Law Commons^™

The Executive Branch And International Law, Arthur M. Weisburd

Vanderbilt Law Review

Public international law, through its rules regulating the dealings between independent nations, purports to impose limits on the actions of all governments, including those of the United States. In this context American lawyers interested in foreign relations may reasonably wonder whether American courts would enforce rules of public international law purporting to bind the United States against the United States government, particularly the executive branch. A fair number of Supreme Court cases have dealt with the enforce ability of treaties in American courts.' Treaties, however, are only one source of international law. The other important source, customary international law, is …

Case Digest, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Alien Tort Statute Grants Federal Court Subject Matter Jurisdiction Over Foreign Sovereign for Tort Committed in Clear Violation of International Law and Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act is not Exclusive Jurisdictional Grant Over Sovereign-- Amerada Hess Shipping Corp. v. Argentina Republic 830 F.2d 421 (2nd Cir. 1987)

Exploring The Foreign Country Exception: Federal Tort Claims In Antarctica, David J. Bederman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On November 28, 1979, an Air New Zealand DC-10 aircraft carrying tourists bound for an expedition to Antarctica crashed into the side of Mount Erebus, the highest peak on the frozen continent. All aboard perished. Four years later, the families of some of the New Zealander skilled in the accident brought suit against the United States Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). They claimed that the negligence of the air traffic controllers at the United States scientific base at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, was the proximate cause of the crash.

This Article considers numerous aspects of this litigation and …

The Alien Tort Statute And How Individuals "Violate" International Law, John M. Rogers

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Does any argument favor a broad interpretation of the Alien Tort Statute? If I had to make such an agreement, I suppose I would try to cloud the difference between universal crimes and violations of international law. One way to do this would be to focus on those crimes that are also violations of the obligations of one state to another. For instance, an attack on a diplomat may be both a violation of international law (i.e., failure to prevent or punish the attack may result in international responsibility by the territorial state to the sending state) and a universal …