Law Commons^™

Russia, Ukraine, And The Future World Order, Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, initiated on February 24, 2022, is among the most — if not the most — significant shocks to the global order since World War II. This piece assesses the stakes of the invasion for the core principles that lie at the heart of contemporary international law and the world order that it has helped to create. We argue, relying in part on the other contributions to the October 2022 agora on Ukraine in the American Journal of International Law, that however this war ends, it will reshape, in ways large and small, the world we …

The Jus Ad Bellum'S Regulatory Form, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that a form of legal regulation is embodied in decisions at the UN Security Council that condone but do not formally authorize specific military operations. Such decisions sometimes inflect or go beyond what the jus ad bellum permits through its general standards — that is, under the prohibition of cross-border force and small handful of exceptions. Recognizing that this form of regulation is both part of the law and different in kind from regulation through the general standards should change how we think about the jus ad bellum.

The Theory And Practice At The Intersection Between Human Rights And Humanitarian Law, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

The United States is more than fifteen years into a fight against terrorism that shows no sign of abating and, with the change in administration, appears to be intensifying. Other Western democracies that have historically been uneasy about U.S. counterterrorism policies have, in recent years, shifted toward those policies. And armed nonstate groups continue to commit large-scale acts of violence in multiple distinct theaters. The legal issues that these situations present are not entirely new, but neither are they going away. Recent publications, like the three works under review, thus provide useful opportunities to reflect on and refine our thinking …

In Re Akhbar Beirut & Al Amin, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

On August 29, 2016, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (Tribunal) sentenced a corporate media enterprise and one of its employees for contemptuously interfering with the Tribunal’s proceedings in Ayyash, a prosecution concerning the February 2005 terrorist attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.1 The contempt decision is significant for two reasons: (1) it adopts an expansive definition of the crime of contempt to restrict a journalist’s freedom of expression; and (2) it is the first international judicial decision to hold a corporate entity criminally responsible.

Constructing An International Community, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

What unites states and other global actors around a shared governance project? How does the group — what I will call an “international community” — coalesce and stay engaged in the enterprise? A frequent assumption is that an international community is cemented by its members’ commonalities and depleted by their intractable disagreements. This article critiques that assumption and presents, as an alternative, a theory that accounts for the combined integration and discord that actually characterize most global governance associations. I argue that conflict, especially conflict that manifests in law, is not necessarily corrosive to an international community. To the contrary, …

Louis Henkin (1917-2010), Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Louis Henkin died in New York City on October 14, 2010, a few weeks short of his ninetythird birthday. He was in a class by himself at the intersection of international law, international politics, and the constitutional law of foreign relations in the second half of the twentieth century and the first years of the new millennium.

Book Reviews And Libel Proceedings, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman, Richard B. Bilder, David D. Caron

Faculty Scholarship

The American journal of International Law has been informed of the initiation in France of penal proceedings against the editor in chief of the European journal of International Law (EJIL), by virtue of a complaint filed by an author of a book reviewed on a Web site affiliated with the Ejll.1 We share the concerns of other professional societies regarding the potential of such litigation for chilling academic discourse. 2 We also take this opportunity to explain the practice of the AJIL concerning communications from authors who object to book reviews published in our pages, and to state our position …

A Lucky Child: A Memoir Of Surviving Auschwitz As A Young Boy, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Many readers of this Journal would readily identify the young boy in lederhosen, hands tightly clasped by his mother, who is in turn enfolded in the father's embrace – all three smiling on what is perhaps the child's third birthday – in the cover photograph of the American edition of the book under review. In this memoir he is Tommy, Tom, Tomek, or Tommyli; in later life he is known to us (and recognized worldwide) as Thomas Buergenthal, judge of the International Court of justice since 2000 and honorary president of the American Society of International Law from 2001 to …

No Outsourcing Of Law? Wto Law As Practiced By Wto Courts, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

This article provides a critical assessment of the corpus of law that the adjudicating bodies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – the Appellate Body (AB) and panels – have used since the organization was established on January 1, 1995. After presenting a taxonomy of WTO law, I move to discern, and to provide a critical assessment of, the philosophy of the WTO adjudicating bodies, when called to interpret it. In discussing the law that WTO adjudicating bodies have used, I distinguish between sources of WTO law and interpretative elements. This distinction will be explicated in part I below. Part …

The Council Of Europe Addresses Cia Rendition And Detention Program, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

In November 2005, the U.S. media reported that the Central Intelligence Agency was operating secret detention facilities in a handful of foreign countries, including two in eastern Europe, and that detainees were often transferred between those facilities and states known to engage in torture. The news that terrorism suspects may have been denied their human rights in member states of the Council of Europe caused concern within the Council and triggered several responses. Within days of the media reports, the Council's Parliamentary Assembly appointed a rapporteur to investigate the extent to which member states were participating in the CIA program. …

Centennial Essays: Editors' Introduction, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman

Faculty Scholarship

The first words of the first essay published in our pages pose a challenge as prescient as it is timely:

The increase of popular control over national conduct, which marks the political development of our time, makes it constantly more important that the great body of the people in each country should have a just conception of their international rights and duties.

With this precept in mind, we begin our celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the American Journal of lnternational Law and its publisher, the American Society of International Law.

The "American" And The "International" In The American Journal Of International Law, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores the American and international components of the AJIL's identity, with attention to intellectual agendas as well as to individuals who have influenced the Journal in its first century. Part I asks about "American" and "international" preoccupations in the AJIL's substantive work, foreshadowing some of the themes to be developed in more depth in other essays in this centennial series. What have we understood to fall within the purview of an American journal of international law? Have we represented perspectives on our subject in a specifically American or a broadly international way? Part II looks at …

Agora: Icj Advisory Opinion On Construction Of A Wall In The Occupied Palestinian Territory: Editors' Introduction, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman

Faculty Scholarship

Only rarely does an international judicial opinion attract attention on the front pages of newspapers around the world, and spur activism-or condemnation-from diverse segments of global civil society. The advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is such a case. As the Court recognized in addressing the question put to it by the United Nations General Assembly, the choice of the term "wall" to designate the subject matter of the proceeding already opens up an area of debate, since not all of the contested structure is …

Legal Status And Rights Of Undocumented Workers: Advisory Opinion Oc-18, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

In Advisory Opinion OC-18 of September 17, 2003, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that international principles of nondiscrimination prohibit discriminating against undocumented migrant workers in the terms and conditions of work. The Court acknowledged that governments have the sovereign right to deny employment to undocumented immigrants, but held that such workers are equally protected by human rights in the workplace once an employment relationship is initiated. In other words, states may not further their immigration policies by denying basic workplace protections to undocumented employees.

Agora: The United States Constitution And International Law: Editors' Introduction, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman

Faculty Scholarship

On the docket of the United States Supreme Court in 2004 is a substantial cluster of cases at the intersection of constitutional and international law. In the previous two Supreme Court Terms, the Court had adverted to sources of law and practice outside the United States, in its treatment of constitutional claims involving the death penalty and same-sex relationships. The apparent willingness of the Court to consider international and foreign authorities in reaching its conclusions on contested issues of constitutional law has raised to new prominence the debate over the relationship between constitutional and international law. It is not yet …

Oscar Schachter (1915-2003), Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

Among ''jurisconsults of recognized competence in international law" and "most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, " no one in the second half of the twentieth century did more than Oscar Schachter to influence both the theory and the practice of international law, especially the law of the United Nations Charter. When the centennial of the American Society of International Law arrives in two years, we will have occasion to reflect on his contributions to this Journal and many other endeavors of the Society, across a long and vigorous life.

Agora: Future Implications Of The Iraq Conflict: Editors' Introduction, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman

Faculty Scholarship

The military action against Iraq in spring 2003 is one of the few events of the UN Charter period holding the potential for fundamental transformation, or possibly even destruction, of the system of law governing the use of force that had evolved during the twentieth century. As with the great debates surrounding U.S. involvement in the two world wars, the establishment of the United Nations, and the challenges to UN Charter norms during the Cold War, this Journal seeks to provide a forum for reasoned and respectful treatment of legal issues that have aroused fierce passions.

Agora (Continued): Future Implications Of The Iraq Conflict: Editors' Note, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman

Faculty Scholarship

This Agora continues the discussion of future implications of the Iraq conflict begun in the previous issue of the Journal. While the contributions to the first installment of the Agora concentrated mainly on the decision to initiate combat against Iraq in spring 2003 and the implications thereof for the restraints on use of force in the UN Charter and customary international law, the present pieces shift the focus to the management of the transition within Iraq in the aftermath of the military intervention.

Afterword: The Question Of Linkage, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

Commenting on the papers in this symposium is paradoxically a difficult task. The authorsare remarkably distinguished and one can only learn from what they write. Indeed, I have learned much from them (especially from Dean David Leebron's splendid clarification of several aspects of linkage, a paper that shows that he should have been an Oxford philosopher if only he had not been such a successful legal scholar). Yet it is easy for an invited commentator to be overwhelmed by despair because the authors write for the most part as if in a research vacuum. There is little attempt at relating …

It's A Question Of Market Access, Kyle W. Bagwell, Robert W. Staiger, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we argue that market access issues associated with the question of the optimal mandate of the World Trade Organization should be separated from nonmarket access issues. We identify race-to-the-bottom and regulatory-chill concerns as market access issues and suggest that the WTIO should address these concerns. We then describe ways that WTO principles and procedures might be augmented to do so. As for nonmarket access issues, we argue that as a general matter these are best handled outside the WTO, and that, while implicit links might be encouraged, explicit links between the WTO and other labor and environmental …

The Election Of Thomas Buergenthal To The International Court Of Justice, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

For the first time since 1981, a new judge of United States nationality has taken office at the International Court of Justice. As the method for selection of this important judicial post is little known even within the international law profession, a brief note on how that process unfolded in 1999-2000 should be of interest to the Court's constituency.

The Wto Legal System: Sources Of Law, David Palmeter, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

Modern discussions of the sources of international law usually begin with a reference to Article 38 (1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which provides:

The Court, whose function is to decide in accordance with international law such disputes as are submitted to it, shall apply:

1. international conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
2. international custom as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
3. the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
4. subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly …

The Justiciability Of Paraguay's Claim Of Treaty Violation, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Government's position asserting nonjusticiability of the treaty claims raised by Paraguay in the domestic and international lawsuits is disturbing. The Government's amicus filings at the court of appeals and the Supreme Court denied that Paraguay's claims belonged in federal court (or indeed in any court at all); at the International Court of Justice, the United States admitted a treaty violation but denied the competence of that tribunal to enter a judicial remedy. At one or another phase of these proceedings, the U.S. Government pressed a variety of arguments that (if accepted) would rule out virtually any judicial consideration …

The Constitutional Responsibility Of Congress For Military Engagements, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S.-led military operation in Haiti has unfolded with minimal violence and few casualties so far. That factual proposition – which is necessarily subject to revision – has important ramifications under both U.S. constitutional law and international law. On the constitutional level, the avoidance of hostilities defused what was poised to become a serious confrontation between the President and the Congress. On the international level, doubts in some quarters about the legitimacy of a forcible intervention, although not entirely allayed, were somewhat quieted with the achievement of a negotiated solution, which enabled U.S. troops to bring about the return to …

Constitutional Control Of Military Actions: A Comparative Dimension, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this essay is to examine some aspects of the legal framework for military activity in the internal law of some of the world's most powerful states. The international community has a major stake in the constitutional evolution of member states as regards the authority to decide to go to war. That stake – or those interests, since they are plural (and hold some possibility for contradiction) – can be identified as follows:

(1) to strengthen trends toward constitutionalism generally, by which I mean the concept of governance based on law;
(2) to strengthen trends toward civilian control …

Politics Across Borders: Nonintervention And Nonforcible Influence Over Domestic Affairs, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

It is time for a fresh look at the norm of nonintervention in domestic affairs, as applied to nonforcible efforts to influence another state's internal politics. The existence of such a norm is widely proclaimed, and it is commonly assumed to be a legal obligation rather than a mere practice of comity or aspirational objective. For governments, scholars and international organs alike, the "rule" against interference in internal politics seems to be an article of faith; but despite the frequency of its incantation in international discourse, how the norm applies to nonforcible conduct is inadequately understood.

This article considers the …

Covert Operations, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

As the Constitution begins its third century, the system of congressional oversight of covert action is only in its second decade. In the ancient history of covert action – before the intelligence oversight reforms of the l 970s – Congress did not involve itself in covert operations. After giving the Central Intelligence Agency standing authority to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct," Congress paid little attention to what the Executive did under this authority. The era of congressional noninvolvement came to an …

Retaliation Or Arbitration – Or Both: The 1978 United States-France Aviation Dispute, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

It began as a very small dispute. Pan American World Airways planned to introduce a service from San Francisco to Paris with a stop in London, using a Boeing 747 aircraft from San Francisco to London and a smaller Boeing 727 aircraft from London to Paris. The change to a smaller plane would have enabled the most efficient and economic use of Pan Am's fleet. In aviation as in railroad terminology, a change along a route to equipment of a different size is called a "change of gauge."

In accordance with French law, Pan Am filed a schedule on February …