Search: Symposium on the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation

international law pits political promises against positive law. Only those who are well-versed in the peculiar argumentative style of international law can claim the exclusive right to making definitive pronouncements on the validity of legal arguments. Pahuja shows how this tension between political promises and positive law has historically led to Western claims to hegemonic interpretations of international law. It currently also plays out in arguments about the Gazan genocide case brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa. Since the end of formal colonialism in the...

More importantly, at least in public international law, they have never been able to kill the other sources of law. This diversity in the sources of law was the Grotian system which before the time of the great codifications in Europe also prevailed in private law. So what we see now is the re-emergence of the older universal system of law formation which is in method the same for public and private law. Of course the substance of this law is quite different from what went before. How such law...

Kiobel and the ATS as “law” – the distinction between international law and what (in various postings here and there) I’ve referred to as the “law of the hegemon.” One way of looking at the ATS, including the body of cases built up over the years, is that it is “international law.” Of course that’s not literally true; it is a domestic statute that refers to international law as the basis of some form of liability; violations of treaties or the law of nations. But in a broader sense –...

asking here is the receptivity, or not, of the LSE and institutions outside the United States to the movement of law and economics into public international law. The striking thing to me about my UK and, generally, common law trained academic international lawyers is that they do not especially endorse methodological idealism – meaning by that, international law as an enterprise of morality; they tend, rather, to want to treat law as law. I am puzzled by the job announcement, for example, referring to “interdisciplinary” approaches to law: I would...

interdisciplinary work), and citation studies need to be modernized to reflect this trend.” So what are the results based on their new methodology? Based on the Phillips and Yoo survey, here are the results for the best law schools for international law and comparative law: Here are the international law and comparative law all-star faculty members from the top sixteen law schools: UPDATE: Brian Leiter responds to Phillips and Yoo here. Here’s the crux of his response: The two most interesting things they do are consult citations in the “Web...

that international law must always be complied with, if not, it risks not being law. But it must give up this “myth”, not because of its weaknesses or defects, but because the same happens in any legal system, without claims being raised there that, as a result, US law, for example, is not “law”. Put differently, the choice is not a binary one, as Cogan seems to think, between compliance and noncompliance, abiding by the law and civil disobedience or vigilantism, between “real law” and “international law”. Rather, it is...

both of Federal and of Municipal Law, unless in the exceptional case where Federal Law has deliberately departed from it. It is regarded by the American lawyers as having very much the same relation to Federal and State Law as the Federal Constitution has, and this no doubt is the reason why in so many famous American law books Constitutional Law and International Law are the first subjects discussed, International Law on the whole having precedence of Constitutional Law. "The principle on which these American doctrines of International Law repose...

[Dr Gleider I. Hernandez is a Lecturer at Durham Law School] I am grateful to the organisers of this symposium on the collection, edited by Dr Baetens, on the interaction of international investment law (‘IIL’) with other areas of public international law (‘PIL’). Broadly speaking, I identify as a ‘generalist’ international lawyer, one who is interested in the system as a whole and how its organs and agents grapple with emerging problems of global governance. As such, when I was approached in 2011 to consider and address the interaction between...

...his effort to challenge the relevance of international law as a suitable framework for the resolution of the conflict. International law is “inconclusive” and “futile” This conflict is … not going to be resolved by reference to “international law” when such law is inconclusive. … International law with respect to this conflict is a tricky subject that could be discussed and argued for years without ever reaching a conclusion. So we can spend years and years arguing what the law is and whether it is enforceable, and prolong the ongoing...

transnational criminal law, not international human rights law. However, we accept that, for a variety of reasons it is legitimate to apply a dynamic interpretive approach to elements of international drug control law, particularly where drug control engages human rights. However, there are clear problems with the US’s use of this approach. The first is the limits of interpretation itself. The classic approach to dynamic interpretation, as established by the European Court in Tyrer v UK, is a process of broadening or expanding the understanding of an obligation based upon...

[Janelle Diller is Paul Martin Sr. Professor of International Affairs and Law at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law (Canada), on leave from the International Labour Organization (ILO). Her views do not necessarily reflect the ILO’s positions.This is the fourth post in the Defining the Rule of Law Symposium, based on this article (free access for six months). The first is here, the second, here, the third here and the fourth here.]] By insisting on clarity in approaching the “rule of law” at the international level. Robert McCorquodale significantly...

Vitoria is not the “Father” of international law, whether that international law is, following Scott, humanitarian and fair, or, following Anghie, imperialistic and racist. Vitoria is, at best, another von Hagenbach trial – a useful precedent for lawyers to see how the international was addressed in the 15th century. He was not the first publicist nor was he creating a secular international law (in fact, he did not even advocate for secular law!). Linear histories, whether of eternal progress or oppression, are in fact very difficult to sustain. Like Skinner...