Law Commons^™

Ethics And International Law: Integrating The Global Justice Project(S), Steven R. Ratner

Articles

Academic discourse on global justice is at an all-time high. Within ethics and international law, scholars are undertaking new inquiries into age-old questions of building a just world order. Ethics – political and moral philosophy – poses fundamental questions about responsibilities at the global level and produces a tightly reasoned set of frameworks regarding world order. International law, with its focus on legal norms and institutional arrangements, provides a path, as well as illuminates the obstacles, to implementing theories of the right or of the good. Yet despite the complementarity of these two projects, neither is drawing what it should …

State Law, The Westfall Act, And The Nature Of The Bivens Question, Carlos Manuel Vázquez, Stephen I. Vladeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In a number of recent cases touching to varying degrees on national security, different courts of appeals have applied a strong presumption against recognition of a Bivens cause of action. In each of these cases, the courts’ approach was based on the belief that the creation of a cause of action is a legislative function and that the courts would be usurping Congress’s role if they recognized a Bivens action without legislative authorization. Thus, faced with a scenario where they believed that the remedial possibilities were either "Bivens or nothing," these courts of appeals chose nothing.

The concerns that …

Lessons For International Law From The Arab Spring, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Not all that begins in hope ends in happiness. In Egypt, the exuberance of Tahrir Square has given way to frustration over the resilience of the security state; in Libya, the anti-Qaddafi movement has fractured along tribal and factional lines; in Syria, as of this writing, calls for reform continue to be met with gunfire from government forces. Throughout the Middle East—from Egypt, Libya and Syria to Yemen, Tunisia, Bahrain and elsewhere—the heady excitement of 2010 has given way to a more sober awareness that enduring political change may take years, if not generations. The Arab Spring brought both progress …

Military Commissions And The Paradigm Of Prevention, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why military commissions? Given the United States’s track record of success in trying terrorists in civilian criminal courts, and the availability of courts-martial to try war crimes, why has the United States government, under both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations alike, insisted on proceeding through untested military commissions instead? In May 2009, President Obama defended military commissions with the following claims:

Military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war. They allow for …

Narratives Of The European Crisis And The Future Of (Social) Europe, Philomila Tsoukala

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article examines two distinct types of narratives prevalent in academic writing and popular press regarding the causes of the crisis in Europe. The first type, a morality tale, attributes the crisis to profligate southern states that refused to abide by the strictures of the Stability and Growth Pact. The second type is focused on the structural reasons for the crisis, emphasizing the nature of the European Union as a non-optimal currency area, and the euro as a factor in the creation of trade imbalances and competitiveness problems within the euro zone. Each type of narrative suggests a different type …

Overview And Operation Of U.S. Financial Sanctions, Including The Example Of Iran, Barry E. Carter, Ryan Farha

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Financial sanctions are increasingly being used in the mix of international economic sanctions being employed by the United Nations, regional entities, and individual countries, including the United States. These financial sanctions have become more focused and effective as the tools and techniques have improved significantly for tracing and identifying the financial transactions of terrorists, weapons proliferators, human rights violators, drug cartels, and others. These sanctions can not only freeze financial assets and prohibit or limit financial transactions, but they also impede trade by making it difficult to pay for the export or import of goods and services.

In spite of …

Drones And The International Rule Of Law, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay will proceed in four parts. First, it will briefly discuss the concept of the international rule of law. Second, it will offer a short factual background on US drone strikes (to the extent that it is possible to provide factual background on a practice so shrouded in secrecy). Third, it will highlight some of the key ways in which post 9/11 US legal theories relating to the use of force challenge previously accepted concepts and seek to redefine previously well-understood terms. Fourth, it will offer brief concluding thoughts on the future of the international rule of law in …

Interpretation Catalysts And Executive Branch Legal Decisionmaking, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Articles

Recent years have seen much speculation over executive branch legal interpretation and internal decisionmaking, particularly in matters of national security and international law. Debate persists over how and why the executive arrives at particular understandings of its legal constraints, the extent to which the positions taken by one presidential administration may bind the next, and, indeed, the extent to which the President is constrained by law at all. Current scholarship focuses on rational, political, and structural arguments to explain executive actions and legal positioning, but it has yet to take account of the diverse ways in which legal questions arise …

Effect Precedes Cause: Kant And The Self-In-Itself, David G. Carlson

Faculty Articles

This article describes the metaphysics of Kant, according to which we never know the Thing In Itself but only the appearance of it. When applied to selfhood (which is a “thing”), Kant implies that we never know what motivates us to do what we do. Our reasons are after-the-fact apologies to justify our acts. For that reason the “cause” of our deed always (that is to say, our reasons) follows the deed itself. Effect precedes cause, on Kantian metaphysics.

Shifting Borders And The Boundaries Of Rights: Examining The Safe Third Country Agreement Between Canada And The United States, Efrat Arbel

All Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the Canadian Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal decisions assessing the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States (STCA). It examines how each court’s treatment of the location and operation of the Canada-US border influences the results obtained. The article suggests that both in its treatment of the STCA and in its constitutional analysis, the Federal Court decision conceives of the border as a moving barrier capable of shifting outside Canada’s formal territorial boundaries. The effect of this decision is to bring refugee claimants outside state soil within the fold of Canadian constitutional …

Ten Reasons For Adopting A Universal Concept Of Participation In Atrocity, James G. Stewart

All Faculty Publications

The legal doctrine that assign blame for international crimes are numerous, unclear, ever-changing and often conceptually problematic. In this Essay, I question the prudence of retaining the radical doctrinal heterogeneity that, in large part, produces this state of disarray. Instead of tolerating different standards of participation across customary international law, the ICC statute and national systems of criminal law, I argue for a universal concept of participation that would apply whenever an international crime is charged, regardless of the jurisdiction hearing the case. Although I have argued elsewhere that a unitary theory of perpetration should serve this role, I here …

Book Review: Theory And Practice Of Harmonisation, Mads Andenæs & Camilla B. Andersen (Eds), Toby S. Goldbach

All Faculty Publications

"Theory and Practice of Harmonisation" is an edited symposium publication which tackles the ambitious topic of legal harmonisation. Some common themes can be identified. First, several papers deal with the background to or reasons for harmonisation and consider whether harmonisation goals are being met.Second, several papers examine language-textual issues or problems with defining concepts. A third centralizing theme is the role of legal institutions, in particular courts, in facilitating harmonisation. Finally, a fourth theme is evident in those papers that look at the instruments, mechanisms or legal techniques that are used to implement harmonisation. As a whole, the text seems …