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Full-Text Articles in Law
Customary International Law: An Instrument Choice Perspective, Laurence R. Helfer, Ingrid B. Wuerth
Customary International Law: An Instrument Choice Perspective, Laurence R. Helfer, Ingrid B. Wuerth
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article proceeds as follows. Part II begins by considering custom’s design features, which the authors distinguish from the canonical elements of custom (state practice and opinio juris) and the individual doctrines associated with CIL. Specifically, they contend that, as an ideal-type, custom is non-negotiated, unwritten, and universal, three characteristics that distinguish CIL from both treaties and soft law, which are almost always negotiated, written, and rarely universal either in formation or application. These design features help to explain some of custom’s peculiar doctrinal characteristics, and they cut across the doctrinal divide which is said to distinguish “traditional” and …
Reconstructing The Effective Control Criterion In Extraterritorial Human Rights Breaches: Direct Attribution Of Wrongfulness, Due Diligence, And Concurrent Responsibility, Vassilis P. Tzevelekos
Reconstructing The Effective Control Criterion In Extraterritorial Human Rights Breaches: Direct Attribution Of Wrongfulness, Due Diligence, And Concurrent Responsibility, Vassilis P. Tzevelekos
Michigan Journal of International Law
As one of the core elements of statehood, territory is inextricably linked to sovereignty. For this reason, jurisdiction is primarily territorial. In principle, the sphere of power of the sovereign state—including its competence to exercise legislative, judicial, and executive authority—applies within the confines of its own territory. Otherwise, the state risks interfering with the sovereignty of other states and thereby breaking one of the fundamental principles of Public International Law (PIL), that of sovereign equality. The principle of sovereign equality dictates that all assertions of jurisdiction have to be balanced with the sovereign rights of other states. This is why …
Saving Customary International Law, Andrew T. Guzman
Saving Customary International Law, Andrew T. Guzman
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article offers a theory of CIL-one that provides a firm and modem theoretical foundation for the analysis of custom. Though this is not the first article to propose a view of CIL through a rational choice lens, it is the first to map out a general theory of CIL based on such a model.
Pros And Cons Ensuing From Fragmentation Of International Law, Gerhard Hafner
Pros And Cons Ensuing From Fragmentation Of International Law, Gerhard Hafner
Michigan Journal of International Law
The system of international law has become increasingly fragmented, particularly since the end of the Cold War. This paper intends to present the main features of this development and its implications.
Reply To Andreas L. Paulus Consensus As Fiction Of Global Law, Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Gunther Teubner
Reply To Andreas L. Paulus Consensus As Fiction Of Global Law, Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Gunther Teubner
Michigan Journal of International Law
Andreas Paulus reminds us correctly that narratives "of a world of sovereign states loosely cooperating in 'coalitions of the willing' no longer tell the whole story." One of the achievements of the 20th century has been the insertion of a vertical dimension within horizontal international law; a dimension created by the ICJ's Traction decision and the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, and within which we can observe "obligations arising for states without or against their will." Any narrative that characterizes these legal norms as a simple product of interstate consensus is particularly thin if analysis focuses upon the …
The Cedaw As A Collective Approach To Women's Rights, Brad R. Roth
The Cedaw As A Collective Approach To Women's Rights, Brad R. Roth
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article will identify the individualist paradigm with the main current of contemporary liberal-individualist political thought, and more specifically with the approach to women's rights reflected in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which can be read most straightforwardly as reflecting a liberal-individualist conception of how the individual, society, and the State interrelate. This approach, dominant in the international human rights system as well as in the legal systems of some of the most influential States, can usefully be identified as that of the political Center.
Game Theory And Customary International Law: A Response To Professors Goldsmith And Posner, Mark A. Chinen
Game Theory And Customary International Law: A Response To Professors Goldsmith And Posner, Mark A. Chinen
Michigan Journal of International Law
In a pair of recent articles, Professors Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner have used game theoretic principles to challenge the positivist account of customary international law. Their writings join other early attempts to apply game theory to the international law sources. The author has two purposes in this Article. The first is to evaluate game theory's potential for yielding greater insight into customary international law and international law more generally. The second is to respond to the conclusions about customary international law drawn by Professors Goldsmith and Posner.
Further Thoughts On Customary International Law, Jack L. Goldsmith, Eric A. Posner
Further Thoughts On Customary International Law, Jack L. Goldsmith, Eric A. Posner
Michigan Journal of International Law
In two earlier articles, the tools of game theory were used to sketch a positive theoretical account of customary international law ("CIL"). This theory rejected as question-begging the usual explanations of CIL based on legality, morality, opinio juris, and related concepts. It was argued instead that CIL emerges from nations' pursuit of self-interested policies on the international stage. This approach helps explain many overlooked features of CIL, including how CIL originates and changes, why the content of CIL tracks the interest of powerful nations, and why nations change their views of CIL when their interests change. Finally, the practices …
Afterword, Mark A. Chinen
Afterword, Mark A. Chinen
Michigan Journal of International Law
The author prefaces the afterword in the following manner: “Professors Goldsmith and Posner have given an insightful reply to my Article. It has been a pleasure to engage in a discussion of these issues with respected colleagues via this exchange of writings, and I am grateful to the Journal for providing the opportunity to do so. Most of the positions I have taken are already adequately discussed in the body of the Article, and this afterword is not intended to summarize all of the arguments made there. However, I wanted to address some of the points Professors Goldsmith and Posner …
State Successions And Statelessness: The Emerging Right To An Effective Nationality Under International Law, Jeffrey L. Blackman
State Successions And Statelessness: The Emerging Right To An Effective Nationality Under International Law, Jeffrey L. Blackman
Michigan Journal of International Law
This paper surveys some of the recent developments in international law relating to nationality and state succession, and suggests a growing convergence among several legal principles-specifically the principle of effective nationality, the individual right to a nationality and the corresponding duty of states to prevent statelessness, and the norm of nondiscrimination. At some point this convergence of such diverse areas of law as nationality, diplomatic protection, and human rights will impose positive duties on successor states with respect to their inherited populations: namely the duty to secure effective nationality for persons affected by state succession.
The Role Of Human Rights In Global Securtiy Issues: A Normative And Institutional Critique, Douglas Lee Donoho
The Role Of Human Rights In Global Securtiy Issues: A Normative And Institutional Critique, Douglas Lee Donoho
Michigan Journal of International Law
The purpose of this article is to evaluate the institutional and normative capacity of international human rights to effectively serve such enhanced roles in global peace and security matters. In particular, the analysis focuses on key normative and institutional weaknesses in the existing U.N. human rights system and addresses their implications for the roles which human rights might serve to enhance peace. By describing some of the system's fundamental weaknesses, this analysis also indicates important areas for reform within the U.N. system.
Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind
Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind
Michigan Journal of International Law
It is submitted, at the risk of being accused of idealism, that those who most conspicuously don the mantle of realism are also guilty of normative sloppiness, a form of sloppiness which deserves the name "normative surrender" because it concedes large areas of the law to the will and whim of States. This article will examine the phenomenon of normative surrender and provide some examples of it.