Law Commons^™

Introduction: The New Collective Security, Peter G. Danchin, Horst Fischer

Faculty Scholarship

Whether viewed as a socio-legal project gently civilizing states away from an older politics of diplomacy, deterrence, self-help and legitimate warfare, or as an institutional project establishing a collective security system premised on the rule of law, the primary purpose of the United Nations today remains the maintenance of international peace and security and the abolition of the “scourge of war.” In March 2003, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, a member State of the United Nations, in order to disarm it and change the regime of Saddam Hussein. The war shook the United Nations and leading capitals around …

Things Fall Apart: The Concept Of Collective Security In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter provides an introduction to the analytical and historical aspects of the concept of collective security in international law. Taking the examples of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 during the League of Nations and the complaint brought by Hyderabad against India at the very inception of the United Nations in 1948, the chapter traces the complex dialectics of normativity and concreteness in debates concerning collective security. Mirroring the normative and institutional dilemmas underlying the two cases of Ethiopia and Hyderabad, it is observed that the questions of “external threats” (the threat or use of force between States) and …

A No-Excuse Approach To Transitional Justice: Reparations As Tools Of Extraordinary Justice, David C. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

It is sometimes the case that a debate goes off the rails so early that riders assume the rough country around them is the natural backdrop for their travels. That is certainly true in the debate over reparations in transitions to democracy. Reparations traditionally are understood as material or symbolic awards to victims of an abusive regime granted outside of a legal process. While some reparations claims succeed—such as those made by Americans of Japanese decent interned during World War II and those made by European Jews against Germany after World War II—most do not. The principal culprits in these …

Tensions Between International Law And Domestic Responsibilities, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Assessing The High-Level Panel Report: Rethinking The Causes And Consequences Of Threats To Collective Security, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

This is a contribution to a volume of essays anchored in the evaluations of proposed reforms of the United Nations system extant in the middle half of the last decade. The essay’s focus is primarily on the role of the Security Council as the provider of collective security within the system. It contends that the term “collective security” has become far too amorphous and too all-embracing to be useful, and that it runs the risk of distorting the proper allocation of power within the international system. It argues for a more circumscribed view of collective security, and for a less …

Unsex Cedaw: What's Wrong With "Women's Rights", Darren Rosenblum

International & Comparative Law Colloquium Papers

Although the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (“CEDAW” or the “Convention”) has succeeded in some respects, even its supporters acknowledge broad failures. CEDAW’s weakness draws on the titular mistaken diagnosis: “women” are not the issue&#;gender disparities are. The 1970’s drafting of CEDAW focused on bringing women to their place at the international law table. What’s wrong with women’s rights? In the international context, CEDAW attempts to empower women but fails to respect other gender inequality. As the preeminent treaty on gender inequality, CEDAW cannot succeed in creating gender equality if its scope remains limited …

Book Review: The Iraq War And International Law, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

A review of The Iraq War and International Law edited by Phil Shiner and Andrew Williams. Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008.

International Law, Human Rights And The Transformative Occupation Of Iraq, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the project of transformative occupation undertaken by the United States and its allies following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. More specifically, it considers the Iraqi occupation in light of two competing sensibilities in international legal argument. On one view, which I term “legal formalism”, the purpose of international law is eclectic, intersubjective and value-pluralist: to create the conditions for peaceful coexistence between different political orders and ways of life. This view is commonly associated with the liberalism of the United Nations Charter which posits both the subject of international law and its liberty in formal terms …

Whose Public? Which Law? Mapping The Internal/External Distinction In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter challenges and problematizes the convergence thesis between sovereignty and human rights which is argued to rest on only a partial understanding of the liberal tradition in international law, a position commonly referred to as “liberal anti-pluralism.” While relying on a contingent and thus contestable conception of individual autonomy, liberal anti-pluralist accounts do not in fact seek to challenge the rationale for public law or public reason itself. To the contrary, such accounts advance a vision of “universal” or “global” social order governed by a “neutral” public law which limits the freedom of its subjects pursuant to the single …

The Universal Declaration And Developments In The Enforcement Of International Human Rights In Domestic Law, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Universal Declaration And South African Constitutional Law: A Response To Justice Arthur Chaskalson, Peter E. Quint

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

60 Years Of The Basic Law And Its Interpretation: An American Perspective, Peter E. Quint

Faculty Scholarship

In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the German Basic Law (Constitution) , the author discusses certain aspects of the Basic Law, in comparison with the Constitution of the United States, and examines important developments in the jurisprudence if the German Constitutional Court interpreting the Basic Law.

Book Review: Fresh Perspectives On The "War On Terror", Katherine Vaughns

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New Modes And Orders: Is A Jus Post Bellum Of Constitutional Transformation Possible Or Desirable?, Nahal Bhuta

International & Comparative Law Colloquium Papers

No abstract provided.

Positivism, New Haven Jurisprudence, And The Fragmentation Of International Law, Tai-Heng Cheng

International & Comparative Law Colloquium Papers

This Article addresses the fragmentation of international law and international legal theory. This problem has become increasingly acute. As international interactions have increased exponentially among a broad range of domestic and international actors, the need to coordinate and regulate international actions has correspondingly intensified. Because actors cannot seem to agree on what international law is, consensus on applicable international laws and legal behavior often remains elusive. Using positivism and policy-oriented jurisprudence – two major theories of international law – as foci of inquiry, this Article demonstrates that the gulf between the two international legal theories are not really meaningful conceptual …

Dancing With The Dragon: What U.S. Parties Should Know About Chinese Law When Drafting A Contractual Dispute Resolution Clause, Marcus Wang

Student Articles and Papers

This paper draws on scholarly and field research in both the United States and China to present a legal and practical primer for U.S. parties entering the Chinese marketplace.

As China's role in the global economy becomes more prominent, American companies are finding that doing business in China is necessary to retaining a competitive edge. As the number of transactions between American and Chinese companies increases, however, the number of potential disputes increases correspondingly. Unique legal and practical circumstances in China require a China-specific approach to managing such disputes.

The paper identifies one such approach – the use of a …

Of Prophets And Proselytes: Freedom Of Religion And The Conflict Of Rights In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

The case of proselytism presents a tangle of competing claims: on the one hand, the rights of proselytizers to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech; on the other hand, the rights of targets of proselytism to change their religion, peacefully to have or maintain a particular religious tradition, and to be free from injury to religious feelings. Clashes between these claims of right are today generating acute tensions in relations between States and peoples, a state of affairs starkly illustrated by the recent Danish cartoons controversy. Irrespective of their resolution in any particular domestic legal system, how should …

The Emergence And Structure Of Religious Freedom In International Law Reconsidered, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article presents a critique of the historical evolution of the right to freedom of religion in international law. In identifying certain conceptual tensions between liberal and value pluralist accounts in the literature, a general theoretical argument is advanced. Beyond standard Enlightenment narratives of individual freedom of conscience, this argument notices a second, more complex narrative of genuine pluralism in the evolving conception of religious freedom in international legal thought. This suggests that there is no simple, but rather a complex mapping of individual toleration in international law and no single path to modernity or to the formation of the …

Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Religious Freedom In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

The grounds upon which states may limit the freedom to manifest religion or belief are divisive questions in constitutional and international law. The focus of recent inquiry has been on laws which proscribe the wearing of religious symbols in certain aspects of the public sphere, and on the claims more generally to religious and cultural freedom of Muslim minorities in European nation-states. Stepping back from these debates, this Article aims at a more rigorous theoretical treatment of the subject. It asks whether there is a coherent notion of religious freedom in international legal theory and, if not, why not? In …

Nepad And The Rebirth Of Development Theory And Praxis, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

The Black man’s burden again has become the world’s. Not since the early part of the 1960s has the well-being of the Dark Continent attracted the level of attention that it is now generating. Spurred by a variety of motives, including humanitarianism and concerns over the potential of so-called failed states as safe harbours for transnational terrorism, the welfare of the continent has become the special concern of G8 summit meetings. The United Nations Security Council now routinely adopts mandatory resolutions under Chapter VII that expressly and in fine detail regulate military, diplomatic, legal and even commercial interactions with the …

Beyond Rationalism And Instrumentalism: The Case For Rethinking U.S. Engagement With International Law And Organization, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay advances an argument for rethinking the current terms of engagement of U.S. foreign policy with international law and institutions so as to avoid the current two extremes of power politics and imperial moralizing. First, it is necessary to distinguish between force and the status of political domination on the one hand, and consensus and the status of normative meaning on the other. While it may be possible for a superpower to exercise factual authority and control over foreign states and peoples through sheer assertions of force and will, the attainability of such a situation should not be confused …

Rethinking "Effective Remedies": Remedial Deterrence In International Courts, Sonja Starr

Faculty Scholarship

One of the bedrock principles of contemporary international law is that victims of human rights violations have a right to an “effective remedy.” International courts usually hold that effective remedies must at least make the victim whole, and they sometimes adopt even stronger remedial rules for particular categories of human rights violations. Moreover, courts have refused to permit departure from these rules on the basis of competing social interests. Human rights scholars have not questioned this approach, frequently pushing for even stronger judicial remedies for rights violations. Yet in many cases, strong and inflexible remedial rules can perversely undermine human …

El Surgimiento Del Derecho Ambiental Global, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Legal systems across the globe are responding to environmental concerns in surprising new ways. As nations upgrade their environmental standards, some are transplanting law and regulatory policy innovations derived from the experience of other countries, including nations with very different legal and cultural traditions. New national, regional, and international initiatives have been undertaken both by governments and private organizations. Greater cross-border collaboration between government officials, nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations and other entities is shaping environmental policy in ways that blur traditional private/public land domestic/international distinctions. The result has been the emergence of a kind of “global environmental law” – law …

Extraordinary Crimes At Ordinary Times: International Justice Beyond Crisis Situations, Sonja Starr

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ruminations On The Past, Present And Future Of International Labor Standards: Empowering Law In The Brave New Economic World, Marley S. Weiss

Faculty Scholarship

International labor standards are among the oldest international standards pertaining to the conduct of private, as well as public, economic actors. Far from being settled, however, nearly every aspect of the current international labor standards regime is in flux: the role of labor standards in the international legal, economic, political, and social order, as well as in the parallel domestic orders; the modes by which standards are brought into being; the manner and means of their implementation and enforcement; the degree to which they may be binding solely on nation-state parties, and enforceable only at their behest; and the extent …

Between Rogues And Liberals: Towards Value Pluralism As A Theory Of Freedom Of Religion In International Law, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rule-Skepticism, "Strategery," And The Limits Of International Law, David Gray

Faculty Scholarship

This is a review essay of Eric Posner and Jack Goldsmith's fascinating book, The Limits of International Law. In the essay I provide an exegesis of the core argument of the book, which is that the conduct of states in fields occupied by international law is more powerfully described by game theory than by law talk. In particular, the authors argue that state conduct traditionally described in terms of obedience and violation is actually determined by self-interest modified by the strategic conditions of identifiable games; principally coincidence games, coordination games, coercion games, and iterated prisoner dilemmas. In the essay I …

Book Review: International Environmental Treaties And State Behavior: Factors Influencing Cooperation, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Wrong-Sizing International Justice? The Hybrid Tribunal In Sierra Leone, Chandra Lekha Sriram

Faculty Scholarship

As institutions of international justice proliferate, so do disputes about their legitimacy, and about what shape they ought to take. As truly international tools such as the International Criminal Court and the exercise of universal jurisdiction face political and practical challenges, some scholars and practitioners have advocated a distinct institutional solution: the hybrid court. These are courts that are neither purely national nor international, but rather that pursue accountability in the country where abuses and crimes occurred, but with both national and international staff, and utilizing a mixture of national and international law. Many have suggested that these tribunals represent …

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.