Law Commons^™

The Dynamic Impact Of Periodic Review On Women’S Rights, Cosette D. Creamer, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Human rights treaty bodies have been frequently criticized as useless and the regime’s self-reporting procedure widely viewed as a whitewash. Yet very little research explores what, if any, influence this periodic review process has on governments’ implementation of and compliance with treaty obligations. We argue oversight committees may play an important role in improving rights on the ground by providing information for international and primarily domestic audiences. This paper examines the cumulative effects on women’s rights of self-reporting and oversight review, using original data on the history of state reporting to and review by the Committee on the Elimination of …

The Wto Transparency Obligations And China, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

When it acceded to the WTO in 2001, China accepted comprehensive transparency obligations as well as substantive commitments covering both market access and rules issues. Initially designed to deal with its opaque trade law regime, the transparency obligations were also expected to help democratize the legislative process and promote the development of the rule of law in China. Now that more than 15 years have passed, an important question is: have the transparency obligations delivered on their original promise? This article answers the question by reviewing how the transparency obligations have worked in practice. It notes that, while transparency has …

The Wto Transparency Obligations And China, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

When it acceded to the WTO in 2001, China accepted comprehensive transparency obligations as well as substantive commitments covering both market access and rules issues. Initially designed to deal with its opaque trade law regime, the transparency obligations were also expected to help democratize the legislative process and promote the development of the rule of law in China. Now that more than 15 years have passed, an important question is: have the transparency obligations delivered on their original promise? This article answers the question by reviewing how the transparency obligations have worked in practice. It notes that, while transparency has …

Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Environmental Law In The World’S Polar Regions, Mark Nevitt, Robert V. Percival

All Faculty Scholarship

Climate change is fundamentally transforming both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. Yet they differ dramatically in their governing legal regimes. For the past sixty years the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), a traditional “hard law” international law treaty system, effectively de-militarized the Antarctic region and halted competing sovereignty claims. In contrast, the Arctic region lacks a unifying Arctic treaty and is governed by the newer “soft law” global environmental law model embodied in the Arctic Council’s collaborative work. Now climate change is challenging this model. It is transforming the geography of both polar regions, breaking away massive ice sheets in …

Presidential Control Over International Law, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith

Faculty Scholarship

Presidents have come to dominate the making, interpretation, and termination of international law for the United States. Often without specific congressional concurrence, and sometimes even when it is likely that Congress would disagree, the President has developed the authority to:

(a) make a vast array of international obligations for the United States, through both written agreements and the development of customary international law;

(b) make increasingly consequential political commitments for the United States on practically any topic;

(c) interpret these obligations and commitments; and

(d) terminate or withdraw from these obligations and commitments.

While others have examined pieces of this …