Law Commons^™

Response: "Quid," Not "Quantum": A Comment On "How The International Criminal Court Threatens Treaty Norms", Roger O'Keefe

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Mike Newton's article performs a considerable service in reminding the reader of some incontrovertible tenets of the law of international organizations (loosely so called in the case of an organ like the ICC) and of the law of treaties. First, the ICC is competent to exercise only that power vested in it by the States Parties to its Statute. In turn, the States Parties are not competent to transfer to the Court a power that they do not possess. "Nemo plus iuris transferre potest quam ipse habet," as Cicero may or may not have put it. Secondly, a treaty may …

Default Breakdown: The Vienna Convention On The Law Of Treaties' Inadequate Framework On Reservations, Daniel N. Hylton

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties attempted to give some order to the confusion that was treaty law after World War II. One treaty issue that was particularly in need of codification was the law governing reservations to treaties. With the growing number of participants in the international community making universal agreement more difficult, the frequency of reservations, as a vehicle for circumscribing disagreements in treaty negotiations, increased. However, most practices regarding reservations severely limited the ability of states to make reservations successfully. To remedy that problem, the Vienna Convention adopted a flexible approach to treaty reservations, …

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Japan's Reshaping of American Labor Law By William B. Gould Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1984. Pp.xii, 166. $19.95.

World Economic Outlook By The Staff of the International Monetary Fund Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund,1984. Pp. ix, 162. $15.00.

Recent Multilateral Debt Restructurings With Official and Bank Creditors By E. Brau and R.C. Williams Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1983. Pp. vii, 28. $5.00.

The Fund, Commercial Banks, and Member Countries By Paul Mentre Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1984. Pp. v, 35. $5.00.

International Law and the New States of Africa By Yilma Makonnen New York: Unipub, 1983. Pp. …

The Effect Of Duress On The Iranian Hostage Settlement Agreement, James M. Redwine

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

As soon as the United States began celebrating the hostages' release, the validity of the agreement became a subject of intense controversy. Conservative commentators urged that the United States "renounce the deal." To them, the Declaration was not an agreement but extortion, and had "the same moral standing as an agreement made with a kidnapper, that is to say, none at all..."

Although it will take years of litigation and commentary to assess the full significance and consequences of the hostage taking and the settlement agreement, some preliminary observations may be made. The Declaration poses many difficult questions of international …