International Law Commons^™

The Unidroit Principles As Global Background Law, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

After twenty years of existence, it becomes apparent that the role actually played by the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC) is quite different from the one originally intended. This article first presents nine surprising findings concerning the actual use of the PICC, as it can be assessed on the basis of published opinions, legislation, and scholarship. It then uses these findings to suggest that the PICC should not be viewed as a code or even a non-state law. Instead, their nature is that of a Restatement of global general contract law, and their function is that of a …

The Arbitral Tribunal: Selection And Replacement Of Arbitrators, Chiara Giorgetti

Law Faculty Publications

The great majority of international investment arbitrations are decided by a three-member arbitral panel, where each party selects one arbitrator, and the presiding arbitrator is selected either by agreement of the parties, the party-appointed arbitrators, or, more often, by a neutral appointing authority. Their selection is not only a characteristic feature of international investment arbitration, but also one of the most important and delicate acts taken by the parties during the proceedings. Indeed, as frequent arbitrator Professor William W. Park noted, while “in real estate the three key elements are ‘location, location, location,’ . . . in arbitration the applicable …

A View From Australia’S Regional Partners: Recent Developments In New Zealand And Singapore, Elsabe Schoeman, Adeline Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

An Inference About Interference: A Surprising Application Of Existing International Law To Inhibit Anti-Satellite Weapons, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article presents a thesis that most readers will find surprising, in an effort to develop a novel, simultaneous solution to three urgent, complex problems related to outer space. The three problems are: a) the technical fact that debris in outer space (the accumulated orbital junk produced by decades of space activities) has grown to present a serious hazard to safe and effective exploration and exploitation of space; b) the strategic fact that many countries (notably the United States, China and Russia, but others, too) continue to demonstrate a misguided interest in pursuing anti-satellite weapons, which can jeopardize the security …

Nuclear Kellogg-Briand Pact: Proposing A Treaty For The Renunciation Of Nuclear Wars As An Instrument Of National Policy, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article performs three functions. First, it offers a revisionist interpretation of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, the much-maligned treaty through which the key powers of the era, led by the United States, undertook to “outlaw” war, renouncing it as a tool of national policy and committing themselves to resort exclusively to pacific means for the resolution of their international disputes. Because of Kellogg-Briand’s inability to prevent the outbreak of World War II, the treaty has been derided for decades as a futile, utopian illusion, but this article argues that it was, in fact, a tremendous success in altering states’ attitudes …

Introductory Remarks, James Anaya

Publications

These remarks were delivered at a Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights panel held on Wednesday, April 9, 2014.

Beyond One Voice, David H. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

The one-voice doctrine, a mainstay of U.S. foreign relations jurisprudence, maintains that in its external relations the United States must be able to speak with one voice. The doctrine has been used to answer critical questions about the foreign affairs powers of the President, Congress, the courts, and U.S. states. Notwithstanding its prominence, the one-voice doctrine has received relatively little sustained attention. This Article offers the first comprehensive assessment of the doctrine. The assessment proves fatal.

Despite broad use and value in certain contexts, the one-voice doctrine is fundamentally flawed. The doctrine not only is used to address divergent questions …

Book Review, Anna Spain

Publications

No abstract provided.

Overview Of Panel: Judges, Diplomats, And Peacebuilders: Evaluating International Dispute Resolution As A System, Anna Spain

Publications

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Peoples And The Jurisgenerative Moment In Human Rights, Kristen A. Carpenter, Angela R. Riley

Publications

As indigenous peoples have become actively engaged in the human rights movement around the world, the sphere of international law, once deployed as a tool of imperial power and conquest, has begun to change shape. Increasingly, international human rights law serves as a basis for indigenous peoples' claims against states and even influences indigenous groups' internal processes of decolonization and revitalization. Empowered by a growing body of human rights instruments, some as embryonic as the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), indigenous peoples are embracing a global "human rights culture" to articulate rights ranging from …

Copyright Crime And Punishment: The First Amendment's Proportionality Puzzle, Margot Kaminski

Publications

The United States is often considered to be the most speech-protective country in the world. Paradoxically, the features that have led to this reputation have created areas in which the United States is in fact less speech protective than other countries. The Supreme Court's increasing use of a categorical approach to the First Amendment has created a growing divide between the US. approach to reconciling copyright and free expression and the proportionality analysis adopted by most of the rest of the world.

In practice, the U.S. categorical approach to the First Amendment minimizes opportunities for judicial oversight of copyright. Consequently, …

A Side Of Justice Rarely Seen: Professional Perspectives Toward Youth Justice And Sentencing Procedures In The Exploratory Context Of Canada And Russia, Serge Lokshin M.A.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis contributes to the growing body of literature on comparative youth justice and policy. By analyzing dilemmas faced by youth in justice systems from the perspective of Canada and Russia, the study argues that professional outlooks have a considerable significance for understanding the legal system and its function, and play an important role in shaping judicial administration concerning juveniles. An investigation into professional perspectives on youth justice is used to formulate an understanding of the issues for young people within the legal systems of the respective regions, the sentencing procedures, and the social and procedural contentions facing youth on …

Unfriendly Unilateralism, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines a category of conduct that I call “unfriendly unilateralism.” One state deprives another of a benefit (unfriendly) and, in some cases, strays from its own obligations (noncompliant), outside any structured international process (unilateral). Such conduct troubles many international lawyers because it looks more like the nastiness of power politics than like the order and stability of law. Worse, states can abuse the conduct to undercut the law. Nevertheless, international law tolerates unfriendly unilateralism for enforcement. A victim state may use unfriendly unilateralism against a scofflaw in order to restore the legal arrangement that existed before the breach. …

Toward A Legal Theory On The Responsibility To Protect, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

The idea of the "responsibility to protect" has received enormous attention in recent years-so much attention that it now goes simply by R2P. R2P posits that, when a state fails to protect its population from mass atrocities, the broader international community should step in to help. The vision here is of outside states banding together and doing everything possible to protect the at-risk population. But for all the attention this vision receives, its effect on international law or on the ultimate goal of protecting people from atrocities is unclear. This Article critiques that vision and offers an alternative. The Article …

Finding Order In The Morass: The Three Real Justifications For Piercing The Corporate Veil, Jonathan Macey, Joshua Mitts

Faculty Scholarship

Few doctrines are more shrouded in mystery or litigated more often than piercing the corporate veil. We develop a new theoretical framework that posits that veil piercing is done to achieve three discrete public policy goals, each of which is consistent with economic efficiency: (1) achieving the purpose of an existing statute or regulation; (2) preventing shareholders from obtaining credit by misrepresentation; and (3) promoting the bankruptcy values of achieving the orderly, efficient resolution of a bankrupt's estate. We analyze the facts of veil-piercing cases to show how the outcomes are explained by our taxonomy. We demonstrate that a supposed …

A Reply To "Hollow Spaces", George A. Bermann, Jack J. Coe Jr., Christopher R. Drahozal, Catherine A. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

This short essay responds to Chip Brower's thoughtful and meticulous critique of Tentative Draft No. 2 of the Restatement Third of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration. While we appreciate the concerns he raises, we disagree with the conclusions he draws both about the Restatement and the drafting process. We address here what we understand to be Professor Brower's major criticisms of the work.

Egypt, Ethiopia, And The Nile: The Economics Of International Water Law, Daniel Abebe

Faculty Scholarship

As part of a Symposium on the book The Economic Foundations of International Law, this Article briefly compares and contrasts two distinct analytical approaches to international law — doctrinal versus economic — in the context of Egypt's and Ethiopia's dispute over the right to exploit the Nile River's water resources. The Article argues that the traditional doctrinal approach, one based solely on an examination of international water law, treaties, and customary international law is unlikely to result in a legal conclusion that either state is likely to respect because such an approach fails to consider the incentives, material capabilities, …

Law, Ethics, And The Responsibility To Protect, Michael W. Doyle

Faculty Scholarship

The events in Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012 have severely tested the balance between emerging global norms and the pushback they have generated, a contest between global and local, with outcomes as yet unclear.

Some established great powers, particularly Russia and China, suffered “buyer’s remorse” for the global principle of “responsibility to protect” peoples from massacres, when that responsibility was seen as authorizing regime change in countries such as Libya. This remorse occurred just a few short years after they and the entire rest of the United Nations member states unanimously endorsed the principle at the World Summit …

The Domestic And International Enforcement Of The Oecd Anti-Bribery Convention, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

International corruption law is a growing, if understudied, area of international economic law. This Article examines two aspects of governments' enforcement of the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention. The first aspect is the member state's efforts to enforce its own national legislation prohibiting foreign corruption within its territory and with regards to its nationals doing business abroad. The OECD Treaty's obligation concerning member states' enforcement of their own national legislation is somewhat ambiguous. While the obligation to pass particular national legislation is quite clear and specific, the treaty does not specify what resources that a state must dedicate to internally enforcing these …

Extraterritorial Financial Regulation: Why E.T. Can't Come Home, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay begins with a deliberately off-putting title: extraterritorial financial regulation. Old-time "conflict of laws" scholars would call this an oxymoron, pointing to recent Supreme Court decisions – most notably, Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd. and Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. – that have applied a strong presumption against extraterritoriality to curb the reach of U.S. law. Even those international law scholars who are sympathetic to the regulation of multinational financial institutions might prefer to avoid this term and talk instead of "global financial regulation" because they conceptualize international financial regulation as implemented through networks of cooperating multinational …

Faustian Perspective On Digitization: Making A Deal With The Devil, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Digitization of library material, archives and museum collections, arts organizations repositories is progressing rapidly, and opens up new possibilities of accessing, using and re-using the knowledge embodied in cultural heritage. By giving new purpose and function to works, it enhances the value of the public domain and enriches the public sphere. However, digitization also creates the conditions for the rise of new proprietary entitlements over cultural objects. Such ‘informational monopolies’ are often justified as necessary to recoup the high costs of digitization, or as the basis to provide additional sources of income for the cultural institutions. At the same time, …

Unasur: The Newest 'Global Player' Or Neo-Boliverian Fantasy?, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) presents the most recent vision for trade liberalization and political, economic, and social integration amongst South American countries. Unasur has set 2019 as the year by which it hopes to accomplish many of its goals, such as full regional integration and tariff elimination. But, as 2019 slowly approaches, it remains to be seen whether Unasur will in fact be able to reach these goals. While Unasur’s future is certainly compelling, before heralding Unasur as the long-awaited panacea for pure regional integration, important lessons can be drawn from previous attempts at and iterations of …

Opt-Out Process For Developing Countries, Meinhard Doelle

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Carbon Majors Funding Loss and Damage report by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Climate Justice Programme proposes an international funding mechanism for loss and damage that would be funded by private and state actors that contribute significantly to GHG emissions. This paper explores special rules for state owned companies from developing countries that would be required to contribute to the proposed funding mechanism.

Climate Geoengineering And Dispute Settlement Under Unclos And The Unfccc: Stormy Seas Ahead?, Meinhard Doelle

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper considers the potential for the UNCLOS and UNFCCC regimes to be faced with disputes at the intersection between the management of climate change and ocean governance. Using the example of geo-engineering, the chapter considers how tensions between climate mitigation and management and conservation goals are likely to be addressed under the two regimes. The paper explores the capacity of the existing dispute resolutions mechanisms under the two regimes to deal with these tensions, conflicts and overlap.

International Law And The Future Of Peace, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

These remarks, delivered at the April 4, 2013, luncheon of the American Society of International Law Women in International Law Interest Group, reflects on contributions of Jane Addams and other members of the early 20th C. peace movement as a means to explore law and practice related to the contemporary use of force and armed conflict.