In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Recent Posts

31 Jan

Thanks to Opinio Juris for inviting me to comment on Jacob Cogan’s interesting and thought-provoking paper, Competition and Control in International Adjudication. Jacob’s essay correctly recognizes that a system of controls is essential to the successful operation of the international legal system in general and international tribunals in particular. Controls are necessary, Jacob persuasively argues, because the states...

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31 Jan

Jacob Cogan’s Competition and Control in International Adjudication provides a rich and thought-provoking analysis of the importance of, and options for, maintaining controls over international courts. Jacob argues that existing controls are relatively weak, and that we should encourage competition among courts to fill the gap. Competition, he asserts, will help constrain international judicial power and may lead...

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31 Jan

My thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this online symposium, to the Virginia Journal of International Law for publishing my essay Competition and Control in International Adjudication, and especially to Monica Hakimi and Larry Helfer for commenting. The essay takes issue with the standard view among international law and international relations scholars that States have sufficient and effective tools to constrain...

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30 Jan

Our friend and colleague Ken Anderson is hosting a timely and important conference at American University Washington College of Law this Friday: "Terrorists and Detainees: Do We Need a New National Security Court?" Ken and his co-sponsors at Brookings have put together a terrific line-up of speakers and commentators (including Opinio Juris alums John Bellinger and Bobby Chesney)....

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30 Jan

The Widener Law Review has posted its symposium issue on global democracy, along with a narrated and nicely edited documentary version of the companion conference (perhaps this will be the next generation to archived webcasts - a highlights approach to facilitate later viewing. Sort of an academic version of those old NFL Films recaps of the early Super Bowls....

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30 Jan

First, we thank Susan Franck again for her very insightful comments on our recent article, Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties. We are pleased that she agrees with us on many points and welcome the thought provoking comments she has offered. Our response focuses on the three issues...

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30 Jan

The recent article by Burke-White and von Staden raises critical and timely issues about international economic law and treaty interpretation. The paper acknowledges challenges posed to the institutional legitimacy of investment treaty dispute resolution (which I have written about elsewhere) that are caused by different tribunals coming to different interpretations of the same or similar treaty provisions. It...

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30 Jan

Let us begin first by thanking Opinio Juris and the Virginia Journal of International Law for the opportunity to discuss our new article, Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non-Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties. We also thank Susan Franck in advance for commenting on the article and for what we hope will be a...

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29 Jan

I have very little add to Professor Mallat’s enlightening comments. To the extent that I have a criticism, it is that he is perhaps too quick to dismiss his own work, upon which my scholarship is based. To be sure, Professor Mallat has focused on Sadr’s reactions to Marxism, and the role he played within the Najaf seminaries...

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29 Jan

This is a wonderful opportunity to bring Islamic law into the legal debate in the United States beyond the superficial level at which it usually takes place. This is the more welcome for someone who has written a book on Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr as the most creative Islamic thinker of the 20th century (The Renewal of Islamic Law, Cambridge 1993),...

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29 Jan

First, an obligatory and entirely deserved thanks to Chris Ripple and the editors of the Virginia Journal of International Law for giving me an opportunity to discuss my work on this blog, and to Chibli Mallat, the premier Sadr scholar of our time, for agreeing to comment thereon. Sadr’s work Iqtisaduna is so multifaceted and complex that any depiction of...

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