International Law Commons^™

The Right Side Of The Coin: Focus On The Human Rights Of People, Not The Failure Of States, Brooke Ackerly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

US policy toward failed states should focus on strengthening civil society and social movements so that people are better able to hold their leaders accountable.

The language of “failed states” disassociates foreign policy from international dialogue about human rights. Instead, “failed states” is a contemporary sound bite that connotes a lack of sovereignty, suggesting that intervention would not violate national sovereignty because in a failed state, there is none. Of course, we could have a similar cynicism about the use of human rights concerns to justify invasion. Certainly, states have tried to choose when to reference international human rights norms …

Taking International Law At Its Word And Its Spirit: Re-Envisioning Responsibility To Protect As A Binding Principle Of International Law, Tessa R. Davis

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Crisis Of International Law, Joel P. Tractman

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Paul Timmermans On Invisible War: The United States And The Iraq Sanctions. By Joy Gordon. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 2010. 359 Pp., Paul Timmermans

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. By Joy Gordon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. 359 pp.

Anastasia Tataryn On The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, And The Freedom Of Movement. Edited By Nicholas Degenova And Nathalie Peutz. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2010. 520pp., Anastasia Tataryn

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Edited by Nicholas DeGenova and Nathalie Peutz. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2010. 520pp.

Humanitarian Intervention, The Responsibility To Protect, And Confused Legitimacy, Eric A. Heinze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? By James Pattison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 284 pp.

and

Humanitarian Intervention: An Introduction. By Aidan Hehir. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 303pp.

The Perils Of Walking Fast And Walking Far, Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When Haitian President René Préval early in January 2011 lambasted the international community for riding roughshod over his country’s sovereignty and his government, and called for greater Haitian ownership over the aid and recovery effort in his country, he highlighted a frustration which has been noted by so many other nations before: while international aid efforts are welcome and usually do provide critical relief to the targeted populations in the short term, they generally tend to undermine governments (and the faith of the people in their government) over the long term.

An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton

Michigan Journal of International Law

The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …

Earned Sovereignty: The Future Of Sovereignty-Based Conflict Resolution, Paul Williams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Bring Back Aristide, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

My friend Annie recently had her trip to Haiti postponed because of the political instability surrounding the November elections. Annie totes modest sums of cash, medicine, and clothing collected from sympathetic friends and has a resolute willingness to help. Together with the partner organizations she is working with, she is hiring Haitians to build an orphanage. Another colleague of mine, Tonya, traveled to the country very soon after the earthquake. She described her experience in The Nation, lamenting that the major US airlines, which had agreed to waive baggage fees for relief aid to Haiti, did not do so for …

Clarifying Cultural Property, Kristen A. Carpenter, Sonia K. Katyal, Angela R. Riley

Publications

Author Stephenie Meyer forever altered the cultural existence of Quileute Indians when she wrote them into her Twilight novels. Now a veritable global phenomenon complete with books, movies, and affiliated merchandise, the Twilight series depicts young, male members of the tribe as vampire-fighting werewolves who ferociously defend a peace and territorial treaty made with local bloodsuckers. In reality, the Quileute Tribe consists of approximately 700 Indians, many of whom live on a remote reservation in the Pacific Northwest, a tiny parcel of the once vast Quileute territory. Since Twilight's unprecedented international success, the Quileute have been overwhelmed with fans …

Human Rights For Hedgehogs?: Global Value Pluralism, International Law, And Some Reservations Of The Fox, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, a contribution to the Boston University Law Review’s symposium on Ronald Dworkin’s forthcoming book, Justice for Hedgehogs, critiques the manuscript’s account of international human rights on five grounds. First, it is vague: it fails to offer much if any guidance relative to many of the most difficult concrete issues that arise in the field of international human rights law and policy - precisely the circumstances in which international lawyers might benefit from the guidance that moral foundations supposedly promise. It is also troubling, and puzzling given Dworkin’s well-known commitment to the right-answer thesis, that his account of human …

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

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Question Of Sovereignty, Development, And Natural Resources: A New Standard For Binding Third Party Nonsignatory Governments To Arbitration, Jacob Stoehr

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bordering Capabilities Versus Borders: Implications For National Borders, Saskia Sassen

Michigan Journal of International Law

A core argument of this Essay is that the capability to make borderings has itself switched organizing logics: from institutionalizing the perimeter of a territory to multiplying transversal borderings cutting across that perimeter. This switch is partly linked to the types of scalar shifts in the operational space of a growing number of systems. To the more economic systems already mentioned above, let me add such diverse instances as the policing of the illegal drug trade, the war on terror, the judicial and political struggle to protect human rights, and the environmental effort to reorganize transnational economic sectors, including the …

From Pinochet To Rumsfeld: Universal Jurisdiction In Europe 1998-2008, Wolfgang Kaleck

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay provides a survey of more than fifty universal jurisdiction proceedings in European courts and illustrates that universal jurisdiction is no longer a seldom-used theoretical concept, but a widespread practice. However, it is a practice that faces a number legal and practical obstacles identified here. Similar difficulties are encountered in other mechanisms used to combat impunity, including territorial and personality jurisdiction, state accountability at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and civil litigation in the United States. The Essay then begins an evaluation of the last ten years of universal …

Public International Law And Its Territorial Imperative, Dino Kritsiotis

Michigan Journal of International Law

Territory, or the concept of territory, thus asserts itself throughout the discipline of public international law, and its influences can be felt either through direct means or discrete.

Universal Jurisdiction As An International "False Conflict" Of Laws, Anthony J. Colangelo

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay proposes a framework for analyzing the concept of universal jurisdiction and evaluating its exercise by States in the international legal system. In brief, the author argues that universal jurisdiction is unique among the bases of prescriptive jurisdiction in international law, and that its unique character gives rise to unique-and underappreciated- limiting principles. The main analytical device the author uses to make this argument is the notion of a "false conflict," which is borrowed from the private law field of conflict of laws, also known outside the United States as private international law. The author does not suggest that …

Reclaiming International Law From Extraterritoriality, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A fierce debate ensues among leading international law theorists that implicates the role of national courts in solving global challenges. On the one side are scholars who are critical of international law and its institutions. These scholars, often referred to as Sovereigntists, see international law as a threat to democratic sovereignty. On the other side are scholars who support international law as a key means of promoting human and environmental rights, as well as global peace and stability. These scholars are the 'new' Internationalists because they see non-traditional, non-state actors as appropriately enforcing international law at the sub-state level. The …

A Palestinian State, Jennifer A. Hileman-Tabios

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Should an independent, sovereign state of Palestine have the right to exist? The establishment of an independent Palestinian state is important because it could possibly end an extended period of violence with Israel, where civilian casualties have been high, and it could help to solidify a foundation of political tolerance and acceptance in the Middle East. Under the proposed two-state solution, an independent Palestinian state is possible. However, to determine if a Palestinian state is viable, it will be necessary to examine internal political struggles, economic resources, systems of communication, political systems and internal and external political policies. This qualitative …

States, Markets, And Gatekeepers: Public-Private Regulatory Regimes In An Era Of Economic Globalization, Christopher M. Bruner

Scholarly Works

This paper illuminates the spectrum of international economic regimes through discussion of an under-theorized regulatory structure in which traditional distinctions between state and market, public and private power, hard and soft law, and international and domestic policy realms, essentially collapse - the public-private gatekeeper.

Specifically, I examine striking similarities between global bond markets and e-commerce markets through comparison of entities regulating admission to them - the dominant credit rating agencies (Standard & Poor's and Moody's), and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Following anexamination of the development of these markets and the global regulatory power exercised by …

Liberia's Gemap: A New Wave In Development Intervention?, Edefe Ojomo

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

States, Markets, And Gatekeepers: Public-Private Regulatory Regimes In An Era Of Economic Globalization, Christopher M. Bruner

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article illuminates the spectrum of international economic regimes through discussion of an under-theorized regulatory structure in which traditional distinctions between State and market, public and private power, hard and soft law, and international and domestic policy realms, essentially collapse-the "public-private gatekeeper."

Beyond Sovereignty? The State After The Failure Of Sovereignty, Eric Engle

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

Sovereign state power, absolute and unlimited, were supposed to guarantee the lives and property of citizens. Instead, states became vectors for mass violence.

Condominum Arrangements In International Practice: Reviving An Abandoned Concept Of Boundary Dispute Resolution, Joel H. Samuels

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article attempts to revive the consideration of condominium as a possible solution to contemporary boundary disputes. Part I describes specific historic instances of condominia and derives relevant lessons from each instance. Part II notes that some critics of condominium have in fact confused condominium with other forms of joint dominion over territory. This Part proceeds, therefore, to distinguish condominium from these other arrangements. Next, Part III discusses how experiences with common property regimes over common resources (such as water supplies) might inform the contemporary use of condominium. Finally, informed by lessons articulated in Parts I through III, Part IV …

Indigenous Recognition In International Law: Theoretical Observations, Patrick Macklem

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay addresses this question in the context of the evolving status of indigenous peoples in international law. International instruments vest rights in indigenous peoples, and establish indigenous peoples as international legal actors to whom States and other international legal actors owe legal duties and obligations. These developments began between the First and Second World Wars, when the International Labour Organization (ILO) began to supervise indigenous working conditions in colonies. They continued after the Second World War with ILO Conventions No. 107 and 169, which vested rights in indigenous populations located in States that are a party to their terms. …

Who Is The "Sovereign" In Sovereign Debt?: Reinterpreting A Rule-Of-Law Framework From The Early Twentieth Century, Odette Lienau

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Combining legal interpretation with political science analysis, this Article highlights the competing "statist" and "popular" conceptions of sovereignty at stake in sovereign debt issues. It argues that these two dominant approaches do not exhaust the offerings of intellectual history and considers an alternative approach that emerged in the early twentieth century and may be of relevance again today. The Article contends that U.S. Chief Justice Taft's foundational 1923 "Tinoco" decision, which grounds the current approach to sovereign governmental recognition, has been misinterpreted to support a purely statist or absolutist conception of sovereignty. It argues that a proper interpretation presents an …

Public International Law And The Wto: A Reckoning Of Legal Positivism And Neoliberalism, S. G. Sreejith

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article proceeds in five parts. In part one, I review the scholarly skepticism as to how far international law is law in the "hard" sense and show that this skepticism has always permeated the discipline. In part two, I go on to examine what has prompted contemporary scholarship to credit the WTO with helping international law grow out of the "thin" normativity often attributed to it. The analysis suggests that certain features of legal positivism customarily associated with law in its strict sense, which were alleged to be lacking in international law, are found in the institutional apparatus of …

Litigating Canada-U.S. Transboundary Harm: International Lawmaking And The Threat Of Reciprocity, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Of Protection And Sovereignty: Applying The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Extraterritorially To Protect Embedded Software Outsourced To China , Carrie Greenplate

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.