This is a wild tale of self-execution (which, I'm fairly sure, is the first time anyone has used the adjective "wild" to describe the self-execution concept). For years, the Bush Administration sought to get the U.S. Congress to amend the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) to ease licensing restrictions on arms exports to two of the United States' closest allies -- the...
Duke Law is hosting the annual Duke-Harvard Foreign Relations Law Workshop tomorrow, and, as usual offers a stellar line-up. This year's topic is The Political Economy of Foreign Relations Law. For those interested in knowing more, here's the line-up. Session 1: War Powers Peter D. Feaver, Seven Provocations on Domestic Politics of Foreign Relations William G. Howell, Wartime Presidents Douglas L. Kriner, More than...
A few days ago, Roger (and others) discussed the possibility of legal challenges to Oklahoma's constitutional amendment prohibiting its judges from considering international and Sharia law. I have my own questions about the amendment under the Supremacy Clause beyond the more obvious arguments that Oklahoma Courts must apply treaties that fall within Article VI's ambit (putting aside for now debates over whether non-self-execution limits...
I was introduced to the U.S. Digests on International Law as a graduate student working on my first international law research paper (an exposition of nineteenth century international law arguments over the British Guiana/Venezuela boundary dispute, which, I might add, is still around). I found John Bassett Moore's 8-volume digest from 1906 magisterial in its compilation of key primary resources such as diplomatic notes,...
On behalf of my co-bloggers, I want to thank Professor Alvarez for his recent spate of posts as a guest-blogger. I hope we can persuade him to revisit us in a few months to tell us what he does with his winter break....
I'm delighted to introduce José Enrique Alvarez as our guest blogger for the next few days. Professor Alvarez is the Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at NYU Law School, and serves as a special adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on a pro bono basis. He is also a past President of the American Society...
I have long enjoyed my association with Opinio Juris. But what do you readers think of us? Here in the United States, the ABA Journal is once again compiling a list of what it considers to be the 100 "best" law blogs. Now, we can debate whether and how the ABA Journal is positioned to judge the "best" legal blogs. ...
I've got a new draft article on cyberthreats (you can download it at SSRN here). I'd planned to wait before blogging about it, but events have overtaken my plans since Orin Kerr and Dave Hoffman are already discussing my ideas over at Concurring Opinions. So, let me offer some responses to their questions here, and in the process explain (a) why some...
Bobby Chesney, Jack Goldsmith, and Ben Wittes have started a new blog, Lawfare: Hard National Security Choices. Here's how Ben Wittes describes it in the opening post: We mean to devote this blog to that nebulous zone in which actions taken or contemplated to protect the nation interact with the nation’s laws and legal institutions. We will, I am sure, construe...
I wanted to flag for interested readers an upcoming event at the British Institute of International & Comparative Law (BIICL). On September 10, BIICL will host its Fifteenth Investment Treaty Forum, with a focus on recent developments in international arbitration procedure. Topics will include disclosure of evidence, state privilege, transparency of hearings, and whether or not investment arbitration is (or should be) different from...
Justice Ginsburg has fired the latest salvo in the ongoing debate about the Court's use of foreign and international law sources in constitutional adjudication. On Friday, she gave a speech to the International Academy of Comparative Law at American University, entitled "A decent respect to the Opinions of [Human]kind": The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjudication. Not surprisingly given her...
OK, I'll admit up front that this is a relatively narrow topic. But I've written a chapter on the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to treaties from 1861 to 1900 (you can download it here). The project's initial appeal was participating in this great conference last year at Santa Clara on the history of the Supreme Court and International Law. Bill Dodge, Mike Ramsey...
