International Law Commons^™

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied: Moving Forward With A New Crimes Against Humanity Treaty, Leila Nadya Sadat, Akila Radhakrishnan

Scholarship@WashULaw

Eleven years after the International Law Commission (ILC) began considering the topic of crimes against humanity, and nearly 80 years after the London Charter was negotiated in the ashes of World War II, will States finally begin negotiating a new crimes against humanity treaty next year? The answer is not yet clear, although an overwhelming majority of the States expressing themselves last week said “yes.” This essay is a snapshot of the current state of play and is based on our firsthand observation of the plenary debate as well as discussions with State delegates and members of civil society. Negotiations …

A Draft Treaty On Crimes Against Humanity Draws More Engagement From States, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

The world’s first treaty on crimes against humanity inched closer to reality as the U.N. General Assembly’s Sixth (Legal) Committee recently wrapped up the last of a series of “resumed sessions” before States decide this October whether to proceed to formal negotiations on the document. Significantly more States and regional groups intervened during the most recent session, held last month, than in 2023, and the number that support the draft increased. Representatives of civil society also were present in much higher numbers, issuing a “Joint Statement in Support of Progress toward a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty” from more than 400 …

The Geoeconomics Of Belt And Road Disputes: A Case Study On The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Mark Mclaughlin

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article argues that the dovetailing economic, geopolitical, and security interests that underpin the Belt and Road Initiative demands a dispute resolution mechanism that focuses on broader interests and legal rights. Using the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a case study, it identifies the conditions in which Chinese investors could have initiated an investment arbitration but did not. This can be explained by the rights-based orientation of investment treaties failing to reflect the interests of multi-project initiatives. Instead, alternative methods of home state intervention, such as state-funded political risk insurance, are used to protect investors. In other words, the political …

Introduction To The Symposium On Rabiat Akande, "An Imperial History Of Race-Religion In International Law", S. James Anaya, Adrien K. Wing

Publications

No abstract provided.

Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

The laws of war apply equally to all parties to a conflict; thus, a party that violates international law by launching a war is granted the same international humanitarian law rights as a party that is required to defend against the illegal war. This doctrine—known as the equal application doctrine—has been sharply critiqued, particularly by philosophers, who claim the doctrine to be morally indefensible. Lawyers and legal academics, by contrast, defend the equal application doctrine because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will sharply reduce states’ willingness to comply with the international humanitarian law system …

Belief In War, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Introductory Statement

Belief in war dominates our world. From Ukraine to Sudan to America’s ‘war on terror’, extraordinary resources are poured into militaries and arms races. The explanation for why belief in war has become prominent in foreign and security policy in Russia, the United States., China, NATO states and many other places is linked to the influence of Realist political theory. Pope St. John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris argued for honoring the alternatives to Realism – international law and institutions. It is time for an encyclical that responds directly to Realism and teaches belief in the authentic natural …

Xenophobia, The Global War On Terror, And Refugee Policy In The United States, Canada, And Western Europe, Chloe Lopez

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Xenophobia has oscillated in intensity in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe since the late eighteenth century. This pattern of fear of immigrants and refugees being harbingers of violence and criminal activity establishes itself throughout the modern history of the United States, Canada, and Western Europe despite much evidence to the contrary. In the twentieth century, the prevailing argument surrounding the creation of xenophobia centered around economics. This divergence from twenty-first century patterns can be attributed to the Global War on Terror increasing alienation of refugees and immigrants through mythmaking and the structural securitization of immigration in the United …

Green Colonialism: Sidelined While On The Front Lines, M. Alexander Pearl

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Fragmented Futures: Publication Choices And The Evolution Of International Legal Scholarship, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

How we produce and disseminate international legal scholarship affects can affect how international law itself develops. Fragmentation and siloing of international legal scholarship can diminish the coherence of international law as a shared social practice across national borders. It can also diminish the perceived salience of international law within the United States, contributing to U.S. propensities toward exceptionalism and isolationism. Non-traditional publication formats have equalizing and connecting functions, but there is still room for growth when it comes to aggregating scholarship across regional, linguistic, and disciplinary divides. Finding ways to do that will help international lawyers better accomplish the field’s …

Does Intellectual Property Promote Or Hinder Sustainability? The Case Of Upcycling, Irene Calboli, Siroos Tanner

Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter explores upcycling and its intricate legal and ethical challenges, addressing the challenges upcycling faces from an IP perspective and highlighting the defenses potentially available to justify the practice.

North American Energy In The Crossfire, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez, James W. Coleman

Faculty Scholarship

North America is the beating heart of global energy markets un-dergoing a terrible energy crisis that threatens to upend both the economy and global security. The clearest path out of this global crisis is increasing energy supplies from North America, which can restore energy security and drive a transition to cleaner energy sources. The U.S., Mexico, and Canada have abundant and varied resources to surmount this challenge but are in dire need of stronger cooperation across borders, and between private and public actors to achieve this goal. This Article shows how energy law changes in the U.S. and Mexico present …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, Mariana Pargendler

Seattle University Law Review

How do the corporate laws of Global South jurisdictions differ from their Global North counterparts? Prevailing stereotypes depict the corporate laws of developing countries as either antiquated or plagued by problems of enforcement and misfit despite formal convergence. This Article offers a different view by showing how Global South jurisdictions have pioneered heterodox stakeholder approaches in corporate law, such as the erosion of limited liability for purposes of stakeholder protection in Brazil and India, the adoption of mandatory corporate social responsibility in Indonesia and India, and the large-scale program of Black corporate ownership and empowerment in South Africa, among many …

Stakeholder Capitalism’S Greatest Challenge: Reshaping A Public Consensus To Govern A Global Economy, Leo E. Strine Jr., Michael Klain

Seattle University Law Review

The Berle XIV: Developing a 21st Century Corporate Governance Model Conference asks whether there is a viable 21st Century Stakeholder Governance model. In our conference keynote article, we argue that to answer that question yes requires restoring—to use Berle’s term—a “public consensus” throughout the global economy in favor of the balanced model of New Deal capitalism, within which corporations could operate in a way good for all their stakeholders and society, that Berle himself supported.

The world now faces problems caused in large part by the enormous international power of corporations and the institutional investors who dominate their governance. These …

Stakeholder Governance As Governance By Stakeholders, Brett Mcdonnell

Seattle University Law Review

Much debate within corporate governance today centers on the proper role of corporate stakeholders, such as employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, and local communities. Scholars and reformers advocate for greater attention to stakeholder interests under a variety of banners, including ESG, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder governance. So far, that advocacy focuses almost entirely on arguing for an expanded understanding of corporate purpose. It argues that corporate governance should be for various stakeholders, not shareholders alone.

This Article examines and approves of that broadened understanding of corporate purpose. However, it argues that we should understand stakeholder governance as extending well …

Stakeholder Governance On The Ground (And In The Sky), Stephen Johnson, Frank Partnoy

Seattle University Law Review

Professor Frank Partnoy: This is a marvelous gathering, and it is all due to Chuck O’Kelley and the special gentleness, openness, and creativity that he brings to this symposium. For more than a decade, he has been open to new and creative ways to discuss important issues surrounding business law and Adolf Berle’s legacy. We also are grateful to Dorothy Lund for co-organizing this gathering.

In introducing Stephen Johnson, I am reminded of a previous Berle, where Chuck allowed me some time to present the initial thoughts that led to my book, WAIT: The Art and Science of Delay. Part …

The Structure Of Corporate Law Revolutions, William Savitt

Seattle University Law Review

Since, call it 1970, corporate law has operated under a dominant conception of governance that identifies profit-maximization for stockholder benefit as the purpose of the corporation. Milton Friedman’s essay The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits, published in September of that year, provides a handy, if admittedly imprecise, marker for the coronation of the shareholder-primacy paradigm. In the decades that followed, corporate law scholars pursued an ever-narrowing research agenda with the purpose and effect of confirming the shareholder-primacy paradigm. Corporate jurisprudence followed a similar path, slowly at first and later accelerating, to discover in the precedents and …

A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

This Article describes the emergence of corporate law federalism across a long twentieth century. The period begins with New Jersey’s successful initiation of charter competition in 1888 and ends with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The federalism in question describes the interrelation of state and federal regulation of corporate internal affairs. This Article takes a positive approach, pursuing no normative bottom line. It makes six observations: (1) the federalism describes a division of subject matter, with internal affairs regulated by the states and securities issuance and trading regulated by the federal government; (2) the federalism is an …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In discussions of the federal securities laws, the SEC usually gets most of the attention. This makes some sense. After all, it is the agency charged with administrating the securities laws and regulating the industry as a whole. It makes the majority of the laws; it engages in enforcement actions; it reacts to crises; and it, or sometimes even its individual commissioners, intervene publicly in policy debates. Often overlooked in such discussion, however, is the role of the Supreme Court in shaping securities law, and a new book by Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson demonstrates why this is an oversight. …