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Full-Text Articles in Law
It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Jus Cogens!, Anthony D'Amato
It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Jus Cogens!, Anthony D'Amato
Faculty Working Papers
What we require—like the third bowl of soup in the story of the three bears—is a theory of jus cogens that is Just Right. I do not know if such a theory is possible. I don't even know if one is conceivable. But if someone conceives it, that person deserves the very next International Oscar. To qualify for the award, the theory must answer the following questions:
Purposeful Ambiguity As International Legal Strategy: The Two China Problem, Anthony D'Amato
Purposeful Ambiguity As International Legal Strategy: The Two China Problem, Anthony D'Amato
Faculty Working Papers
For every definable term in international law there are clear cases and fuzzy cases. Everyone accepts that the term "state" applies to Paraguay, Poland, Portugal and over a hundred other clear cases, but does it apply to Puerto Rico, Western Samoa, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, or the Vatican City? The word "treaty" has thousands of clear applications, but does it apply to an exchange of faxes between two governments or a handshake between two diplomats at a cocktail party? In addition to ambiguities of this kind, international law is replete with deliberately created ambiguities. One of …