Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Law

When, What, And Why Do States Choose To Delegate?, Barbara Koremenos Jan 2008

When, What, And Why Do States Choose To Delegate?, Barbara Koremenos

Law and Contemporary Problems

Koremenos demonstrates that international delegation is an important and nontrivial empirical phenomenon. Using an extensive data set created from the United Nations Treaty Series, she finds that almost half of all international agreements involve delegation of some kind. By exploring the institutional design choices of international delegation, she finds that dispute resolution is the most commonly delegated function and often involves externally delegating authority to an existing arbitration tribunal or an international court. Furthermore, she finds that external delegation in particular increases with the existence of complex cooperation problems such as enforcement and uncertainty and with the heterogeneity and number …


Delegation Success And Policy Failure: Collective Delegation And The Search For Iraqi Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Michael J. Tierney Jan 2008

Delegation Success And Policy Failure: Collective Delegation And The Search For Iraqi Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Michael J. Tierney

Law and Contemporary Problems

Tierney argues that international delegation can have important consequences, even for powerful states. In particular, he contends that the US delegation of inspection authority to United Nations weapons inspectors and to the International Atomic Energy Association after the Gulf War of 1990-91 entailed significant sovereignty costs by affecting the timing and costliness of the subsequent 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Among other things, he notes that the inspectors' independent behavior made it much more difficult for the US to assemble the type of multilateral coalition that would share the costs as it had in the earlier Gulf War. Tierney also …


International Delegations And The Values Of Federalism, Neil S. Siegel Jan 2008

International Delegations And The Values Of Federalism, Neil S. Siegel

Law and Contemporary Problems

Siegel argues that the relationship between an international delegation and the values thought to be promoted by a federal structure of government depends upon what would happen in the absence of the international delegation. Focusing on the effect of international delegation on US subnational states, Siegel explains that when the delegation replaces regulation by the federal government that would have displaced state choices anyway, then the effect on federalism values depends on the relative inclinations of the federal government and the international body to decentralize.


International Delegation And State Sovereignty, Oona A. Hathaway Jan 2008

International Delegation And State Sovereignty, Oona A. Hathaway

Law and Contemporary Problems

Hathaway rebuts the claim that state sovereignty almost always suffers when states delegate authority to international institutions. Critics of delegation err, she contends, by overemphasizing the costs but losing sight of some of the substantial benefits of cooperation. She considers the challenge to sovereignty posed by international delegation by focusing on recent debates over the influence of international legal commitments on domestic governance.


Self-Execution And Treaty Duality, Curtis A. Bradley Jan 2008

Self-Execution And Treaty Duality, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution states that, along with the Constitution and laws of the United States, treaties made by the United States are part of the "supreme Law of the Land." At least since the Supreme Court's 1829 decision in Foster v. Neilson, however, it has been understood that treaty provisions are enforceable in U.S. courts only if they are "self-executing." The legitimacy and implications of this self-execution requirement have generated substantial controversy and uncertainty among both courts and commentators. This Article attempts to clear up some of the conceptual confusion relating to the self-execution doctrine and, …


Delegating To International Courts: Self-Binding Vs. Other-Binding Delegation, Karen J. Alter Jan 2008

Delegating To International Courts: Self-Binding Vs. Other-Binding Delegation, Karen J. Alter

Law and Contemporary Problems

Alter highlights the diverse nature of international delegations to courts. She argues that the roles and tasks delegated to international courts increasingly mimic in form and content the broad variety of tasks delegated to courts in liberal democracies, but that delegating these tasks to international courts is fundamentally different than delegating them to domestic courts because of the implications for national sovereignty. Whereas international courts were initially established to be dispute-resolution bodies, they now also perform administrative review, enforcement, and even constitutional review. Alter explains how each of these judicial roles binds other actors, binds states, or both.


The Concept Of International Delegation, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley Jan 2008

The Concept Of International Delegation, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bradley and Kelley define and clarify the concept of international delegation from both a legal and a social-science perspective. They begin by presenting a definition of international delegation as a grant of authority by two or more states to an international body to make decisions or take actions. They also identify eight types of authority that states may grant: legislative, adjudicative, regulatory, monitoring and enforcement, agenda-setting, research and advice, policy implementation, and redelegation. International bodies will often exercise more than one type of authority, and there will sometimes be uncertainties about whether a particular type of authority fails into a …