Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

America, Defender Of Democratic Legitimacy?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

American exceptionalism - a belief that the United States has a unique mission to lead the world, but ought logically to be exempt from the rules it promotes - is at the root of much of the American academy's effort to rationalize the US government's increasing rejection of multilateralism as the cornerstone of modern public international law. Even American scholars who disagree fundamentally on the problems with multilateralism (Kenneth Anderson arguing that it favours anti-democratic intervention by unelected NGOs, Michael Reisman asserting that it privileges elitist state-based lawmaking in the face of more democratic non-state 'lawmaking' processes) can agree on …

Notions Of Equity In (International) Environmental Law: Inter-Generational Equity, Youk-Hyun Sung

LLM Theses and Essays

Equity has a long history. In the first chapter of this thesis, notions of equity in conventional international law will be discussed. It must be more helpful to understand equity based upon the history of the term since the issues relating to equity were raised in quite a few cases in the past. In the second chapter, by discussing environmental equity in the United States, the only remaining superpower and the largest economy in the world, the thesis tries to see the future of equity in international environmental law. Environmental equity issues in the United States are good sources for …

Population. Environment. And Development: The Changing Paradigm Of The 1990s, Sharmini Abbasi

LLM Theses and Essays

Among the vast web of challenges before us in the wake of the new millennium population growth is one of the most worrying aspects of human existence. The consequences of the world's rapid population growth on human well-being and on the environment have been the subject of intense controversy for many years and got even more accentuated as the 1990s progress. However, the framework of international environmental law and agreement has for long failed to consider adequately the clear linkages between rapid population growth and environmental degradation. Thus, the study attempts to discuss and analyze competing for international perspectives, theories, …

The Concept Of Compliance As A Function Of Competing Conceptions Of International Law, Benedict Kingsbury

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this article is to challenge the tendency in the existing literature to view "compliance" simply as "correspondence of behavior with legal rules." This tendency is intelligibly based in a theoretical view that law can properly be defined and understood as a body of rules and expresses a practical concern to get on with the important task of producing empirical studies of compliance. The logical corollary is that a reasonable degree of conformity between these rules and actual behavior is necessary to an efficacious legal system, so that recurrent and widespread non-conformity with rules would usually call into …

State Successions And Statelessness: The Emerging Right To An Effective Nationality Under International Law, Jeffrey L. Blackman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper surveys some of the recent developments in international law relating to nationality and state succession, and suggests a growing convergence among several legal principles-specifically the principle of effective nationality, the individual right to a nationality and the corresponding duty of states to prevent statelessness, and the norm of nondiscrimination. At some point this convergence of such diverse areas of law as nationality, diplomatic protection, and human rights will impose positive duties on successor states with respect to their inherited populations: namely the duty to secure effective nationality for persons affected by state succession.

Foreigners In Their Own Land: Cultural Land And Transnational Corporations---Emergent International Rights And Wrongs, Martin A. Geer

Scholarly Works

Unique and vital components of human culture and the environment are struggling for survival in the Amazon River basin. The rain forest of Amazonia is shared by indigenous peoples and an immensely diverse tropical flora and fauna. This unique culture and physical ecology, however, is threatened by transnational oil corporations which are irreparably devastating Amazonia and its native cultures through oil production activities.

The failure of public international law to address the post World War II emergence of transnational corporations (TNCs) as a major international force has been the subject of significant review by scholars and policy makers. TNCs, often …

Enforcement And The Evolution Of Cooperation, George W. Downs

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this article is to broadly characterize the political economy or institutionalist theory of enforcement and to present data that is at least a first step toward evaluating the managerial and transformationalist critiques. The first section will present a short, schematic summary of the role of enforcement as it is currently viewed in the "new institutions" or political economy literature in international relations. While doubtless familiar to many readers, this is an important point of departure. A notable portion of the debate about the role of enforcement continues to stem from differences in terminology and from the fact …

The Globalizing State: A Future-Oriented Perspective On The Public/Private Distinction, Federalism, And Democracy, Alfred C. Aman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Is International Law Fair?, Gerry J. Simpson

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Fairness in International Law and Institutions by Thomas M. Franck

The Kantian Theory Of International Law, Fernando R. Tesón

Scholarly Publications

This Article defends the view, first developed by Immanuel Kant, that international law and domestic justice are fundamentally connected.'

International Obligation And The Theory Of Hypothetical Consent, Fernando R. Tesón

Scholarly Publications

In this article I make three related arguments. First, I argue that the traditional approach to the problem of international obligation is incomplete and much too simplistic. Drawing in part on the ideas of Ronald Dworkin, I suggest that rather than a question of fidelity to international law, the foundational problem is the determination of international law. Second, I consider and reject two theories of international obligation: the theory based on the concept of interdependence and the theory of actual consent of states. Third, I suggest a theory of international obligation based on human rights. This theory is drawn from …

The International Law Of State Responsibility: Revolution Or Evolution?, Pierre-Marie Dupuy

Michigan Journal of International Law

After briefly summarizing the classical doctrine of state responsibility, Part One will discuss whether extending compensation to the harmful consequences of certain hazardous activities necessarily involves the recognition of a "liability for lawful conduct" without any link to traditional ideas of state responsibility. Part Two, starting again from responsibility for wrongful acts, will discuss whether raising a new category, the breach of an "essential obligation" or "international crimes," confers not only an obligation to make reparations, but a right, in both the victim state and the non-victim states, to sanction the responsible state.

The Public Policy Exception To The Recognition Of Foreign Judgments, Jonathan H. Pittman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note examines the public policy exception to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. The author first examines other grounds that a United States court can use to refuse to recognize a foreign judgment. An analysis of several cases construing the public policy exception follows. The author concludes with a suggested analysis for courts faced with the public policy exception.

Normative Surrender, Jerome B. Elkind

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is submitted, at the risk of being accused of idealism, that those who most conspicuously don the mantle of realism are also guilty of normative sloppiness, a form of sloppiness which deserves the name "normative surrender" because it concedes large areas of the law to the will and whim of States. This article will examine the phenomenon of normative surrender and provide some examples of it.

Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Passion is a cogently structured, compel Jingly argued and seductively enthralling masterpiece which, in years to come, will undoubtedly stand out as an inspirational source for many who seek social transformation. Unger's style, in this essay at least, is lucid and inviting. Substantively, Passion demonstrates not only the depth of his penetrating intellect but also his command of an array of' disciplines. Unger's polymathy is all the more impressive when we remember that ours is an era in which idiosyncratic specialization is the norm.

Two Ideas Of International Organization, John H. Barton

Michigan Law Review

Political theory has long sought a philosophical basis for such ideas as law, authority, and freedom - but usually within the context of the nationstate. Only rarely has political theory placed the nation-state in an international framework; and, when it has tried, it has often done poorly. Sometimes the political theory becomes purely altruistic and utopian; at other times it works to support the irresponsibility of individual governments and the breakup of international order.

International Law As Law In The United States, Louis Henkin

Michigan Law Review

"International law is part of our law." Justice Gray's much-quoted pronouncement in The Paquete Habana was neither new nor controversial when made in 1900, since he was merely restating what had been established principle for the fathers of American jurisprudence and for their British legal ancestors. And Gray's dictum remains unquestioned today. But, after more than two hundred years in our jurisprudence, the import of that principle is still uncertain and disputed. How did, and how does, international law become part of our law? What does it mean that international law is a part of our law? What is the …

Digest Of Important Canadian Cases Reported In 1972 In The Fields Of Public International Law And Conflict Of Laws, Jean-Gabriel Castel

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

A New Concept Of Consent And World Public Order, Stuart S. Malawer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

There have been, however, many instances under traditional international legal theory when a state's consent has not been required. Professor Brierly, in a trenchant critique, has stated that consent as the basic concept of obligation under customary international law has involved no more than the use of a legal fiction. Moreover, the traditional notion of consent in treaty law has stated that any form of coercion on the state does not invalidate a treaty; freely given consent is not required. Furthermore consent by new states to existing rules of customary international law has been implied regardless of any actual consent. …

The Neo-Positivist Concept Of International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

The question "Is international law really law?" has not proved troublesome, according to Hart, because "a trivial question about the meaning of words has been mistaken for a serious question about the nature of things." Hart defends international law in Bentham's terms as "sufficiently analogous" to municipal law. It is important to see in what way this analogy is viewed by Hart in order to determine whether the reasoning he offers is too high a price to pay for accepting a neo-positivist into the circle of those who hold that international law is really law.

Nullity And Avoidance In Public International Law: A Preliminary Survey And A Theoretical Orientation, Hans W. Baade

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Torts In English And American Conflict Of Laws: The Role Of The Forum, S. I. Shuman, S. Prevezer

Michigan Law Review

''Private international law owes its existence to the fact that there are in the world a number of separate territorial systems of law that differ greatly from each other in the rules by which they regulate the various legal relations arising in daily life." Where the systems are those of member states of a federal union, there should be less difference in their laws than where they are those of sovereign nations divided by strong cultural, social and political barriers. Interstate conflicts and international conflicts are likely to give rise to somewhat different considerations and rules, and it is surely …

"Appropriate And Just": Section 24 Of The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms And The Question Of Judicial Legitimacy, W A. Bogart

Dalhousie Law Journal

At the heart of procedural law lie questions concerning the role of courts in a liberal democratic state. What is the essence of their function? What is the proper relationship between the judiciary and other governmental institutions? What is the well-spring for values with which courts can make law? The questions are perennials and will be asked so long as there is interest in the workings and malfunctions of all aspects of government. Courts, like all institutions of government, are continually being assessed on their own terms and in relation to other branches. In Canada this examination has received a …

International Public Law, Charles S. Hyneman

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Nathan Isaacs, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Arthur H. Basye, Leonard D. White, Victor H. Lane, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

What does a judge do when he decides a case? It would be interesting to collect the answers ranging from those furnished by primitive systems of law in which the judge was supposed to consult the gods to the ultra-modern, rather profane system described to me recently by a retrospective judge: "I make up my mind which way the case ought to be decided, and then I see if I can't get some legal ground to make it stick." Perhaps the widespread impression is the curiously erroneous one lampooned by Gnaeus Flavius (Kantorowitz). The judge is supposed to sit at …

An Organic Conception Of The Treaty-Making Power Vs. State Rights As Applicable To The United States, Charles Sumner Clancy

Michigan Law Review

When we talk of the State, its rights or its structures, we are necessarily led to the inquiry, "What do we mean by the State?" Beginning with the proposition that the State is a composite formed of individuals whose lives are shaped by the life of the whole, it necessarily follows that a perfect understanding of any particular State would involve a knowledge of the characteristics of the members who compose it. This of course is obviously impossible, but the theory underlying States generally is founded upon general human characteristics. So we may take as a basis the great truth …