Law Commons^™

Between Dialogue And Decree: International Review Of National Courts, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Recent years have seen dramatic growth in the number of international tribunals at work across the globe, from the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, to the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Claims in Switzerland and the International Criminal Court. With this development has come both increased opportunity for interaction between national and international courts and increased occasion for conflict. Such friction was evident in the recent decision in Loewen Group, Inc. v. United States, in which an arbitral panel constituted under the North American Free Trade Agreement found …

Private Law And Public Stakes In European Integration: The Case Of Property, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

In European legal discourse, the old public/private divide is experiencing a revival and a transformation. Member States used to claim autonomy in private law matters. Now private law is subsumed into a functionalist logic and can presumptively be harmonised if so demanded by the goal of market integration. States or local constituencies can only resist harmonisation by highlighting the connection between their private laws and those ‘public’ matters still immune from Europeanisation. Property law can effectively illustrate this phenomenon. The written pledge of non-interference with States’ property systems, restated both in the TEC and in the draft Constitution, cannot be …

Book Review: Differential Treatment In International Environmental Law, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

A review of Differential Treatment in International Environmental Law by Phillippe Cullet. Brookfield, Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003.

Temporary Protection As An Instrument For Implementing The Right Of Return For Palestinian Refugees, Susan M. Akram, Terry Rempel

Faculty Scholarship

The article argues for an internationally harmonized approach to temporary protection for Palestinian refugees and stateless persons. Temporary protection offers protection rights to this huge population of refugees that they lack in any of the main regions in which they have sought refuge. The article establishes the legal framework for temporary protection in the particular historical, legal and political context of the Palestinian refugee situation. It argues for the urgency of a harmonized rights-based protection regime.

The Law's Many Bodies, And The Manuscript Tradition In English Legal History, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

Sir John Baker's recent book The Law's Two Bodies supplies a happy occasion to celebrate and reflect on Professor Baker's unique place within the field of English legal history today

Students beginning their study of this subject can well imagine the long history of the English common law as an hourglass. The wide upper chamber of the hourglass is the rich, complex, intricate medieval law of the Year Books. The wide bottom chamber is the equally rich, complex, intricate but very different caselaw of the modem age. The narrow neck of the hourglass can be imagined as the mind of …

The Other In International Law: 'Community' And International Legal Order, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

There is a built-in paradox in the emergence of international law over the last decade as a core concern of academics and policy-makers. On the one hand, it is difficult to imagine any other period in history that has witnessed such a profusion of attempts to tame the anarchical society by hedging it in a straight-jacket of legalities. Throughout the 1990s, international conferences generated reams of treaties, codes, and agendas for action. International adjudicatory tribunals proliferated, and endeavored to give teeth to ideas and obligations hitherto thought to be essentially aspirational. And yet, the ability of international law to regulate …

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle: How Children's Literature Reflects Motherhood, Identity, And International Adoption, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

Children's books are "a source of law" for children because "[children] are constantly trying to make sense of what is going on around them, and although literature itself is only a constituent of life experience, as a constituent it is potentially of the greatest importance." As adults and lawyers, we can also read children's books as a source of law because they reflect patriarchal ideologies about the family and stigma surrounding adoption. Like other myths, children's books tell stories about origins and constitute not only subjects but are also the foundation of law by reflecting legal norms and projecting legal …

The Bush Doctrine: Making Or Breaking Customary International Law?, Joel R. Paul

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Universal Jurisdiction: Steps Forward, Steps Back, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Cuban Exceptionalism : Migration And Asylum In Spain And The United States, Maryellen Fullerton

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Reagan Doctrine, The 2003 Invasion Of Iraq, And The Role Of A Sole Superpower, Anthony S. Winer

Faculty Scholarship

The particular focus of the comparison in this Essay is the relationship of the Reagan Doctrine and the Bush Doctrine to the international law on the use of force. This comparison will yield some tentative conclusions about the consequences of the United States serving, in some senses, as the world's sole superpower.

Reparations Decisions And Dilemmas, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Domestic Origins Of International Agreements, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines how international agreements are substitutes for statutes. The statutory law-making system and international agreement negotiations are separate, but sometimes rival, processes for setting national-level policy. International agreements have several advantages over domestic statutes. Under United States law, international agreements can entrench policies that might otherwise be subject to change; they can transfer agenda-setting power from the Congress to the President; and they can delegate authority to international organizations. Each of these effects can lead domestic interest groups to seek international negotiations rather than domestic legislation. Little difference exists between the politics of international and domestic law: Interest …

Role Of The Bank For International Settlements In Shaping The World Financial System, The , Carl Felsenfeld, Genci Bilali

Faculty Scholarship

The Bank for International Settlements ("BIS") was set up in Basel, Switzerland in 1923 to handle remaining financial issues from World War II largely having to do with German reparation payments. It was the first of the semi-public international banks. Over the years its functions have changed and, largely since the late 1970's, it has served as the situs for the world's central banks and financial regulators to pool ideas and deal with international financial issues. A group of committees, com- posed largely of representatives of central bankers, now meets at BIS and has been issuing memoranda and drafts of …

International Human Rights Standards In International Organizations: The Case Of International Criminal Courts, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Law, International Relations Theory, And Preemptive War: The Vitality Of Sovereign Equallity Today Case Studies In Conservative And Progressive Legal Orders, Thomas H. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

Although sovereign equality - the norm that all sovereign states are entitled to the same bundle of rights on the international plane - has long been a central norm of international law, its retention in the realm of preemptive war is fairly to be questioned when one sovereign state possesses overwhelming military power. In this Article, Professor Lee examines the historical and normative foundations of sovereign equality, finds them wanting under the condition of a militarily supreme republican state, but defends the norm on the pragmatic ground of what is best for the supreme state to defend itself against covert, …

Introduction: Brief Of Amici Curiae, William S. Dodge

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Decisions: Loewen Group, Inc. V. United States And Mondev International Ltd. V. United States, William S. Dodge

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Vultures Or Vanguards: The Role Of Litigation In Sovereign Debt Restructuring Conference On Sovereign Debt Restructuring: The View From The Legal Academy, Jill E. Fisch, Caroline M. Gentile

Faculty Scholarship

The market for sovereign debt differs from the market for corporate debt in several important ways including the risk of opportunistic default by sovereign debtors, the importance of political pressures, and the presence of international development organizations. Moreover, countries are subject to neither liquidation nor standardized processes of debt reorganization. Instead, negotiations between a sovereign debtor and its creditors lead to a voluntary restructuring of the sovereign's debt. One of the greatest difficulties in restructuring claims against sovereign debtors is balancing the interests of the majority of the creditors with those of minority creditors. Holdout creditors serve as a check …

Supreme Court Of The United States As Quasi-International Tribunal: Reclaiming The Court's Original And Exclusive Jurisdiction Over Treaty-Based Suits By Foreign States Against States, The, Thomas H. Lee

Faculty Scholarship

The thesis of this Article is that the Constitution vests in the Supreme Court original and exclusive jurisdiction over suits brought by foreign states against States alleging violation of ratified treaties of the United States. The basis for non-immunity in suits by foreign states is the same theory of ratification consent that is presumed to justify suits against States by other States or the United States. Just as the States by ratifying the Constitution agreed to suits in the national court by other States and the national sovereign to ensure domestic peace, they agreed to suits by foreign states in …

Sovereign Debt Reform And The Best Interest Of Creditors, William W. Bratton, G. Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

In April 2002 the International Monetary Fund introduced a sovereign bankruptcy proposal only to be rebuffed by the United States Treasury. Where the IMF wanted a mandatory bankruptcy regime, the Treasury wanted to solve distress problems with contractual devices. Sovereign bondholders and sovereign issuers themselves flatly rejected both proposals, even though they were nominally the beneficiaries of both proponents. This Article addresses and explains this bondholder reaction. In so doing, it takes a highly skeptical view of the IMF's proposal even as it shows that the incentive structure surrounding sovereign lending renders untenable the Treasury's contractarian proposal. The Article's analysis …

Federalism And The Treaty Power, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

in presentations for: Treaties in U.S. Law: New Debates on Old Ideas

Bridging Erie: Customary International Law In The U.S. Legal System After Sosa V. Alvarez-Machain, William S. Dodge

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Agency Costs In International Human Rights, David H. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

….With Helmet And Flak Vest: Practicing International Law In War Zones, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Treaties And International Regulation, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

The authority of Missouri v. Holland is in no way impaired by developments of the last decade. While Justice Holmes rejected the view that "invisible radiation" from the Tenth Amendment could restrict the treaty power, his approach accepts that a treaty cannot violate "prohibitory words" in the Constitution. Some prohibitory words explicitly protect the interests of the states as against the national government. For example, the framers clearly meant the prohibition in Article I, section 9 on export taxes to bar one form of potential federal taxation that the Southern states found worrisome. In the face of this specific prohibition, …

Measures Necessary To Ensure: The Icj's Provisional Measures Order In Avena And Other Mexican Nationals, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes the provisional measures order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals, the first provisional measures order issued by the ICJ after its decision in LaGrand holding that such orders have binding effect. After reviewing the background to Mexico's action, the article focuses on Avena's place in the Court's provisional measures jurisprudence, its international legal significance, its potential effects, if any, on the ICJ's perceived institutional legitimacy and authority, and its legal and political consequences for the United States. In particular, the article examines the domestic legal implications of the Court's order …

From Rethinking To Internationalizing Criminal Law, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Writing Rethinking Criminal Law ("Rethinking") was a gamble. No one had ever written a serious book on comparative criminal law – in English or in any other language. No one had ever addressed English-speaking readers with the argument that some other system of legal thought – espoused by a nation defeated in a major war just thirty years before – had a superior literature on criminal law and a more refined way of thinking about the structure of criminal offenses. No one had tried to present the system of criminal law as though it were a species of …

The Relative Costs Of Incorporating Trade Usage Into Domestic Versus International Sales Contracts: Comments On Clayton Gillette, Institutional Design And International Usages Under The Cisg, Avery W. Katz

Faculty Scholarship

Clayton Gillette's paper on the use of trade usage in reported disputes arising under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods ("CISG") presents a challenge to recent scholarly critiques of modern contractual interpretation. As Gillette explains, much recent writing by economically influenced US scholars in contracts and commercial law has argued in favor of more formalistic methods of interpretation, and against the overwhelming trend of the last half of the twentieth century: a trend toward a more contextual interpretative approach that takes into account a variety of evidence, including the business purpose of the transaction, …

Self-Enforcing International Agreements And The Limits Of Coercion, Robert E. Scott, Paul B. Stephan

Faculty Scholarship

International law provides an ideal context for studying the effects of freedom from coercion on cooperative behavior. To be sure, almost all academic discussions on the subject begin by asking whether international law constitutes "law." But the category of all "international law" is too big and heterogeneous to permit useful analysis. Whether to regard, say, the rules governing the conduct of war or international humanitarian law as "law" presents radically different issues than analyzing the legal character of the Treaty of Rome (the constitutive instrument of the European Community), or the Warsaw Convention (the instrument governing contracts for the carriage …