First, I’d like to thank Professor Paust for his thoughtful response to my Article. He is one of only a handful of scholars who have written on this topic and I am grateful for his taking the time to respond. Our work surrounding the question of customary international law (CIL) in relation to the individual has taken us to very similar...
Christiana Ochoa’s article provides important insights into the relevance of various jurisprudential approaches to questions concerning the role of individuals and other nonstate actors in the international legal process. Her primary concern is whether individuals participate in the formation of customary international law. In sharp contrast to what she and too many others prefer to identify as a...
My friend Olympia Bekou at the University of Nottingham has asked me to post the following conference announcement:The International Criminal Court and the State 9th November 2007 The Human Rights Law Centre and Methods and Data Institute at the University of Nottingham announce a multi-disciplinary conference entitled 'The International Criminal Court and the State'. As one of the four partners to the...
First, I would like to thank Roger Alford and VJIL Editor-in-Chief Chris Ripple for the groundwork they’ve done to create this blogging opportunity. I’ve followed VJIL/Opinio Juris posts all week and have found them very informative. In my most recent article, The Individual and Customary International Law Formation, I propose opening a space for non-state actors, specifically individuals, in the...
I thank Roger for his thoughtful comments. Roger himself has written a seminal article in this area, Federal Courts, International Tribunals, and the Continuum of Deference, 43 Va. J. Int’l L. 675 (2003), and I’m grateful for his kind words about my work. Let me try to address his points. First, I agree that Medellin addresses a...
Mark’s excellent article provides a thoughtful analysis of Sanchez-Llamas and the significance of that case for the question of deference to decisions of international tribunals. There is much to commend about this article. I particularly like his analysis of the risks and rewards of the dualist approach and his forceful argument that dualism strikes the appropriate balance of...
I’m grateful to the folks at Opinio Juris and VJIL for this opportunity to introduce readers to my article and to Roger for offering to serve as commentator. My article discusses the Court’s decision last year in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon. Sanchez-Llamas addressed the precedential effect of ICJ judgments in domestic courts. (By contrast, Medellin v. Texas, which the Court...
As an initial matter, thanks to Professor Craik for his kind and well-thought out comments to our article. I should note that Neil has done some wonderful work on transnational environmental governance and the use of environmental impact assessments. Just as one example, his paper on deliberation and legitimacy in transnational environmental governance is excellent and well worth...
At the heart of Professors Hsu and Parrish’s excellent paper is the turn to transnationalism in environmental governance in North America. The authors point to both the potential increased demand for transnational litigation, due to the (political) unavailability of bi-lateral approaches, and the potential for increased supply of transnational solutions through the dismantling of jurisdictional and evidentiary barriers to...
Shi-Ling nicely describes the crux of our article, and the different perspectives that we brought to the project. Here – very briefly – I wanted to take a step beyond our paper and elaborate on my nervousness over using domestic laws, applied extraterritorially, to solve transboundary (or international) problems. What Shi-Ling accurately describes as my lament. I agree with...
The Canadian province of Ontario suing Americans over transboundary air pollution?! Are we serious? We are. A convergence of a political, legal, and scientific developments have made this hypothesized lawsuit possible – a lawsuit that would have seemed quite unlikely just a few years ago. Tobacco litigation in Canada signals the lowering of some jurisprudential hurdles, causation...
Now in its forty-eighth year of publication, the Virginia Journal of International Law is pleased to continue its participation in the scholarly debate of international legal issues through a new partnership with Opinio Juris. By continuing this conversation online, VJIL remains committed to staying at the center of a dynamic and interactive field of international legal scholarship. From transboundary environmental...
