International Law Commons^™

Introducing David Lefkowitz’S Philosophy And International Law, Andreas Follesdal, Steven R. Ratner

Reviews

David Lefkowitz’s new book Philosophy and International Law: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2020) comes at a critical time in the conversation between international law scholars and practitioners, on the one hand, and philosophers, whether legal, moral, or political, on the other. Until about fifteen years ago, philosophical inquiry related to the international legal order was generally limited to a few issues within political and moral philosophy, notably distributive justice and just war theory. Since that time, an expansion has taken place in two directions. First, political and moral philosophers are writing about other aspects of the global political …

Tasking The Leviathan: Right To Protest, Good Governance, And Implications For National Security And International Law, Olalekan Moyosore Lalude

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The right to good governance is a right inalienable to the democratic process. Content analysis was used as the data source for this paper. This study would attempt to resolve the questions on the intricate connection between the right to protest and the right to good governance in Nigeria and what this means for national security and international law. In this essay, it was argued that the international law space is shrinking for holding the democratic process accountable in sovereign states. The significance of the essay is to suggest a new direction for the engagement of international law mechanisms on …

Justice For Venezuela: The Human Rights Violations That Are Isolating An Entire Country, Andrea Matos

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

A Personal Journey Through The Rule Of Law In The South Pacific, W. K. Hastings

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Non-Patent Intellectual Property Barriers To Covid-19 Vaccines, Treatment And Containment, Sean Flynn, Erica Nkrumah, Luca Schirru

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

As the World Trade Organization considers a proposal to waive or otherwise address intellectual property barriers to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the attention given by scholars and policy makers has been focused on patents. The original proposals by South Africa and India, as well as the groundbreaking support of the United States, however, explicitly applied to all forms of intellectual property. This paper documents many instances where non-patent forms of intellectual property create barriers to the global scale up of access to vaccines, treatments, and the ability to contain the virus through social distancing. Addressing …

Deep In The Heart Of North America: Texas And The Future Of North American Energy Trade, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez, James W. Coleman

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Texas, the heart of North American energy markets, has recently emerged from history’s biggest oil boom, and is becoming the crossroads for an increasingly two-way trade in oil and gas. Texas and Mexico, in particular have much to gain from expanded energy trade. This report shows how energy law changes in the U.S. and Mexico present under-studied dangers to cross-border energy trade and will set an agenda for legal reform to enable mutually beneficial fuel and power trade.

Volume 2 (November 2021)

Graduate Legal Studies and International Programs Newsletter

A newsletter produced jointly by the Indiana University Maurer School of Law Office of Graduate Legal Studies and Office of International Programs.

A Roadmap For Foreign Official Immunity Cases In U.S. Courts, William S. Dodge, Chimène I. Keitner

Fordham Law Review

This Article provides a roadmap for cases involving foreign official immunity in U.S. courts. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Samantar v. Yousuf that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not govern the immunity of foreign officials. Since Samantar, dozens of decisions have addressed questions of foreign official immunity. Yet, U.S. courts often seem lost. They frequently fail to engage with the customary international law rules of foreign official immunity, instead reaching back to an outdated provision of the 1965 Restatement (Second) of Foreign Relations Law. Courts are divided on how much deference to give …

Advocates Say Isds Is Necessary Because Domestic Courts Are ‘Inadequate,’ But Claims And Decisions Don’T Reveal Systemic Failings, Maria Rocha, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Proponents of including investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in treaties, contracts, and even national laws argue that ISDS is necessary because domestic courts are “inadequate.” Without this mechanism, foreign investors would be dependent on domestic courts and administrative mechanisms, which, proponents claim, are often inefficient, slow, biased, corrupt, and lacking in international law expertise, especially in developing countries. As one insight to analyze the “inadequate courts” argument, CCSI has examined treaty-based ISDS cases in which investors complained of domestic court proceedings or decisions, including the specific complaints and the tribunals’ analysis of those claims.

Binational Reflections On Pathways To Groundwater Security In The Mexico-United States Borderlands, Rosario Sanchez, Jose Agustin Brena-Naranjo, Alfonso Rivera, Randall T. Hanson, Antonio Hernandez-Espriu, Rick J. Hogeboom, Anita Milman, Jude A. Benavides, Adrian Pedrozo-Acuna, Julio Cesar Soriano-Monzalvo, Sharon B. Megdal, Gabriel Eckstein, Laura Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

Shared groundwater resources between Mexico and the United States are facing unprecedented stressors. We reflect on how to improve water security for groundwater systems in the border region. Our reflection begins with the state of groundwater knowledge, and the challenges groundwater resources face from a physical, societal and institutional perspective. We conclude that the extent of ongoing cooperation frameworks, joint and remaining research efforts, from which alternative strategies can emerge, still need to be developed. The way forward offers a variety of cooperation models as the future offers rather complex, shared and multidisciplinary water challenges to the Mexico–US borderlands.

Limits Of The Rule Of Law: Negotiating Afghan "Traditional" Law In The International Civil Trials In The Czech Republic, Tomas Ledvinka, James M. Donovan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Drawing on ethnographic research of judicial cases in the Czech Republic which involve the law in migrants' countries of origin, this Article outlines how multiple strategies handle encounters with the legal-cultural differences of Afghanistan in order to neutralize what may be called the "alterity" of law. The Article suggests that far from being analytical tools, concepts such as "context," "culture," and "customary" are strategically used by courts to neutralize unsettling aspects of foreign Afghan legalities. Further, it applies Leopold Pospisil's ethnological concept of legal authority as a vehicle for reinterpreting the contextual differentiation of Afghan "traditional" law as an alternative …

A Tribe Divided: The Threat Of The Loss Of Tribal Autonomy And Culture Facing Transnational Tribes On The Northern And Southern Borders Of The United States, Jacob Moeller

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Indigenous peoples in the northern and southwestern regions of the United States face challenges to the preservation of their cultures, economies, governments, and family relations as a result of the international borders that have bisected their traditional lands. While there is a history of treatymaking and governmental policy attempting to address these issues, the lack of an effective solution and concrete. border policy for tribe members in these regions leaves them without recourse. Some scholars suggest universal US citizenship for tribe members, others suggest tribe-specific legislation, and some even suggest that the tribes pursue litigation against the United States to …

Breaking The Status Quo Of International Design Law: How The United States' Design Law Frustrates The Purpose Of The Hague Agreement, Nicholas P. Mack

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note explores how the United States' substantive law frustrates the purpose of an international procedural agreement. The Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs revolutionized the process of applying for industrial design protections on a global scale. The Hague Agreement's purpose is to support easily and efficiently acquired industrial design protections in contracting parties to the agreement by simplifying procedures for obtaining protection. The United States-a country without a coherent and dedicated industrial design law-joined this agreement with effect in 2015, allowing designers around the world to easily apply for industrial design protections in the United States. …

How To Make The Perfect Citizen? Lessons From China's Social Credit System, Liav Orgad, Wessel Reijers

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

"How to make the perfect citizen?" This has been one of the questions driving the construction of the Chinese Social Credit System: a technology-driven project that aims to assess, evaluate, and steer the behavior of Chinese citizens. After presenting social credit systems in China's public and private sectors (Part II), the Article provides normative standards to distinguish the Chinese system from comparable systems in liberal democracies (Part III). It then discusses the concept of civic virtue, as implemented by the Social Credit System, claiming that it creates a new form of governance, "cybernetic citizenship," which fundamentally changes the essence of …

"Authoritarian International Law" In Action? Tribal Politics In The Human Rights Council, Yu-Jie Chen

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The international human rights regime, a product of post- war liberalism, is increasingly falling under the shadow of authoritarian countries that try to influence the regime in favor of their illiberal agendas. This Article uses the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) as a prism to examine the changing dynamics among leading authoritarian and democratic actors as they contend to shape global human rights norms and institutions. This Article argues that China, the most resourceful authoritarian party-state, is engaging in what can be understood as tribal international politics, forming coalitions with authoritarian governments and developing countries that have different state …

The Status Of State And Nonstate Actors In Postwar Hostilities: Restoring The Rule Of Law To Us Targeted Killing Operations, Claire Finkelstein

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

With the killing of Iranian general Qassim Soleimani, the United States crossed a new frontier in the use of extrajudicial lethal operations outside of armed conflict. As a state actor, Soleimani once would have been entirely off-limits as a target outside the context of a formal armed conflict between the United States and Iran. The Trump administration's choice to conduct a one-off strike on a state military leader indicates that conflicts among state adversaries are increasingly fought using the hybridized tools of the war on terror. This Article will argue that the increasing use of such techniques and the perceived …

Love Hertz: Corporate Groups And Insolvency Forum Selection, John A. E. Pottow

Articles

The Hertz bankruptcy got a lot of attention, including for its bizarre equity trading. A less heralded but more significant legal aspect of that insolvency, however, was its complex interaction of cross-border insolvency proceedings.

This article discusses the “centripetal” and “centrifugal” forces in the Hertz case that counselled a U.S.-based centralized solution for an international enterprise comprising over 10,000 branches centripetally but also accommodated centrifugal European resistance to subject directors to the consequences of filing their entities in a foreign jurisdiction. This not uncommon constellation of incentives required not a COMI shift but what this article terms a jurisdiction shift …

Digital Services Tax Regulation And Wto Non-Discrimination Principle: Is The Deck Stacked?, Mutiara Elisabet, Yetty Komalasari Dewi

Indonesian Journal of International Law

A growing debate on the imposition of digital services tax emerged as one of the latest trade war battlegrounds. Indonesia and the European Union (EU) are among the countries that have taken unilateral actions to implement digital services tax. This paper examines (i) digital services tax regulation in Indonesia and the EU and (ii) whether the digital services tax regulation violates the non-discrimination principles of WTO according to the GATS. By comparing the statutory and practice of digital services tax in Indonesia and the EU, this work concludes that firstly, digital services tax in Indonesia is regulated by law, which …

The Role Of The Nype Inter-Club Agreement As A Modular Apportionment Mechanism For Cargo-Claims Across Multiple Jurisdictions, Tiurma Mangihut Pitta Allagan, M. Rizky Bayuputra

Indonesian Journal of International Law

The New York Produce Exchange Inter-Club Agreement (the 'ICA') is a staple maritime cargo claims provision incorporated into popular charter party forms, the NYPE46, ASBATIME, and NYPE15. It mechanically regulates cargo liability apportionment between charterers and shipowners mechanically for quick dispute resolution. This study aimed to examine the use and application of the ICA through a private international law lens to evaluate the ICA’s choice of law (being English law). ICA is an independent contract applicable to national legislation or any international convention, such as the Hague Rules, Hague-Visby Rules, and Hamburg Rules. It protects the commercial interests of shipowners …

Multinational Corporation’S Investments Made Through Its Subsidiary Under The Latest Generation Of Investment Treaties, Prita Amalia, M. Lazuardy Thariq Makmun

Indonesian Journal of International Law

Multinational Corporation (MNC) influence and contribution in the world’s economic development, particularly in the realm of international investment is vast and inevitable. The way MNC utilizes its subsidiaries however, has posed an issue for host States specifically in relation with the serial of ISDS claims which is faced by host States. Where the structure of MNC’s investment enables them to go ‘treaty-shopping’. It is understood that there is a causality between the broad definition of investment and investor contained in the older generation of BITs toward these series of claims. It is also more often than not, in the case …