Law Commons^™

Singapore And The Universal Periodic Review: An Unprecedented Human Rights Assessment, Mahdev Mohan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore will soon submit a national report to and subsequently appear before the UN Human Rights Council for a universal periodic review of its human rights laws and practices. This review will elicit a rare and unprecedented expression of whether and how Singapore feels it has adhered to international human rights law, and ways in which it may further refine or calibrate its domestic practices. This article seeks to identify Singapore’s human rights achievements; highlight challenges it should be prepared to address; and recommend measures it should adopt to promote human rights.

China's Labor Contract Law And The Liberalization Of Global Markets: Will Employees' Rights Equate To Employers' Nightmares?, Sharon Breckenridge Thomas

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Abstract: Lower labor costs and realization of profits have been key components in the expansion of the global market. As we continue to witness the prolific liberalization of the global market, it is essential that we remember the importance of human capital. Workers play a paramount role in the realization of continued and sustained global market growth. Paradoxically, sustained growth in the global market is also fueled by the absence of workers’ rights and the resulting reduction of labor costs. Thus, multi-national companies and workers employed by multi-national companies, have encountered a seeming contradiction of workplace realities. From a capitalistic …

Playing By The Rules: Combating Al Qaeda Within The Law Of War, David Glazier

William & Mary Law Review

Although the conflict formerly known as the “war on terror” is now in its eighth year, key legal issues governing the use of force and military detention remain largely unresolved. These questions survive the Bush administration, as the United States continues to launch aerial strikes against al Qaeda and President Obama has indicated his intention to continue the use of preventative detention and military trials even after Guantánamo is closed. Military victory is not possible, but good faith application of authority from the law of war can effectively complement traditional criminal law in combating the threat. Even if the Geneva …

The Fiduciary Constitution Of Human Rights, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

We argue that human rights are best conceived as norms arising from a fiduciary relationship that exists between states (or statelike actors) and the citizens and noncitizens subject to their power. These norms draw on a Kantian conception of moral personhood, protecting agents from instrumentalization and domination. They do not, however, exist in the abstract as timeless natural rights. Instead, they are correlates of the state’s fiduciary duty to provide equal security under the rule of law, a duty that flows from the state’s institutional assumption of irresistible sovereign powers.

Developing A Private International Intellectual Property Law: The Demise Of Territoriality?, Graeme B. Dinwoodie

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Things Fall Apart: The Illegitimacy Of Property Rights In The Context Of Past Theft, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

In many states, past property theft is a volatile political issue that threatens to destabilize nascent democracies. How does a state avoid instability when past property theft causes a significant number of people to believe that the property distribution is illegitimate? To explore this question, I first define legitimacy relying on an empirical understanding of the concept. Second, I establish the relationship between inequality, illegitimate property distribution, and instability. Third, I describe the three ways a state can achieve stability when faced with an illegitimate property distribution: by using its coercive powers, by attempting to change people’s beliefs about the …

Medellin, Delegation And Conflicts (Of Law), Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

The case of Medellin v. Texas presented the Supreme Court with a recurring question that has bedeviled judges, legal scholars, and political scientists-what effect, if any, must a United States court give to the decision of an international tribunal, particularly where, during the relevant time, the United States was party to a treaty protocol that bound it to that tribunal's judgments. While the Supreme Court held that the International Court of Justice's ("ICJ") decision was not enforceable federal law, its decision reflected an important recognition that the issues presented in that case were not limited to the specific area of …

A Long And Winding Road: The Doha Round Negotiation In The World Trade Organization, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

This article provides a concise history of the Doha Round negotiation, analyzes its deadlock and offers some suggestions for a successful deal. The article observes that the nearly decade long negotiational stalemate is symptomatic of the diametrically opposed beliefs on the nature of the Round between developed and developing countries. While developed countries appear to be increasingly oblivious of Doha’s exigency, i.e., as a “development” round, developing countries vehemently condemn the developed countries’ narrow commercial focus on the Doha Round talks. It will not be easy to untie this Gordian knot since both Worlds tend to think that no deal …

Global Constitutional Lawmaking, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

Global Constitutional Lawmaking Abstract This article identifies a nascent phenomenon of “global constitutional lawmaking” in a recent WTO jurisprudence which struck down a certain calculative methodology (“zeroing”) in the antidumping area. The article interprets the Appellate Body’s uncharacteristic anti-zeroing hermeneutics, which departs from a traditional treaty interpretation under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the past pro-zeroing GATT case law, as a “constitutional” turn of the WTO. The article argues that a positivist, inter-governmental mode of thinking, as is prevalent in other international organizations such as the United Nations, cannot fully expound this phenomenon. Critically, this turn …

Interest As Damages, John Y. Gotanda, Thierry J. Sénéchal

Working Paper Series

In this article, we posit that when arbitral tribunals decide international disputes, they typically fail to fully compensate claimants for the loss of the use of their money. This failure occurs because they do not acknowledge that businesses typically invest in opportunities that pose a significantly greater risk than the risk reflected in such commonly used standards as U.S. T-bills and LIBOR rates. Claimants also must share the blame when they do not set out a well-constructed claim for interest as damages. However, even when claimants do so, tribunals often award damages at a statutory rate or at rate reflecting …

Human Rights And Military Decisions: Counterinsurgency And Trends In The Law Of, Dan E. Stigall, Christopher L. Blakesley, Chris Jenks

Scholarly Works

The past several decades have seen a Copernican shift in the paradigm of armed conflict, which the traditional Law of International Armed Conflict (LOIAC) canon has not fully matched. Standing out in stark relief against the backdrop of relative inactivity in LOIAC, is the surfeit of activity in the field of international human rights law, which has become a dramatic new force in the ancient realm of international law. Human rights law, heretofore not formally part of the traditional juridico-military calculus, has gained ever increasing salience in that calculus. Indeed, human rights law has ramified in such a manner that …

Ratify The Un Disability Treaty, Michael Ashley Stein, Janet E. Lord

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Influenza A(H1n1) And Pandemic Preparedness Under The Rule Of International Law, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

A novel strain of Influenza A (H1N1) spread rapidly through Mexico in April 2009 and now spans the globe. By the time WHO was notified and responded, geographical containment was not feasible, leading the agency to call for mitigation. The international outbreak of SARS in 2003 and the more recent Influenza A (H5N1) among birds with limited transmission to humans helped prepare the world for the current pandemic threat. SARS galvanized the WHO to revise the antiquated International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005, which took effect June 15, 2007. Governments instituted preparedness plans in response to avian influenza.

Despite increased …

A Fiduciary Theory Of Jus Cogens, Evan J. Criddle, Evan Fox-Decent

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

In The Name Of Sovereignty? The Battle Over In Dubio Mitius Inside And Outside The Courts, Christophe J. Larouer

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Contrary to some prominent legal scholars’ predictions, the principle of in dubio mitius, that is, the principle of restrictive interpretation of treaty obligations in deference to the sovereignty of states, has not disappeared. Worse, the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has carried it into the 21st Century, reigniting the ideological debate dividing the legal doctrine over the conception of what the relationship between domestic and international law should be. Therefore, after retracing the history of this principle during which key legal figures opposed one another, this article examines the divergent positions defended by the proponents and …

Multilateralism Or Regionalism; What Can Be Done About The Proliferation Of Regional Trading Agreements?, Luwam G. Dirar

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Regional trading agreements are treaties entered into by states. States enter into regional trading agreements for different reasons some of which are economic, political and security reasons. Regional trading agreements (herein after RTAs) have been successful in achieving trade liberalization at a much faster speed than the World Trade Organization (herein after WTO). The most notable example of RTAs is the European Communities that has been successful to liberalize both trade in goods and services.

Members of those Regional Trading Agreements create rules of origin. Rules of origin are important in allocating the appropriate duty for imported goods. They tell …

Does One Size Fit All? A Comparative Study To Determine An Alternative To International Patent Harmonization, Rohan K. George

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

The Agreement for Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was ratified by a majority of the countries of the world in 1994 as a precondition to membership in the World Trade Organization. Today, 153 of the countries of the world are parties to the TRIPS Agreement. The effect of the TRIPS Agreement was to create the first international substantive standards of patent harmonization, and to cause many countries to adopt intellectual property laws far stronger than they had in existence at the time. Today, the process of patent harmonization initiated with the TRIPS Agreement moves forward, through a …

The United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples: A New Dawn For Indigenous Peoples Rights?, Ronald Kakungulu

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Governments in many countries of the world struggle with how to accommodate properly the needs and claims [rights] of native/indigenous peoples within their jurisdictions whose presence long predates European conquest and occupation. In this paper, a comparison and contrast of the approaches of the African and other jurisdictions whose jurisprudence is informative to the protection of the rights of African indigenous peoples, like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights compared with the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia ‘the big four’ who voted against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous on September 13, 2007 at the UN General …

Collaborative Governance: Lessons For Europe From U.S. Electricity Restructuring, Charles H. Koch Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring State Compliance With The Right To Education Using Indicators: A Case Study Of Colombia’S Obligations Under The Icescr, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn Getgen, Steven A. Koh

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

The right to education is often referred to as a “multiplier right” because its enjoyment enhances other human rights. It is enumerated in several international instruments, but it is codified in greatest detail in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Despite its importance, the right to education has received limited attention from scholars, practitioners, and international and regional human rights bodies as compared to other economic, social and cultural rights (ECSRs). In this Article, we propose a methodology that utilizes indicators to measure treaty compliance with the right to education. Indicators are essential to measuring compliance …

An Identity Crisis Of International Organizations, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

An Identity Crisis of International Organizations Abstract International organizations (IOs) are ubiquitous. More than two hundred IOs touch our everyday lives, ranging banking to flu-shots. However, conventional political scientists seldom pay sufficient attention to IOs which they thoroughly deserve given their contemporary prominence. Because conventional international relations (IR) theories consider IOs as mere passive machineries, they hardly offer a satisfactory explanation on a distinctive mode of IOs’ institutional dynamic, in which a specific IO, as a separate and autonomous organic entity, grows, evolves and eventually makes sense of its own existence. This Essay offers a novel perspective which attempts to …

Deriving Peremptory Norms From Sovereignty, Evan J. Criddle, Evan Fox-Decent

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Protecting Against Plunder: The United States And The International Efforts Against Looting Of Antiquities, Asif Efrat

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

In 1970 UNESCO adopted a convention intended to stem the flow of looted antiquities from developing countries to collections in art-importing countries. The majority of art-importing countries, including Britain, Germany, and Japan, refused to join the Convention. Contrary to other art-importing countries, and reversing its own traditionally-liberal policy, the United States accepted the international regulation of antiquities and joined the UNESCO Convention. The article seeks to explain why the United States chose to establish controls on antiquities, to the benefit of foreign countries facing archaeological plunder and to the detriment of the US art market. I argue that the concern …

The World Trade Constitutional Court, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

The World Trade Constitutional Court Sungjoon Cho Abstract Although a court, as a judicial organ, usually fulfils its mission by resolving specific disputes brought to it, it occasionally goes beyond this simple dispute-resolving function and more actively engages in building policies which define, and “constitute,” the very polity to which the court belongs, as was seen in Brown v. Board of Education. If this “constitutional adjudication” is an integral function of any domestic high court, could (and should) an international tribunal, in particular the World Trade Organization (WTO) tribunal, also play such a distinctive role? This paper contends that the …

Book Review: Henry J. Richardson Iii, The Origins Of African-American Interests In International Law, D. A. Jeremy Telman

Law Faculty Publications

This short review evaluates Professor Richardson's book both as a contribution to the history of the Atlantic slave trade and as contribution to critical race theory.

Professor Richardson has read innumerable historical monographs, works of legal and sociological theory, international law and critical race theory. Armed with this store of knowledge, he is able to recount a detailed narrative of African-American claims to, interests in and appeals to international law over approximately two centuries spanning, with occasional peeks both forward and backward in time, from the landing of the first African slaves at Jamestown in 1619 to the 1815 Treaty …

International Law, Human Rights And The Transformative Occupation Of Iraq, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the project of transformative occupation undertaken by the United States and its allies following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. More specifically, it considers the Iraqi occupation in light of two competing sensibilities in international legal argument. On one view, which I term “legal formalism”, the purpose of international law is eclectic, intersubjective and value-pluralist: to create the conditions for peaceful coexistence between different political orders and ways of life. This view is commonly associated with the liberalism of the United Nations Charter which posits both the subject of international law and its liberty in formal terms …

Promises Of Accession: Reassessing The Trade Relationship Between Turkey And The European Union, Fernanda G. Nicola

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Nomination Of Sonia Sotomayor To Be An Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 111th Cong., July 16, 2009 (Statement Of Professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Geo. U. L. Center), Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz

Testimony Before Congress

I believe that contemporary foreign law generally has no place in the interpretation of the United States Constitution. …I will explain why reliance on foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution is in tension with our constitutional text and structure, and with fundamental notions of democratic self-governance. I should emphasize that I take no position on the ultimate question of whether Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed, and I offer my comments with the greatest respect. But I am concerned that her recent speech on this issue may betray a misconception of the judicial role. For the balance of my testimony, …

States Of War: Defensive Force Among Nations (Reviewing George P. Fletcher & Jens David Ohlin, Defending Humanity: When Force Is Justified And Why (2008)), Guyora Binder

Book Reviews

In "Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why," George Fletcher and Jens Ohlin analogize international defensive force to individual self-defense. Based on this analogy, Fletcher and Ohlin justify a presumptive right on the part of every state to intervene against aggression, and a right of humanitarian intervention in support of national groups but not populations. They oppose reprisals, preemptive defense, and resistance to invading armies by irregular troops. This review essay argues that the relative weakness of the Security Council, the unequal power of states, and the contingency of international recognition on effective force all undermine the analogy between …

International Law, Secularism, And The Islamic World, Adrien Katherine Wing

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.