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Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Models And Documents: Artefacts Of International Legal Knowledge, Annelise Riles Dec 2014

Models And Documents: Artefacts Of International Legal Knowledge, Annelise Riles

Annelise Riles

This article draws upon one year of ethnographic research at United Nations conferences to challenge some common academic assumptions about what it means to "do" international law. The article compares the work of academic international lawyers - founded in making models of an international system - to the work of practitioners - exemplified by the work of making documents, and demonstrates the particular, peculiar nature of each kind of knowledge, from the point of view of the observer. This leads to a set of conclusions concerning how an academic study of international law influenced by an appreciation of the particularity …


The View From The International Plane: Perspective And Scale In The Architecture Of Colonial International Law, Annelise Riles Dec 2014

The View From The International Plane: Perspective And Scale In The Architecture Of Colonial International Law, Annelise Riles

Annelise Riles

No abstract provided.


Infinity Within The Brackets, Annelise Riles Dec 2014

Infinity Within The Brackets, Annelise Riles

Annelise Riles

The ethnographic subjects of this article are UN-sponsored international conferences and their legal documents. Drawing upon fieldwork among Fiji delegates at these conferences, in this article I demonstrate the centrality of matters of form, as distinct from questions of “meaning,” in the negotiation of international agreements. A parallel usage of documents and of mats among Fijian negotiators provides a heuristic device for exploring questions of pattern and scale in the aesthetics of negotiation.


On The Very Idea Of Transitional Justice, Jens Ohlin Dec 2014

On The Very Idea Of Transitional Justice, Jens Ohlin

Jens David Ohlin

The phrase "transitional justice" has had an amazingly successful career at an early age. Popularized as an academic concept in the early 1990s in the aftermath of apartheid's collapse in South Africa, the phrase quickly gained traction in a variety of global contexts, including Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Sierra Leone. A sizeable literature has been generated around it, so much so that one might even call it a sub-discipline with inter-disciplinary qualities. Nonetheless, the concept remains an enigma. It defines the contours of an entire field of intellectual inquiry, yet at the same time it hides more than it illuminates. …


The Persistent Problem Of Obligation In International Law, Eduardo Peñalver Nov 2014

The Persistent Problem Of Obligation In International Law, Eduardo Peñalver

Eduardo M. Peñalver

No abstract provided.


Decolonization, Development, And Denial, Natsu Taylor Saito Oct 2014

Decolonization, Development, And Denial, Natsu Taylor Saito

Natsu Taylor Saito

No abstract provided.


Comparative Law In A Time Of Globalization: Some Reflections, Thomas C. Kohler Mar 2014

Comparative Law In A Time Of Globalization: Some Reflections, Thomas C. Kohler

Thomas C. Kohler

This piece discusses the tension between internationalization of legal ordering and the growing pressure against local and national ordering. Using Aristotle, Tocqueville, the Reception of Roman Law as forebears of the problem, I discuss three major European Court of Justice decisions (Laval, Viking and Schmidberger) as examples of the displacement of local ordering. I conclude that the task of comparative law is to focus on the importance of local ordering, keeping the human at the center and not vague principles generated by international bodies with no or little local ties.


The Life And Times Of Targeted Killing, Markus Gunneflo Dec 2013

The Life And Times Of Targeted Killing, Markus Gunneflo

Markus Gunneflo

Against the background of the ongoing shift in the perception of the legality and legitimacy of extraterritorial lethal force in counterterrorism, my doctoral thesis analyses the emergence of so-called “targeted killing” in the history of Israel and the US, as well as in international law. It finds that the relationship between targeted killing and law, particularly international law, is not a straightforward case of more or less determinate and legally binding norms being applied to state measures adopted in situations of insecurity (in this case, those of the second Intifada and 9/11) but rather one of a much longer and …