Law Commons^™

Remarks By An Idealist On The Realism Of 'The Limits Of International Law', Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This paper is a response to Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner, 'The Limits of International Law' (Oxford 2005), part of a symposium on the book held at the University of Georgia Law School in October 2005. The review views 'The Limits of International Law' sympathetically, and focuses on the intersection between traditional and new methodologies of international law scholarship, on the one hand, and the substantive political commitments that differing international law scholars hold, on the other. The paper notes that some in the symposium claim that the problem with 'The Limits of International Law' is that it …

Towards A Cosmopolitan Vision Of International Law: Identifying And Defining Cil Post Sosa V. Alvarez-Machain, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, future Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) litigants seemingly will be asked to demonstrate that the norms giving rise to their actions are violations of clearly established Customary International Law (CIL). Given the mutable character of CIL, especially in the area of human rights, this will surely fuel the already voluminous literature on the content of the CIL of human rights.

While debate will certainly arise over the norms that have been become CIL, significant attention must be also be devoted to the problems inherent in the CIL of …

Remembering Sudetenland: On The Legal Construction Of Ethnic Cleansing, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

What is the true shape of our commitment to prohibit ethnic cleansing? This Article explores that question by considering a case observers have almost universally decided does not constitute ethnic cleansing. It examines the recent controversy in the European Union, when Sudeten Germans demanded that the Czech Republic apologize for having expelled them after WWII before being admitted to the EU. Their demands were almost universally rejected and the legality of the expulsions was reconfirmed by all relevant actors. So what is the consequence for customary international law's rules on ethnic cleansing?

The Article derives the customary legal norms logically …