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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Principle Of Fairness And States’ Duty To Obey International Law, David Lefkowitz
The Principle Of Fairness And States’ Duty To Obey International Law, David Lefkowitz
Philosophy Faculty Publications
Philosophers and political theorists have developed a number of different justifications for the duty to obey domestic law. The possibility of using one (or more) of these justifications to demonstrate that states have a duty to obey international law seems a natural starting point for an analysis of international political obligation. Amongst the accounts of the duty to obey domestic law, one that appears to have a great deal of intuitive appeal, and that has attracted a significant number of philosophical defenders, is the principle of fairness (or fair play). In this paper, I examine the possibility of using the …
The Power Of Definition: Brazil's Contribution To Universal Concepts Of Indigeneity, Jan Hoffman French
The Power Of Definition: Brazil's Contribution To Universal Concepts Of Indigeneity, Jan Hoffman French
Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications
This article builds on discussions about the potential benefits and difficulties with developing a universal definition of indigenous peoples. It explores the spaces made available for theorizing indigeneity by the lack of a definition in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007. Specifically, this article addresses the challenge presented by the diversity of groups claiming indigenous status in Brazil. To what extent do distinct cosmologies and languages that mark Amazonian Indians as unquestionably indigenous affect newly recognized tribes in the rest of Brazil who share none of the indicia of authenticity? This article theorizes …
The Sources Of International Law: Some Philosophical Reflections, David Lefkowitz
The Sources Of International Law: Some Philosophical Reflections, David Lefkowitz
Philosophy Faculty Publications
It seems only natural to begin the study of international law with a description of its sources. After all, whether as practitioner or scholar a person cannot begin to ask or answer questions about international law until he or she has some sense of what the law is. This requires in turn a basic grasp of the processes whereby international legal norms and regimes come to exist. Thus students of international law must engage immediately with some of the most basic questions in the philosophy of law: what is law, and what is a legal order or system.
These questions …
(Dis)Solving The Chronological Paradox In Customary International Law: A Hartian Approach, David Lefkowitz
(Dis)Solving The Chronological Paradox In Customary International Law: A Hartian Approach, David Lefkowitz
Philosophy Faculty Publications
As traditionally conceived, the creation of a new rule of customary international law requires that states believe the law to already require the conduct specified in the rule. Distinguishing the process whereby a customary rule comes to exist from the process whereby that customary rule becomes law dissolves this chronological paradox. Creation of a customary rule requires only that states come to believe that there exists a normative standard to which they ought to adhere, not that this standard is law. What makes the customary rule law is adherence by officials in the international legal system to a rule of …