Law Commons^™

More Sorry Than Safe: Assessing The Precautionary Principle And The Proposed International Biosafety Protocol, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Part I of this paper provides a brief overview of the development of biotechnology, its regulation and its use, with a particular emphasis on agricultural biotechnology. Part II outlines the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which provides an international legal framework for a biosafety protocol and summarizes the results of recent protocol negotiations, such as those conducted in Cartagena, Colombia in February 1999, which continued in Montreal in January 2000. Part III explains why the proposed protocol embodies a variant of the precautionary principle and why such policies may do more harm than good. This paper concludes with some …

The Man On The Moon, Immortality, And Other Millennial Myths: The Prospects And Perils Of Human Genetic Engineering, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2000 provides an opportunity to reflect and speculate on human life in the year 3000. We cannot know what human life will be like a thousand years from now, but we can and should think seriously about what we would like it to be. What is unique about human beings and about being human? What makes humans human? What qualities of the human species must we preserve to preserve humanity itself? What would a "better human" be like? If genetic engineering techniques work, are there human qualities we should try to temper, and ones we should try to …

A Kinder, Gentler System Or Capitulations? International Law, Structural Adjustment Policies, And The Standard Of Liberal, Globalized Civilization, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Indeterminate Claims: New Challenges To Self-Determination Doctrine In Yugoslavia, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Serbia has two autonomous provinces, with nearly identical constitutional and political claims: heavily Albanian Kosovo and ethnically diverse but Serb-majority Vojvodina. One is headed towards some form of internationally recognized independence; the other almost certainly is not, even though calls for its autonomy have been mounting. What makes the difference?

This article examines what the reasons for these different outcomes show about the changing content of self-determination in an environment of persistent ethnic claims. The defining characteristic of self-determination today is its indeterminacy, which allows policymakers to pursue a broader range of policies than was possible in the era of …

Rethinking International Insolvency: The Neglected Role Of Choice-Of-Law Rules And Theory, Hannah L. Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Solutions to the problem of international bankruptcy are generally framed as either universalist (arguing that international bankruptcies should be administered in a single forum) or territorialist (arguing in favor of multiple local bankruptcies). This article seeks to expand this debate by using traditional conflicts theory to examine the problem of cross-border bankruptcy. It analyzes the current regime under which cross-border bankruptcies are administered in U.S. courts, concluding that this regime operates as a multilateralist (jurisdiction-selecting) regime. Concluding that multilateralism is an appropriate method for resolving choice-of-law issues in international insolvency, the article analyzes some possible refinements to the current system. …

The Incident At Cavalese And Strategic Compensation, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

In 1953, the United States ratified the NATO Status of Forces Agreement. The drafters foresaw that the presence and training of foreign military forces within and between their territories would probably, if not inevitably, cause injury to civilians, giving rise to claims that, if not settled quickly and satisfactorily, could spark incidents disruptive to their cooperation in mutual defense. To this end, the SOFA established a jurisdictional regime designed to minimize the political friction these incidents threatened to generate, by providing prompt and manifestly fair settlement procedures. This result was vital to NATO's operations, for, in democratic host states, popular …

Reconciling Amnesties With Universal Jurisdiction, Juan E. Mendez, Garth Meintjes

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Benign Hegemony? Kosovo And Article 2(4) Of The U.N. Charter, Jules Lobel

Articles

The 1999 U.S.-led, NATO-assisted air strike against Yugoslavia has been extolled by some as leading to the creation of a new rule of international law permitting nations to undertake forceful humanitarian intervention where the Security Council cannot act. This view posits the United States as a benevolent hegemon militarily intervening in certain circumstances in defense of such universal values as the protection of human rights. This article challenges that view. NATO's Kosovo intervention does not represent a benign hegemony introducing a new rule of international law. Rather, the United States, freed from Cold War competition with a rival superpower, is …

South, North, International Environmental Law, And International Environmental Lawyers, Karin Mickelson

All Faculty Publications

The author argues that international environmental law as a discipline has failed to respond to Third World concerns in a meaningful fashion. It has merely accommodated these concerns at the margins, as opposed to integrating them into the core of the discipline and its self-understanding. Two aspects of the standard, "accommodationist," approach are considered: (1) the tendency to provide an ahistorical account of the evolution of international environmental law; (2) the implicit or explicit portrayal of the South as a grudging participant in environmental regimes rather than being recognized as an active partner in an ongoing effort to identify the …

Climate Change: The Next Dimension, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Human Rights And Wrongs In Our Own Backyard: Incorporating International Human Rights Protections Under Domestic Civil Rights Law---A Case Study Of Women In The United States Prisons, Martin A. Geer

Scholarly Works

An urgent human rights crisis at home is under close scrutiny by diverse groups including the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, the U.S. Department of Justice, and public interest lawyers. Within the context of a prison population explosion that dwarfs that of the rest of the world, the undeveloped status of international human rights in U.S. domestic jurisprudence becomes more evident. Within prison populations, increasing numbers of women’s lives are reduced to half-lives under the tortuous effects of sexual abuse by corrections officials. This dire situation presents the question: Can women prisoners continue to be denied the protections of international human …

Globalization Or Global Subordination? Latcrit Links The Global To The Local And The Local To Global, Sylvia R. Lazos

Scholarly Works

Professor Lazos introduces the fifth and final cluster of this LatCrit IV Symposium, International Linkages and Domestic Engagement, which includes five important contributions to LatCrit IV's focus on global issues by Professors Timothy Canova, Gil Gott, Tayyab Mahmud, Ediberto Roman, and Chantal Thomas. The introduction below sketches out, by way of illustration only, how some of the work already presented in this symposium cultivates the linkage between local racial formation and global market dynamics. The introduction then explores LatCrit's contribution to the critique of globalism.

Political Corruption As An International Offense, Joel R. Paul

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Globalization And The Design Of International Institutions, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

In an increasingly globalized world, international rules and organizations have grown ever more crucial to the resolution of major economic and social concerns. How can leaders design international institutions that will effectively solve global regulatory problems? This paper confronts this question by presenting three major types of global problems, distinguishing six main categories of institutional forms that can be used to address these problems, and showing how the effectiveness of international institutions depends on achieving “form-problem” fit. Complicating that fit will be the tendency of nation states to prefer institutional forms that do little to constrain their sovereignty. Yet the …

Legal Practice Rights Of Domestic And Foreign Lawyers In The United States , Roger J. Goebel

Faculty Scholarship

In the post-World War II international economy, with its enormous growth in transnational trade and investment, multinational legal practice has become a functional reality. Within the last two decades, the volume of trans-border legal practice has grown enormously in fields such as trade law, international banking and finance, international arbitration and litigation, international contractual and joint venture arrangements, transborder acquisitions and mergers, international antitrust, inter- national tax planning, and foreign investment counselling. Domestic law firms within the leading commercial nations have not only grown substantially in size, often by merger, they have also increasingly created networks of foreign branch offices, …

Global Climate Change Kyoto Protocol Implementation: Legal Frameworks For Implementing Clean Energy Solutions, Richard L. Ottinger

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This paper describes the measures that have been and can be taken and the legal mechanisms by which successes have been achieved in reducing greenhouse gases. Examples are given of success stories from around the world, but these examples are just demonstrative. Many hundreds of programs have been pursued successfully around the world in both industrial and developing countries. What does emerge, however, is clear evidence that global warming can be effectively addressed and that many significant steps have been taken profitably in both the public and private sectors, offering significant business, export and job opportunities, and that much can …

The Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court Over Nationals Of Non-Party States, Madeline Morris

Faculty Scholarship

This article questions the validity under international law of the provisions of the Treaty for an International Criminal Court (ICC) that purport to give the ICC jurisdiction over nationals of states that are not parties to the Treaty. The article examines two facially plausible theories for the validity of ICC jurisdiction over non-party nationals: that the ICC may exercise universal jurisdiction delegated to it by states parties, and that the ICC may exercise territorial jurisdiction delegated to it by states parties. Each of those theories is found to be flawed. The article then questions whether there is in fact any …

International Commercial Arbitration: A Case Study Of The Areas Under Control Of The Palestinian Authority, Marshall J. Breger

Scholarly Articles

One necessary component to the success of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is economic development and growth in the area under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). One of the principal requirements for economic growth, and quite possibly for the Palestinian Authority's economic survival, is foreign investment in the West Bank and Gaza (WBG). As they currently exist, laws concerning foreign investment in WBG are a quagmire. Indeed, it is a challenge for an investor to simply identify which law applies to which area, let alone to interpret the law. At the same time many of the protections often found …

A Grand Exercise In Forgiveness, Or Justice Held Hostage To Truth? South Africa’S Truth And Reconciliation Commission, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

An evaluation of the success or otherwise of the TRC may seem premature, but there have been some interesting reflections thus far. One such work is David Dyzenhaus’ book, Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves: Truth, Reconciliation and the Apartheid Legal Order. The book is a narrative and critique of the legal hearings which took place over three days at the TRC. This is a review of the Dyzenhaus book.

The End Of Innocence: Rethinking Noncombatancy In The Post-Kosovo Era, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The protection of civilians and their property in war is an accepted norm of international law - even where the putatively "noncombatant" populace openly supports the immoral use of force by its military. NATO's Kosovo operation suggests, however, that the imposition of hardship on the sentient, adult "noncombatant" population through property loss can erode a society's appetite for malevolence. While civilians should not be targeted, a new paradigm for noncombatancy that allows the destruction of certain property currently protected by international law but not absolutely indispensable to civilian survival may well help shorten conflict and effect necessary societal change.

Update Of Current Legal Proceedings At The Icty, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

International Institutions, Michael P. Scharf, John Knox, Michelle Mulvena, Chris Potter, Tracy Sund

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Transit Of Straits And Archipelagic Waters By Military Aircraft, Bernard H. Oxman

Articles

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea balances the interests of states in ways that are more refined than the classic summa divisio between the free high seas and territorial waters. The result for aviation is the preservation of freedom of overflight for civil and military aircraft seaward of the territorial sea in the exclusive economic zone as on the high seas beyond, and the right of such aircraft to transit archipelagic waters as well as straits comprised of territorial seas and internal waters. A proper understanding of the scope of these rights and their relationship to the …

The Spratly Islands Dispute: China Defines The New Millennium, Omar Saleem

Journal Publications

China is a growing and prosperous nation that many predict will become the second most powerful military and economic nation in the world, behind the United States, within the early part of the new millennium. China's developmental goals include a claim of right to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The China/Taiwan claim to the Spratly Islands is antagonistic towards the claims asserted by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam who each claim the Spratly Islands in whole or in part. This Article focuses on China's perception of the Spratly Islands dispute and China's potential courses of conduct …

Book Review. The Death Penalty: Abolition In Europe, Ralph F. Gaebler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

International Copyright: From A "Bundle" Of National Copyright Laws To A Supranational Code?, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, the number and content of substantive norms that international copyright treaties impose on member states have increased considerably. It is therefore appropriate to consider the extent to which those instruments have in effect created an international (or at least multinational) copyright code, as well as to inquire what role national copyright laws do and should have in an era not only of international copyright norms, but of international dissemination of copyrighted works. This Article first considers the displacement of national norms through the evolution of a de facto international copyright code, elaborated in multilateral instruments such as …

The Rise Or The Fall Of International Law?, Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article argues that traditional international law is healthy in the sense that there are more international agreements than ever, and States continue to serve important roles in the international system. It is falling, however, as the sole focus of international legal efforts. It is necessary to redefine international law to include actors other than States among those who make international norms and who implement and comply with them, and to include legal instruments that may not be formally binding. These developments raise three important issues: the need for the new actors to be accountable and for the new norms …

Economic Incentives In Representing Publicly-Funded Criminal Defendants In England's Crown Court, Peter W. Tague

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The flux now engulfing the way in which the defenders of indigent criminal defendants are compensated in England's Crown Court provides a sober lesson for U.S. lawyers. Once, U.S. lawyers, who themselves are appointed to represent indigent defendants, could have cited English practice to support a hefty increase in the meager compensation they receive in many jurisdictions. For in balancing the tension between encouraging effective representation, but at bearable social cost, U.S. jurisdictions stress the latter, all but ignoring the former. The English approach, by contrast, has paid generously, at least in serious cases, thereby implicitly recognizing that defenders could …

Public Policy Defense In International Commercial Arbitration, Mingqiang Qian

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how public policy defense functions in international commercial arbitration and whether it will block the development of international commercial arbitration. Chapter II deals with the role of public policy in international private law. This chapter examines the origins of public policy in common law countries and its functions in international private law. It is difficult to evaluate public policy as a precise concept because of its relative nature. Nevertheless, to limit its application in international private law, legal scholars have tried to clarify differences between domestic public policy, international public policy, and …

Nationality, Domicile And Habitual Residence - Does The New German Citizenship Law Call For A Change Of A Principal Connecting Factor In Private International Law ?, Marc Cziesielsky

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of the new citizenship law which was proposed by the new German federal government was to give legal aliens living in Germany a choice to become German citizens without having to give up the nationality which was conferred on them by their parentage or descent. This thesis will question whether this rigid concept should be completely abolished after an assessment of both the constitutionality and the exact implications of the new citizenship law. In the light of the conclusions, the comparative part of this thesis will then focus on a more general approach and will compare the concepts …