Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- International courts (6)
- Conflict of laws (5)
- Federal government (5)
- Jurisdiction (5)
- Courts (4)
-
- Customary international law (4)
- Human rights (4)
- International law (4)
- Treaties (4)
- United States (4)
- Immunities of foreign states (3)
- International and municipal law (3)
- Alien Tort Claims Act (2)
- Community Court of Justice (2)
- Constitutional law (2)
- Economic Community of West African States (2)
- Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (2)
- Globalization (2)
- Government liability (2)
- International Court of Justice (2)
- International customary law (2)
- Jurisdiction (International law) (2)
- Supreme Court (2)
- Terrorism (2)
- Universal jurisdiction (2)
- Actions and defenses (1)
- Africa (1)
- Civil rights—Africa (1)
- Civil society (1)
- Combatants and noncombatants (International law) (1)
Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in International Law
Sub-Regional Courts In Africa: Litigating The Hybrid Right To Freedom Of Movement, Laurence R. Helfer
Sub-Regional Courts In Africa: Litigating The Hybrid Right To Freedom Of Movement, Laurence R. Helfer
Faculty Scholarship
Human rights attorneys and civil society groups in Africa have recently focused their advocacy efforts on sub-regional courts associated with economic integration communities in East, West and Southern Africa. The East African Court of Justice (EACJ), the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have received few suits challenging trade restrictions and other barriers to sub-regional integration. Instead, and surprisingly, the courts’ dockets are dominated by complaints alleging violations of international human rights law.
This article offers the first analysis of EACJ, ECOWAS Court and …
Custom In Our Courts: Reconciling Theory With Reality In The Debate About Erie Railroad And Customary International Law, Nikki C. Gutierrez, Mitu Gulati
Custom In Our Courts: Reconciling Theory With Reality In The Debate About Erie Railroad And Customary International Law, Nikki C. Gutierrez, Mitu Gulati
Faculty Scholarship
One of the most heated debates of the last two decades in U.S. legal academia focuses on customary international law’s domestic status after Erie Railroad v. Tompkins. At one end, champions of the “modern position” support customary international law’s (“CIL”) wholesale incorporation into post-Erie federal common law. At the other end, “revisionists” argue that federal courts cannot apply CIL as federal law absent federal legislative authorization. Scholars on both sides of the Erie debate also make claims about the sources judges reference when discerning CIL. They then use these claims to support their arguments regarding CIL’s domestic status. Interestingly, neither …
Pennoyer Was Right, Stephen E. Sachs
Pennoyer Was Right, Stephen E. Sachs
Faculty Scholarship
Pennoyer v. Neff has a bad rap. As an original matter, Pennoyer is legally correct. Compared to current doctrine, it offers a more coherent and attractive way to think about personal jurisdiction and interstate relations generally.
To wit: The Constitution imposes no direct limits on personal jurisdiction. Jurisdiction isn't a matter of federal law, but of general law -- that unwritten law, including much of the English common law and the customary law of nations, that formed the basis of the American legal system. Founding-era states were free to override that law and to exercise more expansive jurisdiction. But if …
Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer
Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer
Faculty Scholarship
This paper discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly-situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the ECOWAS Court upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in the Gambia, that country’s political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated the Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the EACJ and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to …
Jurisdiction, Foundations, Ralf Michaels
Federalism, Treaty Implementation, And Political Process: Bond V. United States, Curtis A. Bradley
Federalism, Treaty Implementation, And Political Process: Bond V. United States, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Effectiveness Of International Adjudicators, Laurence R. Helfer
The Effectiveness Of International Adjudicators, Laurence R. Helfer
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter, in the Oxford Handbook of International Adjudication, provides an overview of the burgeoning literature on the effectiveness of international courts and tribunals (ICs). It considers four dimensions of effectiveness that have engendered debates among scholars or received insufficient scrutiny. The first dimension, case-specific effectiveness, evaluates whether the litigants to a specific dispute change their behavior following an IC ruling, an issue closely linked to compliance with IC judgments. The second variant, erga omnes effectiveness, assesses whether IC decisions have systemic precedential effects that influence the behavior of all states subject to a tribunal’s jurisdiction. The third approach, embeddedness …
A New International Human Rights Court For West Africa: The Ecowas Community Court Of Justice, Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer, Jacqueline R. Mcallister
A New International Human Rights Court For West Africa: The Ecowas Community Court Of Justice, Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer, Jacqueline R. Mcallister
Faculty Scholarship
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) is an increasingly active and bold international adjudicator of human rights violations in West Africa. Since acquiring jurisdiction over human rights issues in 2005, the ECCJ has issued several path-breaking judgments, including against the Gambia for the torture of journalists, against Niger for condoning modern forms of slavery, and against Nigeria for failing to regulate the multinational oil companies that polluted the Niger Delta. This article explains why ECOWAS member states authorized the ECCJ to review human rights suits by individuals but did not allow private actors to complain about violations of regional …
Legitimacy And Lawmaking: A Tale Of Three International Courts, Laurence R. Helfer, Karen J. Alter
Legitimacy And Lawmaking: A Tale Of Three International Courts, Laurence R. Helfer, Karen J. Alter
Faculty Scholarship
This article explores the relationship between the legitimacy of international courts and expansive judicial lawmaking. We compare lawmaking by three regional integration courts — the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ), and the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ). These courts have similar jurisdictional grants and access rules, yet each has behaved in a strikingly different way when faced with opportunities to engage in expansive judicial lawmaking. The ECJ is the most activist, but its audacious legal doctrines have been assimilated as part of the court’s legitimate authority. The ATJ and ECOWAS have been more …
Attorney General Bradford’S Opinion And The Alien Tort Statute, Curtis A. Bradley
Attorney General Bradford’S Opinion And The Alien Tort Statute, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
In debates over the scope of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), one historical document has played an especially prominent role. This document is a short opinion by U.S. Attorney General William Bradford, issued in the summer of 1795, concerning the involvement of U.S. citizens in an attack by a French fleet on a British colony in Sierra Leone. Numerous academic articles, judicial opinions, and litigation briefs have invoked the Bradford opinion, for a variety of propositions, and the opinion was discussed by both sides in the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the first hearing in the pending ATS …
Global Problems In Domestic Courts, Ralf Michaels
Global Problems In Domestic Courts, Ralf Michaels
Faculty Scholarship
We face an increasing number of problems that are essentially global in nature because they affect the world in its entirety: global cartels, climate change, crimes against humanity; to name a few. These problems require world courts, yet world courts in the institutional sense are largely lacking. Hence, domestic courts must function, effectively, as world courts. Given the unlikelihood of effective world courts in the future, our challenge is to establish under what conditions domestic courts can play this role of world courts effectively and legitimately.
International Law And The U.S. Common Law Of Foreign Official Immunity, Curtis A. Bradley, Laurence R. Helfer
International Law And The U.S. Common Law Of Foreign Official Immunity, Curtis A. Bradley, Laurence R. Helfer
Faculty Scholarship
In Samantar v. Yousuf, 130 S. Ct. 2278 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not apply to lawsuits brought against foreign government officials for alleged human rights abuses. The Court did not necessarily clear the way for future human rights litigation against such officials, however, cautioning that such suits “may still be barred by foreign sovereign immunity under the common law.” At the same time, the Court provided only minimal guidance as to the content and scope of common law immunity. Especially striking was the Court’s omission of any mention of the …
Historical Practice And The Contemporary Debate Over Customary International Law, Ernest A. Young
Historical Practice And The Contemporary Debate Over Customary International Law, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
Response to: Anthony J. Bellia, Jr. & Bradford R. Clark, The Federal Common Law of Nations, 109 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (2009).
A.J. Bellia and Brad Clark have performed a valuable service for other scholars interested in foreign relations law and federal jurisdiction by collecting and illuminating—with their usual care and insight—the historical practice of both English and early American courts with respect to the law of nations. Their recent Article, The Federal Common Law of Nations, demonstrates that, while American courts have not generally treated customary international law (CIL) as supreme federal law, they have applied such law where …
Treaties As "Part Of Our Law", Ernest A. Young
Treaties As "Part Of Our Law", Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Foreign Officials And Sovereign Immunity In U.S. Courts, Curtis A. Bradley
Foreign Officials And Sovereign Immunity In U.S. Courts, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Taking Liberties: The Personal Jurisdiction Of Military Commissions, Madeline Morris
Taking Liberties: The Personal Jurisdiction Of Military Commissions, Madeline Morris
Faculty Scholarship
On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives attacked civilian and military targets on US territory, causing thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of economic loss. The next day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1368 characterizing the attack by Al Qaeda as a "threat to international peace and security" and recognizing the right of states to use armed force in self defense.
Federal Suits And General Laws: A Comment On Judge Fletcher's Reading Of Sosa V. Alvarez-Marchain, Ernest A. Young
Federal Suits And General Laws: A Comment On Judge Fletcher's Reading Of Sosa V. Alvarez-Marchain, Ernest A. Young
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Federal Judicial Power And The International Legal Order, Curtis A. Bradley
The Federal Judicial Power And The International Legal Order, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Medellin V. Dretke: Federalism And International Law, Curtis A. Bradley, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Martin Flaherty
Medellin V. Dretke: Federalism And International Law, Curtis A. Bradley, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Martin Flaherty
Faculty Scholarship
This is an edited version of a debate held at Columbia Law School on February 21, 2005.
Terrorism: The Politics Of Prosecution, Madeline Morris
Terrorism: The Politics Of Prosecution, Madeline Morris
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Globalizing Savigny: The State In Savigny’S Private International Law, And The Challenge Of Europeanization And Globalization, Ralf Michaels
Globalizing Savigny: The State In Savigny’S Private International Law, And The Challenge Of Europeanization And Globalization, Ralf Michaels
Faculty Scholarship
How can conflict of laws respond to the challenges from globalization? Some argue that state-based approaches like governmental interest analysis are inadequate, and advocate a return to the approach taken by the German scholar Savigny in the 19th century. The article shows that the assumption is correct: state-based approaches have indeed become problematic. However, a return to Savigny's approach will not help: While Savigny's approach is multilateral and pays little regard to governmental interest, closer analysis reveals how central the state is to his theory. The consequences are shown in an analysis of a recent European case. It follows that …
U.S. Announces Intent Not To Ratify International Criminal Court Treaty, Curtis A. Bradley
U.S. Announces Intent Not To Ratify International Criminal Court Treaty, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Universal Jurisdiction And U.S. Law, Curtis A. Bradley
Universal Jurisdiction And U.S. Law, Curtis A. Bradley
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act And The Pursued Refugee: Lessons From Letelier V. Chile, Michael E. Tigar
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act And The Pursued Refugee: Lessons From Letelier V. Chile, Michael E. Tigar
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.