In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

26 Jul

Harlan Cohen raises an important caution against being swept up in the attraction, indeed intellectual comfort, of an intellectual grand narrative that can give apparent coherence to a topic as broad-ranging and heterogeneous as international law in the Supreme Court.  The point is very well taken, particularly as it runs to the framing of historical periods; the device of historical periods is useful - essential even - to a point, but only if it is taken as the starting point for sorting things out and not the final arbiter of interpretation, especially on any particular matter. That said, there is more than simply an organizational imperative in asking some framing questions.  I'd like to raise a couple of them here, as a preface for the kinds of issues that most intrigue me in looking at this marvelous study.  They are not in any logical order, and one might easily argue that I've followed a kind of narrative imperative in the ones I've chosen, but they still seem to me important in practically any kind of historical study of this area.
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26 Jul

Harlan Cohen and Ingrid Wuerth have provided characteristically insightful comments about the overall strengths and weaknesses of the book. Cohen cautions that its “grand narrative” may make the outcomes of particular cases seem “overdetermined” and suggest that the Supreme Court is more “purposive” about its use of international law than is actually the case. Wuerth tactfully notes that the editors’...

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26 Jul

I don't mean to interrupt this great discussion of the "International Law in the Supreme Court" Book Discussion (to which I also made a very small contribution).  But I can't resist a brief note on a case this term that promises to bring international law back to the Supreme Court, if only indirectly.  Here is the NYT write-up: Menachem Zivotofsky was...

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25 Jul

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court, edited by Bill Dodge, Mike Ramsey and David Sloss. Mike has already described the book’s purpose and organizational structure in a post from this morning. My post focuses on some of the book’s overall strengths and perhaps weaknesses. Edited volumes are hard to do...

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25 Jul

On behalf of myself and my co-editors David Sloss and William Dodge, thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this book discussion.  As readers of this blog know, the twenty-first century’s first decade was an extraordinarily active one for international law in the Supreme Court.  In the debates about leading cases such as Medellin v. Texas and Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, we...

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23 Jul

Three stories to mention.  First, Moreno-Ocampo plans to introduce WikiLeaks cables in the trial of the six Kenyan defendants: This emerged as he prepares to hand over the last batch of the evidence he will rely on in the September hearing against three of Kenya’s six post-election violence suspects. The evidence to be released on Wednesday relates to the...

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23 Jul

I'm pleased to announce that Opinio Juris is hosting its latest book discussion this coming week.  We will feature International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court (CUP, 2011), which was edited by David Sloss, Mike Ramsey, and Bill Dodge.  In the interest of disclosure, I would note that two Opinio Juris regulars participated in the volume:  I authored the second chapter on how the...

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