Law Commons^™

The Inter-American System Of Human Rights: Challenges For The Future, Claudio Grossman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The Inter-American system is a combination of human rights norms and supervisory institutions within the Americas. The applicable rules consist primarily of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man ("American Declaration") and the American Convention on Human Rights ("American Convention"). The institutions involved are the organs responsible for supervising compliance with the established rules: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ("the Commission") and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ("the Court"). The system performs supervisory functions basically through country reports adopted by the Commission which describe the overall human rights situation in a country and decisions in …

Foreign Affairs, International Law, And The New Federalism: Lessons From Coordination, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Even after the departure of two of its most prominent advocates - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - the federalism revolution initiated by the Supreme Court almost twenty years ago continues its onward advance. If recent court decisions and congressional legislation are any indication, in fact, it may have reached a new beachhead in the realm of foreign affairs and international law. The emerging federalism in foreign affairs and international law is of a distinct form, however, with distinct implications for the relationship of sub-national, national, and international institutions and interests.

This article - prepared for …

States, Markets, And Gatekeepers: Public-Private Regulatory Regimes In An Era Of Economic Globalization, Christopher M. Bruner

Scholarly Works

This paper illuminates the spectrum of international economic regimes through discussion of an under-theorized regulatory structure in which traditional distinctions between state and market, public and private power, hard and soft law, and international and domestic policy realms, essentially collapse - the public-private gatekeeper.

Specifically, I examine striking similarities between global bond markets and e-commerce markets through comparison of entities regulating admission to them - the dominant credit rating agencies (Standard & Poor's and Moody's), and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Following anexamination of the development of these markets and the global regulatory power exercised by …

International Decision: Munaf V. Geren, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

This International Decision case comment, the final version of which will be published in Volume 102, No. 4, of the American Journal of International Law (forthcoming), examines the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Munaf v. Geren, a case arising out of U.S. operations in Iraq and allegations of potential torture in Iraqi custody. In that decision, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the federal courts have jurisdiction under the habeas corpus statute to hear claims brought by American citizens held overseas by American forces "operating subject to an American chain of command, even when those forces are acting as a …

Second Panel: Labor Markets, Income Inequality And Globalization, Fran Ansley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of International Law, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Globalization, characterized by the inter-connectivity of persons, states, and non-state actors on a global plane, has led to the development of binding international law across several legal fields, namely, international human rights, international criminal law, and private international law. This Article explores the proliferation of actors, norms, and organizations, as well as the expansion of international jurisdiction that has underscored the development of international law over the last half century. The Article focuses on the impact of globalized international law on state actors, as well as on individuals, by reshaping their behavior in the international realm. In particular, this Article …

Globalism From An African Perspective: The Training Of Lawyers For A New And Challenging Reality, Winston P. Nagan, Marcio Santos

UF Law Faculty Publications

This paper deals with the definition and implications of globalism generally and for African interests in particular. Its focus is on globalism as a cluster of social, economic, and political forces contesting for the controlling paradigm of international relations and international law. The article underscores the general issue of globalism's impact on the well-being of the international community. It also considers the impact of globalism on the U.N. Charter, and, in particular, the role of the United Nations in international economic order. The connections between globalism and society are considered as part of the changing character of war and political …

Taxation As A Global Socio-Legal Phenomenon, Allison Christians, Steven Dean, Diane Ring, Adam H. Rosenzweig

Faculty Scholarship

This essay makes a proposal that may not be controversial among those with a particular interest in international law, but may be less accepted among those primarily interested in tax law: that international social and institutional structures shape, and are shaped by, historical and contemporary domestic policy decisions. As a result, to incorporate these lessons, tax scholarship should turn to fields such as international relations, organizational theory, and political philosophy to provide a broader framework for understanding the rapid changes that are taking place in tax policy and politics in the United States and around the world.

Brain Drain, Fernando R. Tesón

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Article I Horizon: Congress’S Enumerated Powers And Universal Jurisdiction Over Drug Crimes, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

This paper explores the Article I limits faced by Congress in exercising universal jurisdiction (UJ) – that is, regulating extraterritorial conduct by foreigners with no affect on or connection the U.S. While UJ is becoming increasingly popular in Europe for the punishment of human rights offenses, Congress's primary use of UJ today is under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. This obscure law allows the U.S. to punish for violating U.S. drug laws foreign defendants on foreign vessels in international waters. The MDLEA's UJ provisions raise fundamental questions about the source and extent of Congress's constitutional power to regulate purely …

The International Trend Toward Requiring Good Cause For Tenant Eviction: Dangerous Portents For The United States?, Andrea B. Carroll

Journal Articles

This article is a first step in an effort to critically examine the invasion of a rather dangerous European property law trend into American law. The view of the right to safe, adequate, and affordable housing as a fundamental right held by all mankind is quickly growing, with more than nine countries now recognizing it. The problem is that the recognition of this fundamental right begs the question of how it is to be assured. The method of assurance chosen by most jurisdictions recognizing a right to housing is a scheme of good cause eviction. Under such a regime, a …

Of Prophets And Proselytes: Freedom Of Religion And The Conflict Of Rights In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

The case of proselytism presents a tangle of competing claims: on the one hand, the rights of proselytizers to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech; on the other hand, the rights of targets of proselytism to change their religion, peacefully to have or maintain a particular religious tradition, and to be free from injury to religious feelings. Clashes between these claims of right are today generating acute tensions in relations between States and peoples, a state of affairs starkly illustrated by the recent Danish cartoons controversy. Irrespective of their resolution in any particular domestic legal system, how should …

The Emergence And Structure Of Religious Freedom In International Law Reconsidered, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article presents a critique of the historical evolution of the right to freedom of religion in international law. In identifying certain conceptual tensions between liberal and value pluralist accounts in the literature, a general theoretical argument is advanced. Beyond standard Enlightenment narratives of individual freedom of conscience, this argument notices a second, more complex narrative of genuine pluralism in the evolving conception of religious freedom in international legal thought. This suggests that there is no simple, but rather a complex mapping of individual toleration in international law and no single path to modernity or to the formation of the …

Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Religious Freedom In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

The grounds upon which states may limit the freedom to manifest religion or belief are divisive questions in constitutional and international law. The focus of recent inquiry has been on laws which proscribe the wearing of religious symbols in certain aspects of the public sphere, and on the claims more generally to religious and cultural freedom of Muslim minorities in European nation-states. Stepping back from these debates, this Article aims at a more rigorous theoretical treatment of the subject. It asks whether there is a coherent notion of religious freedom in international legal theory and, if not, why not? In …

Beyond Rationalism And Instrumentalism: The Case For Rethinking U.S. Engagement With International Law And Organization, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay advances an argument for rethinking the current terms of engagement of U.S. foreign policy with international law and institutions so as to avoid the current two extremes of power politics and imperial moralizing. First, it is necessary to distinguish between force and the status of political domination on the one hand, and consensus and the status of normative meaning on the other. While it may be possible for a superpower to exercise factual authority and control over foreign states and peoples through sheer assertions of force and will, the attainability of such a situation should not be confused …

Rethinking "Effective Remedies": Remedial Deterrence In International Courts, Sonja Starr

Faculty Scholarship

One of the bedrock principles of contemporary international law is that victims of human rights violations have a right to an “effective remedy.” International courts usually hold that effective remedies must at least make the victim whole, and they sometimes adopt even stronger remedial rules for particular categories of human rights violations. Moreover, courts have refused to permit departure from these rules on the basis of competing social interests. Human rights scholars have not questioned this approach, frequently pushing for even stronger judicial remedies for rights violations. Yet in many cases, strong and inflexible remedial rules can perversely undermine human …

A Comprehensive Solution For A Targeted Problem: A Critique Of The Eu’S Home State Taxation And Ccctb Initiatives, Ilan Benshalom

Faculty Working Papers

This Article examines the European Commission's Home State Taxation and CCCTB initiatives. It argues that both proposals undermine the long-term objective of attaining a consolidated European corporate tax regime. It suggests an alternative strategy, which offers a comprehensive formulary-tax-allocation-solution in one of the hard to tax sectors, such as the financial sector. This strategy requires more efforts and political risk-taking, but would better promote the long-term objective of a consolidated EU corporate tax regime.

An edited version of this article is scheduled to be published in a future issue of European Taxation (an IBFD publication).

Is International Law Coercive?, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Can international law be enforced against a state? Against a superpower? Various current theories answer in the negative: dualism, consent, domestication, soft law, the New Haven school, and exceptionalism. But this Article claims that international law is enforced all the time by unilateral or multilateral reprisals. The stability of international law over time is a function of the successful working of the reprisal system. In sum, international law is a coercive order.

Why Is International Law Binding?, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Many writers believe that international law is precatory but not "binding" in the way domestic law is binding. Since international law derives from the practice of states, how is it that what states do becomes what they must do? How do we get bindingness or normativity out of empirical fact? We have to avoid the Humean fallacy of attempting to derive an ought from an is. Yet we can find in nature at least one norm that is compelling: the norm of survival. This norm is hardwired into our brains through evolution. It is also hardwired into the international legal …

Courting Genocide: The Unintended Effects Of Humanitarian Intervention, Jide Nzelibe

Faculty Working Papers

Invoking memories and imagery from the Holocaust and other German atrocities during World War II, many contemporary commentators and politicians believe that the international community has an affirmative obligation to deter and incapacitate perpetrators of humanitarian atrocities. Today, the received wisdom is that a legalistic approach, which combines humanitarian interventions with international criminal prosecutions targeting perpetrators, will help realize the post-World War II vision of making atrocities a crime of the past. This Article argues, in contrast, that humanitarian interventions are often likely to create unintended, and sometimes perverse, incentives among both the victims and perpetrators of atrocities. The problem …

Culture, Sovereignty, And Hollywood: Unesco And The Future Of Trade In Cultural Products, Christopher M. Bruner

Scholarly Works

On October 20, 2005, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization (UNESCO) adopted a treaty - by a vote of 148-2, with 4 abstentions - that legitimates domestic legal measures aimed at the protection of local producers of cultural activities, goods and services. Opposed by the United States and Israel, the Convention represents a major diplomatic victory for Canada and France - its principal proponents - and a major blow to Hollywood and the United States, audiovisual products being among America's most lucrative exports. Both Canada and France, like many countries around the world, have long …

Arbitrating Human Rights, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

Corporate liability for human rights abuses is one of the most important developments in current international law and practice. With the advent of human rights litigation against corporations, there is now the prospect of a deep-pocket defendant that is complicit in grave human rights abuses, subject to personal jurisdiction, and not immune from suit. Indeed, if a corporation is accused of "aiding and abetting" human rights abuses, this is all but a concession that the corporate actor is not the principal wrong-doer. It is of course possible that this controversial trend toward corporate responsibility may reflect a genuine concern about …

Beyond Wealth: Stories Of Art, War, And Greed, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

The article tells three stories of great art and priceless antiquities: one about early Christian mosaics from Cyprus, another about five paintings by the Viennese master, Gustav Klimt, and the third about an ancient statute of a Sumerian king from Iraq. All three stories discuss the international law protecting cultural heritage in time of war and occupation. They all tell of individuals pursuing extraordinary profits from the sale of the objects despite the international law that, properly applied, should have protected them from damage and kept them all in places of public display.

The article also tells how in each …

The Birth Of The European Union: Us And Uk Roles In The Creation Of A Unified European Community, Bruce Carolan

Articles

The United States jealously guards its national sovereignty. This has been reflected in reluctance to participate fully in international agreements or organizations with a 'supranational' flavor, such as the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Protocols. It is therefore surprising to find that the United States was one of the principal architects of the supranational characteristics of what has developed into the European Union. Specifically, the earliest stages of European integration, which is embodied in the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, were heavily influenced by US insistence on creation of supranational institutions that could exert dominance over sovereign European …

Just Back From The Human Rights Council, Makau Mutua

Journal Articles

The piece critically looks at the transition from the UN Commission on Human Rights to the UN Human Rights Council in 2006 and questions whether the change is one of substance or form. It argues that the same paralysis that dogged the Commission will continue to afflict the Council because power politics and regional blocs - fueled by the global asymmetries of power - will not go away. The piece also contends that the charge by the West that the Commission was utterly compromised by the Third World was without merit because it was the one forum where developing could …

The Nobel Effect: Nobel Peace Prize Laureates As International Norm Entrepreneurs, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

For the first time in scholarly literature, this article traces the history of modern international law from the perspective of the constructivist theory of international relations. Constructivism is one of the leadings schools of thought in international relations today. This theory posits that state preferences emerge from social construction and that state interests are evolving rather than fixed. Constructivism further argues that international norms have a life cycle composed of three stages: norm emergence, norm acceptance (or norm cascades), and norm internalization. As such, constructivism treats international law as a dynamic process in which norm entrepreneurs interact with state actors …

Extraterritoriality, Antitrust, And The Pragmatist Style, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

In the last decades of the 20th century, David Kennedy and Martti Koskenniemi made the case that the modern structure of international legal argument was characterized by "pragmatism." Taking this idea as its baseline, this Article's central argument is that legal pragmatism embodies a dominant style of contemporary legal reasoning, and that as Kennedy and Koskenniemi might have suggested, it is on display in some of the canonical antitrust decisions having an international dimension. The Article also seeks to show that pragmatism's ostensible triumph is best understood as a contest of three distinctly legal pragmatisms: "eclectic pragmatism," as evidenced in …

Can Might Make Right? The Use Of Force To Impose Democracy And The Arthurian Dilemma In The Modern Era, Scott Thompson

Publications

This article explains that under international law nations are not permitted to use force to impose democracy on other nations and that such an approach is also impracticable and undesirable from a policy perspective.

Rethinking Subsidiarity In International Human Rights Adjudication, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

This article suggests that a re-evaluation of the principle of subsidiarity is in order. While I make no sweeping claims that the principle of subsidiarity is always preferable or always undesirable, I do suggest that a close look at the myriad ways in which subsidiarity applies reveals that it may sometimes impede, rather than advance, the cause it purports to serve: namely, achieving universality of human rights. This article identifies situations where subsidiarity is more likely to diminish human rights protections that it is to advance them and suggests that subsidiarity should be abandoned or minimized in such areas.

Unratified Treaties, Domestic Politics, And The U.S. Constitution, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

Under contemporary treaty practice, a nation's signature of a treaty typically does not make the nation a party to the treaty. Rather, nations become parties to treaties through an act of ratification or accession, which sometimes occurs long after signature. Nevertheless, Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which many commentators regard as reflecting customary international law, provides that when a nation signs a treaty it is obligated to refrain from actions that would defeat the “object and purpose” of the treaty until such time as it makes clear its intent not to become a party …