Law Commons^™

Economic Approaches To Global Regulation: Expanding The International Law And Economics Paradigm, Dan Danielsen

Dan Danielsen

The recent economic crisis has demonstrated with startling clarity the importance of developing a more robust framework for assessing the effects of national rules on global welfare. For more than fifty years, law and economics scholars have examined the effects of domestic legal rules on economic activity and general welfare in the United States. More recently, international law scholars have begun to use economic methods to analyze the international legal order. In this article I survey this evolving body of “international law and economics scholarship” with a view to articulating its principle methodological innovations as well as assessing its contributions …

The Puzzling Parameters Of The Foreign Law Debate, Vlad F. Perju

Vlad Perju

No abstract provided.

Globalization And The Theory Of International Law, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

The dominant modern account of the social basis of international law has been the "society of states" model. In this view, to the extent that international law constructs an ordered social space (a claim which has been contested since Hobbes if not before), it is a social space in which states are the actors. This view has had a profound effect on international law. For example, the doctrine of state responsibility classically understands international harms to individuals within a framework of harm to a state's rights. Normatively, to the extent justice is considered an operational concept in international law, it …

Review Of Legal Polycentricity And International Law, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Human Rights Treaty Body Reform: New Proposals, Andrew Kloster

Andrew Kloster

“Reform” in international human rights law has become a narrow concept. A survey of the literature reveals that nearly any suggestion for reform concerns greater enforcement of international human rights substantive norms.

It is the purpose of this article to address the neglected question of treaty body role. Section II provides a nuts-and-bolts guide to the treaty body mandates for United Nations delegates, States Parties, and international lawyers. This section sketches the proper and improper actions for treaty bodies to take. It is our contention that if treaty bodies were limited to their proper role, they could more effectively use …

Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Response argues that as ATS jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must …

The Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act Of 2010: Hearing Before The United States House Of Representatives, Committee On The Judiciary, Subcommittee On Commercial And Administrative Law. 111th Congress, 2nd Session, Michael P. Van Alstine

Michael P. Van Alstine

The testimony explores the essential legal issue of the extent to which executive agreements related to H.R. 4596 have any force as law in the United States. The agreements made it clear that they did not, by themselves, “provide an independent legal basis for dismissal” of claims of Holocaust victims filed in any courts of the United States. Instead, the executive branch simply agreed to file a “statement of interest” in such lawsuits to the effect “that U.S. policy interests favor dismissal on any valid legal ground.” Some lower courts have nonetheless given the statements of interest preemptive effect as …

The Other In International Law: 'Community' And International Legal Order, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Maxwell O. Chibundu

There is a built-in paradox in the emergence of international law over the last decade as a core concern of academics and policy-makers. On the one hand, it is difficult to imagine any other period in history that has witnessed such a profusion of attempts to tame the anarchical society by hedging it in a straight-jacket of legalities. Throughout the 1990s, international conferences generated reams of treaties, codes, and agendas for action. International adjudicatory tribunals proliferated, and endeavored to give teeth to ideas and obligations hitherto thought to be essentially aspirational. And yet, the ability of international law to regulate …

The Imposition Of The Death Penalty In The United States Of America: Does It Comply With International Norms?, Beverly Mcqueary Smith

Beverly McQueary Smith

No abstract provided.

Developing A World Vision: An Introduction To International Environmental Policy, Beverly Mcqueary Smith

Beverly McQueary Smith

No abstract provided.

From Ideology To Pragmatism: China's Position On Humanitarian Intervention In The Post-Cold War Era, Jonathan E. Davis

Jonathan E Davis

This Article fills a gap in the literature by examining in depth China’s state practice and official pronouncements in respect of nine post-Cold War cases typically cited by academics when considering the international legal status of humanitarian intervention. The majority of today’s commentary and scholarship holds that the People’s Republic of China’s position on sovereignty and intervention remains inflexible and absolutist, much as it was for the PRC’s first four decades. This Article contends that this view is outdated and overly simplistic: while China continues to champion a strong conception of state sovereignty in interstate relations, it has signaled a …

Investor-State Disputes: Prevention And Alternatives, Susan Franck

Susan D. Franck

No abstract provided.

Learning From The Global Trade Regime: A Proposal To Help Ameliorate Climate Change By Giving The International Court Of Justice Universal Advisory Jurisdiction, Andrew Strauss

Andrew L. Strauss

No abstract provided.

International Law And Sustainable Energy: A Portrait Of Failure, David Hodas

David R. Hodas

Despite energy’s critical role in achieving nearly sustainable development and in mitigating climate change goal, internationally, sustainable energy remains a homeless orphan. In May 2007, after years of preparatory work that was thought to have produced consensus on fundamental sustainable energy policies and principles, the Commission on Sustainable Development met at CSD-15 to adopt a concrete set of specific policies and actions to make the world’s energy system more sustainable and accessible to the world’s poor. Tragically, the CSD-15 not only failed to produce agreement on any new ideas, but the pre-existing consensus on basic principles dissolved. Internationally, not a …

Extraterritoriality And Cooperation, Andrew Guzman

Andrew T Guzman

No abstract provided.

The Many Functions Of International Legal Conceps, Ulf Linderfalk

Ulf Linderfalk

According to the ontological stance adopted in this essay, a concept is a mental representation. It is the generalized idea of an empirical or normative phenomenon or state of affairs or a class of such phenomena or state of affairs. This essay is concerned with a specific category of concepts typically referred to as “concepts of international or international law” or “international legal concepts.” International legal concepts figure prominently in the way international lawyers think and talk about international law. This raises questions about their possible function or functions. Arguably, international legal concepts would not be used on such a …

Boumediene V. Bush And Guantanamo, Cuba: Does The 'Empire Strike Back'?, Ernesto A. Hernandez-Lopez

Ernesto A. Hernandez

Commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush (2008) and the U.S. occupation of the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this Article argues that anomaly on the base heavily influences "War on Terror" detention jurisprudence. Anomaly is created by agreements between the U.S. and Cuba in 1903 and 1934. They affirm that the U.S. lacks sovereignty over Guantanamo but retains "complete jurisdiction and control" for an indefinite period; while Cuba has "ultimate sovereignty." Gerald Neuman labels this an "anomalous zone" with fundamental legal rules locally suspended. The base was chosen as a detention center because of …

The Global Politics Of Food: Introduction To The Theoretical Perspectives Cluster, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

The corporate-dominated, fossil-fuel dependent model of agricultural production has produced chronic undernourishment, an epidemic of obesity and diet-related diseases, and unprecedented ecological devastation. In May 2010, the Universidad Interamericana in Mexico City hosted an international conference on The Global Politics of Food: Sustainability and Subordination. Sponsored by Latina and Latino Critical Legal Theory, Inc. and by Seattle University School of Law, the conference took place under the auspices of the South-North Exchange on Theory, Culture and Law (SNX), a yearly gathering of scholars in the Americas that seeks to foster transnational, cross-disciplinary and inter-cultural dialogue on current issues in law, …

Climate Change, Food Security, And Agrobiodiversity: Toward A Just, Resilient, And Sustainable Food System, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

The global food system is in a state of profound crisis. Decades of misguided aid, trade and production policies have resulted in an unprecedented erosion of agrobiodiversity that renders the world’s food supply vulnerable to catastrophic crop failure in the event of drought, heavy rains, and outbreaks of pests and disease. Climate change threatens to wreak additional havoc on food production by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, depressing agricultural yields, reducing the productivity of the world’s fisheries, and placing pressure on scarce water resources. Furthermore, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are occurring at a …

Toward A Convention For The International Sale Of Real Property: Challenges, Commonalities, And Possibilities, Christopher K. Odinet

Christopher K. Odinet