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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Vulnerable Sovereign, Ronald A. Brand
The Vulnerable Sovereign, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The connection between sovereignty and law is fundamental for both domestic (internal sovereignty) and the international (external sovereignty) purposes. As the dominant forms of government have evolved over time, so has the way in which we think about sovereignty. Consideration of the historical evolution of the concept of sovereignty offers insight into how we think of sovereignty today. A term that was born to represent the relationship between the governor and the governed has become a term that is used to represent the relationships between and among states in the global legal order. This article traces the history of the …
The Oas And Constitutionalism: Lessons From Recent West African Experience, Stephen J. Schnably
The Oas And Constitutionalism: Lessons From Recent West African Experience, Stephen J. Schnably
Articles
No abstract provided.
Minority Rights, Minority Wrongs, Elena Baylis
Minority Rights, Minority Wrongs, Elena Baylis
Articles
Many of the new democracies established in the last twenty years are severely ethnically divided, with numerous minority groups, languages, and religions. As part of the process of democratization, there has also been an explosion of “national human rights institutions,” that is, independent government agencies whose purpose is to promote enforcement of human rights. But despite the significance of minority concerns to the stability and success of these new democracies, and despite the relevance of minority rights to the mandates of national human rights institutions, a surprisingly limited number of national human rights institutions have directed programs and resources to …
America, Defender Of Democratic Legitimacy?, James C. Hathaway
America, Defender Of Democratic Legitimacy?, James C. Hathaway
Articles
American exceptionalism - a belief that the United States has a unique mission to lead the world, but ought logically to be exempt from the rules it promotes - is at the root of much of the American academy's effort to rationalize the US government's increasing rejection of multilateralism as the cornerstone of modern public international law. Even American scholars who disagree fundamentally on the problems with multilateralism (Kenneth Anderson arguing that it favours anti-democratic intervention by unelected NGOs, Michael Reisman asserting that it privileges elitist state-based lawmaking in the face of more democratic non-state 'lawmaking' processes) can agree on …
External Sovereignty And International Law, Ronald A. Brand
External Sovereignty And International Law, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
This essay addresses the need to redefine current notions of sovereignty. It returns to earlier concepts of subjects joining to receive the benefits of peace and security provided by the sovereign. It diverges from most contemporary commentary by avoiding what has become traditional second-tier social contract analysis. In place of a social contract of states, this redefinition of sovereignty recognizes that international law in the twentieth century has developed direct links between the individual and international law. The trend toward democracy as an international law norm further supports discarding notions of a two-tiered social contract relationship between the individual and …