Parsing And Managing Inconsistency In Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Julian Arato, Chester Brown, Federico Ortino

Other Publications

Inconsistency in legal interpretation is among the most salient problems in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Some such instances have been particularly glaring, and introducing consistency into ISDS rates high on the agenda of reformers - particularly for several government delegations leading multilateral reform efforts in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III. This Article starts from the position that some degree of interpretive inconsistency is endemic to any legal order. Yet systemic inconsistency tends to undermine the basic purposes of the investment treaty regime – namely protecting and promoting foreign direct investment through predictable international …

Sovereign Immunity, The Au, And The Icc: Legitimacy Undermined, Christa-Gaye Kerr

Michigan Journal of International Law

This note examines how the International Criminal Court’s indictment of African leaders has led to a breakdown in the relationship between the Court and the African Union and offers solutions to repair this relationship. In particular, the ICC’s blanket rejection of sovereign immunity and its close relationship with the UNSC delegitimize the Court. As an organization that relies on the cooperation of states across the world, this is something the Court cannot afford. The ICC’s decade-long fight with the African Union over the disproportionate number of charges leveled against African nationals has weakened its stature with African states. This has …

The Urbanization Of International Law And International Relations: The Rising Soft Power Of Cities In Global Governance, Chrystie Swiney

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article examines the rising influence of cities in global governance and on international law, despite the existing international legal and political framework, which is designed to exclude them. It explores the various strategies and tools utilized by city leaders to leapfrog over their national counterparts in order to autonomously access the international policymaking and law-making world. These include (1) coalescing together to form large networks, which engage in city or “glocal” diplomacy; (2) allying with well-connected and well-resourced international organizations; (3) gaining inclusion in UN multilateral agendas; (4) mirroring state-based coalitions and their high-profile events; (5) harnessing the language …

Identifying Fundamental Breach Of Articles 25 And 49 Of The Cisg: The Good Faith Duty Of Collaborative Efforts To Cure Defects - Make The Parties Draw A Line In The Sand Of Substantiality, Yasutoshi Ishida

Michigan Journal of International Law

Article 49(1) of the CISG allows buyers of international goods to avoid their sales contracts “if the failure by the seller to perform . . . amounts to a fundamental breach.” A breach is “fundamental,” as defined by CISG article 25, when it causes the buyer such detriment “as substantially to deprive him of what he is entitled to expect under the contract.” This definition is followed by the so-called “foreseeability test,” an “unless” clause that excepts the situation where “the party in breach did not foresee[,] and a reasonable person of the same kind in the same circumstances would …

Reinvigorating The Human Right To Technology, Haochen Sun

Michigan Journal of International Law

The right to technology is a forgotten human right. Dating back to 1948, the right was established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”) in response to the massive destruction wrought by technologically advanced weapons in the Second World War. This human right embodies one of the most profound lessons the framers of the UDHR learned from this war: Technology must benefit humanity rather than harm it.

It has been more than seventy years since the adoption of the UDHR, and technology has advanced at a rapid pace and become more important than ever in our daily lives. Yet …

International Law And Theories Of Global Justice: Remarks, Steven R. Ratner, James Stewart, Jiewuh Song, Carmen Pavel

Articles

International law (IL) and political philosophy represent two rich disciplines for exploring issues of global justice. At their core, each seeks to build a better world based on some universally agreed norms, rules, and practices, backed by effective institutions. International lawyers, even the most positivist of them, have some underlying assumptions about a just world order that predisposes their interpretive methods; legal scholars have incorporated concepts of justice in their work even as their overall pragmatic orientation has limited the nature of their inquiries. Many philospophers, for their part, have engaged with IL to some extent—at a minimum recognizing that …

Breaking The Silence: Why International Organizations Should Acknowledge Customary International Law Obligations To Provide Effective Remedies, Kristina Daugirdas, Sachi Shuricht

Book Chapters

To date, international organizations have remained largely silent about their obligations under customary international law. This chapter urges international organizations to change course, and to expressly acknowledge customary international law obligations to provide effective remedies. Notably, international organizations’ obligations to afford effective remedies need not precisely mirror States’ obligations to do so. Instead, international organizations may be governed by particular customary international law rules. By publicly acknowledging obligations to afford effective remedies, international organizations can influence the development of such particular rules. In addition, by acknowledging obligations to afford effective remedies—and by actually providing effective remedies—international organizations can rebut arguments …

The Restatements And The Rule Of Law, Kristina Daugirdas

Book Chapters

This chapter explores the promotion of the rule of law. In drafting and publishing Restatements of Foreign Relations Law, both the American Law Institute and the reporters have understood the projects as contributing to the rule of law at the international level, at the domestic level, or both. There are at least three distinct ways that these Restatements might promote the rule of law. First, they might do so by clarifying the content of the law. Second, the Restatements might contribute to the development of new legal rules, specifically to the evolution and consolidation of customary international law. Finally, the …

Reacting Against Treaty Breaches, Bruno Simma, Christian J. Tams

Book Chapters

States regularly proclaim the sanctity of treaty obligations and few principles are as firmly established as pacta sunt servanda. Yet, treaty breaches are by no means exceptional: adapting one of international law's most celebrated statements, one might even say that 'almost all nations, almost all the time, consider their rights under a given treaty to be violated: By way of a snapshot, at the time of writing, eleven of fourteen active contentious cases pending before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) involve claims, by one State, that a certain treaty has been violated. And this ignores the many treaty breaches …

Constructive Dialogue: Beps And The Tcja., Reuven Avi-Yonah

Articles

From its inception, the international tax regime was heavily influenced by the United States. The regime is traditionally traced back to the work of the four economists for the League of Nations in 1923, who came up with the orig- inal compromise underlying the tax treaty network, i.e., that passive income should be taxed primarily at residence and active income primarily at source (the “benefits principle”). Arguably, this compromise between the claims of res- idence and source countries was made possible by the U.S. unilateral adoption of the foreign tax credit in 1918, because the United States (already the world’s …

The Perils Of Pandemic Exceptionalism, Julian Arato, Kathleen Claussen, J. Benton Heath

Articles

In response to the pandemic, most states have enacted special measures to protect national economies and public health. Many of these measures would likely violate trade and investment disciplines unless they qualify for one of several exceptions. This Essay examines the structural implications of widespread anticipated defenses premised on the idea of “exceptionalism.” It argues that the pandemic reveals the structural weakness of the exceptions-oriented paradigm of justification in international economic law.