Law Commons^™

Constitutionalization Of Nongovernmental Certification Programs, Jaye Ellis

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Certification programs created by nonstate actors such as the Forest Stewardship Council and Marine Stewardship Council are innovative and potentially highly effective governance initiatives. This article works from the premise that these Councils can be understood as political authorities promulgating law. These Councils, and other actors like them, are generally analyzed from the point of view of governance, which triggers questions about their effectiveness and legitimacy. The approach adopted here shifts the focus to questions of their authority and the validity of the rules, standards, and decision-making processes that they have put in place. The Councils have put in motion …

Interpretation Catalysts And Executive Branch Legal Decisionmaking, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

Recent years have seen much speculation over executive branch legal interpretation and internal decisionmaking, particularly in matters of national security and international law. Debate persists over how and why the executive arrives at particular understandings of its legal constraints, the extent to which the positions taken by one presidential administration may bind the next, and, indeed, the extent to which the President is constrained by law at all. Current scholarship focuses on rational, political, and structural arguments to explain executive actions and legal positioning, but it has yet to take account of the diverse ways in which legal questions arise …

Wrongful Death And Survival Actions For Torts In Violation Of International Law, Alastair J. Agcaoili

San Diego Law Review

This Article aims to make sense of this neglected area of ATS law. I contend that the salient issue in these deceased-victim cases is not whether the nonvictim plaintiffs have standing to sue but rather whether they have a viable cause of action in the first place. Standing and cause of action concepts have an uneasy relationship in law. Although the distinction between constitutional standing and cause of action inquiries is well established, the division is less clear where, as here, standing doctrine is used to define a plaintiff’s eligibility to bring suit. Indeed, reliance on standing terminology in this …

Toward An International Standard Of Environment, George P. Smith Ii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act: The Roadblocks To Recovery, Sivonnia L. Hunt

Seventh Circuit Review

This Article focuses on the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's (FSIA) state-sponsored terrorism exception and roadblocks created by judicial rulings in this area. Through litigation, courts expanded the FSIA beyond Congress' intent to allow injured U.S. citizens to bring state law claims in federal court for damages resulting from a terrorist action supported by a foreign state. However, other courts took a restrictive approach, barring these claims. This shift led Congress to revise the FSIA to carry out its true intent.

There are three parts to this Article. Part I introduces the FSIA and its original exception for state-sponsored terrorism. It …

The Laws Of Spaceflight: A Guidebook For New Space Lawyers, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of The Human Rights Culture: A Study In History And Context, By Lawrence M. Friedman, Monica Pinto

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion: International, National, And Local Perspectives On Civil Right To Counsel, Andrew Scherer, Martha F. Davis, Debra Gardner, Rosie Mendez, Juanita B. Newton, Adriene Holder, Laura K. Abel

Touro Law Review

The following is based on a transcript of a panel discussion which took place at An Obvious Truth: Creating an Action Blueprint for a Civil Right to Counsel in New York State, held at Touro Law Center, Central Islip, New York, in March, 2008.

International Center For Law And Religion Studies, Cole Durham

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Last year, Professor Cole Durham received a grant in the amount of $20,000 to help offset the cost of mentoring and training selected law students following their first year of law school. These funds were received and accounted for by the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at BYU (the “Center”) of which Professor Durham is the Director. This grant was to assist law students who perform the following functions:

Due Process; A Detached Judge; And Enemy Combatants, Julian Mann Iii

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

In the landmark administrative law decision of Goldberg v. Kelly, Justice Brennan stated that an “impartial decision maker is essential” to procedural due process. As a corollary, in the more recent decision of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Justice O'Connor stated that “due process requires a neutral and a detached judge in the first instance.” Thus, the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution require that the essential element of neutrality remain an integral part of any administrative hearing. There can be no departure from this fundamental guarantee of constitutional due process for the administrative hearings …

The Word Commons And Foreign Laws, Thomas O. Main

Cornell International Law Journal

Dual trends are colliding in U.S. courts. The first trend is a tidal wave of cases requiring courts to engage the domestic laws of foreign legal systems; globalization is the principal driver of this escalation. The second trend is a profound and ever-increasing skepticism of our ability to understand foreign law; the literature of pluralism and postmodernism has illuminated the uniquely local, language-dependent, and culturally embedded nature of law. Courts cope with this dissonance by finding some way to avoid the application of foreign law. However, these outcomes are problematic because parties are denied access to court or have their …

The Future Of Ad Hoc Tribunals: An Assessment Of Their Utility Post-Icc, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Over the past two decades, various mechanisms of international and regional justice have developed. The proliferation of international courts, hybrid tribunals, domestic war crimes chambers, truth commissions, civil compensation commissions, and other tools of accountability has sparked an academic debate over the usefulness of any such mechanism for redressing past violations of international law. This Article briefly discusses some of the best-known mechanisms of international, national, and "hybrid" justice, and assesses their role in light of the creation and existence of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the only permanent tribunal in international criminal law. Does international justice have a place …

International Law’S Erie Moment, Harlan G. Cohen

Scholarly Works

Who fills international law’s gaps? Whether over the meaning of bilateral investment treaties, the standards regarding detainee transfer, or the rules of non-international armed conflict, courts and states are increasingly in conflict over the authority to say what the law is. With international law’s increased judicialization, two competing visions of international law have emerged: One, a gap-filled international law, in which law is developed slowly through custom, argument, and negotiation, and a second, gap-less, in which disputes are resolved through a form of common law adjudication.

Drawing on growing literature on the law outside of courts, particularly out-of-court settlements, the …

Book Review: "Die Gemeinfreiheit: Begriff, Funktion, Dogmatik (The Public Domain: Concept, Function, Dogmatics)" By Alexander Peukert, Marketa Trimble

Scholarly Works

The reviewer considers a recent book by Alexander Peukert, the professor of civil and commercial law who specializes in international intellectual property law at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Peukert has devoted the book to defining the limits of the public domain – the realm of intellectual activity in which works are free for anyone to use because the works are not protected by intellectual property rights, are protected but the protection has expired, are subject to an exception to the rights under the law, or are unprotected because the owner of the rights chooses not to enforce …

Corresponding Evolution: International Law And The Emergence Of Cyber Warfare, Bradley Raboin

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Is There A Stare Decisis Doctrine In The Court Of Arbitration For Sport? An Analysis Of Published Awards For Anti-Doping Disputes In Track And Field, Annie Bersagel

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article presents information on the doctrine of the stare decisis under the court of arbitration for sport with respect to the awards and arbitration for the disputes on anti-doping in the sport of track and field. The jurisdiction of the commercial and the disciplinary disputes of the Olympic Games are exercised by the court of arbitration for sport. Information on the role of the doctrine of the civil law is also presented.

The United States Government As Defendant - One Example Of The Need For A Uniform Liability Regime To Govern Outer Space And Space-Related Activities, Joseph A. Bosco

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Friendship, Commerce, And Navigation Treaties: An Analysis Of The Foreign Corporation's Exemption From United States Labor Standards , Gregory S. Lane

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments In Third-Party Funding, Victoria Shannon

Scholarly Articles

This article addresses recent developments in third-party funding that occurred during late 2012 and early 2013 in the three leading jurisdictions: Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The most important developments are the following. On 22 April 2013, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) issued regulatory guidelines clarifying the status of funders with respect to ASIC’s regulations and detailing how funders should manage conflicts of interest and handle certain provisions of their funding arrangements. In the United Kingdom, the Jackson Reforms took effect on 1 April 2013, bringing sweeping changes to the allowable fee agreements, discovery rules …

The Extradition Treaty Between Jamaica And The United States: Its History And The Saga Of Christopher "Dudus" Coke", Kenneth L. Lewis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Natural Law As Part Of International Law: The Case Of The Armenian Genocide, Fernando R. Tesón

Scholarly Publications

In this Article I argue that some norms are part of international law even if they have never been created by treaty or custom. Because such norms have never been posited, they are natural law norms, and my thesis is that these natural law norms are as much part of international law as the posited norms. By this I mean that these norms should figure in any catalog of what international law prescribes or permits.

The Effect Of Leaked Information On The Rules Of International Law, William Thomas Worster

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Symposium: The Impact Of The Arab Spring Throughout The Middle East & Northern Africa: Building The Rule Of The Law And The Role Of The International Community In Domestic Conflicts., Marianna L. Boyd

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gimme Shelter: Does The United States Violate International Law By Offering Protection To Chen Guangcheng At The American Embassy In Beijing?, Barbara Lindy Stone

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Investing And Markets-Based Transnational Rule Of Law Building: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund In Global Markets, Larry Catá Backer

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Obligations Concerning Indigenous Peoples' Rights To Their Ancestral Lands: Lex Imperfecta?, Jernej Letnar Cernic

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Globalization And Law: Law Beyond The State, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter provides an introduction into law and globalization for sociolegal studies. Instead of treating globalization as an external factor that impacts the law, globalization and law are here viewed as intertwined. I suggest that three types of globalization should be distinguished—globalization as empirical phenomenon, globalization as theory, and globalization as ideology. I go on to discuss one central theme of globalization, namely in what way society, and therefore law, move beyond the state. This is done along the three classical elements of the state—territory, population/citizenship, and government. The role of all of these elements is shifting, suggesting we need …

Global Warming Heats Up The American-Canadian Relationship: Resolving The Status Of The Northwest Passage Under International Law, William Y. Kim

Canada-United States Law Journal

No abstract provided.

International Law For American Courts: Why The “American Laws For American Courts” Movement Is A Violation Of The United States Constitution And Universal Human Rights, Maria Surdokas

University of Baltimore Journal of International Law

In recent years, the “American Laws for American Courts” movement has swept across the country in an attempt to ban international law from U.S. state courts. This article specifically examines the Oklahoma Save Our State Amendment and the Arizona Foreign Decisions Act. In doing so, it addresses both the constitutional and policy problems with these attempts, observing that what the states have been trying to do is neither legal nor practical. It analyzes the inability of individual states to unilaterally avoid compliance with the United States’ international law obligations. It notes the absurdity in outlawing international law in order to …

Comments: At The Intersection Of National Interests And International Law: Why American Interests Should Assume The Right Of Way, Clark Smith

University of Baltimore Journal of International Law

Following the interwar period and disastrous results of an isolationist foreign policy, the United States changed course coming out of the Second World War. Assuming the global leadership role, the U.S. led the international effort to design and build the international institutions and organizations that would ensure and manage the global recovery from the war that ravaged the world’s economy, deter future wars by providing checks on and a balance of power, and that would ensure, to some degree, international systems based on rule of law. Pursuit of U.S. interests should, when possible, be carried out within that international legal …