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Networking Customary Law, Scott Sullivan
Networking Customary Law, Scott Sullivan
Scott Sullivan
In United States v. Jones, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether gathering four weeks of GPS information capturing a suspect’s movement on public roads constituted an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In two separate concurring opinions, Justices Alito and Sotomayor rejected the notion that all of a citizen’s movements in public were free from the Amendment’s protection. A unifying theme for both justices was the power of contemporary technology to aggregate isolated acts into a comprehensive knowledge of a person’s private life. Justice Alito writing on behalf of four Justices notes that, over time, the …
Customary International Law 2.0, Scott Sullivan
Customary International Law 2.0, Scott Sullivan
Scott Sullivan
Throughout history, customary law has been legitimized as an instrument to put the power of law behind the aggregated, collective judgment of citizens. Technological advances in communication have created a world where such collective judgments are easier to identify and apply than ever before. Unfortunately, the current regime design of customary international law formation is tethered to a fiction of state consent that is subjecting the system to creeping anachronism.
This Article offers an alternative theoretical “version” for understanding and justifying the creation of customary international law norms. Consistent with the software versioning invoked in the title, this rethinking of …