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Articles 1 - 30 of 35
Full-Text Articles in Law and Politics
The Runaway Presidential Power Over Diplomacy, Jean Galbraith
The Runaway Presidential Power Over Diplomacy, Jean Galbraith
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The President claims exclusive control over diplomacy within our constitutional system. Relying on this claim, executive branch lawyers repeatedly reject congressional mandates regarding international engagement. In their view, Congress cannot specify what the policy of the United States is with respect to foreign corruption, cannot bar a technology-focused agency from communicating with China, cannot impose notice requirements for withdrawal from a treaty with Russia, cannot instruct Treasury officials how to vote in the World Bank, and cannot require the disclosure of a trade-related report. And these are just a few of many examples from recent years. The President’s assertedly exclusive …
Built On Borders? Tensions With The Institution Liberalism (Thought It) Left Behind, Beth A. Simmons, Hein E. Goemans
Built On Borders? Tensions With The Institution Liberalism (Thought It) Left Behind, Beth A. Simmons, Hein E. Goemans
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The Liberal International Order is in crisis. While the symptoms are clear to many, the deep roots of this crisis remain obscured. We propose that the Liberal International Order is in tension with the older Sovereign Territorial Order, which is founded on territoriality and borders to create group identities, the territorial state, and the modern international system. The Liberal International Order, in contrast, privileges universality at the expense of groups and group rights. A recognition of this fundamental tension makes it possible to see that some crises that were thought to be unconnected have a common cause: the neglect of …
Pandemic Response As Border Politics, Michael R. Kenwick, Beth A. Simmons
Pandemic Response As Border Politics, Michael R. Kenwick, Beth A. Simmons
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Pandemics are imbued with the politics of bordering. For centuries, border closures and restrictions on foreign travelers have been the most persistent and pervasive means by which states have responded to global health crises. The ubiquity of these policies is not driven by any clear scientific consensus about their utility in the face of myriad pandemic threats. Instead, we show they are influenced by public opinion and preexisting commitments to invest in the symbols and structures of state efforts to control their borders, a concept we call border orientation. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, border orientation was already generally …
Testing For Negative Spillovers: Is Promoting Human Rights Really Part Of The “Problem”?, Anton Strezhnev, Judith G. Kelley, Beth A. Simmons
Testing For Negative Spillovers: Is Promoting Human Rights Really Part Of The “Problem”?, Anton Strezhnev, Judith G. Kelley, Beth A. Simmons
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The international community often seeks to promote political reforms in recalcitrant states. Recently, some scholars have argued that, rather than helping, international law and advocacy create new problems because they have negative spillovers that increase rights violations. We review three mechanisms for such spillovers: backlash, trade-offs, and counteraction and concentrate on the last of these. Some researchers assert that governments sometimes “counteract” international human rights pressures by strategically substituting violations in adjacent areas that are either not targeted or are harder to monitor. However, most such research shows only that both outcomes correlate with an intervention—the targeted positively and the …
Rejoining Treaties, Jean Galbraith
Rejoining Treaties, Jean Galbraith
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Historical practice supports the conclusion that the President can unilaterally withdraw the United States from treaties which an earlier President joined with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate, at least as long as this withdrawal is consistent with international law. This Article considers a further question that to date is deeply underexplored. This is: does the original Senate resolution of advice and consent to a treaty remain effective even after a President has withdrawn the United States from a treaty? I argue that the answer to this question is yes, except in certain limited circumstances. This answer …
Pledging, Populism, And The Paris Agreement: The Paradox Of A Management-Based Approach To Global Governance, Cary Coglianese
Pledging, Populism, And The Paris Agreement: The Paradox Of A Management-Based Approach To Global Governance, Cary Coglianese
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For many observers, the Paris Agreement signaled a historic breakthrough in addressing the problem of global warming. In its basic design, however, the Agreement is far from novel. Its dependence on each nation’s self-determined pledge to reduce greenhouse gases mirrors the domestic policy strategy called management-based regulation—a flexible regulatory approach that has been used to address problems as varied as food safety and toxic air pollution. In this article, I connect insights from research on management-based regulation to the international governance of climate change. Unfortunately, management-based regulation’s track-record at the domestic level gives little reason to expect that the Paris …
Borders Rules, Beth A. Simmons
Borders Rules, Beth A. Simmons
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International political borders have historically performed one overriding function: the delimitation of a state’s territorial jurisdiction, but today they are sites of intense security scrutiny and law enforcement. Traditionally they were created to secure peace through territorial independence of political units. Today borders face new pressures from heightened human mobility, economic interdependence (legal and illicit), and perceived challenges from a host of nonstate threats. Research has only begun to reveal what some of these changes mean for the governance of interstate borders. The problems surrounding international borders today go well-beyond traditional delineation and delimitation. These problems call for active forms …
Do Self-Reporting Regimes Matter? Evidence From The Convention Against Torture, Beth A. Simmons, Cosette D. Creamer
Do Self-Reporting Regimes Matter? Evidence From The Convention Against Torture, Beth A. Simmons, Cosette D. Creamer
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International regulatory agreements depend largely on self-reporting for implementation, yet we know almost nothing about whether or how such mechanisms work. We theorize that self-reporting processes provide information for domestic constituencies, with the potential to create pressure for better compliance. Using original data on state reports submitted to the Committee Against Torture, we demonstrate the influence of this process on the pervasiveness of torture and inhumane treatment. We illustrate the power of self-reporting regimes to mobilize domestic politics through evidence of civil society participation in shadow reporting, media attention, and legislative activity around anti-torture law and practice. This is the …
Assessing The International Criminal Court, Beth A. Simmons, Mitchell Radtke, Hyeran Jo
Assessing The International Criminal Court, Beth A. Simmons, Mitchell Radtke, Hyeran Jo
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One of the most important issues surrounding international courts is whether they can further the dual causes of peace and justice. None has been more ambitious in this regard than the International Criminal Court (ICC). And yet the ICC has been the object of a good deal of criticism. Some people claim it has been an expensive use of resources that might have been directed to other purposes. Others claim that its accomplishments are meager because it has managed to try and convict so few people. And many commentators and researchers claim that the Court faces an inherent tension between …
Risk And Regulatory Calibration: Wto Compliance Review Of The U.S. Dolphin-Safe Tuna Labeling Regime, Cary Coglianese, André Sapir
Risk And Regulatory Calibration: Wto Compliance Review Of The U.S. Dolphin-Safe Tuna Labeling Regime, Cary Coglianese, André Sapir
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In a series of recent disputes arising under the TBT Agreement, the Appellate Body has interpreted Article 2.1 to provide that discriminatory and trade-distortive regulation could be permissible if based upon a “legitimate regulatory distinction.” In its recent compliance decision in the US-Tuna II dispute, the AB reaffirmed its view that regulatory distinctions embedded in the U.S. dolphin-safe tuna labeling regime were not legitimate because they were not sufficiently calibrated to the risks to dolphins associated with different tuna fishing conditions. This paper analyzes the AB’s application of the notion of risk-based regulation in the US-Tuna II dispute and finds …
Can The International Criminal Court Deter Atrocity?, Hyeran Jo, Beth A. Simmons
Can The International Criminal Court Deter Atrocity?, Hyeran Jo, Beth A. Simmons
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Whether and how violence can be controlled to spare innocent lives is a central issue in international relations. The most ambitious effort to date has been the International Criminal Court (ICC), designed to enhance security and safety by preventing egregious human rights abuses and deterring international crimes. We offer the first systematic assessment of the ICC's deterrent effects for both state and nonstate actors. Although no institution can deter all actors, the ICC can deter some governments and those rebel groups that seek legitimacy. We find support for this conditional impact of the ICC cross-nationally. Our work has implications for …
Governmental Intervention In An Economic Crisis, Robert K. Rasmussen, David A. Skeel Jr.
Governmental Intervention In An Economic Crisis, Robert K. Rasmussen, David A. Skeel Jr.
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This paper articulates a framework both for assessing the various government bailouts that took place at the onset of Great Recession and for guiding future rescue efforts when they become necessary. The goals for those engineering a bailout should be to be as transparent as possible, to articulate clearly the reason for the intervention, to respect existing priorities among investors, to exercise control only at the top level where such efforts can be seen by the public, and to exit as soon as possible. By these metrics, some of the recent bailouts should be applauded, while others fell short. We …
Ratification, Reporting, And Rights: Quality Of Participation In The Convention Against Torture, Cossette D. Creamer, Beth A. Simmons
Ratification, Reporting, And Rights: Quality Of Participation In The Convention Against Torture, Cossette D. Creamer, Beth A. Simmons
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The core international human rights treaty bodies play an important role in monitoring implementation of human rights standards through consideration of states parties’ reports. Yet very little research explores how seriously governments take their reporting obligations. This article examines the reporting record of parties to the Convention against Torture, finding that report submission is heavily conditioned by the practices of neighboring countries and by a government’s human rights commitment and institutional capacity. This article also introduces original data on the quality and responsiveness of reports, finding that more democratic—and particularly newly democratic—governments tend to render higher quality reports.
Human Rights Treaties In And Beyond The Senate: The Spirit Of Senator Proxmire, Jean Galbraith
Human Rights Treaties In And Beyond The Senate: The Spirit Of Senator Proxmire, Jean Galbraith
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In 1995, Louis Henkin wrote a famous piece in which he suggested that the process of human rights treaty ratification was haunted by “the ghost of Senator Bricker” – the isolationist Senator who in the 1950s had waged a fierce assault on the treaty power, especially with regard to human rights treaties. Since that time, Senator Bricker’s ghost has proved even more real. Professor Henkin’s concern was with how the United States ratified human rights treaties, and specifically with the packet of reservations, declarations, and understandings (RUDs) attached by the Senate in giving its advice and consent. Today, the question …
Framing For A New Transnational Legal Order: The Case Of Human Trafficking, Paulette Lloyd, Beth A. Simmons
Framing For A New Transnational Legal Order: The Case Of Human Trafficking, Paulette Lloyd, Beth A. Simmons
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How does transnational legal order emerge, develop and solidify? This chapter focuses on how and why actors come to define an issue as one requiring transnational legal intervention of a specific kind. Specifically, we focus on how and why states have increasingly constructed and acceded to international legal norms relating to human trafficking. Empirically, human trafficking has been on the international and transnational agenda for nearly a century. However, relatively recently – and fairly swiftly in the 2000s – governments have committed themselves to criminalize human trafficking in international as well as regional and domestic law. Our paper tries to …
Power Shifts In International Law: Structural Realignment And Substantive Pluralism, William W. Burke-White
Power Shifts In International Law: Structural Realignment And Substantive Pluralism, William W. Burke-White
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For most of the past sixty years, the United States and Europe have led, independently and collectively, the international legal system. Yet, the rise of the BRICs over the past decade has caused a profound transformation of global politics. This paper examines the implications of this redistribution of power for international law. While international lawyers have long debated the ability of law to constrain state behavior, this paper shifts the debate from the power of law to the role of power within international law. It first advances a structural argument that the diffusion, disaggregation, and issue-specific asymmetries in the distribution …
Frames And Consensus Formation In International Relations: The Case Of Trafficking In Persons, Volha Charnysh, Paulette Lloyd, Beth A. Simmons
Frames And Consensus Formation In International Relations: The Case Of Trafficking In Persons, Volha Charnysh, Paulette Lloyd, Beth A. Simmons
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This article examines the process of consensus formation by the international community regarding how to confront the problem of trafficking in persons. We analyze the corpus of United Nations General Assembly Third Committee resolutions to show that: (1) consensus around the issue of how to confront trafficking in persons has increased over time; and (2) the formation of this consensus depends upon how the issue is framed. We test our argument by examining the characteristics of resolutions’ sponsors and discursive framing concepts such as crime, human rights, and the strength of enforcement language. We conclude that the consensus-formation process in …
Politics By Number: Indicators As Social Pressure In International Relations, Judith Kelley, Beth A. Simmons
Politics By Number: Indicators As Social Pressure In International Relations, Judith Kelley, Beth A. Simmons
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The ability to monitor state behavior has become a critical tool of international governance. Systematic monitoring allows for the creation of numerical indicators that can be used to rank, compare and essentially censure states. This article argues that the ability to disseminate such numerical indicators widely and instantly constitutes an exercise of social power, with the potential to change important policy outputs. It explores this argument in the context of the United States’ efforts to combat trafficking in persons and find evidence that monitoring has important effects: countries are more likely to criminalize human trafficking when they are included in …
Treaty Termination As Foreign Affairs Exceptionalism, Jean Galbraith
Treaty Termination As Foreign Affairs Exceptionalism, Jean Galbraith
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No abstract provided.
The Oxford Guide To Treaties; Edited By Duncan B. Hollis; Recent Books On International Law: Book Reviews, Jean Galbraith
The Oxford Guide To Treaties; Edited By Duncan B. Hollis; Recent Books On International Law: Book Reviews, Jean Galbraith
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This is a review of The Oxford Guide to Treaties (2012), edited by Duncan B. Hollis.
Soft Law As Foreign Relations Law, Jean Galbraith, David Zaring
Soft Law As Foreign Relations Law, Jean Galbraith, David Zaring
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The United States increasingly relies on “soft law” and, in particular, on cooperation with foreign regulators to make domestic policy. The implementation of soft law at home is typically understood to depend on administrative law, as it is American agencies that implement the deals they conclude with their foreign counterparts. But that understanding has led courts and scholars to raise questions about whether soft law made abroad can possibly meet the doctrinal requirements of the domestic discipline. This Article proposes a new doctrinal understanding of soft law implementation. It argues that, properly understood, soft law implementation lies at the intersection …
International Law And The Domestic Separation Of Powers, Jean Galbraith
International Law And The Domestic Separation Of Powers, Jean Galbraith
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No abstract provided.
Comparing The Approaches Of The Presidential Candidates, Pierre-Richard Prosper, William W. Burke-White
Comparing The Approaches Of The Presidential Candidates, Pierre-Richard Prosper, William W. Burke-White
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This is a panel discussion between Pierre Prosper, attorney at Arent Fox LLP and William Burke White, Deputy Dean at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, comparing the approaches and priorities of U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney regarding foreign policy.
Prospective Advice And Consent, Jean Galbraith
Prospective Advice And Consent, Jean Galbraith
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No abstract provided.
United States Sovereign Debt: A Thought Experiment On Default And Restructuring, Charles W. Mooney Jr.
United States Sovereign Debt: A Thought Experiment On Default And Restructuring, Charles W. Mooney Jr.
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This chapter adopts the working assumption that it is conceivable that at some time in the future it would be in the interest of the United States to restructure its sovereign debt (i.e., to reduce the principal amount). It addresses in particular U.S. Treasury Securities. The chapter first provides an overview of the intermediated, tiered holding system for book-entry Treasuries. For the first time the chapter then explores whether and how—logistically and legally—such a restructuring could be effected. It posits the sort of dire scenario that might make such a restructuring advantageous. It then outlines a novel scheme …
Odious Debts Or Odious Regimes?, Patrick Bolton, David A. Skeel Jr.
Odious Debts Or Odious Regimes?, Patrick Bolton, David A. Skeel Jr.
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Current odious debt doctrine– using the term “doctrine” loosely, since it has never formally been adopted by a court or international decision maker– dates back to a 1927 treatise by a wandering Russian academic named Alexander Sack. Sack suggested that debt obligations are odious and therefore unenforceable if 1) they were incurred without the consent of the populace; 2) they did not benefit the populace; and 3) the lender knew or should have known about the absence of consent and benefit. The tripartite Sack definition, which quickly became the foundation of odious debt analysis, contemplates a debt-by-debt approach to questionable …
Bribes V. Bombs: A Study In Coasean Warfare, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman
Bribes V. Bombs: A Study In Coasean Warfare, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman
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The use of bribes to co-opt an enemy’s forces can be a more effective way to wage war than the conventional use of force: Relative to bombs, bribes can save lives and resources, and preserve civic institutions. This essay evaluates the efficacy and normative desirability of selectively substituting bribes for bombs as a means of warfare. We show how inter-country disparities in wealth, differences in military strength, the organization of the bribing and recipient forces, uncertainty about the outcome of the conflict, and communications technology can contribute to the efficacy of bribes. We discuss methods for enforcing bargains struck between …
Atypical Pneumonia And Ambivalent Law And Politics: Sars And The Response To Sars In China, Jacques Delisle
Atypical Pneumonia And Ambivalent Law And Politics: Sars And The Response To Sars In China, Jacques Delisle
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No abstract provided.
The Bush Administration's Response To The International Criminal Court, Jean Galbraith
The Bush Administration's Response To The International Criminal Court, Jean Galbraith
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No abstract provided.
A Community Of Courts: Toward A System Of International Criminal Law Enforcement, William W. Burke-White
A Community Of Courts: Toward A System Of International Criminal Law Enforcement, William W. Burke-White
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No abstract provided.