Judges Commons^™

Domestic Courts And The Generation Of Norms In International Law, Charles T. Kotoby Jr.

Articles

International law in the form of treaty and custom is primarily shaped by national executives and legislatures. To be sure, “judicial decisions” are deemed a “subsidiary means for the determination of [international] law,” but that still does not give domestic courts an everyday role in the generation of universal norms and international law. This article proposes a more dynamic reality which elevates the importance of municipal courts in the generation and creation of international law. The truth is that domestic courts interact regularly to announce and create important universal norms—by, for instance, adjudicating expropriation claims, passing on the recognition and …

Of Law And The Revolution, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Egyptian revolution is proving to be a very legal one. That is not to say that the revolution’s demands have been legalized, nor that Egypt’s law has been revolutionized, rather, the forces that have come to the fore since the toppling of Mubarak in Feb 2011 have chosen law as the privileged form through which to bargain with each other. The density of the legal back and fro has been overwhelming: constitutional amendments, constitutional supplementary declarations, parliamentary laws, legislative amendments, military decrees, court trials, constitutional court decisions overturning laws passed, conflicting decisions from various courts, presidential decrees, emergency laws …

Treaties As Law And The Rule Of Law: The Judicial Power To Compel Domestic Treaty Implementation, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Supremacy Clause makes the Constitution, federal statutes, and ratified treaties part of the "supreme law of the land." Despite the textual and historical clarity of the Supremacy Clause, some courts and commentators have suggested that the "non-self-executing treaty doctrine" means that ratified treaties must await implementing legislation before they become domestic law. The non-self-executing treaty doctrine has in particular been used as a shield to claims under international human rights treaties.

This Article does not seek to provide another critique of the non-self-executing treaty doctrine in the abstract. Rather, I suggest that a determination that a treaty is non-self-executing …