[Mark Weisburd is the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at UNC School of Law]
Professor Curtis Bradley's
International Law in the U.S. Legal System is an important contribution to the discussion of a topic of considerable significance. Thorough in its coverage but accessible to readers with little familiarity with the subject, it is at once an excellent introduction (for someone with a legal background) to the issues it addresses and a useful compilation for those with some familiarity with the field.
This contribution to the symposium addresses Bradley's chapter on the place of customary international law (CIL) in the federal law of the United States. The space available precludes my considering all of the subjects of Bradley's chapter, and I will therefore confine my comments to two of them: first, the implications of
Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain for the methods federal judges use in identifying rules of CIL; second, current controversies over the generation of rules of CIL as a matter of international (not American domestic) law.
