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Toward A Theory Of Persuasive Authority, Chad Flanders Jan 2009

Toward A Theory Of Persuasive Authority, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

The debate about the citation of foreign authorities has become stale. One side says that citing foreign authorities means being beholden to foreign sovereigns. The other side responds that this is nonsense, as the authorities are being used only for their "persuasive value." But do we even have a good idea of what it means to be a persuasive authority? My essay is the first to focus entirely on the notion of persuasive authority and to make the first steps towards providing a general theory of it. I make two major contributions. First, I try to show that there is …


Treaties And The Separation Of Powers In The United States: A Reassessment After Medellin V. Texas, Ronald A. Brand Jan 2009

Treaties And The Separation Of Powers In The United States: A Reassessment After Medellin V. Texas, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This article considers Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion in the case of Medellin v. Texas. Like much of the commentary on this case, the article considers the international law implications of the opinion and its consideration of the doctrine of self-executing treaties. The primary focus here, however, consistent with the symposium in which this paper was presented, is on the opinion's implications for the separation of powers and for federalism. While the opinion's discussion of international law and treaty implementation can be considered dicta, the separation of powers and federalism portions may be seen as more directly necessary to …


Voices Saved From Vanishing, Vivian Grosswald Curran Jan 2009

Voices Saved From Vanishing, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

Jurists Uprooted: German-speaking Émigré Lawyers in Twentieth-century Britain examines the lives of eighteen émigré lawyers and legal scholars who made their way to the United Kingdom, almost all to escape Nazism, and analyzes their impact on the development of English law.


The Kosovo Crisis: A Dostoievskian Dialogue On International Law, Statecraft, And Soulcraft, Antonio F. Perez, Robert J. Delahunty Jan 2009

The Kosovo Crisis: A Dostoievskian Dialogue On International Law, Statecraft, And Soulcraft, Antonio F. Perez, Robert J. Delahunty

Scholarly Articles

The secession of Kosovo from Serbia in February 2008 represents a stage in the unfolding of a revolution of "constitutional" dimensions in International Law that began with NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo against Serbia. NATO's intervention called into question the authority and viability of U.N. Charter system for maintaining international peace. Likewise, the West's decision in 2008 to support Kosovo's secession from Serbia dealt a further blow to the central post-War legal rules and institutions for controlling and mitigating Great power rivalry. Russia's later support for South Ossetia's secession from Georgia demonstrated the potential that the Kosovo precedent has for …


The Use And Abuse Of Foreign Law In Constitutional Interpretation, Ganesh Sitaraman Jan 2009

The Use And Abuse Of Foreign Law In Constitutional Interpretation, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article provides an exhaustive typology of the uses of foreign law in order to provide insight into whether foreign law can be appropriately used in constitutional interpretation, when it can be used, and what the stakes and parameters are in each case. In doing so, the article addresses two significant problems in the debate on foreign law. First, much of the commentary has focused on the justifications for using foreign law and the principled or practical arguments against using foreign law. But the focus on the why of foreign law has obscured the more basic question about the ways …