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Full-Text Articles in Law
Humanitarian Intervention: Evolving Norms, Fragmenting Consensus (Remarks), Rosa Brooks
Humanitarian Intervention: Evolving Norms, Fragmenting Consensus (Remarks), Rosa Brooks
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Traditionally, the evolution of customary international law was understood as a gradual process: in some idealized model, we might see first a few states, and then a few more, implicitly agreeing to follow a practice, and then we would gradually begin to see additional states doing the same thing. We would also gradually accumulate evidence that these various states are acting in such a way because they consider themselves legally bound to do so. Then, over time, we’ll see more and more states following suit both in word and deed, until at some point we can say with a great …
Alien Tort Claims And The Status Of Customary International Law, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Alien Tort Claims And The Status Of Customary International Law, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Much of the recent debate about the status of customary international law in the U.S. legal system has revolved around the alien tort provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789, currently section 1350 of Title 28. In Filártiga v. Peńa-Irala, the decision that launched modern human rights litigation in the United States, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit relied on the view that customary international law has the status of federal common law in upholding section 1350’s grant of federal jurisdiction over a suit between aliens. The court’s position that customary international law was federal law was …
Withdrawing From International Custom: Terrible Food, Small Portions, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Withdrawing From International Custom: Terrible Food, Small Portions, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Curtis A. Bradley and Mitu Gulati’s Withdrawing from International Custom brings to mind the old joke recounted by Woody Allen in Annie Hall: “Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’” Similarly, while Bradley and Gulati attack international law’s current prohibition of unilateral withdrawal from custom, they propose an alternative that differs only modestly from it (small portions). At the same time, the doctrinal change they propose would take customary international law in the …
Customary International Law As U.S. Law: A Critique Of The Revisionist And Intermediate Positions And A Defense Of The Modern Position, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Customary International Law As U.S. Law: A Critique Of The Revisionist And Intermediate Positions And A Defense Of The Modern Position, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In a recent referendum, the citizens of Oklahoma overwhelmingly approved a State constitutional amendment providing that the courts of the State "shall not consider international law or Sharia law" in rendering their decisions. The amendment's exclusion of Sharia law has garnered most of the media attention, but more consequential by far is the measure's directive to the State courts to disregard international law. Similar measures have been proposed in other States, some of them merely barring consideration of Sharia law or foreign law, but others barring consideration of international law as well. These measures are clearly unconstitutional insofar as they …
Altmann V. Austria And The Retroactivity Of The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Altmann V. Austria And The Retroactivity Of The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In Republic of Austria v. Altmann, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) generally applies to claims based on events that occurred before the Statute's enactment. To decide the retroactivity question, the Court had occasion to consider the essential nature of foreign sovereign immunity: is it merely a procedural immunity providing foreign states with present protection from the inconvenience and indignity of a lawsuit, or is it something more than that? The Court's examination of this question was brief and unsatisfying. Its analysis would have been enriched by a recognition that foreign …