When Bill Dodge, Michael Ramsey and David Sloss approached me to write a chapter for their forthcoming book, I told them that I would be interested in doing so as long as I did not have to rehash the tired contemporary debate about constitutional comparativism. They quickly agreed and I had the good fortune to write a chapter on...
As I discussed in a recent post, "the new age of self-publishing is fast approaching the world of legal scholarship. It will just take a few legacy scholars to create a norm cascade that will rock the world of legacy publishing." Self-publishing is the new, new thing. We've already embraced it with blogging and SSRN, and now some...
With Julian's many interesting posts on UNCLOS, I thought I would flag for our readers Andrew Guzman's interesting essay published on SSRN entitled the "Consent Problem in International Law." Here's the abstract: The legal obligations of a state are overwhelmingly based on its consent to be bound. This commitment to consent preserves the power of states, but also creates a...
Toby Landau, one of the leading arbitrators in the world, gave the keynote address at the recent ITA Workshop in Dallas and, as always, he was entertaining and provocative. One of the central themes of his discussion was how arbitration counsel fail to present a case in a manner sensitive to the needs of the arbitration panel. “Inequality...
Over the course of the next few days we are pleased to have Ingrid Wuerth discuss her article on Foreign Officials Immunity Determinations in U.S. Courts: The Case Against the State Department. Her article was recently published in the Virginia Journal of International Law. She argues that the text and structure of the Constitution, functional and historical...
Last week Julian Ku and I had the pleasure of working with Business Roundtable and a wonderful group of international law scholars--Rudolf Dolzer, Burkhard Hess, Herbert Kronke, Davis Robinson, Christoph Schreuer, and Janet Walker--on a Second Circuit amicus brief addressing the propriety of antisuit injunctions under international law. The amicus brief addresses an appeal of Judge Kaplan of the...
My future Notre Dame colleague Mary Ellen O'Connell joins the fray criticizing Harold Koh's crabbed definition of hostilities. Here's a taste: Harold Koh, legal adviser to the U.S. State Department, attempted to convince Congress on June 15 that the "limited nature" of U.S. military operations in Libya are not "hostilities" as envisioned in the War Powers Resolution, and, therefore,...
The D.C. Circuit held this week that torture by non-state actors was not actionable under the Alien Tort Statute. The case, Ali Shafi v. Palestinian Authority, arose from the alleged torture in the West Bank by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO of a Palestinian national who was an Israeli spy. The Shafis argue that “the [Palestinian Authority's] conduct...
The ABA's International Lawyer Year-in-Review has just been published and as always it is a monumental achievement. The issue is not available on the web, but the International Lawyer's home page is here. The issue includes 450 pages of international law discussion and over 150 pages of foreign and comparative law analysis. If you are looking for a thumbnail...
Members of Falun Gong have filed suit against Cisco, alleging the company collaborated with the Chinese government to develop and maintain “Golden Shield” technology. As a result of this technology, Falun Gong members have allegedly suffered “severe and gross abuses, including false imprisonment, torture, cruel assault, battery, and wrongful death.” The complaint, filed by my former colleague Lee Boyd and...
[caption id="attachment_15758" align="alignleft" width="276" caption=" "][/caption]So where are the happiest mothers in the world? According to Save the Children, it's Norway. Norway has the highest ratio of female-to-male earned income, the highest contraceptive prevalence rate, one of the lowest under-5 mortality rate and one of the most generous maternity leave policies in the developed world. The other countries in...
Mary Ellen O'Connell has written a more detailed analysis of the international law involved in the bin Laden killing responding to some of the comments on her Opinio Juris post. Here's a taste: The use of lethal force is governed by two types of international law: the law of peace and the law of armed conflict. In peace, international law supports...
