I just finished reading and absorbing Medellin today. I mentioned the case several times in my Constitutional Law I class in the fall, and students seemed quite intrigued by the interesting fact pattern and issues presented by the case. Which leads me to the following question: Can readers think of a good place to teach Medellin in an introductory...
[Professor Bill Dodge teaches at Hastings College of Law and is an expert on the Alien Tort Statute] Last September, Opinio Juris hosted an online workshop to consider the forthcoming article by Curt Bradley, Jack Goldsmith, and David Moore, “Sosa, Customary International Law, and the Continuing Relevance of Erie.” The article has now come forth, and I have written a brief response...
Treaties for the protection of investment are not just for less developed countries anymore. The United States has included chapters on investor protection in its free trade agreements with Canada (NAFTA) and Australia (AUSFTA), and likely will do so in its agreement with South Korea currently under negotiation. While Korean investment in the United States is nowhere near the scale...
On Friday, March 3, there was a workshop on territoriality at UCLA School of Law, organized by Professor Kal Raustiala. The workshop brought together law professors, political scientists, and others to discuss changing notions of territoriality. What became apparent to this participant is that territoriality is not, in the words of another participant, a “holistic concept.” Although territorial borders have...
Another of the panels at the American Enterprise Institute conference last Tuesday dealt with customary international after Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain. The panel consisted of Julian Ku, David Moore, Beth Stephens, and myself, moderated by Jack Goldsmith.Not surprisingly, the panelists had different views.Julian Ku advanced an argument that the President should exercise control over customary international law, in part because customary...
At the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday a panel with diverse viewpoints—Kenneth Anderson, Morton Halperin, John Hutson, and Andrew McCarthy—expressed a remarkable consensus about the need for the President to go to Congress to establish the rules for a lasting “war on terror,” including such issues as intelligence gathering, detention, rendition, and the use of force short of war.Kenneth Anderson...
In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, Justice Scalia took aim once again at the use of foreign law to interpret the Constitution. While freely admitting that 18th Century English law is relevant to that exercise, he denied that modern foreign legal materials ever are. And in response to a question from Professor Julian Ku, he extended...
