Law Commons^™

Triptych: Sectarian Disputes, International Law, And Transnational Tribunals In Drinan's "Can God And Caesar Coexist?", Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

Can international law be used to address conflicts that arise out of questions of the freedom of religion? Modern international law was born of conflicts of politics and religion. The Treaty of Westphalia, the seed from which grew today's systems of international law and international relations, attempted to set out rules to end decades of religious strife and war across the European continent. The treaty replaced empires and feudal holdings with a system of sovereign states. But this was within a relatively narrow and historically interconnected community: Protestants and Catholics, yes, but Christians all. Europe was Christendom.

To what extent …

An International Train Wreck Caused In Part By A Defective Whistle: When The Extraterritorial Application Of Sox Conflicts With Foreign Laws, Ian L. Schaffer

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Treaty Obligations And National Law: Emerging Conflicts In International Arbitration, William W. Park, Alexander A. Yanos

Faculty Scholarship

In determining the effect of treaties, the adage pacta sunt servanda ("agreements are to be kept") remains a foundation of international law? By contrast, when American courts consider international conventions, the principle barely rises to the rank of analytic starting point.

The Legal Limits Of Universal Jurisdiction, Anthony J. Colangelo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Despite all the attention it receives from both its supporters and critics, universal jurisdiction remains one of the more confused doctrines of international law. Indeed, while commentary has focused largely and unevenly on policy and normative arguments either favoring or undercutting the desirability of its exercise, a straightforward legal analysis breaking down critical aspects of this extraordinary form of jurisdiction remains conspicuously missing. Yet universal jurisdiction's increased practice by states calls out for such a clear descriptive understanding. This Essay engages this under-treated area. It offers to explicate a basic, but overlooked, feature of the law of universal jurisdiction: If …

The Limits Of Intervention—Humanitarian Or Otherwise, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism by David Kennedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 400 pp.

and

At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention by David Rieff. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. 288 pp.

Beyond Power Politics: International Law And Human Rights Discourse In The Post-9/11 World, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law by Antony Anghie. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 356 pp.

Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed To International Human Rights Law, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reinterpreting Torture: Presidential Signing Statements And The Circumvention Of U.S. And International Law, Erin Louise Palmer

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Competition Law And Policy In Flux: The Developing Country Experience Symposium On Competition Law And Policy In Developing Countries: Introduction , David Van Zandt

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This issue sheds light on the meaningful themes which are the driving forces in the global sphere of competition law and policy. It is also pertinent to note that the timing of this symposium is unique and coincides with the annual conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) to be held in South Africa in May 2006. The ICN is the only international body devoted exclusively to competition law enforcement and it consists of some ninety-four competition authorities from eighty-three countries. It has also become the premier international discussion forum on competition issues. With great pride, I invite you to …

Competition Policy In Developing Economies: The Case Of Brazil Symposium On Competition Law And Policy In Developing Countries , Gesner Oliveira, Thomas Fujiwara

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The objective of this article is to discuss the implementation of competition policy in Brazil through a historical perspective. In contrast with the experience of various OECD countries, including the United States in particular, competition policy in Brazil has only recently become relevant. However, its increasing prevalence has not been preceded by the development of a competition culture and institutions. This fact has several implications for policy making. Best practices in the OECD countries cannot be automatically imported without due attention to the peculiarities of a developing economy. This paper is divided into five sections. Section II describes the different …

A Comparative Analysis Of Shareholder Protections In Italy And The United States: Parmalat As A Case Study, Lorenzo Segato

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The goal of this article is to compare the protections offered to minority shareholders by the Italian system of corporate law with those offered by the U.S. legal system of corporate and securities law in order to determine if Parmalat's minority shareholders would have been better off had Parmalat been an American company listed in the U.S. financial market. This analysis will reveal several weaknesses in Italian corporate and securities laws, thereby providing a basis for suggestions on how to improve minority shareholders' rights in Italy based on the U.S. experience. Section II of this paper provides an overview of …

Taiwan's Wto Membership And Its International Implications, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In contrast to other international organizations, the World Trade Organization does not require its members to be states. This constitutional feature has allowed Taiwan to join the WTO alongside China. As a result, the WTO is now the only major international organization in which Taiwan can participate as a full member. This article explores some implications of this unique situation for Taiwan, for the WTO, and for international law. The article contends that Taiwan's membership in the WTO is not itself a bilateral treaty with China and does not itself change the legal relationship between Taiwan and China. What Taiwan's …

He Knew Why He Was Here, D. D. Welch

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Hal was passionate about his Transnational Legal Studies Program. He was brought to Vanderbilt in 1965 to build an international law program from scratch. In these days of globalization, it is difficult to remember how innovative his work was. In his first year, there were three international law courses at the Law School, all taught by him. There was a testy difference of opinion on campus about whether international law materials should be housed in the Law Library or remain in the University's Central Library...and there were not many materials in that collection. When Maier was named Director of the …

Doctrines Without Borders: Territorial Jurisdiction And The Force Of International Law In The Wake Of Rasul V. Bush, Brennan T. Brooks

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States responded with military action aimed at eradicating terrorist networks around the world. The action in Afghanistan resulted in several hundred captured enemy combatants being sent to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Because the base is not within the territory of the United States, the Bush administration took the position that the detainees could be held indefinitely without review in civilian courts. In a surprising move, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the detainees did have a right to petition civilian courts for habeas corpus review. Thus, the …

Criminal Defamation And The Evolution Of The Doctrine Of Freedom Of Expression In International Law, Jo M. Pasqualucci

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Restrictions on freedom of expression may take direct and indirect forms. A state may censor speech, criminalize defamation, harass the media or individual journalists, fail to investigate crimes against the media , require the compulsory licensing of journalists, or fail to enact freedom of information laws or laws that prohibit monopoly ownership of the media. A victim of a restriction on freedom of expression that violates international law may have no recourse in domestic courts, either because state law offers no remedy or because judges are too intimidated to enforce the laws as written. In such instances, victims need recourse …

Linking The International Legal Framework To Building The Formal Foundations Of A "State At Risk", Michael Schoiswohl

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article describes and critically assesses the recent constitution-making process in Afghanistan in relation to the international legal framework. The Article provides an account of that process within the larger context of the state-building efforts as envisioned in the 2001 Bonn Agreement. Focusing on the interaction between national state-building and international normative benchmarks, the Article evaluates the extent to which the recently adopted Constitution links to the international legal framework. While paying lip service to the adherence of international law, including international human rights law, the Constitution does not adequately address the relationship between international legal obligations and municipal law. …

Universal Jurisdiction And The Pirate: Time For An Old Couple To Part, Joshua M. Goodwin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

For hundreds of years, the world has allowed any nation-state to exercise universal jurisdiction over high seas piracy. This has been recently codified by the United Nations in the Convention on the Law of the Seas. It has been almost universally assumed that allowing states to do this was legitimate. As this Note will argue, however, the reasons for allowing states to exercise jurisdiction in this way no longer make sense in the modern world. Further, allowing states to exercise universal jurisdiction over pirates violates the due process rights of the pirates and poses a threat to international stability. To …

Harold Maier, Comity, And The Foreign Relations Restatement, Andreas F. Lowenfeld

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Hal Maier's career and mine have interacted in several respects. We have both served in the Legal Adviser's Office of the State Department; we have both taught Conflict of Laws as well as International Law; and we have both tried to show--I believe successfully--that there is no sharp divide between "Public International Law" and "Private International Law." In particular, we have both been interested in the reach and limits of economic regulation across international frontiers, initially in connection with antitrust and securities regulation, but also in connection with economic sanctions, pollution controls, and other interactions of governmental and private activity. …

In Honor Of Professor Harold G. Maier, David P. Stewart

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Among his many other significant accomplishments and career achievements, Professor Maier can count a singular experience which few in the field of international law are privileged to enjoy-that of spending a year as the Counselor on International Law at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.

The Counselor occupies a senior position within the Office of the Legal Adviser. Organizationally, the incumbent reports to and works directly with the Legal Adviser and his Deputies in advising the Secretary of State and other senior officials on whatever fast-moving issues might occupy the foreign policy attention of the government at a …

Harold G. Maier: A World Class Fellow Indeed, Paul M. Kurtz

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Hal Maier has played many roles in my life: he has been my teacher, my boss, my advisor, my colleague, and most and best of all, my friend. In all those roles, he has exhibited enthusiasm, patience, tact, and brilliance. Not at all a bad combination, I would say.

Come with me back to his classroom, circa 1970-1971. The subject is Conflict of Laws (which was required back then) or Law of the European Economic Community (which one with no interest in international law only took because of the masterful teacher). Clad in white shirt and oh-so-narrow tie which he …

Transnational Litigation: Is There A "Field"? A Tribute To Hal Maier, Linda Silberman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

I was pleased to be asked to offer a few words in honor of my friend, Professor Hal Maier, on the occasion of his retirement from Vanderbilt University Law School. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Hal, not only because he has been a wonderful friend and colleague over the years, but also because he sparked my interest in a field to which I had only recently turned when we first met and one that now absorbs much of my time and attention. The "field"--if it can be characterized as such--is "international litigation" or "transnational litigation," and that …

Finding The Winning Combination: How Blending Organ Procurement Systems Used Internationally Can Reduce The Organ Shortage, Sarah E. Statz

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The shortage in transplantable organs worldwide not only leads to unnecessary death, but also to grave human rights abuses through illegal methods of procuring organs. The shortage leads some desperate to find an organ through any possible means, including purchasing an organ on the black market. The system for procuring organs in the United States is based on altruism, where potential donors have to opt in to the system in order for their organs to be donated. This creates issues at the time of death for medical professionals or the next of kin to decide whether their patient or loved …

Poor Children: Child Witches And Child Soldiers In Sub-Saharan Africa, Naomi R. Cahn

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper, written for a symposium on The Mind of a Child, examines two different aspects of the accountability of children: those children who are thrown away by their families because they are sorcerers, and those children who become soldiers and, through their involvement in armed conflict, inflict violence and death on others, including children. Like all other children, both sets of children are especially vulnerable because of their developmental (im)maturity. Indeed, as policy-makers struggle to develop strategies for responding to the needs of these children, the new neuroscientific literature provides yet another basis for arguing that children must be …

Gendered Subjects Of Transitional Justice, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

Transitional societies must contend with a range of complex challenges as they seek to come to terms with and move beyond an immediate past saturated with mass murder, rape, torture, exploitation, disappearance, displacement, starvation, and all other manner of human suffering. Questions of justice figure prominently in these transitional moments, and they do so in a dual fashion that is at once backward and forward looking. Successor governments must think creatively about building institutions that bring justice to the past, while at the same time demonstrate a commitment that justice will form a bedrock of governance in the present and …

Remarks By An Idealist On The Realism Of 'The Limits Of International Law', Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This paper is a response to Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner, 'The Limits of International Law' (Oxford 2005), part of a symposium on the book held at the University of Georgia Law School in October 2005. The review views 'The Limits of International Law' sympathetically, and focuses on the intersection between traditional and new methodologies of international law scholarship, on the one hand, and the substantive political commitments that differing international law scholars hold, on the other. The paper notes that some in the symposium claim that the problem with 'The Limits of International Law' is that it …

Constitutions As "Living Trees"? Comparative Constitutional Law And Interpretive Metaphors, Vicki C. Jackson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I below explores the interpretive approaches of three other high national courts that have engaged in constitutional review over a long period of time, identifying two respects in which they may bear on this debate. First, their jurisprudence relies on interpretive approaches that depend on multiple sources and forms of argument-what some call an "eclectic" method, and others might call common law constitutionalism. Second, the jurisprudence of other significant national courts acknowledges the possibility that interpretive understandings will change. Indeed, in those countries with continuity of rights-protecting constitutional regimes and with high courts vested with the power of judicial …

Introduction: One Hundred Years Of International Law At Fordham University, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the past 100 years, the connotations of the term "international" have changed dramatically. The ideas we have of concepts such as "international communication" and "global travel" are dramatically different from what those concepts would have meant to our forebears - if they had even thought in such terms. But an international perspective is not new at Fordham Law School. The idea of the interconnectedness of our social and legal systems with those of other Nations is one of the foundational values of our school, and it has shaped our history since we opened our doors 100 years ago.

From …

Sosa, Customary International Law, And The Continuing Relevance Of Erie, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith, David H. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

Ten years ago, the conventional wisdom among international law academics was that customary international law (CIL) had the status of self-executing federal common law to be applied by courts without any need for political branch authorization. This "modern position" came under attack by so-called "revisionist" critics who argued that CIL had the status of federal common law only in the relatively rare situations in which the Constitution or political branches authorized courts to treat it as such. Modern position proponents are now claiming that the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain confirms that CIL has the status of …

Case Comment, Sanchez-Llamas V. Oregon, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Enforcing The Avena Decision In U.S. Courts, Curtis A. Bradley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.