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Full-Text Articles in International Relations
Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Environmental Law In The World’S Polar Regions, Mark Nevitt, Robert V. Percival
Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Environmental Law In The World’S Polar Regions, Mark Nevitt, Robert V. Percival
All Faculty Scholarship
Climate change is fundamentally transforming both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. Yet they differ dramatically in their governing legal regimes. For the past sixty years the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), a traditional “hard law” international law treaty system, effectively de-militarized the Antarctic region and halted competing sovereignty claims. In contrast, the Arctic region lacks a unifying Arctic treaty and is governed by the newer “soft law” global environmental law model embodied in the Arctic Council’s collaborative work. Now climate change is challenging this model. It is transforming the geography of both polar regions, breaking away massive ice sheets in …
Presidential Control Over International Law, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith
Presidential Control Over International Law, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith
Faculty Scholarship
Presidents have come to dominate the making, interpretation, and termination of international law for the United States. Often without specific congressional concurrence, and sometimes even when it is likely that Congress would disagree, the President has developed the authority to:
(a) make a vast array of international obligations for the United States, through both written agreements and the development of customary international law;
(b) make increasingly consequential political commitments for the United States on practically any topic;
(c) interpret these obligations and commitments; and
(d) terminate or withdraw from these obligations and commitments.
While others have examined pieces of this …