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Notre Dame Law School

International Law

Constitution

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Why Federal Courts Apply The Law Of Nations Even Though It Is Not The Supreme Law Of The Land, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark Jan 2018

Why Federal Courts Apply The Law Of Nations Even Though It Is Not The Supreme Law Of The Land, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark

Journal Articles

We are grateful to the judges and scholars who participated in this Symposium examining our book, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution. One of our goals in writing this book was to reinvigorate and advance the debate over the role of customary international law in U.S. courts. The papers in this Symposium advance this debate by deepening understandings of how the Constitution interacts with customary international law. Our goal in this Article is to address two questions raised by this Symposium that go to the heart of the status of the law of nations under the Constitution. …


The Law Of Nations As Constitutional Law, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark Jan 2012

The Law Of Nations As Constitutional Law, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark

Journal Articles

Courts and scholars continue to debate the status of customary international law in U.S. courts, but have paid insufficient attention to the role that such law plays in interpreting and upholding several specific provisions of the Constitution. The modern position argues that courts should treat customary international law as federal common law. The revisionist position contends that customary international law applies only to the extent that positive federal or state law has adopted it. Neither approach adequately takes account of the Constitution’s allocation of powers to the federal political branches in Articles I and II or the effect of these …


The Political Branches And The Law Of Nations, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jan 2010

The Political Branches And The Law Of Nations, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia

Journal Articles

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court went out of its way to follow background rules of the law of nations, particularly the law of state-state relations. As we have recently argued, the Court followed the law of nations because adherence to such law preserved the constitutional prerogatives of the political branches to conduct foreign relations and decide momentous questions of war and peace. Although we focused primarily on the extent to which the Constitution obligated courts to follow the law of nations in the early republic, the explanation we offered rested on an important, …


The Jurisprudence Of Free Speech In The United States And The Federal Republic Of Germany, Donald P. Kommers Jan 1980

The Jurisprudence Of Free Speech In The United States And The Federal Republic Of Germany, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

This Article compares the constitutional thought of the United States Supreme Court and the West German Federal Constitutional Court in the area of free speech. The primary focus is on cases dealing with governmental restraints on speech arising out of concern for internal security' and commentary affecting the reputation of public figures. These cases reflect major lines of German and American free speech thought. The objective of this Article is to compare the concepts of free speech that have evolved in the opinions of the two tribunals and to consider the significance of the separate doctrinal paths taken by each …