Law Commons^™

Virtual Intermediaries Ii - Canadian Solutions (Drop Shipments) Compared With Us, Japanese & Eu Approaches, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Virtual travel agents are opportunistic internet-based travel agents. They are intermediary businesses that create mutually beneficial three-party transactions that secure accommodations for a traveler that: (a) meet the basic needs of the traveler (at a discount), (b) fills vacant room for accommodation retailers with guests that pay below market, but above standard costs, and (c) profit from the extra cash, the margin in the transaction.

The virtual intermediary’s eye is always on the discount and the cash flow. One of the things that catches their attention are the accommodation taxes which they collect from the traveler in advance and remit …

The New Adventures Of The Common Law, Damien P. Horigan

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

One of the arguably unexpected legal developments during the first decade of this century has been the emergence of new common law jurisdictions in a region with a very different legal heritage – the Arabian Peninsula. These young jurisdictions have been created specifically to foster the growth of new hubs for banking and finance. This article will examine these new adventures of the common law.

The Fiduciary Constitution Of Human Rights, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

We argue that human rights are best conceived as norms arising from a fiduciary relationship that exists between states (or statelike actors) and the citizens and noncitizens subject to their power. These norms draw on a Kantian conception of moral personhood, protecting agents from instrumentalization and domination. They do not, however, exist in the abstract as timeless natural rights. Instead, they are correlates of the state’s fiduciary duty to provide equal security under the rule of law, a duty that flows from the state’s institutional assumption of irresistible sovereign powers.

Why Egregious Errors Of Law May Yet Justify A Refusal Of Enforcement Under The 'New York Convention', Seng Wei, Edward Ti

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Parties on the losing side in international arbitration have long argued that an error of law is a defence to the enforcement of foreign awards. Citing article V(2)(b) of the New York Convention, such parties have argued that a manifest error of law is a violation of public policy. While national courts have generally paid little heed to this line of argument, this article seeks to raise the possibility that there may yet be the exceedingly rare instance in which a court should preclude enforcing an award marred by a hideous error of law. Limited review of an arbitrator's application …

The Next Generation: Creating New Peace Processes In The Middle East, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Irena Nutenko

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay describes how Israeli students in a course on mediation and consensus building taught in an Israeli university law department by and American law professor and an Israeli instructor analyzed and studied the conflict in the Middle East. It describes the suggestions they made for process design for the next stages of whatever peace process might emerge for the region. In light of the students' suggestions, the authors present some ideas as to how different approaches to reconciliation and peace might be used, managed, and coordinated.

Health Care And The Un Disability Rights Convention, Michael Ashley Stein, Penelope J S Stein, Dorothy Weiss, Raymond Lang

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Unsex Cedaw: What's Wrong With "Women's Rights", Darren Rosenblum

International & Comparative Law Colloquium Papers

Although the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (“CEDAW” or the “Convention”) has succeeded in some respects, even its supporters acknowledge broad failures. CEDAW’s weakness draws on the titular mistaken diagnosis: “women” are not the issue&#;gender disparities are. The 1970’s drafting of CEDAW focused on bringing women to their place at the international law table. What’s wrong with women’s rights? In the international context, CEDAW attempts to empower women but fails to respect other gender inequality. As the preeminent treaty on gender inequality, CEDAW cannot succeed in creating gender equality if its scope remains limited …

Contemporary Water Issues, Susan Kelly

Publications

No abstract provided.

Banding With Brothers: Authorizing Force Through A Concert Of Democracies, Alexander Bernard

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

More Cooperation, Less Uniformity: Tax Deharmonization And The Future Of The International Tax Regime, Steven Dean

Faculty Scholarship

Efforts to foster improved international tax cooperation have become preoccupied with tax harmonization. Deharmonization offers the possibility of harmony without uniformity By exploring two examples of tax deharmonization in practice and considering the origins and limitations of tax harmonization, this Article brings the traditional emphasis on harmonization into question. It then makes the case that deharmonization--cooperation without uniformity--could provide a viable alternative. Achieving tax deharmonization potential would require revisiting some of the most basic elements of our current international tax regime, particularly the benefits principle.

Agenda: World Energy Justice Conference And Appropriate Technology Arcade, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law

World Energy Justice Conference (October 23-24)

The 2009 CEES Energy Justice Conference took place at the University of Colorado Law School on October 23rd and 24th, 2009. It featured 11 sessions, more than 40 speakers, and attracted over 200 attendees. The Conference brought together leading international and U.S. decision-makers in politics, engineering, public health, law, business, economics, and innovators in the sciences to explore how best to address the critical needs of the energy-oppressed poor (EOP) through long-term interdisciplinary action, information sharing, and deployment of appropriate sustainable energy technologies (ASETs).

The Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law & Policy (CJIELP) at the University of Colorado Law …

The International Response To Climate Change: An Agenda For Global Health, Lindsay F. Wiley, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As the international community negotiates a successor to the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there is new reason to hope that meaningful action might be taken to prevent devastating climate change. Even the more ambitious mitigation targets currently under negotiation, however, will not be sufficient to avoid a profound effect on the public's health in coming decades, with the world's poorest, most vulnerable populations bearing the disproportionate burden. The influence of historic and current emissions will be so substantial that it is imperative to reduce global emissions while at the same time preparing …

Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Integrating Global Health Into The International Response To Climate Change, Lindsay F. Wiley

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The potentially groundbreaking negotiations currently underway on the international response to climate change and national implementation of commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) include a number of hotly contested issues: (1) what degree of climate change is acceptable as a basis for emissions targets, (2) to what extent and in what ways climate change mitigation should incorporate emissions reductions or increased sinks for developing countries, (3) whether the legal regime governing mitigation can take advantage of the huge mitigation potential of changed practices in the land use and agricultural sectors, (4) how adaptation should be …

Land & Water Planning: Another State's Perspective - Water Resources Regional Plan Policies, Kathleen M. Chavez, P.E.

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Proposal For 'Philosophical Method' In Comparative And International Law, John Martin Gillroy

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

A basic challenge of contemporary thought is to better understand the origin, persistence, and future course of international/ comparative law. I suggest that a foundational step is to begin treating the law as a philosophical matter. I propose that comparative and international legal theory require a distinct methodology that is as integrated and systematic as positivism, but which better recognizes the dialectic interdependence of normative and empirical and the metaphysical interdependence of theory and practice. Philosophical Method, as systematized by R.G. Collingwood, promotes the dialectic over the eristic, looks for overlap rather than definitive scientific classification, argues for comprehensive philosophy …

Medellin, Delegation And Conflicts (Of Law), Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

The case of Medellin v. Texas presented the Supreme Court with a recurring question that has bedeviled judges, legal scholars, and political scientists-what effect, if any, must a United States court give to the decision of an international tribunal, particularly where, during the relevant time, the United States was party to a treaty protocol that bound it to that tribunal's judgments. While the Supreme Court held that the International Court of Justice's ("ICJ") decision was not enforceable federal law, its decision reflected an important recognition that the issues presented in that case were not limited to the specific area of …

The Sohn Collection Shines At Uga School Of Law, Thomson Reuters

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

An interview with Anne Burnett, foreign and international law librarian at the Alexander Campbell King Law Library, reveals a unique library collection from a former world scholar.

The Fog Of Certainty, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

In a recent essay in the Yale Law Journal, constitutional law scholar Michael Stokes Paulsen argues that “[t]he force of international law, as a body of law, upon the United States is . . . largely an illusion.” Rather than law, he suggests, international law is mere “policy and politics.”

For all the certainty with which this argument is advanced, it cannot survive close scrutiny. At its foundation, Professor Paulsen’s essay rests on a pair of fundamental misconceptions of the nature of law. Law is not reduced to mere policy, to begin, simply because it can be undone. Were that …

The Morphing Of Mtic Fraud: Vat Fraud Infects Tradable Co2 Permits, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud has been slowly morphing from cell phones and computer chips to other commodities. In the last few months however MTIC made a dramatic appearance in tradable CO2 permits. It closed exchanges and prompted France and the Netherlands to unilaterally change their tax treatment of CO2 trades. The UK has followed the French treatment in large measure. On Monday June 8, 2009 rumors of MTIC fraud in carbon emission permits closed the main European exchange for spot trading of European Union carbon emissions permits and Kyoto offsets. When BlueNext began trading permits again on Wednesday, June …

Chris Okeke Book Signing Event, Brochure

Articles About Faculty

A flyer for a book launch/signing event for Contemporary Issues on Public International and Comparative Law: Essays in Honor of Professor Dr. Christian Nwachukwu Okeke.

Attempt, Conspiracy, And Incitement To Commit Genocide, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In these brief commentaries to the U.N. Genocide Convention, I explore three criminal law modes of liability as they apply to the international crime of genocide. Part I analyzes attempt to commit genocide and uncovers a basic tension over whether attempt refers to the genocide itself (the chapeau) or the underlying offense (such as killing). Part I concludes that the tension stems from the fact that the crime of genocide itself is already inchoate in nature, since the legal requirements for the crime do not require an actual, completed genocide, in the common-sense understanding of the term, but only a …

China's Implementation Of The Un Sales Convention Through Arbitral Tribunals, Mark R. Shulman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines implementation of the international sales law by arbitral tribunals in China. The leading Chinese arbitral tribunal -- CIETAC -- has recently released the full-text decisions issued in over 300 disputes involving international trade. Upon a careful examination of this decisions involving non-conformity of goods, the authors conclude that the decisions generally convey objective, non-biased jurisprudence (notwithstanding some caveats about the completeness of the available record). They go on to conclude that the ability to rely on a fairly predictable tribunal has been good for the development not only of China's trade-based economy but also for its more …

Public And Private Sector Legal Process Outsourcing: Moving Toward A Global Model Of Legal Expertise Deliverance, Sasha Borsand, Amar Gupta

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

Legal process outsourcing (“LPO”) involves the use of foreign lawyers to conduct, perform and apply domestic law, most often for cost-saving purposes. Large, global firms have already begun to embrace the concept of LPO, and small firms and sole practitioners are increasingly reaching out to foreign firms, seeking more efficient, lower-cost providers. Ethical considerations, liability limiting agreements, ERISA compliance, certification and oversight models are all part of the LPO landscape. This paper discusses these aspects, as well as issues related to outsourcing in non-traditional areas such as the public sector and the judiciary.

To Catch An Entrapper: The Inadequacy Of The Entrapment Defense Globally And The Need To Reevaluate Our Current Legal Rubric, Paul W. Valentine

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

It is fair to say that a majority of us have either seen or been exposed to the hit television show To Catch a Predator on NBC. To Catch a Predator is a series of hidden investigations by the television newsmagazine Dateline NBC devoted to the subject of identifying and detaining potential child sexual abusers who contact children over the internet. The show is important because those caught by the investigators oftentimes raise the entrapment defense, but to no avail. Given the emergence of internet sting operations and covert government investigations, it is now more important than ever that the …

Fault Lines In Our “Garden Of Eden State”, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Interest As Damages, John Y. Gotanda, Thierry J. Sénéchal

Working Paper Series

In this article, we posit that when arbitral tribunals decide international disputes, they typically fail to fully compensate claimants for the loss of the use of their money. This failure occurs because they do not acknowledge that businesses typically invest in opportunities that pose a significantly greater risk than the risk reflected in such commonly used standards as U.S. T-bills and LIBOR rates. Claimants also must share the blame when they do not set out a well-constructed claim for interest as damages. However, even when claimants do so, tribunals often award damages at a statutory rate or at rate reflecting …

Enhancing Enforcement Of Economic, Social And Cultural Rights Using Indicators: A Focus On The Right To Education In The Icescr, Sital Kalantry, Joycelyn E. Getgen, Steven Arrigg Koh

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Nearly fifteen years ago, Audrey R. Chapman emphasized the importance of ascertaining violations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as a means to enhance its enforcement. Today, the violations approach is even more salient given the recent adoption of the ICESCR’s Optional Protocol, a powerful tool to hold States parties accountable for violations.

Indicators are essential tools for assessing violations of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) because they are often the best way to measure progressive realization. Proposed guidelines on using indicators give guidance on the content of States parties reports to treaty monitoring …

Human Rights And Military Decisions: Counterinsurgency And Trends In The Law Of, Dan E. Stigall, Christopher L. Blakesley, Chris Jenks

Scholarly Works

The past several decades have seen a Copernican shift in the paradigm of armed conflict, which the traditional Law of International Armed Conflict (LOIAC) canon has not fully matched. Standing out in stark relief against the backdrop of relative inactivity in LOIAC, is the surfeit of activity in the field of international human rights law, which has become a dramatic new force in the ancient realm of international law. Human rights law, heretofore not formally part of the traditional juridico-military calculus, has gained ever increasing salience in that calculus. Indeed, human rights law has ramified in such a manner that …

Ratify The Un Disability Treaty, Michael Ashley Stein, Janet E. Lord

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Influenza A(H1n1) And Pandemic Preparedness Under The Rule Of International Law, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

A novel strain of Influenza A (H1N1) spread rapidly through Mexico in April 2009 and now spans the globe. By the time WHO was notified and responded, geographical containment was not feasible, leading the agency to call for mitigation. The international outbreak of SARS in 2003 and the more recent Influenza A (H5N1) among birds with limited transmission to humans helped prepare the world for the current pandemic threat. SARS galvanized the WHO to revise the antiquated International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005, which took effect June 15, 2007. Governments instituted preparedness plans in response to avian influenza.

Despite increased …