Law Commons^™

Code Vs. Code: Nationalist And Internationalist Images Of The Code Civil In The French Resistance To A European Codification, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

French academics reacted to announcements about a possible future European civil code ten years ago in the way in which Americans reacted to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 1940: first with shock, then with rearmament, finally with attempted counterattacks. Military metaphors abound. Yet the defense of the French Code Civil against a European civil code is tricky: they must defend one Code against another. The images drawn of codes are therefore of particular interest for our understanding both of civil codes and of legal nationalism. Often, two mutually exclusive images are presented at the same time. In cultural terms, …

The Potential Of Multilateral Tax Treaties, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This short chapter canvasses alternative possible approaches governments could adopt if they were serious about better coordinating and possibly harmonizing international tax regimes; explores the potential advantages of using multilateral tax treaties; evaluates the CARICOM multilateral double tax treaty; and concludes by urging the pursuit of multilateral and collective solutions to international tax law design.

Reclaiming International Law From Extraterritoriality, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A fierce debate ensues among leading international law theorists that implicates the role of national courts in solving global challenges. On the one side are scholars who are critical of international law and its institutions. These scholars, often referred to as Sovereigntists, see international law as a threat to democratic sovereignty. On the other side are scholars who support international law as a key means of promoting human and environmental rights, as well as global peace and stability. These scholars are the 'new' Internationalists because they see non-traditional, non-state actors as appropriately enforcing international law at the sub-state level. The …

Tinkering With Torture In The Aftermath Of Hamdan: Testing The Relationship Between Internationalism And Constitutionalism, Catherine Powell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Bridging international and constitutional law scholarship, the author examines the question of torture in light of democratic values. The focus in this article is on the international prohibition on torture as this norm was addressed through the political process in the aftermath of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Responding to charges that the international torture prohibition--and international law generally--poses irreconcilable challenges for democracy and our constitutional framework, the author contends that by promoting respect for fundamental rights and for minorities and outsiders, international law actually facilitates a broad conception of democracy and constitutionalism. She takes on the question of torture within …

Lifting Our Veil Of Ignorance: Culture, Constitutionalism, And Women's Human Rights In Post-September 11 America, Catherine Powell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While we live in an Age of Rights, culture continues to be a major challenge to the human rights project. During the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the 1940s and during the Cold War era, the periodic disputes that erupted over civil and political rights in contrast to economic, social and cultural rights could be read either explicitly or implicitly as a cultural debate.

Gender has figured prominently in this perceived culture clash, for example, with the Bush administration's use of Afghan women as cultural icons in need of liberation--a claim that helped justify the …

National Identity And Liberalism In International Law: Three Models, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

No abstract provided.

Lifting Our Veil Of Ignorance: Culture, Constitutionalism, And Women's Human Rights In Post-September 11 America , Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

This Article challenges the culture clash view of human rights law, which posits a clash between Western countries' presumed respect for women's human rights and non-Western countries' presumed rejection of these rights on cultural and religious grounds. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, this view has taken on new significance, in light of the perceived civilizational divide between the Western and Muslim worlds. The Article calls into question this view, by examining cultural stereotypes of women used to oppose U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. My reading, therefore, is at odds …

United States Human Rights Policy In The 21st Century In An Age Of Multilateralism Respondent, Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Harold Koh's thoughtful article, A United States Human Rights Policy for the 21st Century, 46 ST. Louis U. L.J. 293 (2002), ends with the observation that "globalization has both sinister and constructive faces."' Indeed, we live in a world that is increasingly interdependent. Even some of those opposed to the project of globalization ironically depend on the tools of globalization to undermine it. Consider the terrorists who hijacked airplanes on September 11, 2001 and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands of innocent civilians from many different nations. The terrorists used the Internet and …