International Law Commons^™

Criminal Law In A World Of States, Ryan Liss

Michigan Journal of International Law

In recent decades, a new school of criminal law theory has emerged. Its proponents reject the traditional story that criminal law ought to be justified on either retributivist or utilitarian grounds alone. Instead, they argue that justifications for criminal law must be rooted in a broader political theory of the state’s authority. While this political theory turn is becoming increasingly dominant in the literature, it gives rise to two significant challenges that scholars have thus far failed to recognize. These challenges emerge when we turn our attention from an internal, domestic view of the state to the world beyond its …

Diversity Or Cacophony? The Continuing Debate Over New Sources Of International Law, Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Joyce L. Tong

Michigan Journal of International Law

We have reached a point when lawyers' commissions are summoned to discuss the consequences of legal proliferation as an ill threatening the standing of international law through incompatibility or irrelevance. Should this trend towards fragmentation be reversed? Should we devise a legal non-proliferation treaty? Or should we, conversely, welcome the current diversification in the sources of law as reflecting the realities of today's world, as a reflection of the flexibility and adaptability of law when the norm of sovereignty on which it is based is itself undergoing considerable recalibration? In short: how should we deal theoretically as well as practically …

U.S. Ratification Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Julia Ernst

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The purpose of this article is to highlight the need for ratification of the Convention by the United States, and to address arguments against ratification. Various concerns have been raised with respect to CEAFDAW, both specific to the United States and more international in scope. Some problems pertain to United States ratification generally, other issues concern potential conflicts between specific articles of the Convention and U.S. law, and broader problems have been raised with respect to international implementation. Most of these issues are not uncommon in international agreements, and may therefore be remedied through conventional mechanisms, including implementing legislation, reservations, …

The Role Of Legal Advisers In Ensuring That Foreign Policy Conforms To International Legal Standards, Antonio Cassese

Michigan Journal of International Law

With the help of a research team, the author spoke to the people most responsible for using-or ignoring-international law today: present and former foreign ministers and their chief legal advisers, hereafter referred to as LAs. From them, he hoped to get direct and first-hand evidence on the role played by international law in today's political arena. By sounding them out as thoroughly as the author and team of researchers did, it is now possible to shed some light on the role played by law and lawyers in foreign affairs. Part I of this essay will describe the role Legal Advisers' …

A Historical Survey Of The International Regulation Of Propaganda, Elizabeth A. Downey

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article traces international efforts to regulate propaganda through the pre- and post-UN periods, charting its development from a rather peripheral concern of international law to its important role in the currently evolving law of international communication.

On Amending The Treaty-Making Power: A Comparative Study Of The Problem Of Self-Executing Treaties, Lawrence Preuss

Michigan Law Review

The current furor concerning the treaty-making power of the United States has been aroused by the apprehension that this country might become a party to certain multilateral treaties in the social and economic fields, and, notably, the draft Covenants on Human Rights, the Genocide Convention and the Convention on Political Rights of Women. The plethora of proposed constitutional amendments now before the Congress merely marks an intensification of the controversy, recurrent throughout our history, concerning the legal effect of Article VI, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States. Problems concerning the relative authority of treaties and other international …

International Law-International Court Of Justice-Advisory Opinions-Admission To Membership In The United Nations, William C. Gordon

Michigan Law Review

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, and the Statute of the Court forms an integral part of the United Nations Charter. The Court is essentially a continuation of the Permanent Court of International Justice, which operated in connection with the League of Nations. Like its predecessor, the Court is composed of fifteen judges, nominated in a manner designed to ensure impartiality and elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council voting separately upon a list of nominees.

Jessup: The International Problem Of Governing Mankind, John E. Grosboll S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of THE INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM OF GOVERNING MANKIND. Phillip C. Jessup.

Niemeyer On Law Without Force, Josef L. Kunz

Michigan Law Review

Whereas Lauterpacht tried to determine the function of law in the international community, Niemeyer investigates the function of politics in international law. His book is on politics, but it is theoretical in its treatment and not political. The book not only represents an ambitious work, but is certainly interesting and stimulating. As to his ideas, Niemeyer derives from Herman Heller, to whom the book is dedicated. Heller's theory of the States is not a legal, but a sociological, a functional theory of the modern, occidental State as it developed since the Renaissance, a theory which stands halfway between Kelsen's "pure …

The Non-Recognition Law Of The United States, Kimon A. Doukas

Michigan Law Review

We speak of nations as being equal, independent and sovereign within the fixed confines of their physical boundaries. As aptly stated by our Supreme Court, in the civilized world of today, "Every sovereign State is bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign State, and the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the government of another done within its own territory."

The United States And The League Of Nations, Clarence A. Berdahl

Michigan Law Review

With the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles by the necessary number of Powers on January 10, 1920, there came into existence that new experiment in international cooperation and government known as the League of Nations. It has grown from a membership of 43 states in 1920 to 55 in 1929. Including Great Powers and Small Powers, states of Europe, Asia, Africa, South, Central, and even North America, it can in no sense of the word be properly characterized as a European league merely, or another Holy Alliance, but is truly a world organization. Only Afghanistan, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Russia, …

The New Law Of Nations, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"In these disillusioned years which are the aftermath of the World War the law of nations has come to be regarded in many quarters with a kind of sophisticated skepticism. It is freely asserted that the law has proved a futile reliance, that it has broken down, and it is asked--with an air of unbelief too obvious to be misunderstood--What is there that is ever likely to be done about it?"

The Russian Reinsurance Case, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson's second commentary on Russian Reinsurance Company v. Stoddard and Bankers Trust Company: "The facts in the Russian Reinsurance Company case were without precedent. The Reinsurance Company had been incorporated in Russia in 1899 under a special statute constituting its charter and by-laws.... In 1917 the revolutionary Soviet Government was established in Russia and seven of the eight persons constituting the company's board of directors was driven into exile. In 1918 Soviet decrees nationalized the company, confiscated its property, and apparently terminated its corporate existence. Nevertheless, the exiled directors held meetings in Paris and continued to direct the …

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

A Guide To Diplomatic Practice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"Sir Ernest Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice was first published in 1917. It was the first systematic treatise on the practice and procedure of diplomacy to be printed in the English language, covering a field already occupied in other languages....

"...[T]he author compiles a wealth of data accumulated in research and long experience in what may perhaps be described as the professional diplomatist's book of forms and precedents... It is chiefly a digest of diplomatic data intended to afford practical guidance in the routine of diplomatic organization, precedence and ceremonial, procedure, immunities, international congresses and conferences, the making of treaties …