Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

A New Model Of Sovereignty In The Contemporary Era Of Integrated Global Commerce, Kevin Sobel-Read Jd, Ph.D.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Existing legal scholarship does not offer an effective or comprehensive definition of sovereignty. Sovereignty, however, matters. Indeed, many have lived and died for it; the term likewise appears with remarkable frequency in both academic and popular discourse. But, sovereignty is not what it used to be. The evolution of globalization generally, and transformations in global commerce specifically, have sutured together the peoples of the world-conventional nation-states and Indigenous groups alike--permanently altering the sovereignty of each. These developments make it that much more imperative to incorporate a functional definition of sovereignty into legal scholarship. But, given the complexities of sovereignty, the …

Cognitive Conflicts And The Making Of International Law: From Empirical Concord To Conceptual Discord In Legal Scholarship, Jean D'Aspremont

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The international legal scholarship, in its quest for a paradigm able to apprehend international norm-generating processes qualifying as lawmaking, has been oscillating between static approaches and dynamic approaches. The former are based on the author of the norm (subjecthood) or its formal origin (pedigree) whilst the latter (e.g., participation) try to capture and explain the intricate and multidimensional fluxes between the authors of the norms and the norms themselves (impact or dynamic pedigree). International legal scholars have thus been resorting to various and diverging paradigms to make sense of international lawmaking. All of these approaches will be described in further …

Brown Abroad: An Empirical Analysis Of Foreign Judicial Citation And The Metaphor Of Cosmopolitan Conversation, Sheldon B. Lyke

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article generates a data set (twelve courts and thirty-two decisions) of foreign judicial citations to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The purpose of this Article is to learn what happens when a case is deterritorialized and reconstituted in a different national scenario, and to conceptualize how courts around the world use foreign authority. My analysis reveals that few foreign courts used Brown in decisions involving education or race and ethnicity. Foreign courts used the case as a form of factual evidence, as a guide in understanding the proper role of a court …

An Appreciation Of Jonathan I. Charney, Lori F. Damrosch

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Jon Charney preceded me into the academic world by a dozen years and already had a well-established reputation in international law when I was a brand-new law teacher. At the time we met in 1984, Jon was tackling some of the most ambitious topics in the theory and practice of international law, and he reached out to others for collegial engagement on those subjects. From the mid-1980s, he and I worked together on three collaborative books and on many projects for the American Society of International Law and the American Journal of International Law.

Among the themes that preoccupied Jon …

Foreign Investment In The United States: A Survey Of Current Legal Literature, Igor L. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Survey is limited to law and law-related writings on the subject of foreign investments in the United States which attorneys and legal scholars may find useful to consult for the purposes of conducting research and performing professional work. The Survey contains information about books, articles, notes, government reports and surveys, and Congressional hearings, reports, and papers published from about 1970 through the early part of 1985. The publications it describes can be divided into four major categories:

(1) investigative and policy-oriented monographs and articles;

(2) practical law manuals and guides either in the form of books or articles written …

Dedication, Dean C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a privilege for me to write a few words about my friend and colleague, Professor Igor Kavass. It has been the good fortune of the Vanderbilt Law School to have this ingenious and engaging man's high competence over the last decade, and it has been my good fortune as Dean and a fellow professor to know and cherish him as a colleague.

While his classroom teaching, committee service, and collegiality are valued highly by this institution, Professor Kavass' most enduring contribution to the Law School has been his accomplishments as the Law Librarian. In the course of ten …

A New Classification Of Law For A Foreign, Comparative, And International Research Law Library, Jan Stepan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Swiss Institute of Comparative Law seated at Lausanne was established by the federal statute of October 6, 1978. The Institute is envisioned as a center for the "documentation of and research into comparative, foreign, and international law." According to the statute and the implementing decree of December 19, 1979, the Institute serves the following purposes:

(1) to supply federal agencies and the federal administration with material and studies that may be needed for decisions concerning legislation and international treaties; (2) to contribute towards international efforts at the harmonization and unification of law; (3) to provide information and expert opinions …

Legal Research In The Federal Republic Of Germany: A Concise Presentation Of Basic Publications, Ralph Lansky

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article provides information about legal literature and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. Twenty-four basic works are reviewed, including a dozen important law books and legal periodicals and a dozen legal bibliographies that help to locate additional legal information. In addition, a few other publications are briefly discussed. This Article addresses the use of selective legal materials and as a result is very basic. Its objective is to introduce the novice to German legal literature.

Most of the books concern the law of the Federal Republic of Germany. A few that are published in that country cover comparative …

United States Research Of The Law Of The Communist-Ruled States Of Europe, Ivan Sipkov

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The legal system of the Soviet Union, developed after the 1917 October Revolution, was introduced, with some variations, in several European, Asian, and Latin American states during the last years of World War II. These states have been characterized, both officially and unofficially, as "Soviet-type republics," "People's republics," "Socialist republics," and "Communist states." Their legal systems, although patterned after the Soviet Union legal system, developed in different directions. Today, the various legal systems of these republics are clearly distinguishable; however, one common feature is present: the states are ruled by one Communist party to the exclusion of other parties.

International Legal Research: An Infinite Paper Chase, Adolf Sprudzs

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International legal research operates in the contemporary reality of an increasingly interdependent, complex world in which constant change is the order of the day. Not only are the numbers of international actors on the world stage changing (from 51 original members of the United Nations in 1945 to 157 United Nations member-states in 1982), but also changing are the concepts and methods of international law-making, as well as perceptions of the nature and sources of international law. The tremendous growth in the number of new states and international organizations has been accompanied by a corresponding expansion in world trade, international …

The Court Of Justice Of The European Communities: An Annotated Bibliography -- 1951-1973, Igor I. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This bibliography attempts to bring together information about the publications of the Court of Justice and those of other Community institutions pertinent to the work of the Court, as well as relevant juridical writings about the Court and its activities published as books, essays, journal articles, comments, notes, etc. Wherever possible, individual entries are followed by short annotations or explanatory comments. Annotations to the more important treatises or monographs include citations to book reviews.

This bibliography, like all legal bibliographies of its type, is selective in that it lists only those works which the compiler was able to identify and …

Headnotes, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

With this issue the Vanderbilt International enters its second year of publication and attempts to continue a metamorphosis from International Law Society newsletter to scholarly legal journal. While the birth of the International has been accompanied by the welcome emergence of numerous other international legal periodical, it is hoped that this publication will make a singular contribution by providing a medium for interdisciplinary analyses of international problems. Eventually, each issue will be a symposium in which a particular problem will be discussed by economists, political scientists, lawyers, and, of course, law students.

Headnotes, Journal Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

It is a pleasure for us to present the first issue of the Vanderbilt International to the Vanderbilt community. The present style and content of V.I. is hybrid -- lying somewhere between a scholarly journal and a popular news magazine, attempting to please the casual reader as well as the student of international affairs. While this first issue has a very definite legal bent, we plan to be as ecumenical as we can in the future, printing material by economists, historians and political scientists as well as by leaders from outside the academic community.

In its present form, V.I. is …

The End Of Empire, Fred D. Schneider

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Within the space of a generation, the British Empire has disintegrated in a way that appears extraordinary, even in retrospect. "How marvelous it all is," Lord Rosebery exclaimed at the end of the nineteenth century. If marvelous in its growth, the Empire has been no less significant in the manner of its passing.

The decline of great empires exerts a peculiar fascination over the mind of the historian; indeed, more has been written about the fall of Rome than about the death of any other political entity. Diverse and contradictory theories are advanced to explain a complex historical phenomenon, and …

Headnotes, Journal Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This issue marks the close of the first year for the Vanderbilt International. What it will become in the future is anyone's guess with General Hershey threatening a drastic reduction in the number of law students next year. In the long run, however, the publication can probably fill a very useful role as either an interdisciplinary magazine with a legal bias or as a law journal with an interdisciplinary bent. The former goal has been, by choice and necessity, the object of this year's Editors. Next year's staff will do as they like.

Regardless of emphasis, however, the increasing importance …