Law Commons^™

The Ballad Of Transborder Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

International commercial arbitration (ICA) is many things positive. Because business transactions cannot take place without a functional system of adjudication,ICA has enabled parties to engage in and pursue international commerce. As a result, it has had an enormous impact upon the international practice of law, the structuring of a de facto international legal system, and the development of a substantive world law of commerce. In a word, ICA has been a vital engine in the creation of a transborder rule of law. Furthering this design, the arbitral "method"has even been applied to the unruly political problems that attend international trade …

Lawful Self-Defense To Terrorism, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

On October 7,2001, the United States and the United Kingdom launched operation Enduring Freedom. Enduring Freedom was a massive aerial and land operation on the territory of Afghanistan in response to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. The two governments justified Enduring Freedom as an exercise of lawful self-defense. This article examines the elements of self-defense, applying them to Enduring Freedom. At the outset, Enduring Freedom did indeed meet the conditions of lawful self-defense, but later stages of the operation may have gone beyond the bounds of proportionality. The article also looks at the alternatives to self-defense …

International Remedies In National Criminal Cases: Icj Judgment In Germany V. United States, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

In Germany v. United States (2001), the International Court of Justice ruled that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations confers judicially enforceable rights on foreign nationals detained for prolonged periods or sentenced to severe penalties without notice of their right to communicate with their consulates. The Court also ruled that states which fail to give timely notice cannot later invoke procedural default to bar individuals from judicial relief. However, the Court did not clearly address other issues, such as requiring individuals to show prejudice to the outcome of the trial, or denial of certain remedies for Convention violations, which may …

American Exceptionalism And The International Law Of Self-Defense, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Following the September 11th attacks in the United States (U.S.), one could make a case for America's use of force in Afghanistan as a lawful exercise of the right of self-defense. But the proposals to invade Iraq following September 11th cannot be so defended. Those proposals did not concern defending the basic security of the U.S. in the sense that basic security defense is currently understood in the international community. They concerned, rather, defense of a more expansive concept of security, a concept wherein the U.S. need not tolerate antagonistic regimes with the potential to harm U.S. interests. The invasion …

The Internationalization Of Legal Relations, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

What exactly does it mean to say that "legal relations" are becoming "internationalized"? For me, the concept is in large measure a vertical question: the degree to which international law is affecting (some might say encroaching on) traditional domestic law, particularly state law. This is particularly so with treaty law. In the United States at least, internationalization might be thought of as simply another arm of federalism, with Congress stipulating that certain sales of goods will be governed by international law, not the Uniform Commercial Code. Or that a certain category of child adoptions will be governed by federal treaty …

An Introduction: The Legalization Of International Relations/The Internationalization Of Legal Reglations, Roger P. Alford, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

The Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law is always an important gathering in the international legal community. It is a chance for everyone interested in international law to come together to deepen our understanding of the developments in the field. Ultimately, the aim of the discussion is to advance the international rule of law in the world.

To focus discussion at the 2002 Annual Meeting, we chose two intersecting developments that merited considered reflection: the legalization of international relations and the internationalization of legal relations. Representing two sides of the same coin, these twin themes, it was …

On War As Hell, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

This article addresses the question of the proper international standard for war reparations. War reparations are especially hard on the credibility and efficacy of international law. Wars are hard because the suffering is so great and reparations so onerous that often there is no mutuality of interest between the victorious governments and their own constituent victims. Wars force victorious States to make hard choices between looking backward to repair the harm caused to constituent victims and looking forward to a relationship with a potential strong and strategic ally. Just as the conduct of war, in its great features, is...policy itself, …

The Allocation Of Powers In The European Union: A Closer Look At The Principle Of Subsidiary, Christoph Henkel

Journal Articles

In the first section this article examines the different meanings of subsidiarity, its character as a doctrine of social philosophy and the origins of the concept of subsidiarity in the Community Treaties. The second section of this article describes the community approach to application, interpretation and review of compliance with subsidiarity. In this context, the Principle of Proportionality and the procedural requirement to Show Sufficient Grounds are considered as tools for judicial review and first developments in the case law of the European Court of Justice are discussed. Finally, against the background of political economic theory, the article will highlight …

Note, When Wishing On A Star Just Won’T Do: The Legal Basis For International Cooperation In The Mitigation Of Asteroid Impacts And Similar Transboundary Disasters, Evan R. Seamone

Journal Articles

This Note uses the threat of collisions of large space bodies with the Earth as a vehicle to investigate the legal duties of nations to participate in collective efforts at megadisaster mitigation. Asteroids and comets are space bodies while meteors occupy a less-threatening category. Although they differ in chemical composition and in visibility to the naked eye, large space bodies can endanger multiple nations simultaneously. Space bodies are ideal topics of investigation because the magnitude of the threats they pose is inestimable. Legal obligations to mitigate Earth impacts apply equally well to other infrequent threats that are currently of the …